What a surprise, speed cameras do not work

[Dolph]

mobile cams could be both more and less effective in my opinion.
also i've recently heard that the cams will no longer need to be painted to make them easily visible and as you mention above they will be allowed to site one anywhere.
the trouble is this issue is surrounded by so much heresay you (the metaphorical) rarely have the right info to make an informed decision.
i remember Clarkson on TG talking about the requirements for diting camera, but to be honest if that man told me grass was green i would go outside and check.

Freedom of information act requests have given interesting insights into the accidents used in the past.... Like the M4 cameras.

http://www.pistonheads.com/speed/default.asp?storyId=11392

In data provided by Wiltshire Constabulary, driver inattention topped the list of accident causes, followed by poor lane changing and careless/reckless behaviour. In fact, not one single accident had excess speed as the sole cause.

But included in the crashes that allowed the Partnership to use speed cameras were:
an accident where a pedestrian fell from a bridge
an accident where a gust of wind pushed one lorry into another
several tyre blowout accidents
a crash where a car drove the wrong way up the motorway

"Excess speed" came fifth on a list of accident causes along with driver fatigue. "Excess speed includes accidents where vehicles were travelling within the speed limit but too fast for the conditions -- such as fog -- where cameras could have no effect.

Quite how a speed camera can possibly assist in making that road safer I have no idea...

 

[The_Dark_Side]

speed may have been well down the list of causes of accidents, but that doesn't give the full picture...something that statistics rarely do.
for example, how many of those accidents that were not caused by speed were more severe DUE to the speed, even though the accident was primarily caused by something else?

 

[DiG]

Worth watching re: speed cameras not being accurate - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noTllmqWjOU

That is an awful link, the video is full of rubbish really, yes you can make a laser give a false reading if you use it wrong! Thats just stupid

 

[loltim]

That is an awful link, the video is full of rubbish really, yes you can make a laser give a false reading if you use it wrong! Thats just stupid

Can't be easy pointing a camera at the same part of the car as it goes past at 80mph, though?

 

[DiG]

Your likly to point it at the front of the car, then slip to the back as its going faster than you expect, not the other way around, which would give an under-reading

 

[Dolph]

speed may have been well down the list of causes of accidents, but that doesn't give the full picture...something that statistics rarely do.
for example, how many of those accidents that were not caused by speed were more severe DUE to the speed, even though the accident was primarily caused by something else?

Is it not better to treat the cause rather than some small part of something that might make a slight difference but doesn't really address it?

Trying to treat speed this way is akin to keeping knives blunt because people keep cutting themselves with them. Teach people how to use the knife properly and you'll get people with no cuts, not just slightly shallower ones

 

[The_Dark_Side]

Is it not better to treat the cause rather than some small part of something that might make a slight difference but doesn't really address it?

you are absolutely right, but when trying to fix a problem you always opt for the easier fixes first. training people to a higher standard takes a lot more time and costs a lot more money...and the higher standards required would result is the failure rate increasing on an exponential scale.
most people will never have more than a fundamental understanding of how driving "works" and these are the people that wouldn't be able to pass a much stricter test.

Trying to treat speed this way is akin to keeping knives blunt because people keep cutting themselves with them. Teach people how to use the knife properly and you'll get people with no cuts, not just slightly shallower ones

again, you're bang on the money.
but this assumes that it's possible to teach everyone knifecraft, and that everyone posesses the required skills to be able to use a knife responsibly and proficiently.
this is not the case unfortunately and, should you substitute the word "knife" for the word "car", you'll find the same is true of drivers.

FWIW i'd rather live in your world than in mine, because in mine i see at least 25% of drivers that shouldn't even have a license at all and approximately another 65% that have serious shortfallings in their understanding and ability.
raising the standards of all motorists is the better option, but i'm afaid it's one that belongs in utopia.

 

[Johnnytoxic]

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[The_Dark_Side]

..

i must admit, that's an approach i'd never considered

 

[Glaucus]

Not a surprise, what is it speed is directly linked with 2.6% of crashes and is part related to just over 5%.

Take police of the roads and the biggest cause of crashes (driving without due care and attention) will increase.

speed cameras = money making scheme, especially where 99% of them are placed.

to a higher standard takes a lot more time and costs a lot more money...

Training wouldn't do **** all, as i said the largest cause is driving without due care and attention, that has little to do with training, that's either ignoring the rules, like swerving, tailgating ect, or using mobile phone, being tiered ect. The only way to cut this, is by having police on the road and to fine drivers.
I absolutely loath tailgater's and people who weave/undertake just to get in front of you, reducing your stooping distance then getting stuck there, what progress did you make.

 

[Dolph]

you are absolutely right, but when trying to fix a problem you always opt for the easier fixes first. training people to a higher standard takes a lot more time and costs a lot more money...and the higher standards required would result is the failure rate increasing on an exponential scale.
most people will never have more than a fundamental understanding of how driving "works" and these are the people that wouldn't be able to pass a much stricter test.

again, you're bang on the money.
but this assumes that it's possible to teach everyone knifecraft, and that everyone posesses the required skills to be able to use a knife responsibly and proficiently.
this is not the case unfortunately and, should you substitute the word "knife" for the word "car", you'll find the same is true of drivers.

