It is expected that people who speed will worry about speed cameras. The accident is when the idiot is unable to control their car - this can happen whether there is a camera or not and is due to their driving.
Since not every car crashes having gone past a speed camera, you simply cannot blame the camera. Ive had far more near misses with people breaking the limit past the end of my road than I have passing speed cameras.
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The ones that get me are when you are driving in a 40 limit at 40 and come across a camera and the guy in front suddenly slows down to 30! Really aware of what's goping on around them, aren't they!
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Yeah ive always wondered about that. I can only think that either they feel victimised by cameras so do what kids do when they get told to do something and go to extremes or that if they crawl past the camera, it absolves them for the speeding between cameras.
I did 25mph past a 40 camera the other day following some twit - clearly they thought it was a 30 and hadnt noticed the signs ( which are big enough for me to see without my glasses on ). I actually moved near the curb so the car behind me could see it wasnt me holding them up and the then backed off my bumper!
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I think people become so obsessed with the camera everything else around them including that 90 year woman about to step out becomes invisible.
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My theory is that they are just totally unaware what the speed limit is, therefore slow down to the slowest possible speed where they are not likely to get done... 30mph... quite honestly, Rattle, I don't think thats the case that they are obsessed with the cameras... if they were then they wouldn't slow down at the last minute... they are just dopy characters who haven't a clue whats going on around them, which probably explains their lack of vision for the pedestrian as well!
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Had a report the other day of a serious injury crash at a camera location.
Apparently the limit dropped from 70 (dual carriageway) to 60 to 40, with streetlights, but there were inadequate repeater reminders and none at the camera, so someone seeing the camera and thinking the limit must be 30 slammed on their anchors and got rammed.
HJ
Edited by Honestjohn on 06/01/2009 at 12:55
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A case of tailgating I'd guess. Following drivers are responsible for keeping a safe distance! Any number of reasons why the first car might slow.
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read of a case in the usa where someone was driving a ferrari on the freeway when a redneck overtook him in a truck and slammed on, causing the ferrari to hit him up the rear. On paper the ferrari's fault. The truck driver got out and said, that's right, (twelve letter word), that's right. Moral - in america, drive american.
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The logic here is bizarre.
It is alleged the camera causes accidents because it prompts drastic behaviour from drivers and those behind them.
But if you were driving within the limit the camera would not bother you. And if you were the correct distance behind the car in front you wouldnt hit it either,if it slows ( not stops) suddenly.
It's really strange the convoluted arguments people come up with to justify their own law-breaking, often while arguing for no tolerance of law-breaking by others.
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If you're on a road you don't know and spot a camera what do you do? I usually check my speedo and try to think if I'm doing the right speed. I'd think while I'm doing this I'm not in full control, does that make me a dangerous driver? What happens if the car in front suddenly stops or soneone walks out into the road?
I know what you're thinking but I have no points on my license and haven't had an accident in a good few years.
Edited by Honestjohn on 09/01/2009 at 19:50
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But even then, Steve, you shouldn't end up embeded in the car in front, you should be following at a distance which allows you to take avoiding action should they do anything silly like slam their anchors on... Lets be realistic about this, the OP related to "speed cameras" but they could quite easily be substituted by words "small child running into road", "large animal" or "cyclist" all of which could cause the car in front of you to brake heavily...
It all comes back to the old adverts they used to do "Keep Your Distance!", but how many of us actually do that ALL the time?!
Edited by b308 on 09/01/2009 at 10:12
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That sort of thing I can deal with (the usual here is cars pulling out after waiting for you to get closer...) it's just that moment of "oh carp, it's a camera - am I speeding?" panic.
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I know what you mean, but TBH if you are late seeing one then its all rather academic....
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So, if something repeatedly occurs at a locus, it is not unexpected, and hence is not an accident.
Perhaps it's time to pay for a dictionary! Chambers (1998) offers
'anything that happens; an unforeseen or unexpected event; a chance; a mishap;' and a couple of others that don't apply here.
The speed camera didn't cause the accident HJ describes; it was a combination of one driver following too close to another, who was either unaware of the vehicle behind or put fear of points above safety. Either way - simple bad driving.
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With their convincing arguments, nortones2 and WillDeBeest have illustrated how the British render themselves ripe for exploitation. Let's argue ourselves into another tax or a fine, shall we boys? Great stuff. My e-mail of the year 2008 came from a reader who two years ago used the same reasoning. I bet him a fiver that within the next two years he too would have a speeding conviction. In December he e-mailed to tell me he owned me that fiver.
HJ
Edited by Honestjohn on 09/01/2009 at 20:03
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A voluntary tax is not much of a burden. How then can that be exploitation?
