Speed cameras. A use for revenue?
 

I have just arrived home from my weekly trip to our capital.
My route is: M25, M11, A14, A1, M62..home.
As always on this journey, I spend most of my time in the grey area between 70-85, very naughty, I know!
After leaving the A1M and meeting the A1, I realised a genuine use for speed cameras!!
Why not use the cash they generate to.... LIGHT UP OUR ROADS!!!
My journey home is awash with all manner of unseen dangers, children, foxes, people, even speed cameras!
Is it really too much to ask, that with the amount of money we all have to pay on tax, test, insurance, council tax (or whatever name it has now), speed cameras, bus lane cameras, red light cameras that we could all enjoy a safe drive home on a well lit road?

Dean

That would never work, you might be able to see the cameras at night then

It's absolutely ridiculous! I live in Blackpool and they have cameras everywhere! They have 3 in a line down the bloody promenade, about 50m apart from each other! Those damn cameras are just there for revenue without a doubt!

Try the A45 near Coventry. Dual carriage way, straight, only thing visible near by is the Peugeot Ryton plant and that is all fenced off. Great road for doing 70mph plus as it is very safe and...speed limit of 40mph and cameras every few hundred yards, as soon as the bleep stopped on the Road Angel to say I was passed the camera, they started up again for the next one.

Ah, but they can't be for revenue, because the government report said last week that all 5000 cameras are correctly positioned ;)

But I prefer dark roads. Streetlights take away a lot of the skill of driving at night. Like "all roads should be dual carriageways with grade separated junctions and central barriers", no thanks.

Not really a question is it. I would imagin about 99% of the population know it a revenue raiser.
If it was for safety, they would be in positions where they were needed.
Not on a twisty road, in the middle of nowhere with cameras on all the straight bits, where its safe to overtake.

Olly, I think you'll find the limit along there is 50mph and the cameras are there to protect the staggered junctions where (to my knowledge) there have been several major accidents.

Thanks, Nick.

Nick,

Just as an example, AFAIAA, the speed camera on the A45 west-bound at the Meriden junction is still there. It was placed due to an "accident blackspot" caused by the cross traffic at said Meriden junction.

However they built an entire new "graded" intersection to avoid this "accident blackspot". It has been there for quite a while, and must have cost a few bob to build.

Still a black-spot though - obviously, 'cos the camera remains :(

mb

I would be interested to know if there were any Govt. figures regarding accidents on the unlit sections of motorways compared to the lit sections.
Using the cash from the speed camera revenue to fund some decent lighting would IMHO almost certainly reduce accidents in these areas.

The government will not pay the extra for special tarmac on motorways which reduces spray by 90% as apparently spray is not a problem? why worry about lighting.

of course speed camera's are there to raise Tax that is why new roads come with Camera's installed before they open to the public.

But we should all feel safe as they call them safety camera's which makes it all ok may be if we called Belmarsh a holiday camp that would make the prisioners inside think they were are Butlins?

If speed camera's are so success full why did Essex road deaths rise by 25 % last year despite 96000+ tickets being issued and if it has the support of the Public why do they employ a professional spin doctor to defend their actions.