Due to expand this summer, I was led to believe and perhaps as popular here as a slug in a salad - but...
Don`t you just long for them? The guy who tends to do 50 on our 30 mph inner city ringroad and brakes hard for the cameras. Those 90/100mph (and more) outer lane teflon chancers . What else can you call them? I know if I go over the limit I get a ticket.
It`s as though some form of alternative reality is operating as you see these cars cruising past at a good 100mph , seemingly with impunity.
Let`s hear it for average speed cameras then - fair dispensation of points to all, with lady luck removed to where she belongs - the national lottery.
(Incidentally, I`m using the Eee PC - Opera, with no spellcheck almost exclusively now- so apologies for future errors)
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I agree, if we must have cameras they should apply to all. More realistic speed limits would also help, as would some improvement to our dilapidated road system. Cruise control beats average speed cameras.
Edited by Old Navy on 24/03/2009 at 08:19
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Oilrag,
Unfortunately the Teflon chancers will still have a loop hole they can exploit unless the current average speed camera's (S.P.E.C.S) are developed to work correctly. They can be cheated easily by changing lanes during your journey as this system can only measure average speed if a car stays in the same lane
Carse
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They can be cheated easily by changing lanes during your journey as this system can only measure average >> speed if a car stays in the same lane
I thought this was an urban myth.
Does anyone know what happens when you have multiple sets of cameras? Do they calculate your average speed between pairs, or between any pair in the set? If that's the case, any more than three cameras and you've had it, regardless of lane changes, as at some point you're going to pass two sets of cameras in the same lane.
That said, the two sets of SPECS I encounter on the M3 every day seem to be widely ignored, although it does tickle me when people rattle past at 80 mph, and then brake for the cameras. These people clearly don't comprehend the meaning of the word "Average".
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More realistic speed limits would also help ...
ON, I am wondering how to interpret your 'realistic'. What variety of realism are you after, exactly? It will depend whether you think limits are to improve safety, or just an arbitrary point over which drivers should expect to be penalised?
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ON I am wondering how to interpret your 'realistic'.
>>
There has been dicussion here about a blanket 50mph NSL, I do not agree with this. Motorways should have an enforced 80mph limit. I do believe that appropriate 20mph limits (near schools for instance) should be rigidly enforced. Try speeding through a 5mph zone around a school crossing patrol in the USA, they are usually accompanied by a cop in a car. Im all for appropriate limits, less cameras, and more traffic police not limits set with revenue raising in mind.
Edited by Old Navy on 24/03/2009 at 12:30
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Don`t you just long for them?
Only where there's a real reason for having them, and privacy concerns are addressed. It would be comparatively easy to over-monitor and have blanket coverage.
A far better way to enforce speed restrictions (purely from an "enforcement" perspective) would be by ANPR and continuous central monitoring. An even better way (same single perspective) would be an in-car "black box" and continuous central monitoring. Both of these are quite possible, even probable, given the way things are going.
However: there's a very serious privacy concern, with centralisation and data retention, in all three of the above. I would tend to resist such schemes fairly strenuously.
(Incidentally I`m using the Eee PC - Opera with no spellcheck almost exclusively now- so apologies for future errors)
I hate spleeing chuckers (=translators and language manipulators), and haven't ever used them. I wonder whether they're even part of this Firefox thing... Anyway, Well Done.
Edited by FotheringtonThomas on 24/03/2009 at 09:41
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hi
surely the ultimate would be no speed cameras but a vehicle black box, which is speed governed to traffic/weather/schools/built up areas. which would send controlling signals to vehicles to govern the maximum speed. 1984 and all that
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They can be cheated easily by changing lanes during your journey as this system can only measure average >> speed if a car stays in the same lane
Not since a couple of years ago, this loop-hall had a regulatory reason and not a technical one, this is now a myth.
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A quote from October 06, probably now superceded, said
But, under Home Office rules governing the camera equipment, prosecutions are only valid if a driver is filmed in the same lane at the start and finish of each section by a linked pair of cameras.
The Home Office admitted yesterday that the hi-tech SPECS cameras - produced by Camberley-based Speed Check Services - are only approved to be used one lane at a time.
That means a three-lane motorway would require three separate sets of cameras - one for each lane. If drivers leave the speed-camera zone via a different lane to the one they entered in, they cannot normally be prosecuted.
Is anyone able to say if lane changing can beat the system? I am only interested from a legal point of view; when on a SPECS managed road I set the cruise control and get on with it.I am amazed by the number of people who overtake me though!
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a vehicle black box (..) 1984 and all that
Perhaps more "Gunner Cade"....
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Surely the proper way of dealing with excessive speed is to develop a system that is intelligent enough to tell the difference between excessive speed and breaking an arbitrarily set limit.
Probably best done by a human in a car on the road. We could call them traffic police.
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Better still, plant a microchip in every drivers' head which can be scanned from the roadside by electronic sensors.
This can be used for road-pricing as well as checking average speed and, with a little modification, passing on information about unpaid parking tickets, overdue library books and the number of days since you changed your boxer shorts.
Average speed cameras are a blot on the landscape, louring over pleasant English roads on their objectionable yellow arches. Ban them and go after the static cameras next.
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I know if I go over the limit I get a ticket.
It`s as though some form of alternative reality is operating as you see these cars cruising past at a good 100mph , seemingly with impunity.
You are sounding just like that character in the Fast Show who complains about his luck, oilrag.
Why don't you give cruising at 100mph a try? Perhaps you too are teflon-surfaced.
Do you think that by praising your use of language HJ was delicately indicating he didn't agree with everything you said? I certainly don't (in this case).
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Has anyone on here had a fine whilst travelling through a section of road controlled by ASCs?
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I did wonder whether HJ was applying a paradoxical injunction to me, Lud.
;-)
I`m OK with a microchip in my head too, if it lets me straight through passport control and automatically switches the channel of any any nearby television showing Cilla Black or Esther Rantzen promoting - `prepare for death` insurance.
Anyway, I might be `dumbing down` - on purpose...
Edited by oilrag on 24/03/2009 at 14:12
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I think you've hit on something.
But what you really need is a chip that turns off any television in any premises licensed for the sale of alcohol.
Edited by Optimist on 24/03/2009 at 14:18
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