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HJ - I can't honestly say that I'm a fan of speed cameras and I would concede that some are placed in rather dubious locations. However, the accident you describe where a following driver hits the person in front happens all too frequently, regardless of camera placement. It may or may not have been started by someone braking for the camera or limit, but it's still the fault of the following driver. My major point, as several times before, is that if we disagree with the speed camera, then we must be disputing the speed limit itself. If we don't dispute the limit, we cannot have any argument with there being a camera. Effort should be spent arguing for an increase in the speed limit at whatever location or type of road. (Motorway??) I think I know your views on this from here and the DT column, but we aare only 'taxed' in this way if speeding, surely? And whilst I may sound somewhat sanctimonious, I do not claim to be so, but common sense has kept me points free for my 27 years driving. You surely can't disagree that many people pick up points for plain poor judgment and observation.
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Sorry, HJ, but I don't buy the exploitation argument from you any more than I do from those who put it more crudely. I don't feel I'm overtaxed for my use of a car - and at the moment mine gets more use than most. It's a privilege and one on which I still do much better than break-even. What the government chooses to spend that tax revenue on is a separate issue, but since this isn't a party-political forum, we needn't discuss it here.
As for cameras, I still consider any revenue raised from them to be voluntary. I've yet to have a point on my licence in 20 years of regular driving, and if I do get any this year, I'll curse my own carelessness and poor observation rather than blaming the Big Brother state for the unfairness of it all.
One last thing: if 'the British render themselves ripe for exploitation', they do it by refusing to vote for any party that makes an honest connection between public services and the need to pay for them. We're so afraid of direct, progressive taxation that we get all these taxes on spending instead, which have a disproportionate effect on those with least money to spare.
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There is some faulty logic being used in this thread.
You have a motoring environment into which you introduce something --- a speed camera -- and the accident rate is observed to increase. In the absence of any other reason, like something else being done as well, that camera has caused the increase. Full stop.
It may be that if drivers were better behaved it would not be so. But that is not the environment into which the camera was introduced. Face the facts.
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There is some faulty logic being used in this thread. You have a motoring environment into which you introduce something --- a speed camera -- and the accident rate is observed to increase. In the absence of any other reason like something else being done as well that camera has caused the increase. Full stop.
Hear Hear!
There must be a problem with this road for it to be known as an accident blackspot, the fact that installing a 'safety' camera has resulted in an increase in accidents, points to the fact that a redesign of the road is needed.
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I find it amusing how when statistics show a reduction in casualties following the introduction of a speed camera, it is accepted without question, but if casualties go up, it is nothing to do with the camera. I once examined the speed camera stats in one county and quite often the camera appeared to have increased accidents significantly, despite an overall drop. In fact there are so many variables. Regression to the mean is an important factor according to government sponsored research.
Can a speed camera increase accidents? Of course. For example, by diverting traffic onto more dangerous roads, such as ones in residential areas.
And if a camera causes more accidents because morons brake rapidly, leading to accidents, is that nothing to do with the camera? Of course not. Such people are idiots, but that has nothing to do with the overall effect of the camera, which after all is what concerns us. In fact this sort of argument can be used to justify not rectifying a dangerous road feature. I almost had an accident in Guildford when wanting to make a left turn from the A3. I had not expected a right angle turn on such a high speed road.
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No one who has driven past a few speed cameras can be in any doubt that they induce sometimes jerky, nervous and unpredictable behaviour in drivers. In other words, that they are in some sense dangerous on occasion. Quite often the drivers who overreact like the Double-Take Brothers are already mimsing along below the speed limit.
Waffling on about people making up convoluted arguments 'to justify their own lawbreaking' is utterly fatuous. And by the way, wandering over speed limits isn't lawbreaking. It is a morally insignificant infraction of a traffic regulation.
Even in Australia I can be irritated by some things. Better watch out, po-faces, or I might come back.
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The stats from this crash will be used to justify the camera because it is at a crash blackspot, regardless of the fact that the presence of the camera caused the crash. And more legs will be lifted. Britain probably now has the most docile, exploitable population in the World.
HJ
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A newspaper article, which produces no evidence other than an apparent association between the presence of a camera, and a rise in the small number of accidents somewhere near that location. One presumes near the location, but who knows. The absence of careful, unbiased analysis, makes it look like the usual Daily Mail polemic. Perhaps we should wait until some rejoinder is made by traffic engineers, or others who know the issues, before jumping to unlikely conclusions.
