Bad law unfairly applied? The law is fair in that it is clear in what it requires of us - cannot complain there.
As I understand it the current cases going to the European Court hinge precisely on the contention that the legislation surrounding speed cameras breaks a number of basic legal rights. On this basis it is a bad law.
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As I understand it the current cases going to the European Court hinge precisely on the contention that the legislation surrounding speed cameras breaks a number of basic legal rights. On this basis it is a bad law.
Would you rather receive a late night visit from the police who arrest you and take you to the police station, there they caution you and show you the photograph and ask you to comment. You are then charged and bailed to appear in court. When you appear the fine will be more than £60 because it takes more time to process you.
All that will happen if the case succeeds in the ECHR is that the law in this country will be changed so PACE does not apply to certain offences - back where we started from!
You might win a battle against the legislature but you will not win the war as they write the rules.
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Bad law unfairly applied? The law is fair in that it is clear in what it requires of us - cannot complain there. It is a law we can chose not to break - I control how far I press the loud pedal!
I too get annnoyed by the wingeing of drivers who get caught when the speed limits are clear for all to see.
But they are not always clear. In fact I know roads where 40 repeaters appear on a road that was supposedly a 60. I know a junction where a 60 emerges onto a 40 with no indication of a speed limit change. I also see lots of speed limit signs obsured by overhanging vegetation, or by a parked lorry. So you could get punished for an error by the council.
However, when I moved to Luton I twice had to break hard to avoid a speeding ticket, as I was doing 40 in a 30. I thought the limit was 40. It was 30. I had missed the signs. The signs were placed where a road met a roundabout. That is a hazardous area, and my attention was focussed on the traffic going round hte roundabout, and the traffic to my left and right, which was ignoring lane markings, and hence a potential accident. IMO if it really is dangerous to do 40 on the road, then would it not be better to mark the limit clearly, rather than catch drivers who speed due to missing signs?
Incidentally it has happened to me since as I now know that Bedford is an area with poorly indicated speed limits and lots of speed cameras. (It also has awful driving so there's another reason to be more vigilant.)
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People without judgement are not fit to be free.
I am not sure whether we the British are abandoning our judgement or having it taken from us - a bit of both perhaps - but we do seem to be losing it quite quickly.
That is why the 'authorities' think it is all right to encroach on our freedom and take that away too. And why so many apparently sane and rational people seem to think there's no difference between a speed limit and God's stern ban on killing, coveting wives and cattle and so forth.
I find all this very dispiriting.
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I am not sure whether we the British are abandoning our judgement or having it taken from us - a bit of both perhaps - but we do seem to be losing it quite quickly.
This is what I was alluding to when I said that 80% of folk are too stupid to analyse their own stupidity. It comes down to 'rights and responsibilities' again - everyone thinks that they have a right to speed limit observance in their own village, without recogising that they could be responsible for the mayhem in someone else's. It's not only a lack of judgement, it's a lack of common respect. And, as an old colleague used to say, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
As a consultant arboriculturalist, I see this abandonment of judgement every day; the folks who moan about train delays because of leaves on the line - then complain when trees are cut down; the folks who complain about cuts in their electrical supply and won't accept that the trees growing through the power lines have to be controlled. And then there are the ones who don't want nuclear/coal/gas/wind turbines - so you say "how do you want to power your dishwasher etc?" Aaaaargh!!! Grumpy - moi?
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I don't think there is one person out there that wouldn't notice how the roads around were changed specifically for cameras - speed limits lowered from 30 mph on exit routes out of towns, parts of M25 with "dynamic" speed limits of 60 or 50 appearing on camera equipped light boards for no reason whatsoever, "roadworks" with measures in place for months before any work begins, without any workmen present but with SPECs cameras permanently set up for several months if not years. If you give someone method and right to make money out of nothing of course they will go out of their way to do it. Even if it is unreasonable or just plain stupid - like the 20 mph limit for 50 yards of four lanes of (oh, the pun) The Highway in Central London guarded by SPECS.
If there was a law to prevent authorities and contractors from pocketing the money, if authorities instead had to invest every single penny back into the road system suddenly you would see all those measures dissapear and fake black spots wiped out from official documents. Camera partnerships don't save lives - they are just another rouge, almost unregulated industry with too much freedom and way too much power.
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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If speed cameras are really NOT about money the authorites should prove it by just giving points! Pigs might fly!
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Seems to be some very righteous posters on this thread.
Have you never broken a speed limit ??
