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So are these latest statisics on speed camera effectiveness i.e. 100 less deaths based on an area within 20 meters of a camera? So this could mean "100 less deaths at speed camera loactions, 150 more a quarter of a mile down the road as drivers overall behaviour worsens'?
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It is rare for repeated accidents to occur at exactly the same spot, so you could obtain the same percentage reduction in casualties by dropping a piece of chewing gum at an accident site as by installing a camera.
The only statistic that means anything is the national statistic for fatalities and this has not moved at all, having been stuck on 3,400 give or take a few for the last 6 or 7 years. (in fact since the large-scale roll-out of cameras, as it happens).
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I guess "Our speed camera policy has been a dramatic success in moving accidents from one road to another" doesn't sound so good as a press relese:)
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"I guess "Our speed camera policy has been a dramatic success in moving accidents from one road to another" doesn't sound so good as a press relese:)"
...and that, of course, is the fault of the policy or the cameras. Perish the thought that the drivers concerned would actually take any responsibility for their own actions.....
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Oh come on SR.
When speed cameras were thought to be effective, it was apparently ok to treat drivers as a uniform herd who can be corralled by any means that is justified by the ends.
When it is found that are not effective, suddenly drivers are sentient beings again, except that they cannot make rational decisions to avoid roads where they may be fined.
The more you defend cameras, the more you make me want to campaign to have every single one ripped out so that drivers can select the best road to make safe progress.
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"The more you defend cameras, the more you make me want to campaign to have every single one ripped out so that drivers can select the best road to make safe progress."
The logical answer for a driver would be to select the main road and avoid the rat run with its pedestrian and schools.
But the authorities seem incapable of differentiating between a through route which should be made capable of conducting the maximum of traffic with the minimum of delays, and residential side roads from which non-local traffic should be discouraged and speeds limited.
That's how rat-runs are brought into being.
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"When speed cameras were thought to be effective, it was apparently ok to treat drivers as a uniform herd who can be corralled by any means that is justified by the ends.
When it is found that are not effective, suddenly drivers are sentient beings again, except that they cannot make rational decisions to avoid roads where they may be fined.
The more you defend cameras, the more you make me want to campaign to have every single one ripped out so that drivers can select the best road to make safe progress."
The point I was making was not that drivers should not choose other roads, but that they should not drive on those roads in such a way as to cause more accidents. Drivers can select any road they want - what is so wrong with doing so legally, safely and with due regard for others?
The more you campaign against cameras, the more I hope and pray that the weak-willed politicians that run our country don't give in to you.
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Nope. Not persuaded.
You're still looking for nirvana, SR, where there is no such thing as an "accident" because there was always a silly fool who we can blame, fine and give 3 points to. Back in the real world, most people TRY to avoid accidents all the time but somethimes fail. We need to take account of reality and use the road network at its best efficiency to minimise accident risk. We don't do this by discouraging people to use the best road for the job.
It is quite possible to drive legally, safely, with due regard for others, and still have an accident. Road safety is about reducing as far as possible the incidence of an intrinsically unlikely event - that is why is is not susceptible to quick fixes and obvious generalisations.
BTW - I never said I actually wanted to rip them all out, just that if this is their best defence, I might change my mind. Experience says that the people who disagree with me most vehemently are those that don't read my posts carefully enough.
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Not looking for nirvana, patently, just for people to regard others' safety as more important than their own pursuit of speed and strike a reasonable balance. All accidents can be mitigated against if we try hard enough, and too many people are prepared to categorise negligence, carelessness or downright irresponsibility as "an accident".
I get shouted down for trying to take account of the REALITY that higher speeds make the consequences of unavoidable accidents more severe, but the REALITY is that those who contribute to increased accidents on roads they use to avoid cameras just prove the point.
Why can't they just stick to the original road and keep to the speed limit? If they're such good judges of what's safe, why do they have so many accidents? If the accidents are just part of reality, why did they increase so much after people started trying to avoid the cameras? Why can't accident RISK be minimised further by reducing speed? How is a road made more efficient by higher speeds then resulting in the inevitable measures to counter it?
