New long distance speed cameras

General Discussion Forums Car Talk
21

I am fed up of motorists who comply with the law being hit with massive amounts of new legislation and new schemes to catch them speeding.

I wouldn’t have a problem if it was 40 in a 30 and above…because these are the busy roads/ kids etc.

But…its generally a few miles over on open roads where frankly a little blow out and then slow down before town chills me out!!!

Though- yes speeding is an absoloute offence- as in no defences?  But- the richer you are the more you can pay to get off.

Now- when they start to throw technology at burglars and robbers then I will respect the authorities MASSIVELY…right now…they revenue generate on us motorists who have our cars registered to them!

Rant Over…

(however- if I am stupid enough to push to excessive speeds and get caught then so be it…disqualified and thats fair enough as I might hit someone…but a softer push on the accelarator…is fine…IN MY OPINION)

22

 My second-ever speeding offence in 39 years of driving took place in August 2008 on a dual carriageway in Suffolk. I failed to spot a 50 mph sign approaching a roundabout and was duly photographed doing a hideous 62 mph. But rest easy, friends, I successfully reduced the speed of my recently-serviced, well-maintained Ford Focus on that warm, dry morning and safely negotiated the roundabout.

My offence was that of exceeding the speed limit. Only that. 3 points, £60 and fully deserved for failing to spot and act upon the speed limit sign. I was not “done” for driving too fast, driving dangerously or endangering the lives of other road users.

I’d feel a lot happier about this whole subject if the powers-that-be would call these things speed cameras rather than safety cameras, which they’re patently not, and admit that they’re a great way of making money for the Government.

23

Speeding is an absolute offence, because you are either exceeding the speed limit, or you are not.
Offences such as “dangerous driving”, or “driving without due care and attention” are not absolute - they’re subjective (is that the term?).
Is a fully trained traffic police officer doing 80 mph on a deserted motorway dangerous? - No. Is a 5 year old child out in their mother’s car doing 80mph on the same motorway dangerous - Yes. The middle ground however, is not so clear cut. Both parties, and everybody between, would be guilty of speeding though - which is what makes it ‘absolute’.

 

Don’t get the wrong impression - I’ve got a clean license, which is largely down to obeying speed-limits (and partially down to luck). But there are times when speed limits simply aren’t clear, and I’d be tempted to say that anybody who covers a reasonably mileage these days is almost inevitably going to get caught out at some stage - whether it cause of dodgy signage, or momentary lapse of attention, or something else entirely.
A few weeks back, I was driving on a motorway which last time I drove on ~6 months ago had a 70mph limit enforced by average speed cameras. This time, the limit was dropped to 50mph (still enforced by the cameras). The left hand speed limit sign was parallel to the road (likely having been struck by a vehicle I’d say) - but not an issue, the RHS one was still clear. However what if a lorry was overtaking me at this point, blocking my view of the sign?
If that had happened - I’d have been speeding- but would it have been morally right for me to have got charged? I’d like to think anybody with a brian, and some common-sense would say ‘no’. Which is fine if I can go to court, and argue my case - but as I said above, that’s not an option for a lot of people - whether because of financial reasons, personal reasons, whatever.

 

I can think of loads of speed limits that are totally unjustified, so people ignore them. And that spreads - you end up with a society where people have no respect for speed limits. The solution is not putting up cameras. The solution is fixing the cause; better driver training - speed limits people understand, and agree with.
It’s worse in Ireland (ridiculous speed limits) - and you can end up with a different speed limit depending on what way you access a road.

 

Captain, let me ask you this - do you agree with the introduction of these new speed cameras?

24

Yes, the cameras are fine. The limits may be occasionally stupid, but to not enforce them makes them more stupid.

I’m old enough to remember when no one respected the drink driving laws. Now it’s taken very seriously.

If somone can justify going faster than 70mph without using “because it’s fun” or “because I am capable of it” then please get in touch with your MP (or potential MPs with the election coming up) and campaign a bit. I suspect though that the upper limit won’t ever increase for entirely sound economic/ecologic/safety/national security reasons.

Lets not forget that we share the roads with idiots, the elderly, new drivers, cyclists, drunk pedestrians, deer and massively pretentious social climbers on horseback. Currently I can legally pass these things at a closing speed of up to 120 mph. That is plenty enough kinetic energy to hugely kill everyone involved. Capping this with an upper limit seems reasonable.

