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Here in Fife we do not have any fixed speed cameras, but we do have several mobile vans. These are often placed near schools, or in villages or areas where speeding has becme a problem. Although their locations are published weekly in the local press and online they are very effective due to their mobile nature. Although locals get to know their regular locations you can never be sure there isnt one around the next bend, and people transiting the area have no chance.
Edited by Old Navy on 15/07/2008 at 10:09
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and people transiting the area have no chance.
you do if you subscribe to a satnav update service, as all sites are published, the thinking being all the sites are risk assessed first and are only placed in areas that they're needed..i.e. where they'd be of benefit for accident prevention
the thinking is 'tell people in advance about accident problem areas and they can then drive accordingly'
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>> you do if you subscribe to a satnav update service
Westpig, I bow to your greater knowledge of these matters, but I have an up to date satnav camera poi and it does not account for the van varying its position by a mile or so, and our local plods are not daft enough to be totaly accurate with their published positions.
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ON,
I might well be bowing to your knowledge. My impression is that the camera partnerships are only supposed to site them in places previously risk assessed as appropriate and that those sights are then published (i'm not talking about the odd traffic car pulling in somewhere wherever they fancy, because they could do that wherever they liked).
I haven't noticed one yet that is in the 'wrong place' but nowadays in reality i don't do a great deal of mileage around the country, so probably not able to definitively reply.
Would be interested to note more widely travelled persons knowledge though.
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Westpig, our local camera outfit only publish very approximate locations, like "A92 Kirkcaldy" or "Halbeath Road Dunfermline". This alone covers a large area, I have seen the van in 5 locations along Halbeath road alone which if you have a quick look on your nav system is about 3 miles. These vans move frequently, and are often not in published positions. I dont know what rules they are applying to their use, I assume they have registered a vast number of positions and use them as required. I dont think the use of the vans is concentrated in any area as I often go a week or so without seeing a van, but its the ones you dont see that you should worry about. I once saw an unmarked car with speed camera in the back window parked in a nearby village.
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Well done! Hope other councils also follow suit :)
Edited by movilogo on 15/07/2008 at 10:09
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Well done! Hope other councils also follow suit :) hope so, there are times IMO that a camera can be useful, but there are also other means of accident prevention, that are mostly ignored nowadays because of the revenue raising abilities of a camera. Surely the true aim ought to be prevention of accidents and slowing down traffic in the areas they're causing a problem
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I listened to the R4 item regarding this. Swindon council spokesman batted very carefully and wouldn't be drawn into the 'no cameras=more accidents' arguement. The partnership people have popped up saying accidents have decreased by ½ or somesuch figure, so no surprise there. I agree with the council on this one, the government give the council the dosh, who give it straight to the partnership, all 400-500k. The council have said that they want a bit more say in it's distribution, not unreasonable IMHO. The future of those people in the partnership losing their jobs doesn't wash, they can/will redeployed. The police element may actually get back to more useful jobs.
I agree that there is a place for such devices, outside schools, in-town racetrack/one-way systems, etc.
Final point is that if it removes those dopey cameras on the M4, then it will all be worth it. You never know it may even spread, though you will probably find central goverment leaning on such authorities who do not toe the government line on 'their' policies.
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I was in Yorkshire at the week-end and have never seen so many speed cameras, including average speed cameras, looming over roads distinctly free of schools etc.
The average speed ones are presumably ANPR and made me wonder if they work at night.
Anyone know?
Edited by Optimist on 15/07/2008 at 12:29
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Where in Yorkshire? I live in York and we do not have a single camera within the city boundaries. I have heard that is in fact true for the whole of North Yorks but not sure.
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Wakefield and around. Batley. A616 from M1 towards Huddersfield.
I began to think I was in some sort of sci-fi nightmare.
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Do speed cameras cut road deaths?
Well of course, you can get the statistics to say whatever you want them to, but am I right in thinking that road deaths in the UK have been more or less constant since cameras were introduced? Some years are up a little, some years are down a little. On that basis, I don't see that they have been that succesful.
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but am I right in thinking that road deaths in the UK have been more or less constant since cameras were introduced?
That used to be the argument, and maybe it still holds true. What I have noticed though in the last few years is that nobody in the world of policy making seems to talk about the number of deaths like they used to - now it's always number of "killed or seriously injured".
Can't help wondering whether this is a case of changing the metric because the old one became inconvenient, since it seemed come to prominence at about the time that the "cameras don't work because the number of deaths isn't reducing" argument seemed to be taking the lead in the debate.
