hedgehog

Interesting that some are starting to catch on:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/4003367.stm

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Actually that's not necessarily the case; the automatic signs that simply flash up the speed limit if they detect you're exceeding it are much cheaper than GATSOs (about £7000 vs £30000) and have actually been shown to be more effective at slowing people down too.

Some people won't be happy unless drivers are being prosecuted, but for the rest of us, a shift towards these signs and away from cameras can only be a good thing.

Scooby-Mark

I totaly agree, I saw something on the telly the other night where a guy from the institute of advanced motorists was saying that speed cameras caused drivers to look at their speedos more often then normal, I think most drivers would respond to the flashing reminder of the speed and wouldn't cause people to slam the brakes on for fear of procsecution !!

hedgehog

If the Lancs partneship ceases to be self funding then it is underwritten 40% by Lancs County Council, 40% by the Lancs police and 20% by two smaller councils.

So, if 3.6 million people per year stop paying their speeding fines then your local partnership will be paid for by your council (i.e. you) and your local police (i.e. you, plus fewer police on the beat.) There is absolutely no contingency plan for "winding up" the partnership and so it would seem that there is no intention to wind it up should, say, every motorist in the country start driving around at 15mph. In that situation speed limits would just be reduced to 10mph.

With this in mind the speeding penalty is literally a stealth tax as if you were not paying for the anti-car partnership through your fines then you would be paying for it through direct taxation. You pay for a wide range of other anti-car lobby groups, such as Transport 2000, through direct taxation but I don't think your local council would like having to increase your bills just because they couldn't persecute enough motorists.

This is just why the fight against the anti-car lobby is a political struggle and why this coming few weeks are very important to all of us. Make your point to your politicians NOW because the anti-car lobby is well ahead of the game and it will take grass roots, rather than party political, politics to defeat them.