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Agree with nortones and woodbine, no proof whatever of any causal link. Urban motorway reducing in width and crossing another arterial route is always going to have a high risk of late & unpredictable manouevres. Not surprised that the speed limit is dropped, that it needs a camera to enforce it or that accident numbers vary over time.
If numpty A slows for the camera and numpty B is too close or too off task to react in time then why's it the camera's fault?
Edited by Bromptonaut on 10/01/2009 at 14:47
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If numpty A slows for the camera and numpty B is too close or too off task to react in time then why's it the camera's fault?
The camera being an inanimate object cannot be to blame - the positioning of said camera may be a problem.
I dont know that area, so cant do any more than theorise..... other than to say as I see it, the more technology is used the more 'numptys' we seem to get!
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If numpty A slows for the camera and numpty B is too close or too off task to react in time then why's it the camera's fault?
the answer to that looks glaringly obvious to me
many, many drivers are numpties and have most limited awareness of any bigger picture relating to driving and driving safely..
if you put something like that at the roadside....then it can hardly be a surprise that the unaware driver will 'suddenly' see the camera and then overreact to it, regardless of whether or not they are actually driving at the correct speed or even less... and another unaware driver can then rear end them. The cause of that collision is twofold: 1, poor and unaware driving by two people 2, the camera being placed there (if it wasn't there they wouldn't have reacted like they did).
if knowing this, you still choose to site a camera, then you must be condoning what you know will happen...no doubt on the proviso that 'it is for the greater good'...
i'd accept the above IF the cameras were only ever placed in the proper places and were only ever designed to promote true road safety... as it is the case they are not and have become in many cases a form of taxation and the placement of the things has become most flawed (e.g. putting one on a long straight bit with plenty of vision, where a competent driver could do a safe overtake, instead of the previous winding, dangerous bit where a competent driver would consider it was dangerous to overtake
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Westpig,
I don't know the M11/A406 junction but I'd imagine it's similar to the old urban M1 section in Leeds where the limit used to be enforced by police patrols. Would you apply the same rationale of causation to the placing of a moving or stationary liveried police car or a manned "radar trap"? We've all seen people brake for a camera however visible it is and irrespective of the large and prominenent advance warning signs. If there's no enforcement then unfortunately lots of people will disregard the limit with obviuos consequences when they hurl round a blind cutting.
I simply don't buy the taxation argument. The camera has to cover it's costs (and that rather than road safety was the nub of the Swindon camera story) so its's situated where the infractions occur. I'd bet that the straight bit you mention is, although doable by the competent also the place for the incompetent, the chancer and the downright stupid to pull an overtake. There are certainly stretches round here like that. On a straightish roman road, the A5, there is an accident blackspot on the long open section by Rugby radio.
You and I are in opposing camps on this and at end of day we will have to agree to differ.
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>>Would you apply the same rationale of causation to the placing of a moving or stationary liveried police car or a manned "radar trap"?
yes..it happens. Doesn't mean you don't do it of course and the same applies to cameras...but neither should it be denied it can happen. For example marked police cars that pull people over on the m/ways will often use high intensity red lamps to warn traffic behind them instead of using the blue ones...and/or nowadays they have directional blue lamps, in that you can either have forward only, rear only or both flashing...so you can use say only the rear blues to prevent traffic going the other way knowing there's an issue...to prevent rubbernecking which slows the road down, causes congestion and further or extra accident(s)>>
IMO the taxation bit applies to cameras sited in areas where common sense would dictate they are not necessarily needed. I really don't mind them in genuine accident spots, as long as they don't fuel the accident problem. How unnecessary and annoying is it when you could overtake a lorry on an 'A' road, but the safest bit to do it has a camera right in the middle of the straight, where a momentary increase over the limit isn't a real problem...so you either do a slower overtake which is more dangerous or have to stay where you are and bimble along with the fumes and lack of vision.
You and I are in opposing camps on this and at end of day we will have to agree to differ.
don't have a problem with that, this is normally a civilised site and genuine debate is healthy isn't it...
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Im with honest john, there are people who do not seem to live in the real world and the pressures on businesses and employees alike.
It is more economical to fit in 4 meetings around the contry by doing 80-90 on the motorway than fitting in 2 or 3.
Speed limits should be based uon the merits of the road at the time of day, level of traffic, area, conditions, conditions of your vehicle, etc.
The police should be allowed or encoraged to use common sense to decide what is careless and what is calculated.
Possibly to much common sense for a government who are obsessed with creating more and more laws.
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The police should be allowed or encoraged to use common sense to decide what is careless and what is calculated. Possibly to much common sense for a government who are obsessed with creating more and more laws.
in my experience they are!
a while ago I got tugged for doing 35ish in a 30..(the road I live on as it happens!)
