jonc

You'll have to ask him why. But from my point of view he argued with everyone and was highly self-opinionated and rude. His constant slagging off of anyone who had an opposing view and generally this country and everyone in it at every given opportunity that far exceeded what one might consider as just banter made him the most hated forum member here (according to an unofficial poll). I just simply didn't agree with his profanity filled tirades and opinions, and I guess he didn't like it. I'll admit I'm no angel either so it'll come as no surprise that I don't miss him and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

JackClark

Man to man, give this up, you're coming across as a jumped up tosser with a bee in his bonnet and a chip on his shoulder.

neil-h

Ok lets examine this shall we, Google (and Pepipoo.com) has rather usefully provided an example of a NIP for speeding from Hampshire constabulary.

So:

• Emblazoned with police all over it- Not really, it's a standard letterhead as you'd expect on any official communication.
• It doesn't ask if you were driving- why would it? Anybody could have been driving the vehicle at the time.
• it DEMANDS you tell them, and threatens 31000 fine if you don't- No it doesn't, the statement 'or give any information in your power which will lead to the drivers identification' is your get out clause there. If you really wanted you would be well within your rights to state you can't remember who was driving but that you were the last person to see it.
  
  As for the fine, it merely reminds the reader the legal requirements and the relevant punishment. It's not unreasonable to do so as you wouldn't expect the average person to know the law inside out.
• Read one...I challenge you. Demanding money with menaces- At no point does that letter demand money at any point and you'd be hard pressed to describe anything in there as menacing.

Anyways, your move.

*apologies about the size but it kinda needs to be readable and that's how the image imported so ho hum.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Not possible, you are so my intellectual inferior.

Only to those who haven't the wit to see my arguments, or are so blinded by the establishment "Speed Kills!" mantra that they cannot understand simple reasoning.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Seen one from Bumberside Police, have you?

neil-h

Nope, you're more than welcome to post an example 'cus I can't find one.

That being said, my point still stands.

Turbohot

Where about is this place located in the UK?

Turbohot

On Police:


FAO Felix (love the username! Makes me think of a B&W cute cat Anyway....):


I had a police car behind my car today when I was exiting a small village in 30mph zone. Then on the twisties, the road became 50 (static speed cam included) then 60, then 50 and then I entered 30mph zone again, passing some more villages. At this point, I think the police car, which has been quite patient behind me for all those 2-3 miles suddenly started to siren and took me over, doing not that fast but about 45mph in 30, I reckon. I had to tuck myself in to the left and slow right down to stall; in order to let them pass on that narrow village road.

Thing is, how do I know that they suddenly got a call to chase an incident or did they just get bored off me sticking to the speed limits, so they abused their power to speed in 30 mph, because they can? Is the latter impossible or do these things happen?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Nope, it's a single example from one Police force, not indicative and NOT the second one you get when you actually SAY you don't know who was driving.

Do you believe the £1000 fine is a joke?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

B@satrd place invented by hiving off the industrial areas of Lincolnshire and East Yorks. No longer exists, but it's useless Police force, one of the worst in the country, does...and guess who decided to RETAIN all their cameras when others got rid? Yep, us and Notts, another useless force.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

good example of limits changing for no good reason. Anyone else driven the A5 from Tamworth to Gailey? About 150 different limits, sometimes changing twice within 1/4 mile and ALL controlled by scameras.

neil-h

We can repeat this exercise if really necessary, you can find examples from several constabularies on Google. That being said however I'd rather not purely because of the amount of time involved. From the skimming I did earlier though I can confidently say that the majority of examples are along that sort of line.

As for the £1000 fine, no I don't. What realistically are you expecting, tick the box that says "I don't know" and the police leave you alone?

Turbohot

Yes, the road I'm on about should be just 50 and it should remain 30 nearer the villages and through. After the villages, it changes into 40 as well. Imo that 40 is fine, but that 30 and then 60 and then 50 and then 60 etc. is just nonsense for such a short track!

I also don't believe that that static speed cam at that 50 mph bit I mention is in working order. I've never seen it flash at any speeding driver who took me over like a loose canon when I was being a nice person, driving within the speed limit with my Radio 4 on. I think I can test it this week by speeding in that bit this week, and see if I get a penalty notice. Or just ask a copper to put his siren on and whoosh it at 80 mph in that area. He won't get done if the cam flashes by chance because he would be 'responding' to my demand for a test.

Felix.

Yep, probably got a shout. You could in theory find out for definite if you want by complaining about their driving. It will be easy to trace what they were doing at that time and if a shout was in that they needed to respond to. It happens to us from time to time, we get a shout so we blues & twos it through a set of traffic lights - only to be cancelled from it seconds later the moment we get past the lights. Now, for the public waiting in the queue of traffic it must look awful and that we are just taking the p***, so they do phone and complain but get answered fairly quick.

