Top Gear's anti-speed camera campaign is SICK

[morningpaper]

Watched Top Gear last night (and I can't help but think that the current series is making too much of Jeremy Clarkson - who is basically a really nasty man).

ANYHOO I was particularly horrified by their anti-speed camera segment: they were praising an MP who had said he wanted to ban speed cameras in Swindow - awarding him a trophy and throne etc. to the ecstatic screaming of the audience. They routinely give speed camera detectors away as competition prizes.

They are in such a position of influence over young men - and their message is basically that if you keep to speed limits you are a 'loser'.

This kind of thing makes me FUME. Are these presenters ever responsible for walking their children across a busy road? Are they actually the ones holding the hands of their toddlers while they teach them to stop and look for cars? Do they REALLY not care if some young twat is doing 50 in a 30mph zone while they do so? Do they REALLY think that's a good campaign to throw their weight behind?

It really makes me SEETHE that the BBC allows them to broadcast their 'campaign.'

Did I rant for too long there

Have we had this rant already

Is it dull

You'd think they'd have learnt from Richard Hammond's near death crash

I found out recently that they have to have 3 serious accidents happen in one area before they get the funding to put in a camera. They are not there just to make money.

Yes I do this it is poor show of him

Didn't he have to say goodbye to his 3 children while in intensive care?

Don't they get that speed = just a tad dangerous?

Yes - we've been told we can't have a crossing or speed bumps outside school until there has been a fatal accident!!!

ther are a LOT in swindon

they are on my patch.
we once got one bloke three times inone day
did oyu knwo that its only an offence if there is a break int eh journey

cod that doesn't surprise me

Message withdrawn

Well, I personally dislike speed cameras, however, I totally agree with you and find the Top Gear stuff overbearing and over the top, totally unnecessary. It's one thing to say that you think speed cameras may be there to raise revenue, another to basically go around spouting "we wanna go fast!"

It concerns me that an awful lot of people seem to think that Clarkson should be PM

I think Richard Hammond has Napoleonic Complex.

oh cod they sound awful

perhaps I will start a new campaign to replace all the speed guns with ACTUAL guns and just shoot the twunts as they are caught?

I'm in favour of speed cameras myself, but I suspect that TG's rationale for opposing them is more the line taken by other motorists' lobbying orgs, like the RAC. All these lobbying groups argue that the cameras make people drive dangerously, aren't effective anyway because people know where they are, are sited where they will make the most money rather than where the blackspots are, etc etc, and that the money would be better spent on traffic police and so on. (All this is undermined of course by the figures, which AFAIK show that cameras are quite effective in reducing accidents.)

Anyway, as such TG aren't really saying anything unusual - RAC spokegits get interviewed on the radio all the bleeding time - they're just saying it to a larger audience and with more slightly tiresome schoolboy japery.

Morningpaper, I couldn't agree more. [noddingfuriously] I used to hate the way my x chortled away to Jeremy Clarkson as though he were some kind of luminary. He is an obnoxious git, who doesn't care a jot about the environment, or preventing deaths.... NOTHING should come in the way of speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.

I have noticed that since his accident, he has new clothes, new haircut...like a mid-life crisis, more like a post-near-death-crisis....

The only thing worse is the awful scripting and lame jokes in the show.

Message withdrawn

but if speed cameras worked, nobody would be fined
people drive and slow down when they know a camera is coming up. so the slow for a particular area but sped back up iyswim

I think the mp argument was it was another source of taxation but on motorists so werent they just going to pay extra to central government and trial it?

sorry - left finger typing, dd stolen right arm

Message withdrawn

When I was in portugal earlier in the year I came across a speed reduction traffic light.

If you pass the sensor in the road going to fast then the traffic lights (most randon) further down the road turn to red - allows you time to go get along the road and have to stop

Guess what no one wants to stop so the traffic slows through this area.

No charge, no bumps just a sensor that turns a light to red and stops you if you were travelling to fast.

It works as either the traffic slows down or stops. No fines no points no police invloved.

As for top gear I didn't see it and not bothering to watch anymore.

those specs on the motorways are a lot more effective. Actually they have them in Nottingham too

that is good ivykaty

I have seen some in this country which display your speed and a warning

in fairness tho they are not speeding on the road, its all specalised tracks etc. with exception of challenges when they seem to be a bit fast!

Message withdrawn

ivykaty - I wasn't referring to your post BTW - sounded like I was dissing you

where, i'm in notts

have you not seen these Elf?

I have seen the ones on Nuthall Rd in Notts