Speeding Cameras - Latest

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>AndyP,

You made the point about cameras exisiting to make money on page 1 of the thread. The ridiculous argument has continued (mainly by String) and I'm just trying to put it to bed once and for all.

And I wasn't specifically asking why YOU should be allowed to drive faster, but why ANYONE should.

The whole argument against speed cameras is based on the premise that people should not necesarily be prosecuted for breaking the speed limit. It therefore MUST follow that there is an argument for why it is okay or desirable or necesary for people to drive faster than those limits. I have yet to hear it.

I will say again; if you don't break the limits, the cameras, wherever they are, are irrelevent.

AndyC,

The two sides you mention are in a sense one and the same. But this black-spots issue is a complete misnomer. The anti-camera campaigners concede the issue about placing cameras outside schools - they have to! It would be bloody ridiculous not to and they haven't got a leg to stand on.

But ANYWHERE were someone is killed in a road accident is a black spot. It's like saying, &quot;Well yeah, I'm out of order if I kill someone outside a school, but it's okay if I do it on a dual-carriageway&quot;. Are we saying that if your child is mowed down by a car, it's a terrible thing if it happened outside their school but not so bad as long as it happened somewhere else? Of course not.

A life taken and a family devastaded is a tragedy wherever it happens. Every single life lost is one life too many!

Which is, and always has been my point.

Speed limits are designed not necesarily to prevent accidents (though indeed in some measure they do) but to limit the damage done when an accident does happen.

If anyone can produce a viable alternative to attain this result then do so. It's absence on this thread so far is highly conspicuous.

In the meantime, speed limits are the only solution we've got. Any argument about 'needing' to drive faster is wholly trivial in the face of the potential loss of life. In my opinion, it simply cannot be justified. Despite my asking several times, I again see that nobody has attempted it.

So we have this;

We have speed limits, and nobody has presented an argument about why they should be abolished or presented an alternative. Nobody has produced any justifiaction for why those limits should be broken. If we have those limits then people should stick to them (otherwise there's no point in having them). I have seen no argument on this thread so far to counter this.

Nobody has presented any argument for why you shouldn't be driving around below the speed limit everywhere and at all times.

If you're all doing that then the cameras might as well not exist. So what is your problem? Where is your argument? I just don't see one - all I hear is moaning about occaisionally being justly punished for deliberately and prolifically breaking the law.

[aclivity]

<font color='#810541'>when you do a dive, you (may) do a risk analysis.  The biggest risk perhaps is &quot;I may die&quot;.  

When you choose to drive faster than the speed limit, what is the biggest risk?  Points on your license?  Or, perhaps, there is a low likelihood but high impact (using risk analysis terms rather than road accident terms) that you may uncover an unforseen situation that leads you to lose control of your vehicle.  Perhaps the road surface is not as grippy as you thought.  Perhaps the bend you can see coming is sharper than it looks.  Perhaps another car will join the carriageway when you didn't expect it.  Perhaps the last time your tyres were balanced there was a tiny % discrepancy that only makes a difference at 90mph plus, causing accoustic vibrations in the car hence you lose control.

So if you did all the risk analysis and determined that the benefit was worth the risk, and still spun off and killed someone, is that OK?  Would you feel aggrieved at being jailed for driving without due care and attention?  You had shown plenty of care by doing your risk analysis up front.  It was an accident, something else had caused you to lose it, not your fault.

Bollards.  You were driving too fast, you killed someone.

Of course, drivers don't do that level of planning and analysis.  They see tarmac and charge at it.

If the same situation had occurred at a legal speed limit, then perhaps you may get some sympathy at what was caused by external factors.  I'm not a copper but I think in those circumstances you may even be charged with a lesser offence?

I've said it before - I like to drive quickly, and I have on occasion broken the speed limit, even by considerable margins, sometimes knowingly (in my younger days mainly) and sometimes unwittingly (where a speed limit changed from 60 to 40 and I had failed to notice the signs).  If I speed now, I accept that I may be caught, and if I am caught, I will be fined, points, higher insurance etc.  In the same way that if I defrauded my company, if I was drunk and disorderly, if I tortured small animals, if I lied to the country about weapons of mass destruction, I would run the same risks.  Except for the last one.

If you drive to enjoy it, then find B-roads a long way away from towns and people and drive within the speed limits, better still take your car out for a track day.  If you drive to get somewhere fast, consider this - a 70 mile journey at 70mph takes 1 hour (ignoring all other factors), at 90 mph it would be 14 minutes quicker.  Is 14 minutes really worth it?

Andy

[Andy Phillips]

OK,

Here is an example of where I would consider it OK to exceed the speed limit, I will admit it is a little inane, but I am typing it to make a point.

It is 2am in the morning, the driver has had plenty of sleep, it is a crisp and clear night, there is no other traffic in either direction and it is the M40, which is no where near any town or village.

The driver is doing 100 MPH in a car more than capable of doing this speed.

Why would this be considered dangerous, I would concede that there is a ridiculously slim chance that a tyre could blow out, but in a well maintained car this is very unlikely.

It is against the law, but would justice be served by convicting the motorist for speeding under these circumstances.

It might sound like I am stretching the point, but in so doing I am trying to make one.