Could be lots of reasons why the speed limits change so much. You can understand the 30mph limit through the village - and if the surrounding roads are 60mph, it could be that the village has had a problem with people speeding through the village in the past, but dropping the limit to 50mph as you approach the village seems to work. If it is twisty through there, then 50mph may be the appropriate speed. It will open out to 60mph to allow cars to overtake the slower moving vehicle (trucks, caravans etc). This may also seem to work to allow a better flow of traffic.

There's a good chance that the camera doesn't work - none of our statics do now, but they leave them in place as they seem to work in slowing the traffic down to the speed limit maybe.

Anyway - off for my bowl of milk

Turbohot

Ok. I don't think I'll bother complaining, but I may raise it informally in a certain setting that I may re-join. That setting p7ssed me off and I stopped attending as it's so called 'independent' but it's not, really. It runs under the constraints and it's not as fair as I'd like that to be. Anyway.

Yes, I reasoned it with my mind on that, with it opening out to higher speed limit, in order to avail the overtaking opportunity. In fact, there're always slow moving farmers vehicles on that road, so I can reason it for that particular road. It's really annoying to get stuck behind one of them.

Sure. More effective that just the speed cams signs, I know. They should make them active, though. In my opinion, if there's something implemented, make it useful to its full potential. I reckon some study would have proved that as it is the static camera as a permanent threat that effectively slows people down anyway, and the cost of surveillance (meaning taking the pic and studying it, followed by sending out penalty notices from the speeders) would be higher than the accumulated revenue via fines, therefore no point putting a film in them. They do the job as it is. So I understand that even the non-working ones cause a good enough psychological impact on a speeder, which means it's doing something, at least. It's like a scarecrow in a corn field.

This is why I prefer static speed cameras to those sneaky camera vans. No one can say that a static camera is merely for greed driven revenue collection, unless it's put at some unreasonable place. Not because it may have no film in it, though. Even if it does have one in it, it has much more sure-shot capacity to meet the genuine aim of less or no speed related accidents on the road than the sneaky camera vans that catch the speeders only when they're there. I mean, if you know that there's a static speed cam, you have to be dense to speed through it. If you do end up speeding through that like a dullard, then cut the crap, cut your losses and face the consequences- end of.

MEOW!!!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Why not? They do with bikers.......

neil-h

Care to back that claim up with some sort of proof?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Proof? what more proof do you need than that the cameras take pics of the FRONT of a vehicle, which, with bikes, does not carry any id? And with the helmet in place....?

So they get ignored/ I've watched bikers on the A1 doing wheelies past cameras, and flicking them the finger, while the camera happily flashed them.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

One for felix here: http://www.motoring.co.uk/car-news/n...oring-010216-2

Read the comments by ex- and serving police officers, most notably about cameras and speeding.

neil-h

Yeah there's a bit of a difference between not being catchable and being caught.

That aside, that's one thing that's always been lost on me. Does seem a touch mental that front facing cameras are still used even though it makes bikes unidentifiable. Although thinking about it, it's only motorways and talivans that tend to have front facing cameras. The majority I've seen recently have all been rear facing.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

You ain't been looking Neil. ACPO has decided that front-facing are the preferred cameras. They catch and prosecute more motorists, yet CANNOT catch bikers. Yet bikers account for 38% of fatalities on our roads, despite being only 4% of the users.

When you put this question to Safety Camera Partnerships, they tell lies:
Scam vans CAN catch bikers, despite facing their fronts, (they refuse to explain how),
Scam vans have two or more cameras and two or more people, (just not true, go look IN one),
Forward facing cameras have a special camera on the rear for bikers, (untrue, the rear is blank). etc etc .

They have obviously been given these answers to COVER UP....ask yourself why?

Even SPECS cameras face the front.........

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I've recently had an iteresting email from a mate in France, showing the graph that the FRENCH government use to PROVE that the use of speed cameras in France, (they are following us), has seen a MASSIVE fall in the number of deaths on French roads.

What it DIDN'T show was that the rate of fall has been EXACTY the same since around 1970, and is more due to the mandated use of seatbelts, better tyres, better suspension, safer cars, a crackdown and education on drink driving, and better designed road junctions, than speed cameras. But the authorities have chosen ONLY to show the graph since 2002, when they proliferated speed cameras.