Ignoring advances in technology is also reasonable - my car has brakes that are plenty good enough to stop from 100mph. But it’s on the same road with people who can’t judge speed and who will pull out in front of me, so I’d rather we kept the closing speeds down a bit. Also I know a guy who hase a steam-powered road-legal traction engine  - not everyone has a capable car, or the skills to use one. Also no one has the skills to predict a tyre blow out, or a track rod failure, or a catastrophic brake fluid leak, or a good hard sneeze, any of which can be fatal to someone somewhere even if you car is going as slowly as 30mph.

To focus so much on speed limits is dumbing down road safety to the lowest common denominator, unfortunately we share the roads with the dumb, and the unattended children of the dumb. We have a duty of care to either remove them from the roads or make the roads safe for them. A curfew on the stupid would fix this, but then so does slowing down a bit.

If it was a simple choice between cameras or traffic police I’d rather we had the police - enforcing the laws for which there are no automatic devices. But if tax, insurance, MOT, speed and traffic signal enforcement can be automated and self funding there really isn’t a logical argument against it. Really, there isn’t.

I’ve had to do a lot of defending on this thread. So far I’ve seen no justification for not enforcing the speed limits, just lots of excuses about how hard it can be to be absolutely certain of the speed limit under extreme circumstances on roads you are unfamiliar with. Get a satnav - it’s cheaper than a 6-point fine if you are genuinely worried about reading road signs. I’ve also seen some very flabby thinking about how those of us who are awesome should be allowed to self-regulate with referee decisions from the traffic police.

Those of you who are certain they can judge thier own safe speed limit (and by extention the safe speed you should be traveling in relation to all the other road users and their perceptions of your speed) - have a think about the Dunning-Krugar* effect, then a good hard think about the uncertainty of complex physical systems, then try to remember how you drove the last time you badly needed a wee.

The trouble with having speed limits we agree with is that the majority of drivers think they are better than average - it is impossible to agree on a safe speed limit when incompetant drivers won’t agree that they aren’t awesome. Some limits are stupidly high, some stupidly low, but on average most road users get to work on time and don’t die often.

People are idiots, all of us. We all speed, we all know why we shouldn’t, and we’d all do it more if we were less scared of getting caught.

* if you don’t know what this is, feel free to google it yourself rather than wasting my time asking

25

In you example both the police officer and the 5 year old are speeding. Whether they are driving dangerously or not is covered by the “dangerous driving” law. The speeding law doesn’t judge on skill or merit, just speed and the lack of blue flashing lights. I struggle to see what your point is here. Yes, there is a definite speed beyond which you are braking the limit. This is surely more fair than a randomly changing allowable upper speed depending on your competance, mental state, how amazing the brakes on your Porsche are and whether the Police officer likes looking down your top. It’s the same speed for everyone, so it must be fair.

26

Captain, I must congratulate you on your most recent post. Very well written and thought out and you argue your viewpoint on this matter with much credit.

I, like others on here, take a slightly different view but there’s no doubt that you do raise some excellent and uncontestable points - in particular I applaud your Dunning-Kugar reference.

I believe it is the absoluteness (not sure if that is a real word, but it’ll do) of the limits and the penalties for breaching them that rankles the most. In a way it’s like the motorway matrix signs - in my experience 9/10 they are inappropriate, out of date or patronising. However I will mentally acknowledge them, but I certainly won’t drop my speed to, say, 50mph as soon as I see one. Fortunately they aren’t enforceable (other than the variable speed limit sections in some places).

The most annoying thing about all of this is the continuing, oppressive, nanny-state attitude that prevails in so many aspects of our daily life. What we really need is government with a common sense attitude, rather than taking the easy (and invariable expensive) route of dumbing down everything to the lowest (very!) common denominator. Why not create a society based on the Darwin Awards? (I’m sort of kidding here - but it would certainly help clean out our contaminated gene pool…)

To me, like most intelligent people, limits are a guide. I am fully aware of the potential penalties but will still apply my own consideration to the prevailing conditions and drive accordingly. I don’t have a particular problem with those that wish to drive at a speed lower than the limit, except where they are patently creating an obstruction, and I have no problem with those that wish to drive faster than the posted limit - and because of that you won’t find me sitting in the middle or outside lanes of a motorway just because I am doing 70 or above.

