The road Safety Cash Cow exposed.

[lincstash]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268392/Town-scrapped-speed-cameras-sees-increase-accidents.html

Swindon turned off all its cameras a year ago, and despite dire predictions, there has been NO increase in accidents. Speeding prosecutions have dropped 60%.

The speed trap cash cow exposed. All thats has happened here is the government was deprived of extorting £80,000 from the citizens of Swindon.

It is not extorting money. If you don't want to pay a speeding fine, don't break the law. If you're not driving with sufficient care and attention to observe a sodding great big yellow box then really you deserve worse than a fine.

Given that the government needs to raise cash from somewhere, I've no great objection to getting a bit from arrogant or inattentive drivers.

Oh Grimma, we were doing such a jolly good job of ignoring her as well

"By GrimmaTheNome Fri 23-Apr-10 21:29:04
It is not extorting money. If you don't want to pay a speeding fine, don't break the law."

Your logic breaks down because you are assuming the law is applied fairly, legally, the equipment use dis accurate, recently calibrated, and used in the manner prescribed by the maker by a competant and properly trained officer.

As i post advice on speeding and parking forum, i can tell you that is frequently untrue and innocent people are bullied, coerced and frightened into paying fines they havent incurred or are not liable for.

What this show is that Speed Cameras have absolutely no effect on Road Safety - otherwise accident woudl have risen. And this was no freak effect, this was a controlled experiment on a town of 155,000 people and 100,000 vehicles. The myth of Road Safety is just the lie told us to keep the cash cow rolling.

But now we've raised the subject, I agree with Grimma. People who are too busy speeding to notice the blinking big yellow box, deserve to get caught. I got caught (33mph actually) and yes I deserved to be caught, I failed to miss the bloody great police van and I was speeding. Extenuating circumstances or not, I was being an arse.

Personally I'd extend the scheme to allow passengers to collect a bounty for photographing loony drivers on their mobile phones. In fact I'd fit all cars with a loony-cam so they could capture the delights of their commute with 'razor guy', 'eyeliners at traffic lights woman' and 'too busy reading the Daily Mail to drive correctly dude' as well

Speeding motorists should be shot in the chin. We established this some time ago.

So....to be clear on this. As long as death rates stay low you are happy for people to drive as fast as they bloody well please?

Oh deary me.

Well that's pretty hard luck on the people who are unable to cross the road because they don't want to be mown down, for those kids stuck in cars because 'everyone speeds down the road outside the school'.

Also, what a waste of petrol? The converse argument is 'we get more money from fuel taxation than speed cameras, let's encourage people to drive as fast and inefficiently as possible to increase revenue'

NB in this case loony-cam refers to a dashboard mounted camera, not the leader of the tory party

I don't know anyone who has been unfairly fined for a driving offence. They were driving too fast or went in a bus lane etc etc. I'm sure people who can be motivated enough to post on a 'speeding and parking forum' (sounds like a barrel of laughs btw) are those that feel aggrieved somehow with the system. Not really a representative sample of the population.

Shall we all head over there and post our 'we did the crime, we got the fine and we can live with it' messages to ensure balance and impartiality?

No what i want is the proper causes of road accidents to be addressed by the government, not just some random element used as a cover to make motorists subsidise the rest of the economy.

The number of actual road deaths fell from 3500 to 3000 by 1998 and ever since has flat lined, hovering around 3500, despite the number of cameras multiplying by 100. If The had an effect of road safety, why hasnt the number of road deaths continued to fall - if the connection were true, it should be about 200 a year by now.

Excessive speed is found to be an accident causation factor in less than 10% of accidents according to most studies of real world accident causation. Speed limits have no magic benefit. You can be killed driving within the speed limit or as safe as houses above it. A large proportion (working estimate: 2/3rds) of excessive speed accidents take place entirely within the speed limit.

So lower speeds and speed kills policy might have a positive influence on some of these accidents. It's interesting to note that those accident types which might be improved also involve a clear and different driving error. Mechanical failure is the exception, but is one of the least frequent accident causation factors.

But the largest share of excessive speed accidents come from carelessness, inattention and hazard perception failures - drivers failing to slow down when necessary. These are the real cause of accidents, and these are utterly ignored by the government and the road safety partnerships - because there no money to be made from them.

Perhaps lincstash can provide us with the link?

My name is preggersplayspop and I once was fined for my front tyres being caught in a hatched box. I have now learned the error of my ways and I am no longer an amber gambler.

Excellent idea.

Let's police the real cause of accidents - carelessness and inattention. Mmm. Bit hard to measure and prove in court, though....

Maybe we could use some sort of proxy measure... oh, I know! Perhaps we could catch people who are careless and inattentive enough to ignore the speed limit. We could use some sort of device to measure their speed, and then give them points or a fine!

Wow, lincstash, it all makes sense now. Thank god you came to MN to help us all out.

But the largest share of excessive speed accidents come from carelessness, inattention and hazard perception failures - drivers failing to slow down when necessary. These are the real cause of accidents,

On that, you may be right. Trouble is, those things are hard to detect prior to the accident. Speed cameras may be a blunt instrument but if they help keep drivers to the limits then that's fine by me.

The reason I like cameras, actually, is that IME they reduce tailgating - arsehole trying to push you to exceed the limit. If they know there may be cameras they seem better able to accept you're not just a wuss to be doing 30.

10% of accidents caused by speed - well there's 350 lives saved if people slow down already....

However, if 10% of accidents are caused solely by speeding I would say at last 50% of the others are caused by doing stupid stuff while speeding.

But hey, please provide us with a citation so we may mock your argument further consider the evidence

Also speed limits do more than just prevent accidents you know. Speed limits are there to encourage you to slow down and read the billboards for the election to rile you further!