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The UK used to have the safest roads in the world. After cameras were introduced the rate of fall reduced. If they did work, there are 6000 of them after all, then road deaths would be substantially lower. Also there have been fiddling of the KSI figures by reclassifying what is a serious injury. The hospital admission rate hasn't fallen so it makes you wonder where these miraculous falls come from. Also the siting rules invite a statistical error called regression to the mean. If you have lots of accidents then because they are mostly random events if you stuck anything there or even didn't bother chances are it will fall to the long term rate. Now cameras have been around for long enough it has been shown they don't really work as areas where there have been falls have risen to where they were before.
Cars have become ever safer and yet 3000+ people still die on the roads each year. Average speeds have fallen so it isn't anything to do with exceeding speed limits. What has changed is journey time. If anything these anti car measures that introduce congestion and artificially lower limits and generally make the motorists life a misery are the cause of the problem. The longer you are on the road, the more likely you are to be in an accident just due to exposure to danger. Also the longer the journey the more likely you are to be tired which affects driving. Hold ups also tend to increase anger so you have thousands of angry and tired motorists on the road at once and it then becomes easy to see why the number of fatalities hasn't fallen! Illegal driving has also rocketed as there are thousands of unlicensed dangerous drivers that drive around freely as there aren't any traffic police as the dumb government has replaced with dumb cameras!
The removal of hypothecation ie money goes to HMG not pratnerships has made councils actually want to see results rather than money. Swindon will be the first of many that will remove cameras as they don't actually reduce accidents in any meaningful way so when they have to choose between some mobile camera and proper education programmes they'll choose what actually works.
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Good post, Teabelly, stealing my thunder.
It always puzzles me that measures labelled "traffic calming" seem to have the opposite effect on all who drive through/over/past/around them. Hence, Teabelly's second paragraph makes a lot of sense to me.
Edited by Roger Jones on 15/07/2008 at 14:12
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Very interesting.
Teabelly, any idea how the classification of serious injury has altered?
Ie, whats no longer included?
tt
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>>Teabelly, any idea how the classification of serious injury has altered?
>>Ie, whats no longer included?
I can't claim to know but would imagine it is to do with the risk of death from a given injury being lower today. Hence what used to be serious and carry a high risk of death now does not, so can be recategorised as not serious.
Therefore maybe there is some legitimacy in reclassifying injuries...not that I'm on the side of the safety partnerships even slightly but it does make some sense!
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SPECS do work at night - they use infra red SFAIK. It was covered a few weeks ago, elsewhere on the forum.
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Unfortunately no. I am pretty sure either Safespeed or the ABD had been looking into it. I know my MP was quite concerned that the numbers didn't seem to be consistent. The BMA may have also published something on it. I think serious injury used to include anything which required a hospital visit. Now it just includes a specific list of injuries specifying broken bones or whatever so that those that were taken off in an ambulance.
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Definition of Serious Injury from Department of Transport Road Casualties Great Britain 2006:
"Serious injury: An injury for which a person is detained in hospital as an ?in-patient?, or any of the following injuries whether or not they are detained in hospital: fractures, concussion, internal injuries, crushings, burns (excluding friction burns), severe cuts, severe general shock requiring medical treatment and injuries causing death 30 or more days after the accident. An injured casualty is recorded as seriously or slightly injured by the police on the basis of information available within a short time of the accident. This generally will not reflect the results of a medical examination, but may be influenced according to whether the casualty is hospitalised or not. Hospitalisation procedures will vary regionally."
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I wonder if this has anything to do with it? tinyurl.com/5fdenc (not that I don't hate the things as well).
"The leader of a council considering scrapping speed cameras was once banned from driving for speeding, it was revealed today.
Edited by martint123 on 15/07/2008 at 22:34
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If anyone wanted to keep drivers to the spped limit they would not use the current technology but use average speed cameras instead. They don't because its more expensive, it has to be done of a distance and they won't catch many, if any people.
I actually don't mind speed cameras, road humps are the biggest problem.
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My understanding of this story is that Swindon plan to spend the £400k they would save on other "traffic calming" measures which they feel would be more effective - humps, pinch points, etc...
So I'm not sure why some are getting excited by it - I'd rather have a clear road with a strictly enforced speed limit (by cameras if neccessary) than humps/pinch points...
Edited by b308 on 16/07/2008 at 07:49
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