Nick

Nothing to do with safety, everything to do with money

The decision of the Wiltshire Camera Partnership to use speed camera vans on the M4 is a clear demonstration of how spurious safety arguments are used as an excuse to raise money.

"Camera partnerships are locally based organisations," said ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries. "So if they catch too many local people on local roads, they lose the support of their constituents. A motorway is one great big gravy train for them, full of people who don't live in their area, who they can rip off without fear of any local political fallout. It's taxation without representation."

As usual with the camera partnerships, Wiltshire justify their actions by simply quoting the number of accidents that have occurred in a three year period.

But they make no attempt to explain why these accidents happened, or to demonstrate why slowing people from 85 to 75mph will make any difference.

"In fact, if you ask camera partnerships to release details of what caused the accidents that they are using to justify cameras, they won't tell you", continues Humphries. "How can keeping the causes of accidents a secret be consistent with an organisation thats supposed to be about improving safety?"

On a motorway, this scam is more obvious than elsewhere. Anyone can see that accidents on motorways are caused by inattention, tailgating and changing lanes without looking. The more serious ones are caused by the bored and inattentive drivers of speed limited trucks and coaches ploughing into the back of stationary traffic.

As the RAC foundation said, speed cameras are "irrelevant" to these accidents - in fact they make them worse by making drivers switch their cruise controls on and their brains off.

"This pattern of lying about the true causes of accidents to justify cameras is well established, and that's why road deaths are increasing in Britain rather than falling as the camera apologists predicted," concludes Humphries. "They work this scam on all roads, but the simplicity of a motorway makes it easier to expose. Camera partnerships have got a built-in financial incentive to indulge themselves in pointless speed enforcement to the detriment of safe, attentive driving, and that's why they should be abolished immediately."

unclebuck

Vote wisely.

Robocop

I commute from J17 - J16 everyday
From what I've seen so far, everyone is travelling at 65mph, but all spaced far to close to each other.
Ist time a van is spotted there will be a see of brake lights and no doubt plenty of shunts.
The uninsurred and unlicenced driver will still get away with "murder", while us generally law abiding citizens will be targeted even more.

Adrian F

It is just a way of collecting more Taxes for all those important managers they have in the Public services and stopping the Police doing anything useful.

I saw some where a new points system to check Police performance with catching two speeding motorists being equilivant of catching a rapist if it is true and the people who put that together run the Police forces what do we expect. still the more of this the sooner the day comes that we get elected police chiefs.

SiDHEaD

LOL @ unclebuck's pictures Shame it would be the same under tories, and worse under others...

StickyMicky

agreed

when will people relise they just say what you want to hear and then shaft you afterwards

mart360

dont whinge!!!

have ***** and vote them out!!!

how do scamera partnerships get away with it??

i didnt go into any partnership with them so isnt that misrepresentation??

and how can they take piccys of people without asking them... thats a breach of the data protection act.

it amazes me that we bleat sensless about them, but do nothing,

its your money being spent funding these scams!!

this is where your educashun and hospital taxes are going!!!!

may 5th have ***** vote the liar out!!

M

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

The problem is that no other party has said that they will do anything about speed cameras. Unfortunatley, it does not seem to bother the average voter that there are so many.

What we need is some sort of campaign to really highlight the issue, so that some party will step up to the plate and offer us something different. The problem is of course, working out how to achieve this quickly so that it has an effect before the election.

unclebuck

Well said.

Anyway, as I understand it the Tories will carry out a complete review of *all* camera placements and remove inappropriately or poorly sited units.

Everyone seems so wise with all their "it won't make any difference" statements. How do you know that? The truth is, you don't know that at all!

Surely a Tory government taking power *couldn't possibly* be any worse than a third term under New Labour's heel.

Most importantly for we petrol heads, the Green Nutters who are taking over transport policy under Labour would have their powers removed at a stroke.

That alone is good enough reason to get out and vote for the Tories IMO. They have to be stopped

Diesel

Guys - not posting much here these days; doing more constructivwe work elsewhere. This is tonight's letter to the paper - inspired by here [feel free to copy and paste to your paper & MP - DO IT!!!]:

Speed Camera Spin



Despite protestations it is increasingly clear that the proliferation of speed cameras has little to do with safety and much more to do with creating a self-sustaining revenue stream for local camera partnerships.



The fact that cameras are increasingly focused on covert prosecution [often on straight safe roads/A road overtaking/motorways] rather than on any pro-active and useful speed deterrence clearly illustrates this. Passively permitting a speed offence and then later furtively counting the pennies as a statistical measure of your ‘safety’ success means total and abject failure of these partnerships’ stated aims.

Recently the decision of the Wiltshire Camera Partnership to hide speed camera vans on the M4 between junctions 14 and 18 is a clear demonstration of how these spurious safety arguments are used as a simple excuse to punitively extort money from ‘hazard causing’ motorists.



The continual misleading statements, half truths and ‘spin’ by these partnerships do nothing to repair the damage to the police-motorist relationship. In fact these policies often lead to creating a distraction and hazard where none previously existed. The police therefore need to stand up for what is right and fair and they need to start again catching dangerous or bad drivers; the drunk and the uninsured. These professional and highly trained human-beings have always employed common sense and discretion (remember those?) and should replace these robots, accountants, misguided councillors and general anti car people.

The basic REAL truth about the proliferation of speed cameras is that national accident rates are going UP whilst average speeds go down and as safety features on cars go UP to levels undreamable about 5 years ago. Their own statistics on the M6 in Cumbria state fatalities as 2000 = 56, 2004 =59. They placed cameras there in 2003…

The camera partnerships are simplistically confusing speed with safety and coming out quids in.