If you feel the way you do,then you should nip down to the local police station and confess and hand over the dosh
and if they wont take it,then give it to charity.
And don't tell me that you have never broken a speed limit,ever,because I won't believe it !
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Seems to be some very righteous posters on this thread. Have you never broken a speed limit ?? If you feel the way you do,then you should nip down to the local police station and confess and hand over the dosh and if they wont take it,then give it to charity. And don't tell me that you have never broken a speed limit,ever,because I won't believe it !
Well actually you might be surprised to know that many people do obey most speed limits. I observe 30, 40, 50 and 60 limits but not motorway speed limits, unless there are road works, in which case I observe them. I've seen workmen running across a motorway with road works and seen cars doing 80+ so I know there is often a good reason for them. (Often not, but that's another story.)
Generally observing speed limits makes little difference to journey times anyway, motorways excepted. The main determinants of journey times are stupid traffic lights, bus lanes, congestion and so on.
My concern is that limits are being reduced gradually, year by year, and now it's hard to know if a limit is there because there are unseen hazards, and there really is a good reason for the low limit, or it is merely because some council wonk has reduced it to pander to current government guidelines.
If you do knowingly speed and get caught, does that not indicate that you are not fit to drive that fast anyway as your powers of observation are not up to the task?
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"If you do knowingly speed and get caught, does that not indicate that you are not fit to drive that fast anyway as your powers of observation are not up to the task?"
So when you are breaking that motorway speed limit that you just admitted to,and get pulled over by those nice
gentlemen in their unmarked,jag,bmw,insert luxury car of your choice, I expect you to come on here and tell all the world that you are giving up driving because you are now deemed " Not Fit " by your own standards.
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"If you do knowingly speed and get caught, does that not indicate that you are not fit to drive that fast anyway as your powers of observation are not up to the task?" So when you are breaking that motorway speed limit that you just admitted to,and get pulled over by those nice gentlemen in their unmarked,jag,bmw,insert luxury car of your choice, I expect you to come on here and tell all the world that you are giving up driving because you are now deemed " Not Fit " by your own standards.
The thread is about removing speed cameras n(not unmarked police cars) and I think the point I was making was obvious and I think you understood it well enough. Obviously on the motorway unmarked police cars are a separate issue.
So you presumably think that if someone cannot spot a clearly marked speed camera, that they demonstrate the sort of advanced driving skills that mean that they can habitually ignore speed limits (which might be present due to hidden hazards)?
As to my speeding on the motorway, if I get done that's my fault. But as far as I know traffic police on the motorway tend to only stop people going well over the limit e.g. 95, or speeding and showing signs of poor driving e.g. tail gating, weaving in and out etc. I can only approve of such policing. But yes I do keep a watch for anyone tailing me, and move left and make sure that they go past. And yes at night I tend not to exceed 80 given that it's near impossible to tell if you are being followed by a whole fleet of police cars, unmarked or not.
And no I am not 'righteous' and I do resent such a remark.
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Leif it's a great mistake to resent anything here except rank stupidity, and of course it isn't worth mentioning that because the person concerned won't understand.
Most resentable remarks are made in total innocence or the relatively harmless desire to provoke. No one really wants to upset anyone. And if they do, surely the thing to do is not get upset?
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Hello Lud. I am not in the least bit upset. But I don't think that I am righteous because I observe non motorway speed limits. Such an idea is silly IMO. I took some IAM lessons to improve my driving and I guess the habit stuck. Lots of my friends observe speed limits and I doubt that they are righteous. For many people it is fear of points and a fine. For others it is rightly or wrongly perceived as dangerous to exceed the posted limit.
Among the people I know and have met the only righteous one I can think of was someone who set up a well known anti-speed camera web site. He had a nick name along the lines of "Mad Dog" in part because his driving frightened people. Or so I was told by colleagues.
IMO we should be fighting the lowering of limits, and the introduction of bus lanes etc.
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OK, cool Leif, but I hope you give the 5mph slippage when there's no question of danger, given the pessimism of stendard speedometers. Today, tonight actually on the way across town, I was held up tiresomely by an entity of some configuration or other driving a Merc or Lexus or something... definitely 6mph too slow on a bog-standard central London 50mph A road, these days alas down below 40 or the old bill may give you a pull'n'bull (can I get away with that mods cringe cringe), God it's such a bore and what with all the stupid street furniture you can't even go screaming past any more, choke puke... Honestly the only thing that keeps me driving is the thought of public transport with its compulsory adoption of a public face. Just got used to slobbing about alone.
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