You figure.
Er... tax take down, government expenditure sort of not down?
Watch out chaps.
Edited by Lud on 10/09/2009 at 00:26
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Traffic volumes are down 32%. Road deaths are down 28.5%. You figure.
So even if traffic levels fall to zero, there will still be some people killed in traffic accidents.
;-)
In other words, to achieve zero road deaths we will have to have negative traffic levels. Do we have a theoretical physicist in the house who might explain how we can achievce this?
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We could try driving everywhere backwards?
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We could try driving everywhere backwards?
Like Harpreet Dev?
tinyurl.com/o6ttjo
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>In other words, to achieve zero road deaths we will have to have negative traffic levels. Do we have a theoretical
>physicist in the house who might explain how we can achievce this?
Get rid of the "partnerships", sell the cameras and spend the money on real traffic cops and driver education?
You could take the 90% of drivers who are reasonably competent off the road completely and the dodgy 10% who are left would still be running into each other.
Cameras don't catch the minority who cause the majority of problems.
Kevin...
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Get rid of the "partnerships" sell the cameras and spend the money on real traffic cops and driver education?
That's just as surrealist as my suggestion, but sadly it doesn't look like Kevin was being ironic.
If speed cameras are removed from the roads, there's no other market for them, so no money to be raised that way. And once they are gone, all the income from the fines paid by the speedsters will be gone too ...so far from having spare cash to distribute, there would be a deficit.
It is fascinating how, when cameras are denounced as a revenue-raising scam, some people seem to think that abolishing the source of revenue will leave cash in the kitty. That sort of economics doesn't usually have great outcomes (yes, I do mean you, Gordon)
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NowWheels,
If something is fundamentally wrong, it doesn't become right just because it generates income.... despite what this Govt thinks.
Having something that only concentrates on the generally law abiding and often at the lower end the spectrum brings the system into disrepute...and as stated above ignores the real problem....i.e. the oik driving something not registered, not insured and to a standard that horrifies any normal person...and we've all seen them haven't we?
Do we want our authorities concentrating on your neighbour, aunt, sister, father for being a bit inattentive at times....or.....would we like them to concentrate on the truly low life that habitually commit crime and their driving standards are exceptionally low and often downright dangerous....I know which one i'd want.
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If something is fundamentally wrong it doesn't become right just because it generates income.... despite what this Govt thinks.
How are speed cameras "fundamentally wrong", WP? They are a method of catching drivers who break the speed limit, a rather heavy-handed one, I admit, but that doesn't make their use "wrong"... what is "fundamentally wrong" is the low level of traffic cops, not the use of cameras... but even if we had a decent level of traffic cops I still feel that there would be a use for cameras in certain locations just to keep speed levels down, after all they free up the cops to catch those who's driving is a little wayward in other respects other than speeding!
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How are speed cameras "fundamentally wrong" WP? They are a method of catching drivers who break the speed limit a rather heavy-handed one I admit but that doesn't make their use "wrong"... what is "fundamentally wrong" is the low level of traffic cops not the use of cameras...
They are wrong IMO, because their original intended usage has been warped and bureaucrats have been allowed to take them over to the detriment of common sense. They are now mostly the only safeguard we have for poor driving, yet only concentrate on legal drivers i.e. those registered or not driving something stolen. By far the majority of problems road safety wise are caused by low lifes who are completely illegal, yet a camera can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to stop them...but they can of course give your Great Aunt Maude a nasty shock for straying a few mph over a limit (whether or not it was needed at that time).
Then there's the revenue element... are we really happy with something that is revenue led, yet sold as a safety system? In other words let's keep the drivers driving at an unsafe speed through the (alleged) danger area and remind them about it within 2 weeks, by which time they're often hundreds of miles away. Shouldn't we be stopping that in the first place?...because it's dangerous? How about other systems that other countries have and mentioned many times before e.g. Portugal's red traffic light system.
If there was the odd camera about the country at recognised accident spots, i'd have no problem with them. Buy a new UK Atlas and see how many are littered in there. They have become a sort of 'big brother' item, but only of course to the generally law abiding.