FWIW i'd rather live in your world than in mine, because in mine i see at least 25% of drivers that shouldn't even have a license at all and approximately another 65% that have serious shortfallings in their understanding and ability.
raising the standards of all motorists is the better option, but i'm afaid it's one that belongs in utopia.

I'm pretty sure getting police back on the roads to help and advise would be a great start. You seem to be justifying the failed policy with the idea that it's all we have. It isn't. The speed kills policy is relatively new in the grand scheme of things, and it's introduction has coincideded with changes in the prevailing trends in injuries and deaths for the worse.

I don't want to be forced to slow down just so I'm a better target for the morons. I want the morons either improved or off the roads, and I guarantee you'll see deaths and injuries go down.

On the flip side, we have MPs doing stupid things like this...

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/dis...me=yes&more_nodeId1=133174&contentPK=17578377

The cause of this accident was someone turning the wrong way onto a dual carriageway, this is not a common occurance, the junction is not faulty, the driver wasn't paying enough attention and therefore drove like an idiot, causing the deaths of three people. There have also been articles in the local paper trying to claim it's because the A38 is too fast... FFS people!

 

[The_Dark_Side]

no, i'm not trying to justify anything...i'm just being realistic.
putting more police on the road simply isn't going to happen, well not on the kind of scale you're talking about to make any difference.
a traffic plod costs anywhere between £60k-£100k to train, then a minimum of £22k/year PLUS the cost of the car.
and that's for one guy

nice in principle, but unrealistic.

I don't want to be forced to slow down just so I'm a better target for the morons. I want the morons either improved or off the roads, and I guarantee you'll see deaths and injuries go down.

you bet your sweet cakes they would, but it simply isn't going to happen. you're talking about a sample pool of something like 30+million people here. when dealing with groups this large you know as well as i do that the average tends to plummet. the facts are that the majority of license holders are incapable of being good drivers regardless of how much training they have. they can be improved upon yes, but whether that'd be enough is another matter.
YOU may not need speed limits to help you drive safely, and neither may i, but the bulk of drivers do.

i firmly believe that some cameras do the job they were intended to do, and some do nothing at all to improve road safety. just because they don't do enough doesn't mean they're not effective though. as already said previously we've seen an explosion in the number of cars sold in the last ten years and the numbers of new drivers has spiralled too, yet road deaths have stayed the same even with all this extra traffic. there is no reasonably practical alternative unfortunately. the police forces around the UK are run to a budget and increasing manpower in the way you suggest would add tens of millions of pounds to their respective needs and even then why do you think this would work? a camera is there 24/7/365 so if you can read a road sign you will always slow down at that point. a copper is mobile and can only pick up on offences that happen right in front of him. yes he/she can make a call on a number of offences rather than just your needle creeping above a set point, but unless you station a copper in a danger spot 24/7/365 then when he/she aint there drivers will hammer through the place.
that's the nature of human beings, if we think we can get away with something then most of us will try to do so.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

that's either ignoring the rules, like swerving, tailgating ect, or using mobile phone, being tiered ect. The only way to cut this, is by having police on the road and to fine drivers.

but most of the things you list there are not driving with undue care and attention at all. if you take more time training drivers and give them a better understanding of motoring you will prevent most of this. most tailgaters who are involved in an accident genuinely believed they would be able to stop, right up until the point where they found out they were mistaken.
educate them more and some of them will learn what is and isn't possible and what sort of safety margins are really needed on the road.

of course, this won't eliminate the problem as you're always going to get aggressive behaviour behind the wheel. that's just the nature of the beast.

 

[Dolph]

you bet your sweet cakes they would, but it simply isn't going to happen. you're talking about a sample pool of something like 30+million people here. when dealing with groups this large you know as well as i do that the average tends to plummet. the facts are that the majority of license holders are incapable of being good drivers regardless of how much training they have. they can be improved upon yes, but whether that'd be enough is another matter.
YOU may not need speed limits to help you drive safely, and neither may i, but the bulk of drivers do.

i firmly believe that some cameras do the job they were intended to do, and some do nothing at all to improve road safety. just because they don't do enough doesn't mean they're not effective though. as already said previously we've seen an explosion in the number of cars sold in the last ten years and the numbers of new drivers has spiralled too, yet road deaths have stayed the same even with all this extra traffic. there is no reasonably practical alternative unfortunately. the police forces around the UK are run to a budget and increasing manpower in the way you suggest would add tens of millions of pounds to their respective needs and even then why do you think this would work? a camera is there 24/7/365 so if you can read a road sign you will always slow down at that point. a copper is mobile and can only pick up on offences that happen right in front of him. yes he/she can make a call on a number of offences rather than just your needle creeping above a set point, but unless you station a copper in a danger spot 24/7/365 then when he/she aint there drivers will hammer through the place.
that's the nature of human beings, if we think we can get away with something then most of us will try to do so.