I don't think you're entirely innocent of the "not reading posts" - I seem to begin every post responding to you by correcting how you chose to misinterpret what I said previously.
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?you make me want to campaign to have every single one ripped out?
?I never said I actually wanted to rip them all out?
You can see how confusion might arise.
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You missed:
"The more you defend cameras, the more "
when you quoted me.
I can well see how confusion arose.
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Why can't they just stick to the original road and keep to the speed limit?
SR, that's the real question here ... it repaetedly generates the same set of answers from those who oppose enforcement.
The first bunch are the can't-walk-and-chew-gum drivers who insist that they cannot safely drive while watching their speedometers (though they rarely seem to have minimised other distractions by ripping out their car stereo and banning passengers from accompanying them). The defence of "I'm too incompetent to control my speed" is in itself a very good argument for getting them off the road quickly by letting them clock up penalty points.
The second group are the people who don't like any limits placed on their behaviour, regardless of the consequences for others. It's a sort of selfishly libertarian perspective, stripped of the responsibility to to others which has been central to all the different strands of liberal thought since Rousseau described the social contract as a replacement for authoritarian models pf socila organisation. (This group overlaps with those 4X4 drivers who ignore the hugely-increased dangers which their vehicles pose to other road-users, though as with speedsters, not all 4X4 drivers are fixatedly self-centered)
A more common version of this defence is a more limited one: the but-I-can-do-it-without-endangering-others argument, which assumes simply that not being involved in an accident is an indicator that the driving style is neither dangerous nor anti-social. This group are careful to exclude any consideration of other risks, such as the dangers of speed differentials, or of the extent to which they displace other road-users such as walkers, cyclists, horse-riders or just people trying to cross a road.
The third group are the most moderate of the speedsters: they often acknowledge the dangerous effects such as speed diffentials and displacement of other road-users. They just don't like anyone else telling them how to do that, because they reckon they know best ... so they wind themselves into endless contortions trying to find a logical way of explaining the illogical case that somebody requiring them to do what they know to be right makes them more dangerous than if they were left to do it themselves, even though they don't do it themselves.
The final group are the ones who provide the most entertainment value, and make the speeding and sp-camera threads such an enduring feature of the backroom ... paticularly since they are adept at underming their own by borrowing the incompatible arguments of the first two groups.
Bless 'em! Where else could we go for so much fun?
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When speed cameras were thought to be effective, it was apparently ok to treat drivers as a uniform herd who can be corralled by any means that is justified by the ends.
You make it sound as if the Gestapo were waiting on every street corner!
The reality is that limits were being very widely flouted, and where they are installed, cameras have helped to reduce breaches of the law.
There is plenty of evidence of their effectiveness, though the people who don't want to obey speed limits expend huge amounts of energy in trying to magnify any tiny holes which they think they have found in the data: the ABD's website, for example, is almost comical in its flawed logic.
When it is found that are not effective, suddenly drivers are sentient beings again, except that they cannot make rational decisions to avoid roads where they may be fined.
With any effort at law enforcement, there is some displacement effect: as you rightly obseve, some hardcore offenders will persist in finding other means to keep on offending. (A useful parallel is tax-avoidance, where armies of highly-paid professionals are engaged in devising new loopholes to replace the ones which are closed off)
Rat-runs have always existed, as a consequence of congestion: some drivers selfishly try to avoid the congestion by using other streets for purposes for which they are unsuitable. If there is a displacement effect from speed cameras, the existing solutions can be used, and more cameras can be deployed too.
The beauty of speed cameras is that the enforcement is cost-effective, which wasn't always the case with previous technologies (it's very expensive to deplaoy two officers in a car with a handheld device and manual form-filling). So, the more that the determined speedsters use other roads to evade the limits, the more cost-effective it becomes the instal cameras.
Rather than having the cameras ripped out, there's a really easy way to stop them being installed in the first place: stay far enough inside the limits to leave a reasonable margin of error.
