Caporegime
In summary to your "Explain this please?" stuff, which is not relevant to my opinion/argument/waffling: No, I don't have to explain any of it, I didn't put them there, and shock-horror, I agree some cameras are disgustingly placed, or misused, including those you mention.[TW]Fox said:<snip>
I've never said I agree with the placement of every camera, and I've certainly never said I agree with every speed limit. But, as the law stands, you speed (and get caught) you face a fine and points. Don't speed, and you don't get fined or get points for speeding. There's nothing to argue there, it really is that simple.
Your analogies were so barely relevant, almost to the point of not being relevant. They were, as you typically do, taking situations to the absolute extreme.
Here's one for you: Everyone who has a driving license has proven they can keep an eye on their speed and are able to tell what speed limits are in force on the road they are on.
Explain why some of these same people are now incapable of maintaining that ability, please?
The argument here is cameras vs police officers. What I am opposing is people asking for police officers back so they can get away with speeding.
It's really that simple, so something you can take to be amazingly complicated, is not. That's it.
If you want to argue about the speedlimits, then shock-horror, you'll find I agree with you. There are some absolutely cringeworthy limits in some places, but it is still just as simple: don't speed == don't get fined.
Now onto possibilities of why some speed limits have been put in place..
It only takes a few people to spoil something, one of these cases could be that corner you referred to before that was 60 and is now 50.. it's a rural road, as you so explicity explained, and isn't used much, or rather, doesn't have much traffic, as you also explicity explained, some turkey in a bent car does some automobile gymnastics into a tree, someone else does so again after a while.. after 'x' number of incidents, that corner is now flagged as a blackspot.. so what do you propose? Stick a copper there to sit and rot on the off chance that the car passing every god knows when might be duff/the driver is unfit to drive, or to reduce the speed limit? Which of those is viable? Which of those is easily possible with the current state of affairs (with regards to [lack of] money at the govt.'s disposal,) and with the technology available to us, and that is not going to require a complete revamp of all the cars on the road?
This is of course not the same case for every reduced limit around, as I said before, I am leaving motives aside, but felt it necessary to show this example.
Risk increases with speed. There is no argument here, either. (let's see how long it takes for someone to quote that and put 'So by your example, we should all drive around at sub-10mph or get out and walk?')
The only time reducing your speed marginally, poses a risk is when the difference in speed between vehicles is big - e.g. someone doing 40 on a motorway whilst the rest of the traffic is doing 70+ is damn well dangerous.
So to reduce the risk at that corner, the speed limit is lowered, and as in many cases, a camera placed to penalise those who disregard the limit.
Tax/MOT/Insurance/License evasion is a seperate issue, and is being dealt with seperately. There are new 'improvements' being put in place, such as of course the DVLA Tax DB. MOT's I hear will be using a similar system. I also agree there isn't as much enthusiasm with these as there is in the anti-speeding 'campaign' from the Govt.
Cameras are there to catch people who speed. They seem to be doing their job very well for such an uproar to come around. Maybe, just maybe, this is a sign of how many people have a blatant disregard for speed limits, but no, it must be the cameras that are at fault. It can't possibly be the fault of people who ignore the speedlimits now, can it?
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