 

27

Captain,

I agree with most of what you have said. My question would be this, if the cameras didn’t make money, how many would there be? I have NEVER had a speeding ticket, or been prosecuted for any other offence in 32 years of driving. It is my unshakeable view that most (not all) of these cameras are a source of taxation. As said further up the thread, speeding is an absolute offence, ergo not really open to question and no further resources are needed to convict. As I understand things, being caught by a speeding camera is the only time that a U.K citizen can be prosecuted without ever having had their rights read to them! In reality you are photographed, a letter is automatically sent to the registered keeper of the vehicle and if the keeper agrees, a fine is paid. ALL OF THIS IS DONE WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION! Sound familiar? If not then read Alders Huxley or Arthur C Clarke, George Orwell etc… One other point, if one argues that one did not know who was driving the car at the time of the offence, and the camera does not show the driver properly, the authorities can continue to prosecute the keeper of the vehicle. In the case of a company pool car, the keeper is deemed to be the company secretary. This creates the absurd situation whereby the company secretary could have points issued to his/her licence EVEN is they were on holiday and out of the country at the time of the offence. Is this fair? I think not!

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Thanks Andy, that means a lot. Especially as I was trying to get to sleep when I wrote that.

I’m in favour of culling the stupid to make the world better for the rest of us/you. I just can’t think of a humane way of doing it. Until then we have to look after those who struggle to live in the modern world, and that seems to mean dumbing things down. I hate this.

I’d be happy with everyone taking a driving test every five years, just to keep standards high and weed out those who really aren’t good enough. This would be self funding too, and create jobs. I think it would be even more unpopular than speed cameras though.

In the interests of being fair and even-handed I broke the speed limit twice this morning.

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If the cameras weren’t self funding there would be fewer of them, I’m sure. This is simple economics, and the increase in the number of cameras is entirely the fault of the people stupid enough to fund them. Don’t speed, don’t fund cameras.

I also agree that the way the data collected by the cameras is used is open to abuse. Although in the case of admin staff being liable - surely if they are administering the use of the vehicle they should be able to come up with a simple system to log vehicle use. To take a pool car I have to sign it out, which means the tickets come to me. It’s not complicated, but also it’s not the fault of the detection equipment.

When you recieve a NIP you do have the right to be heard in court. In my case I decided I was guilty so I skipped that bit. A couple of friends of mine have been to court and been found not guilty. Both defended themselves and incured no costs apart from a day off work. One could prove that the offending motorcycle was not his, the other managed to prove that it was impossible to identify the driver of the vehicle. The NIPs are backed up by the normal law, you don’t have to pay the fine without being judged, but you have the option to skip that step.

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When a company issues a pool car/van, it is a legal requirement for this to be logged. If the driver of the vehicle at the time of the offence denies that he/she was actually driving then the company secretary has the onus placed on him/her to supply proof of who was driving. Proof that a certain person has the vehicle IS NOT proof that that person was actually driving the vehicle at the time of the offence. If the secretary can’t supply the authorities with the proof that they need, then the secretary IS LIABLE for the offence. So if you have a situation where an individual will not own up to the offence then an innocent person would receive the fine and points. It is therefore conceivable that a person who has never passed a driving test or has never had a driving licence can be banned from driving having had never taken to the road!

31

Captain Muppet…That is so wrong!

" and massively pretentious social climbers on horseback"

I have horses and feel quite insulted by that…that’s like saying all soft top drivers are posers!  They’re not…some just like the sun!

 

and horses were here first lol!

 

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Oh. Still not the fault of the cameras, or the speed limits. This is a related stupid law, and one I don’t care about.

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Sorry, my local horserists are mostly girls riding ponies for recreation (including my ex-wife). I’m sure in the north/south all the miners/binmen ride horses to work in a rugged no-nonsense working class way. That’s probably why social housing always has stable blocks.

That said one of my best mates rides a horse. He says riding on the road is stupid because horses are scared of cars, and flies. He also says all the gells at the stable are call Jasmine Buffly-Simper and smell of money.

Given how much it costs to run a horse, and how inefficient a form of transport it is, I kind of assumed they are chosen by people with disposable income and access to a decent amount of land, hence relatively posh. I apologise if I’ve in any way implied people who ride horses are better than me, it’s just because I feel so inferior.

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Captain,

You may not want to read this if you already suffer from high blood pressure. However, don’t let it put you off visiting Cornwall.