If the cameras stop generating revenue, the camera partnerships won't have the funds to deploy many new ones, and will eventually be unable to justify the cost of maintaining existing cameras.
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NW, I'll reply to your post because it is cogently argued and is not just an effort to return to red flags and a 2mph speed limit.
I'd agree wholeheartedly that speed cameras have helped to reduce breaches of the law. However, this is a circular argument. The purpose of that law is to make the roads safer, and the justification for the cameras is the same. However, the historic fatality rates show that cameras are not helping and the recently-released paper by HMG does not appear to provide support for them.
I think that it is a reasonable response by a rational individual to change route from a road where s/he runs a high risk of prosecution to one where s/he runs a low risk. Yes, do reduce both those risks by driving sensibly, but the risk differential is still there.
I don't see my criticisms as a tiny hole - cameras are there to make our roads safer, but they are not doing so! So we have a choice between a cost-effective system that doesn't work and an more expensive one that worked until we (by and large) stopped using it....
My view is that speed cameras have a role, but that they do not appear to be deployed in that role. They should be sited where the consequences of speeding will be serious ... primary schools etc. At present, they are sited where speeding is prevalent, which is not the same. For example, under the current rules, a camera would be put on the main road where every driver is at 50 instead of 40, in preference to outside the school where there is a 90mph idiot once a year. Yet the regular speeders on the main road could be caught and educated efficiently by a patrol car - they are there every day!* The occasional idiot is easy to catch with a camera but impossible with a patrol car, yet if allowed to continue he (I admit it would probably be a "he") would one day cause horrific damage.
This disjoint between the purported justification for cameras and the siting rules has two effects:
(1) it neuters the safety-enhancing effect of the cameras
(2) it makes them look like revenue machines, erodes respect for road safety enforcement, and erodes respect for the police.
*as an aside, the prevalence of speeding might be an indicator that the limit is wrong or that engineering work is needed. Note: MIGHT!!!!
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[sigh]
It really is nothing to do with cameras one way or the other. They merely enforce the speed limit.
The issue is the speed limit.
Campaign for sensible limits and ignore the total red herring that is speed cameras.
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Arguably yes, Mark, but only at first sight.
Cameras affect people's behaviour in a different way, as compared to a speed limit sign. Some of that effect is good, some is not so good.
We need to deploy cameras where the good effects outweigh the bad. We seem to be doing the opposite. So there is a valid debate as to camera policy, independent of speed limit policy.
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Patently,
Cameras only have a negative effect because they are pretty much the only method of enforcement.
If, as well as cameras, there were veritable brigades of traffic police also after you for various types of misbehaviour, then the cameras would be one part.
The problem is campaigning against cameras and being seen to do that in isolation from all other issues.
If all cameras were removed tomorrow and replaced with a live policeman in each place, would we then be happy ? I think not, because the real problem is the inappropriate speed limit rather than its enforcement.
Of course, one can go back a step further and point out that speed limits may be the most popular area, but essentially the entire decision making process around junctions, roundabouts, traffic flow, speed limits, lane markings, one-way systems etc. etc. is essentially flawed.
If everybody keeps banging on about cameras then the situation will get worse. Single site cameras have pretty much seen their day anyway - opinion is going against them and other technologies are creeping up on them.
If I put the other cameras in, the ones that measure you over a distance [don't remember the name], throughout the length of the road, then any complaints about induced behaviour, sudden braking and the like will become invalid. But you'll still have a stupid speed limit enforced mechanically rather than by a person and it will take another 5 years to get them out. And if that is managed, then there will be satellite tracking and then...and then...
Go to the actual problems straight away..
Number of traffic police on the roads
Number of offences not detected
Actual Speed limits
Method/approach to decision making
Because those are not going away.
And finally while campaigning against speed cameras you are facing two opponents unneccessarily;
People who believe all laws should be enforced;
People who believe speed is the root of all evil;
You are basically saying that this law should nto be enforced becasue you want to drive faster. People will not hear you when you say that sometimes you want to drive slower, that speed limtis should be variable, that speed limtis are ineffective if set at the wrong level - all they will hear is that you want to tear-ass around the country and don't want the limits enforced against you - *I* know that is not what you are saying, but what you are saying is not relevant, only what other people hear is relevant or effective.
