We motorists are in denial about our terrible speed habit (The Observer)
This is an article about speeding and speed cameras. The author got a speeding ticket and was given a place on a course rather than take points on his licence (which pushes up your insurance premiums and, if you drive for a living, as I do, it may make that more difficult). He found that many of the motorists on the course were "in denial", blaming the camera rather than their own driving, and the course "debunked many of the myths that have grown up around speed cameras". He claimed that the message promoted by a recent anti-speeding TV ad - that 80% of people hit by cars doing 30mph survive, while only half of those hit at 35 do - was not sinking in.
I'd dispute that the advert was really intended to persuade drivers not to speed; their purpose was to win the argument over speed cameras, and over putting up cameras to catch motorists speeding at 5mph or less over the speed limit in a 30mph zone. In my experience, some of the places these cameras are located cannot possibly be places where a lot of pedestrians are getting killed by speeding motorists. They are located in places of prime visibility, for easy catches. A good example is the one in Southend Road, north of Beckenham, Kent (actually SE London); another is on Forest Road, in Walthamstow, east London, on a stretch of road recently reduced from 40 to 30. Neither of those roads are residential - one could do 40 quite safely; one could certainly do 35 without much risk of hitting a pedestrian.
The other problem with the obsession with policing speed is that bad driving which is not easily policed is ignored. In my driving jobs I've sometimes worked for car rental companies and endured the driving "skills" of runner drivers, who drove groups of us out to fetch cars and vans to bring back to the depot. Some of them drove like maniacs, cutting corners and on one occasion picking back roads they could bomb down and fling the vehicle round sharp bends, until they hit a traffic island and damaged the car's wheel. Although I reported the incident, the driver responsible was not sacked until after he caused another accident.
I can remember a trip down the Machynlleth to Tywyn road in west Wales, during which we were confronted by drivers coming the other way who clearly "knew the road" and thought that entitled them to drive faster than they really should drive on a road with such poor visibility. The other day, driving a Transit down the narrow Banstead to Chipstead B-road, I was forced to a halt by a truck speeding (if not necessarily in the legal sense) the other way. In the Rotherhithe tunnel in east London, there is a 20mph speed limit and a camera pointing into the tunnel on the south side. However, that point is not the most dangerous point in the tunnel - the most dangerous points are the bends, at which I've sometimes been forced into the side of the road and to a stop by large vans and even small trucks coming the other way, who saw no reason to stop or slow down despite signs saying "large vehicles, give way at bends". Since it's not illegal, just dangerous, to do 20mph round those bends in a 7.5-tonne truck with a Transit van coming the other way, they do not put cameras up on the bends.
In any case, the debate should have moved on from the 30mph limit, since whole areas of London are now being hit with 20mph limits, among them the B-road from New Cross to Rotherhithe (Trundleys Road) and Shardeloes Road south of New Cross. Trundleys in particular is not a residential road, and there are no repeater signs warning of the reduced limit, as there should be on roads with other than the normal speed limit. I can understand imposing a lower limit around school entrances, in residential roads where traffic should be kept out, and in narrow and bendy tunnels, but Trundleys Road is none of these. It's an important, if obscure, urban main road. Admittedly there are no speed cameras, but it would not stop any group of police lying in wait on a stretch of that road, catching drivers who think the speed limit is 30, as it should be.
The TV ad that Thomas Quinn refers to misses the point. There are so many places where neither speed, nor other forms of bad driving, are policed despite being much more dangerous than some places which are. I would like to see more policing on roads like the Lower Richmond Road in Putney, where there are shops and where I was nearly knocked over the other day on one of the many times I had to cross it while delivering, and less on open A-roads where speeding is of less consequence but more easily detected. Until this happens, the suspicion that the cameras exist to make money will never quite go away.
You're right. I was caught doing 35 on a wide, empty, non-residential road with superb visibility. Yet people drive dangerously fast, even if it is under the speed limit, on narrow roads with schools, bends, hills and all kinds of things.
The camera, unlike a policeman, has no discretion or judgement about what is really dangerous.
I wouldn't feel so bad about my fine if they caught really dangerous drivers.
In Germany on certain motorways there isnt really a strict speed limit. Why can't the UK have a simmilar system?
In cities and towns however, it is important to have a speed limit. especially in areas with housing, hospital and schools to name but some important zones. The problem is that the speed limits are not really abided by - the only way would be by encouraging the big brother state to use the GPS system, which they are probably thinking of anyway for road taxation purposes!
White Van drivers - put them on a special watch. They drive like they are a law unto themselves. maybe some sort of whitevanwatch website can picture the drivers of the white vans....
I'm glad someone else around the web is making this point so coherently. It is a tragedy that both sides of the argument are missing the key and important issue of safer driving. Speed Cameras do not ensure safe driving, it would seem that they can never be everywhere and affordable, and being caught by a speed camera certainly doesn't mean that you are the victim of some kind of conspiracy.
It's really about time that this debate evolved.
Speed cameras are a road-charging scam.
People who claim otherwise are in denial.Evidently they cannot bring themselves to believe that the people who run our country want just to make as much money out of motorists as they can.
They are also in denial re-the obvious fact that since most accidents are not caused by speed but bad anticipation,inattention i.e.bad driving-the cameras have no impact whatever on the rate of accidents.
The cameras are blatantly placed to make money not to protect pedestrians.Drivers pass the cameras they know at painfully slow speed and return to normal driving.That is driving according to the road conditions,visibility etc.
Drivers have developed a whole set of habits or survival instincts,of which they themselves are probably not even aware.
But we all know when we are driving safely and well and conversely when we're driving badly and dangerously.
If we need speed cameras to tell us what our intuitive reflex driving habits derived from concrete experience in real situations already tell us-then we probably should not be on the road in the first place.
The speed camera lobby are now assuring us that we need to pay to use the roads again on top of the already excessive road tax we already pay.
There's a mafia in this country now and it's the same corporate mafia that are leading our government to attack countries which are no threat to us.
Capita,for example you may have heard of,part of the Carlyle Group.Ringing any bells yet?
Yes,they're not exactly known for their commitment to public safety but they are known to have secured billions via government contracts.
Right now Capita rake in the Congestion Fines from Livingston's London scam via secret offices in Coventry.
Note:we are talking Fine not Charge.70% of the revenue comes from fines not the Charge.
If you don't live in London they bank on you knowing nothing whatever about Livingstone's insistence on pre-payment of the Charge.
So,frightened by terrorist outrages conveniently blamed on Islamist extremists,the same guys we were told worked for Saddam Hussein,you get in your car and drive down to London.
You have no idea that you're going to be corralled as soon as you arrive into the camera corridor.
Here-if the photo of your car suggests to Capita in Coventry that you have the wherewithal to pay the fine you will get hit with the £50 fine for not having paid the charge.
The scam has nothing to do with reducing congestion but everything to do with filling the pockets of Capita and Livingstone with motorists' money.
So if you still think they're a bunch of terrorist motorists out there determined to drive fast and dangerously,and to deliberately cause traffic congestion in our cities- then you volunteer to pay tax to the government.
The rest of us are just not that dumb.
The speed camera and road-charge lobby will in 2012 laud Livingstone to the skies(The Times and Polly Toynbee already have)for his magnanimity in waiving the Congestion Charge for the duration of the Olympic Games.
Doesn't it remind you of Giuliani in New York?
The reason being that,unlike the mugs like you and me who drove into London without knowing anything re-the working of Congestion Charge,the foreigners who arrive do not represent a viable recovery project for the corporate mafia that hijacked our country.