I was going up hill, dry, early evening, not a lot of traffic, I actually stopped under the speed camera, got out and walked back to the police vehicle.
they said, you know why we stopped you, I said yes.. they then said. 'I bet you would have slowed for the camera' I laughed and said of course.
with that they let me go.
now... that same piece of road, in the last few days, 20 was to fast (ice) but the camera doesnt take note of that - human beings = common sense, machines = set parameters, not taking into account other factors.
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>It is more economical to fit in 4 meetings around the country by doing 80-90 on the motorway ..
Oh come on. We all know the speed limit, even if some disagree with it. You are implying that because your money is involved the limit should be waived? Why not do 110 and fit in another meeting? Pah. Is videoconferencing not an option? No speeding fines at all.
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The next sentance also stood out, Andrew...
> Speed limits should be based uon the merits of the road at the time of day, level of traffic, area, conditions, conditions of your vehicle, etc
So how many of these "businessmen" would actually slow down if they had those 4 meetings booked but the weather was bad? Not many, I suspect... and as for the condition of the car, how on earth do we judge that?
And what about the ability of the driver while we are at it... if they are desperately trying to get to their next meeting and are running late I doubt that they'd be making 'safe' progress, would they...
Edited by b308 on 11/01/2009 at 16:11
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Thanks to the 2 do-gooders for their concern.
maybe we should all have trackers and cameras put on us so every time we break the law we are punished.
i havent got a problem if im caught speeding and im in the wrong, but i do feel the government is targeting a hard working, tax paying minority when their are so many other things in our society that require much more attention.
common sense, please come back one day.
speed laws shold be a guidline, a best option for the majority of the day in average conditions.
In ideal conditions and a quiet period they should be adjusted just as they should be adjusted in poor conditions during a busy period.
in many ways speeding is like smoking for the government. the economy would suffer with the loss of activity and turnover that going a bit faster creates, yet they are obsessed with stopping it to the most decronian of measures.
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>Thanks to the 2 do-gooders for their concern.
Not sure if you mean one of those to be me, Davey, but either way, resorting to personal abuse does you and your argument no credit.
For what it's worth, I firmly believe in the individual's right to privacy and have grave concerns about the way that privacy is being nibbled away in the name of 'security'. However, the public road is not a private place, and driving on it is not a private activity, since it has potentially profound consequences for all those around them. So those who wish to do it - 'hard-working' or otherwise - must accept its rules even when they find them inconvenient. Not so difficult really.
As for
>In ideal conditions and a quiet period they should be adjusted just as they should be adjusted in poor conditions during a busy period.
are you offering the proceeds of your hard work to pay the salaries of all the officials and technocrats that will be required to assess and enforce these 'common sense' limits? Or will it just be all right provided everyone else drives slower than you?
Edited by WillDeBeest on 12/01/2009 at 22:24
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People grossly overstate the potential time saving from driving faster. I was late this morning and missed the train. If I'd played fast and loose with speed limits I might just have viewed its departure from the footbridge instead of the car park.
Edited by Bromptonaut on 13/01/2009 at 20:32
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Thats a good point, B, I drive 19 miles into work... if I push it hard I can do it in 27 mins, if I stick to speed limits but drive smoothly to anticipate the traffic lights and other traffic on roundabouts it takes 31 mins and I'm a lot more relaxed when I arrive... 4 minutes difference... whats the point in speeding?!
Edited by b308 on 14/01/2009 at 06:10
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Going fast is just more fun. But exceeding the speed limit isn't usually going fast. It's just going at the right speed.
Australians are more law-abiding than we are and there are some world class 5 ks below the limit even while overtaking someone mimsers here. But there's no dog excrement or litter of any sort even in the middle of Sydney. You feel a brute dropping a fag end in the gutter here.
You win some, you lose some, eh? It's good to see an ibis waddling across a car park too.
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Going fast is just more fun.
Depends where... none of the roads I travel on this route I would call good "driving" roads, so, no, its not more fun, its just makes driving harder...
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i havent got a problem if im caught speeding and im in the wrong but i do feel the government is targeting a hard working tax paying minority when their are so many other things in our society that require much more attention.
What has being hard working, tax paying got to do with whether or not you should be allowed to break the law when you see fit?
I guess what you're trying to say in the best Daily Mail readers way is that you see yourself as middle class, (usually) law abiding, tax paying upstanding member of society, and how dare the police/govenrment make you out to be a criminal, when those scummy working class, dole claiming immigrants get away with everything.
How can you be caught speeding and NOT be in the wrong btw?
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