RE :
Now, 18 years, 6,000 cameras, and an estimated £100m in fines later, speed cameras could be nearing the end of the road - at least in England and Wales.
The ultimatum comes after Downing Street announced it would be cutting the road safety budgets it gives to English and Welsh local authorities by 40%, as part of its wider efforts to reduce public spending.
I can't really vote on this.
Correctly placed and monitored speed cameras can cut accidents. Badly and thoughtlessly placed cameras could well increase accidents.
We would have to have access to an independent study into the effects pre and post camera installation to be able to answer accurately.
What would cut accidents is better driving. Maybe we should be looking at the initial driver training and considering refresher training and regular eye and reaction tests.
This is a very interesting arguement and the figures make ones eyes open up.
Of course it is a better idea to have a deterrent outside of schools and shopping centres to slow traffic down.
But I do not believe that overall they make a great deal of difference, other than to coin in the money.
In Swindon I think it is where they have been turned off, there has been no increase in accidents....fact.
Which proves beyond any doubt that their only reason for being there in most cases is to con the motorist.
Also where there are speed cameras they actually cause accidents with the sudden braking they cause.
Certain places do need them but....the vast majority are there pure and simple to make money.
A bit like asking if silver top drivers really have a lower accident record..
They may not have had any or many accidents themselves but a sure as eggs will break if you drop them from the rooftops, they may well have caused quite a few in their time!
I have no idea if they do or don't.
But all cameras inc mobile camera unit are being turned off in Oxfordshire, by the weekend, to save £600,000 per year according to the local news on telly tonight.
So IF they stop people from speeding and IF they do save lives, then what is the view on the councils turning them off then if it is not about money? Surely it should be about saving lives?
Down the A2 as an example there are 50mph speed limits. They were put in place purely because of the number of accidents at peak times. The cameras do not determine road conditions or the time of the day or night.
At 2 in the morning it is very safe to do the national speed limit on a three way carriageway, but if you do over 55mph on that stretch of road at that time of night it will still flash you, and make normal law abiding people pay a 60 quid fine but more importantly three points on your license.
Swindon is a classic example of them not working, but the councils would never have admitted that when they were raking in the all of a sudden the councils no longer get any money so do not want to fund them anymore, even though apparently they save lives....money over lives. I now know where the councils loyalties lie.
Ah! but its as Bruce says.. "and what do points make? PRIZES!!"
good game, good game
I dont understand why we cant have variable speed limits as outside schools in Scotland. Its easy enough to understand and works very well in my opinion. When lights flash the speed limit is lowered to 20mph but there's no point in having it at 20 the rest of the time. It would work just as well at peak times on any road.
And speed cameras are supposed to be placed where there have been so many accidents in the past but the accidents are rarely attributed to speed. They're placed where they can make the most money NOT where they can prevent the most accidents.
With the proposals to lower the natitonal speed limit on rural roads from 60mph to 50mph they'll make even more profit.
Who said they dont need speed limits?
Alternatively....
Speed saves lives
I hate the bloody things...but fact is they work. The reason I dislike them..is because they work....I slow down and check my speed when they are around. Job done in reality.
The ones I really hate are the vans....they are always parked where you can't see them, hidden away round a bend or something. This doesn't make you slow down until its to late. As they are not there permantantly they don't work as a deterant.
Our local police force are currently using an old dirty removal truck with a small hole in the tail lift for the camera to poke through. Its unmarked. Its almost invisible.
Its sole purpose is to catch speeders. Its no deterant whatsoever. Putting a marked vehicle out would absolutly deter speeders. Hiding a camera in a mucky van on long clear straight roads is not the way to prevent speeding, it can only cash in on it.
What self righteous nonsense.
I presume you drive? Or your other half drives?
Your seriously telling us that you have never ever broken the speed limit?
Or you have never broken any laws?
As someone said in another thread....you really are whiter than white.
It was once said that no punishment will deter an act, if there is no possibility of detection.
The camera raise that possibility, some need that deterrent.
I dont speed, I dont complain about being caught and fined bacause I haven't been. I complain aobut speed cameras because they dont work. There has been NO significant reduction in accident rates anywhere since the introduction of cameras. Fixed cameras are cash cows nothing more. If they wern't there would be more outside schools and less on long straight roads. People slow down past them then continue as normal. So yes - they might work on that 100yd section of road but not overall.
What works best to prevent speeding is high profile policing. The covert tactics employed by using an unmarked truck do little to prevent speeding. It just adds wieght to the arguement that its about revenue rather than prevention.