D E

IAM & Rospa advanced driver & motorcyclist of zero accidents in 25 years; 6 points…

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

This was covered on our local news this evening.

I agree with above comments that innattention, poor observation and tailgating must be much higher factors in motorway accidents than outright speed.

What I did find ironic was that in the news item, they showed a camera in action from the operator's point of view. The camera was zoomed-in well down the motorway, but I don't think he could have been able to get an accurate speed reading from any of the cars.

The reason?

They were all tailgating each other, and you couldn't see bonnets, let alone number plates on most of the cars!

Diesel

Err ever heard of perspective compression through a zoomed in lens - FFS I despair - not at you Dave - I just despair. Who was saying this - a muppet camera operator or a TV person who should know better?

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

There was no comment made on the tailgating (if they were - difficult to tell from the camera angle). Just seemed ironic that they were trying to find speeding motorists, but the ones most likely to get away with it would be the very people causing most danger - tailgaters!!

hedgehog

The following (Check the date on the report!) shows one of the reasons why the cameras were installed and the camera partnership established.

Like you say, the most dangerous people are now the least likely to be caught

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/news/032002/28/m4.shtml

Abdabz

The politicians just need to be honest with the public. If they told us that it was purely for revenue gains then no-one should have a problem with it... The "scam"era line would be defunct and the drivers who knowingly break the law would have nothing to moan about when they got stung.
I'll always find comical the comments that they cause more harm to road safety than good - safespeeds website is funnier than Viz's
I'm not too bothered about how they sell it to me - I know what the speed limit is and the fact I will / could be fined if I choose to break it... So come on politicians tell it like it is then no-one can possibly have a gripe...
P

OllyK

Actually the Tories have pledged an immediate review of speed cameras if they do get in, or so it said on the radio the other night.

Tories are the most pro car of the big 3, lib dem are the least car friendly and NL are in the middle - just food for thought for anybody thinking of voting Lib Dem - epxect even more droconian measures to get you out of the car and on to the non-existant public tansport!

OllyK

Hello!!! The Tories have - they want to get speed cameras reviewed as a matter of priority - no guarentee it will change anything, but at least it's more than NL are proposing.

speedking

@Abdabz: No matter how honestly the reasoning for cameras is presented, you have to ask yourself whether they are the best way of spending resources. IIRC cameras are ~£40000 each. Plus all the backroom operating system, plus a bureaucracy considering installation sites and producing PR etc. OTOH we already have a police force established that could do with some more officers.

I'm more concerned about theft and vandalism than whether people do 80mph on the motorway. I can honestly say that others doing 85mph on the motorway does not scare me in the least, and generally I am quite happy with driving standards while doing my 18000 miles a year.

I would rather more was done about other crime. SCP's are a misallocation of resources IMHO, no matter how they are justified.

Iain Young

A review does not mean anything. They could just say "We've reviewed it and all the cameras will stay". It doesn't mean that have any real intention of removing them at all. It's just election spin.

Leslie

Its quite wrong to say that the Conservatives would do the same thing, especially when they have already said they will do a complete review of speedcams and their locations. They have said they will get rid of the unecessary ones and that they will not be used for revenue gathering. At the moment we know that is how they are being used by the present incumbents.

Its very easy to make remarks like that, especially when you have a bigoted view anyway. You should at least try to convince us of some kind of proof instead of demonstrating that you just don't have the facts correct anyway.

Les

Iain Young

Who were you addressing that comment at Leslie?

I'm not bigoted in any way. I just don't believe any of the spin that any of the parties are dishing out (all as bad as each other in my book). Very fimly on the fence at the moment...

It's very easy to say we'll do a review and remove unnecessary cameras. All they have to do is say "We've reviewed them and we agree with the current placements". It's not a commitment to remove cameras at all.

All the politicians are very clever in the way these statements are worded. Makes it sound like they intend to do something, but actually when you analyse the English used, they are not actaully committing to do anything (only a review).

I agree that a lot of cameras are wrongly placed (for the purpose of faining revenue), but the Tories comment does not mean that they will be removed at all.

As a side note, I drove down the M4 again this morning (my daily commute), and it was plain scary. Everyone driving about 2 feet apart from each other, looking very tense, and I saw at least 3 or 4 very near accidents. It'll only take one person to slam on their brakes when they see a camera van and there will be a pile up

Iain

unclebuck

Cynical or just plain stupid?

You decide.

Iain Young

Definitely cynical.

At least I can have a debate / discussion without stooping so low as to publically insult people by calling them stupid. Whatever happened to good manners in this country

And you call me bigoted

ChrisB

That rings very true with me.

OllyK

It may not result in any change at all, this is true, but as NL have not even suggested reviewing them, you know damn well that cameras will stay (and possibly increase). If the torys get in then there is a small chance things may change. A small chance is better than no chance IMO.

Iain Young

You also have to ask. Who is more stupid, the person who blindly believes everything politicians say, or those who question them (regardless of party or political leanings)?

ChrisB

There's a quote I remember (no idea of who said it) and it's something along the lines of "Politicians only tell the truth when they've run out of lies".

Iain Young

I like that one Chris

OllyK

Or the person who thinks the current NL bunch will change and stop lying after a proven 8 year track record of doing so on a regular basis?

I have no idea how the Torys will be in governement, I suspect it will be more of the same. I do know they are not the same people as were in power before and I'd rather give them half a chance and see what they do than let NL carry on failing to deliver and lying about it. I want a new person lying to me

Iain Young

Who said anything about that? I just said I don't believe any of them.

Yet another tory supporter resulting to childish and rude behaviour. Beginning to see a pattern here....