Rather than trying to convince those two groups that a law you don't like, and which probably does not affect them, should not be enforced is at best an uphill struggle and inherently flawed.
Much easier to sell to group 1 that you agree all speed limits should be enforced with cameras and that speed limits should be set using such and such methodology; ensuring that speed limits are more realistic;
And to sell to group 1 & 2 that many offences are being ignored because of the lack of police and the reliance on speed cameras.
Unless everybody truly believes that the speed limits are fine and it is the enforcement that is objected to - in which case may the fleas of a thousand camels......
And finally let us not hear about how nromal drivers can be left to decide the appropriate limit themselves, because they cannot. As a group that may be a valid approach, but for individuals it is not - "normal" people have stupid accidents, drive too fast, drive uninsured, etc. etc.
It doesn't matter that it only happens rarely - with millions of drivers on the road it only needs to happen once in a lifetime to each of them.
This is an area where PR and sensible selling will win the day. The emotive stuff alienates as many people as it convinces.
A more sensible, more objective and better explained campaign addressing the real issues in ways that explain to people how it affects all of them would be much more likely to succeed.
Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now.............
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Mark,
Wow - possibly the longest post for a good while? Is there a prize for that?
I agree that speed limits are also often apparently in error, but I tend not to criticise them because
(a) I don't know all the facts so there might be a good reason
(b) with the state of democracy in this country it is downright impossible to challenge them and therefore pointless, and
(c) that would in fact be a statement that I want to tear around the country at high speed!
I think that it is possible to draw a distinction between the law and the process of enforcement. I accept there is a blurring at the edges, in that most speed limits were set when enforcement was harder, so compensate for this. But I still think it can be done. I can see your point, though.
I also agree wholeheartedly that the common response from some to any criticism of cameras is that I must therefore want to speed dangerously without regard for life and limb. I accept that my choice of vehicles doesn't help me here, but it really isn't the case. It saddens me that some people are apparently unable to understand that there can be a middle view.
(In fact, I'm now so sick of that assumption I don't intend to reply to one particular contributor - it's pointless)
So where do we go from here (apart from emigrating)? No idea.
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Has any speed limit in the UK ever been reviewed and RAISED?
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I think someone looked into it at found that this had never happened, but I can't remember who/when....
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"There is plenty of evidence of their effectiveness, though the people who don't want to obey speed limits expend huge amounts of energy in trying to magnify any tiny holes which they think they have found in the data: the ABD's website, for example, is almost comical in its flawed logic."
What logic would that be? That there aren't any standard definitions of an area which is a speed camera site so that up to a 2km radius of a camera site can be included in its sphere of influence? Some areas include on definition and others another.Or would that be the regression to the mean effect which has not been considered which could allow for a 40% increase or reductions at any site meaning cameras do absolutely nothing either way? Or perhaps the addition of other engineering measures is not mentioned prominently when reductions in ksis occur at the those sites? Or the lack of traf police which means the persistantly dangerous drivers (usually driving unregistered and uninsured vehicles) are the ones causing a lot of the accidents? Or would that be the 5% reduction in fatalaties which has happened year on year for many years until speed cameras appeared and traffic police disappeared? Or perhaps the lack of control sites where accidents have occurred but no camera has been installed and either just engineering measures or nothing has been changed to see whether cameras make any difference? Or perhaps would that be it is almost impossible to get raw accident data out of scam partnerships to check the validity of their findings?
If your view of the world is correct and that cameras really do save lives and they're at accident black spots then there is nothing wrong with drivers avoiding routes with cameras, they are reducing their risk of an accident.
I have yet to see any proper data on whether people who regularly exceed the speed limit have a greater or lesser accident risk than those that always drive within the prevailing limit.
That progam on radio 4 will be well worth a listen as it has both sides of the argument with an independent statistician to see whether either side of the divide have understood what the statistics are telling them.
teabelly
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