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/letters/fear-safety-horse-riders-inconsiderate-drivers/article-2042355-detail/article.html

By the way, getting back to the original BBC News article, the A374 between Trerulefoot and Torpoint is a lovely drive, and Antony House (NT) and the nearby gardens are overlooked gems in Cornwall’s “forgotten corner”. To be fair, the stretch between Antony village and Torpoint where the cameras are being tested doesn’t lend itself to what we might call spirited driving, so it’s no problem to keep the speed (and the hood) down and just enjoy the scenery.

 

35

See - horses can’t cope with plastic bags, yet are “under the control” of teenagers and on public roads. The problem isn’t just in Cornwall. We should have some kind of speed limit for cars to reduce this danger. Maybe with some kind of automated system for enforcing it. Everyone likes safety, right?

36

 All is not lost, recently a number of county councils have decided to start removing speed cameras. In an interview late in 2009 a senior counceler said that speed cameras were no longer doing the job they were meant to do ie REDUCE ACCIDENTS, in the county of which he is in office the accident rate has not reduced and in the case of 2 specific camera locations has increased. STOP SPEEDING, speeding offences increase every year. The councils opinion was therefor the only thing they did was raise money, and in the case of his council they could find no justification for using valuble resources repairing and maintaining them any longer. This has been the same type of opinion from the other county councils who have decided to remove all but one or two speed cameras in the areas.

One chief constable in the north east has also stated that in his opinion cameras have no useful purpose other than to raise money. This in its self is not particulary a bad thing except we all know how councils and goverments already waste billions of our hard earned cash every year.

On the subject of driving within the law, speaking as someone who, until my recent retirement, drove 60,000 miles a year and have done so for the last twenty years, and without an accident, it is inevitable you will break the speed limit either intentional or by accident. I tended to go about 2 to 2.1/2 years between getting caught speeding. From the safety angle it is not speed (fast or slow) that causes accidents but inappropriate speed (fast or slow}  

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Getting a bit off-topic here but why not? Was wondering if there was going to be a reaction to the somewhat inflammatory “pretentious” words!

From that article:- "I was returning from a ride the other day when a bin-liner which had been left in the hedge flew upwards and scared my horse, causing him to throw himself sideways, just as a BMW was approaching us. The man driving beeped his horn, breaking hard, and I could see the passenger was cursing me in the vehicle.

I failed to take his number plate due to the speed he passed me at, though if I had, I would have inevitably reported him to the police.
This is not the first case I have seen of arrogant people....."

Would be interested to know just what offence the BMW people had committed, unless it was after 11pm and it was a restricted road… I don’t think young Sasha will have received much support from the police.

We have quite a few horse riders in the lanes locally too and it is very interesting seeing the variation in manners of both riders and drivers. Like some cyclists and walkers there are those that appear to hold a God-given right to plod along completely ignoring other road users, whilst fortunately there are those that will acknowledge other presences and work out something to all parties’ satisfaction. I like to think I come into the latter category but it is a shame that not everyone seems to think that way.

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No offence as such, but the Highway Code does give practical advice on the matter, which would appear not to have been heeded in this case:

Other road users

214

Animals. When passing animals, drive slowly. Give them plenty of room and be ready to stop. Do not scare animals by sounding your horn, revving your engine or accelerating rapidly once you have passed them. Look out for animals being led, driven or ridden on the road and take extra care. Keep your speed down at bends and on narrow country roads. If a road is blocked by a herd of animals, stop and switch off your engine until they have left the road. Watch out for animals on unfenced roads.

215

Horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles. Be particularly careful of horse riders and horse-drawn vehicles especially when overtaking. Always pass wide and slowly. Horse riders are often children, so take extra care and remember riders may ride in double file when escorting a young or inexperienced horse or rider. Look out for horse riders’ and horse drivers’ signals and heed a request to slow down or stop. Take great care and treat all horses as a potential hazard; they can be unpredictable, despite the efforts of their rider/driver.

 

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Ha! I’ll probably get locked up in The Tower of London now for reproducing part of a Crown Copyright publication without permission, but what else should I do on the day they buried Malcolm McLaren? “God Save The Queen” indeed …

40

Quite so.  I don’t doubt that the BMW could have managed the situation better, but I find it surprising that so many people seem to think that the Highway Code is a legal document. Young Sasha needs to learn that - and I’m sure her parents will be disappointed to see that despite her (presumed) private education she doesn’t know the difference between break and brake… Wink