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If something is fundamentally wrong it doesn't become right just because it generates income.... despite what this Govt thinks.
Westpig, I agree that revenue doesn't make something right -- but you and I disagree about whether speed cameras are fundamentally wrong. That discussion had been rehearsed many times, and I am not going to go there again in this thread.
However my point here was a different one. Some people persist in the delusion that abolishing speed cameras will free up public funds to support other forms of road policing, but that's nonsense. If the cameras go, so does the income from them ... so that means less money for other forms of policing, not more.
The economics isn't that complicated. The more money collected by cameras from people who exceed marked speed limits, the more money is available to fund proper traffic police.
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>That's just as surrealist as my suggestion, but sadly it doesn't look like Kevin was being ironic.
No, just too subtle for you. Notice the question mark?
>If speed cameras are removed from the roads, there's no other market for them,
eBay?
As usual NW, you completely ignore my main point.
Let me spell it out for you again, you're free to ignore it again.
There is a significant minority of drivers who just should not be on the road. I know it, you know it, and so does everyone else including this bunch of student union activists we call a Govt.
If a similar effort was put into catching the real idiots, that we do into fining otherwise safe drivers who stray over deliberately reduced speed limits, then maybe we'd all be a lot safer on the roads.
Kevin...
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As usual NW you completely ignore my main point.
Not at all. The main point is that you misunderstand the fairly simple finances involved.
If a similar effort was put into catching the real idiots that we do into fining otherwise safe drivers who stray over deliberately reduced speed limits then maybe we'd all be a lot safer on the roads.
I know you are inclined to be very tolerant of dopey drivers who don't follows the speed limits, and if you want to believe that limits are being systematically reduced simply to create a honeypot, then that's up to you. People all believe all sorts of odd things, and you're entitled to yours.
But you still seem to think that there's some sort of either-or choice between cameras and traffic police, and that's simply untrue. Fewer cameras means less money to fund policing of all the other forms of bad driving.
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>As usual NW, you completely ignore my main point.
>Let me spell it out for you again, you're free to ignore it again.
>>Not at all. The main point is that you misunderstand the fairly simple finances involved.
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise that you decided what the "main point" of my post was.
Would you care to tell me what I meant about the "significant minority"?
Kevin...
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Would you care to tell me what I meant about the "significant minority"?
I don't really care either way what you meant by that.
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>I don't really care either way what you meant by that.
And that is your problem NW.
Kevin...
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Traffic volumes are down 32%. Road deaths are down 28.5%.
Since what year?
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According to the DfT traffic volumes are down 3.9% for 1st qtr 2009 compared with 1st qtr 2008
www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublicatio...9
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I was wondering about that as well, certainly doesn't seem like this... perhaps HJ should have put a decimal point between the 3 and the 2!
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>>> Traffic volumes are down 32%.
>>>
>>> Road deaths are down 28.5%.
>>>
>>> You figure.
>So even if traffic levels fall to zero, there will still be some people killed in traffic accidents.
You are just joking aren't you? The figures come from completely different data sets and one can be greater or less than the other. Of course if Traffic Volumes fell to zero there would be corresponding decrease from the previous figures for Road Deaths until both figures settled at zero.
Or did miss the leg pull?
FTF
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>So even if traffic levels fall to zero there will still be some people killed in traffic accidents. You are just joking aren't you?
...Or did miss the leg pull?
You did miss the leg pull, and the wink smiley, like this: ;-)
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Where I live I would say that traffic volumes are up if anything. Also I have a ten year old which had 64bhp at the flywheel when it was new. I am guessing its lost of them but my car can still get to 30 just a very few seconds where as like already pointed a side valve Minor by the time it gets to 30mph there would be a junction anyway.
I always think a lot of 30's should be 25's because 20 is too slow on the wider ones but if its a very busy junction then 30 can be too fast.
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Ok, appologies. I did notice the smiley but wasn't sure whether that related to the percieved error or not.
All the best.
FTF
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