Andrew

[Mark Davies]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (aclivity @ Jan. 29 2004,11:23)] Is 14 minutes really worth it?

<font color='#000080'>An incisive observation and straight to the heart of the issue.

Good to see that at least some (hopefully most) people have not only common sense, but a little consideration for their fellow man, over and above their own trivial self-interest.

[Andy Phillips]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]70 mile journey at 70mph takes 1 hour (ignoring all other factors), at 90 mph it would be 14 minutes quicker. &nbsp;Is 14 minutes really worth it?

Agreed, now make it a 700 mile journey. and make it 80 MPH not 90.

Andrew

[Mark Davies]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (andyp @ Jan. 29 2004,11:31)]It is 2am in the morning, the driver has had plenty of sleep, it is a crisp and clear night, there is no other traffic in either direction and it is the M40, which is no where near any town or village.

<font color='#000080'>It sounds safe enough, doesn't it? But obviously you're not arguing that an accident can't happen - there's always a chance, as Aclivity pointed out.

I said above, speed limits are not only designed to help prevent accidents - they are there to help limit the damage caused when one occurs. Yes of course, at 70mph or 100mph you're dead. But at 100mph your out of control car travels much further with much more force and so is much more likely to cause damage, injury or death to those around you. At 70mph you won't break through the central reservation into the path of the on-coming traffic that you've been paying no attention to. At 100mph you can.

And again the question arises, given the potential consequences, why do you need to be driving at 100mph on a deserted road in the middle of the night? There's just no reason for it, so why allow it?

I appreciate your effort, but as you see I remain unconvinced.

[aclivity]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (andyp @ Jan. 29 2004,11:31)]OK,

Here is an example of where I would consider it OK to exceed the speed limit, I will admit it is a little inane, but I am typing it to make a point.

It is 2am in the morning, the driver has had plenty of sleep, it is a crisp and clear night, there is no other traffic in either direction and it is the M40, which is no where near any town or village.

The driver is doing 100 MPH in a car more than capable of doing this speed.

Why would this be considered dangerous, I would concede that there is a ridiculously slim chance that a tyre could blow out, but in a well maintained car this is very unlikely.

It is against the law, but would justice be served by convicting the motorist for speeding under these circumstances.

It might sound like I am stretching the point, but in so doing I am trying to make one.

Andrew

<font color='#810541'>how about

keeping a loaded gun in your house. &nbsp;In fact, sod the loaded gun, keeping a gun and ammo together. &nbsp;In a box with a padlock. &nbsp;Not one that meets the legal requirements though, because the law doesn't apply to me.

safe?

How would you feel if you came down one morning to find the house burgled, and YOUR gun loaded at the bottom of the stairs. &nbsp;You'd get a bigger lock for that gun wouldn't you?

It's not about what DOES happen, it's about what COULD happen.

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (andyp @ Jan. 29 2004,11:39)]Agreed, now make it a 700 mile journey. and make it 80 MPH not 90.

One hour and fifteen minutes from an otherwise 10 hour journey?

What price a life?

We can endlessly make arguments about drivers deciding when it is safe to break a speed limit. I've said it twice before and say it again - the British driver cannot be trusted to make that decision. They simply DO NOT have the skill.

I am trained to do surveillance driving. It is the only time that anybody is authorised to break speed limits in a car that is not fitted with emergency warning equipment (lights and sirens).

To reach that level of authority I have undergone a total of 12 weeks training - eight hours a day, five days a week. A total of 480 hours.

The average motorist with a standard driving licence has had no more than 30 hours of lessons.

Compare and contrast!

Now I'm confident that I can drive at speeds upto 140mph in the right conditions and in the right car and do it safely. But when I'm not at work, I don't. Firstly because it's against the law, but mostly because there is no need.

[nigel]

Mark
some folk will never learn both you and I know whats its like to be in the situation of being a FLO its heart breaking all because some one breaks the speed limit.
I,m a Derbyshire Road Traffic Officer with many years of dealing with Road Death, most of the fatal RTC I have delt with have involved speed.This may be exceeding the limit,or just to fast for the conditions ect and many times its just the speeding vehicle thats involved &nbsp;and the driver who pays the final price still its one more death to many.
On Tuesday night I was on nights I attended A RTC on the M1 in very heavy snow it was blzzard conditions I could not see more than 20 yards the Motorway matrix was set at 30mph as I travelled to this RTC in a 4 wheel drive with all blue lights on there were vehicles still trying to overtake.Now these drivers were not breaking the 70mph limit but were paying no attention to the 30 mph matrix limit.If there were enforcement speed cameras on the over bridges linked to the matrix speed limit, as on the M25 do you think that these so called drivers would exceed the speed limit.
So it just goes to show that speed cameras do save lives if only the stupid speeding drivers rushing headlong into a blinding blizzard that cloakes 2 motorways lanes blocked with vehicles involved in collisions.


nigel

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>Nobody's answered the speeding question yet ....

Two guys, same cars, one doing 100, one doing 70. They both jump on the anchors at the same time, what speed is the guy who was doing 100 still doing after the guy doing 70 has come to a stand-still?

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He'll still be doing 71 mph - isn't that scary?