I wonder why they'd do that?

legb4rsk

Speeding & bad driving on a motor bike has it's own built in penalty system.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

This is true...but it's a bit OTT isn't it?

neil-h

Obviously All the cameras I pass on my commute are rear facing, as are most of the ones that I can think of locally (barring those on the M4). I guess Thames Valley didn't get the memo.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

It does depend on how old they are. That decision was taken some years ago, but this country began it's scam many, many years before that. Any installed before the decision could be of the older type, and at around £38,000 a pop, they aren't going to change them very quickly, are they? Not as long as they make money, anyway.

In 2002 I started traveling regularly between Limoges and Scunthorpe.

In 240 miles of UK driving, I passed around 30 cameras of all types.
In 480 miles of french driving, I passed 2. NOW there are over 30........

Felix.

And cars do the same - but then they take that chance, as with bikes.
As above, rear facing cameras do exist and will snap any vehicle. But you will still have an evedential flaw in identifying the driver.

Unless of course you are happy with this - but the majority of the public are not. I think 80% are happy the way things are at present (from a previous post). But set a campaign going "Alcazar Reversing Speed Enforcement" and only have rear facing cameras, but then with no evidence of who was driving, there will be no prosecutions. But again, I don't think the public will go with this - and since we police by consent.....

And I have never said that speeding alone in the cause of the accidents - of course other factors are involved. I reiterate that the majority of bike accidents happen at junctions and possibly have nothing to do with speed - you will have to submit, however and agree that speeding is of those contributing factors. And if it is one of those factors, is it not our responsibility to try and address it?

Interesting article you posted, but this highlights the falling figures of traffic police due to the cuts. Do you want to just remove the cameras too to match the numbers? And since the ex-traffic officer hasn't been in the job for a while, how does he know the current accident stats for that stretch of road?

Bikers are targeted as in the link posted by Torquemada. But, Clarke et al found that road users other than the injured motorcyclists are usually the cause of crashes and therefore road safety initiatives should be targeted at those other road users in addition to bikers.

Recent European research reveals that nearly 70% of motorcycle accidents involved a car, lorry or bus and that approximately 55% of accidents occur at junctions. It is unlikely that in all these cases the motorist failed to look but rather failed to see the motorcyclist. Motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable to injuries due to the lack of protection that a motorcycle affords when compared to a car (seat-belt and bodywork/crumple zones). Around 80% of motorcyclists killed as a result of road accidents suffer major head injuries and although there are serious injuries to other body areas in some of these cases many do die from their head injuries. The failure of car driving motorists to detect and recognise motorcycles in traffic is the predominant cause of motorcycle accidents. The driver of the other vehicle involved in collision with the motorcycle did not see the motorcycle before the collision, or did not see the motorcycle until too late to avoid the collision.



From MCN - ""....WITH an apparently increasing number of residents in rural areas complaining about bikes speeding through their quiet villages, here’s some figures that should shut them up.

After the Parish councils of Teesdale and Weardale recently accused bikers and tourists of repeated speeding along the B6277 through their villages, police set up traps to clamp down on the problem. However, out of 500 drivers stopped and prosecuted, none were on two wheels and only 40 of them – less than 10 per cent – were not from the local area.

A police spokesman said: " People tend to think the problem is caused by bikers and tourists, but most of the time it is local people....."

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

All well and good, but you still haven't told me how you intend to stop motorcycles speeding?

You talk about speed being a factor......how is that worked out, exactly? We've all seen the spoof video where the kiddy walks out under a car doing 30mph, whereas the car doing 40mph has already passed, so the kiddy is safe? You can make your figures say what you like, but "Speed kills!" is the mantra, yet the fastest roads in the country are also the safest, so your mantra is just political dogma.

I can point you at a village which complained about speeding. Sped cameras installed, very few speeders caught.
So they extended the 30mph limit half a mile into open countryside and placed the cameras just inside...quite a few speeders caught. But useful in deterring speeding? And fair?

You talk about policing by consent......that's just political correctness. Most UK citizens would be happy to see cannabis legalised...but you won't do that, will you?

IF you are serious about Road Safety, and NOT just revenue, you will FIND a way to stop bikers speeding. Posting stuff about how it's all car drivers' faults is so much rubbish...we've all SEEN bikers misbehaving...and getting away with it.

Stop making excuses and DO something.

JackClark

There's a really easy way to catch speeding Motorcyclists and that's hiring more police and buying and staffing more mobile cameras. I suggest increasing the speeding fine to £2000 to fund it. I don't think it's a great idea myself, probably not sustainable but at least you'd shut up.

neil-h

Why does it matter? Given the statistics show the vast majority of incidents involving motorcycles are SMIDSY type indicents, trying to catch them speeding would be revenue chasing surely?