An ineffective, bad solution is not a solution at all. Targeting something that doesn't really work isn't a practical solution, it's a cop out, as is claiming that the ineffective copout is the best we've got. I liken the current speeding enforcement process to the handgun ban, both have a purpose, but it isn't saving lives. Anyone who claims otherwise isn't living in the real world.

To reduce casualities, you have to target the causes of them, speed isn't causing people to die, so reducing speeding is not going to stop people dying, just as legally held guns weren't being used to kill people, so taking them away doesn't stop people being shot.

You claim you're being practical, I say you're not. Practical is taking steps that will actually work, something that the current policy totally fails at. Supporting a bad, failed policy that isn't proven to do anything at all isn't helping, it's actually hindering, because the speed kills idea is masking the real dangers and the real causes of accidents, and making people focus too much on a risk that wasn't a risk at all, against risks that are being ignored, but are actually killing people.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

An ineffective, bad solution is not a solution at all.

ineffective means something that doesn't work.
i say the speed camera system does work, albeit in only some of the locations where they're sited.
FWIW i'd like to see your approach tried, but it's as likely as fitting every car with giant external airbags to reduce road deaths...it'd work but it's neither reasonably practical or cost effective to introduce.

 

[Dolph]

ineffective means something that doesn't work.

Speed cameras don't work to reduce injuries/fatalities at most camera sites when the government remember to take regression to the mean into account. (It's a Scamera partnership favourite to take a road that had no fatalities for 10 years, then 2 in one year, slap a camera on it and claim the camera was successful when there's no further fatalities, despite the fact that the normal was no fatalities anyway). That makes them ineffective.

i say the speed camera system does work, albeit in only some of the locations where they're sited.

Indeed, they can work (although there's debate whether the cameras are any more effective than flashing signs, for example). However, the sites where they work best are places where speed genuinely causes problems, which normally means places that look safe to go fast, but aren't. Cameras in these places don't catch many people, because most local people don't speed in the area anyway.

I've always said I'd never have a problem with a camera working during daytime hours outside every school in the country, and I stand by that view now. Cameras have a place in speed control and providing road warnings, but the best placed cameras wouldn't catch people that often, and that's not considered acceptable by the scamera partnerships. (I was told this when we campaigned for a camera in a deceptively dangerous location on dartmoor. The response was that most people didn't speed there, so it wouldn't catch many people, despite several speed related fatalities for the few that didn't know the road and know about the hidden bridge).

FWIW i'd like to see your approach tried, but it's as likely as fitting every car with giant external airbags to reduce road deaths...it'd work but it's neither reasonably practical or cost effective to introduce.

Unfortunately, the government won't turn around and point out that it's not speed that kills, it's idiots, because it won't address the fact that most of it's nice voters are idiots when it comes to driving. It's far easier to blame it on something else and not save lives.

 

[Dogbreath]

or cost effective to introduce.

Depends on what price you put on road safety. If by not cost effective you mean the government will have to spend money rather than collect it as they currently do then yes you are probably correct.

In the tragic accident that Dolph linked to above, a woman managed to drive up a slip road in the wrong direction, and then proceeded along an NSL dual carriageway until she had a head on collision with an older couple driving home. All three were killed in the crash. What part of the current policy focuses on eliminating accidents like this? They could put a speed camera every 5 yards along the road and it still wouldn't have prevented this. Even putting up a more signs is very unlikely to stop the kind of person that doesn't even realise they are on the wrong side of a DC.

IMO only better education/training of that woman before she was allowed the privilege of driving would have prevented her claiming the lives of two innocent people.

 

[Glaucus]

but it would be cost effective, the cost of accedients to both the clean up operation and the lost time to the economy is enormous, especially on motorway crashes.

They would still be raking in fines, just with police handing them out rather than a computer.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

Unfortunately, the government won't turn around and point out that it's not speed that kills, it's idiots, because it won't address the fact that most of it's nice voters are idiots when it comes to driving. It's far easier to blame it on something else and not save lives.

sums up both our points of view quite nicely i feel.

IMO only better education/training of that woman before she was allowed the privilege of driving would have prevented her claiming the lives of two innocent people.

well, first things first, if all cameras were replaced with more police officers then unless by sheer coincidence one was passing at the time this wouldn't have made a difference either.
secondly RE more training, how much more do you think was needed for this woman? she'd been taught her road signs and it's these that are the easiest thing about the driving test to learn. hell, you don't even need to be in a car to brush up on your highway code. for all we know even making the test more difficult may not have prevented this woman from gaining a license, which IMHO was the only thing that could've prevented this tragic accident from happening. there are many idiots behind the wheel in this country, but every now and then one or two shine brighter than the rest. if you can genuinely forget which side of the road we drive on in this country then i fear all the training in the world won't help you.