BLUNDER IN THE RULES FOR SPEED CAMERA PLACEMENT

[Wolfie]

taken from Bikersweb site.

Road safety campaigners Safe Speed have discovered a serious blunder in the rules for speed camera placement. No speed camera may be placed where competent and careful drivers consider it dangerous to exceed the speed limit, and ALL speed cameras MUST be placed where competent and careful driver consider that exceeding the speed limit is safe and reasonable.

The technical details of the blunder are not easily explained - otherwise it would have been spotted long ago - but in the simplest terms traffic engineers have long known that a majority of motorists set a safe speed according to the conditions. Yet the rules for camera placement require that some of the safe majority are speeding at an approved camera site. Equally, NO CAMERA MAY BE PLACED placed where our most careful and competent drivers consider that exceeding a speed limit would be dangerous.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed campaign, said: "This is a blunder of epic proportions and is ample evidence of massive incompetence behind speed camera policy in the UK. This blunder explains exactly why motorists are complaining that cameras are in the wrong places, yet the DfT maintains that cameras are sited according to the rules. The error is in the rules.

The use of speed cameras remains highly controversial, with growing public hatred and distrust of the system. Claims of casualty reductions have yet to be reflected in the national figures.

Paul Smith continues: "This is so serious that we must demand an immediate cessation of all speed camera operations pending a review by genuinely independent experts. It's is clear that most speed cameras, most of the time are trapping competent and careful drivers. Where is the road safety benefit in that?"

Since there is an important and basic flaw in the rules for camera placement we are forced to question the competence of those that made the rules. If they got this so wrong, what else did they get wrong?

Safe Speed demands an immediate return to the road safety policies that gave us in the UK the safest roads in the World in the first place.

Further information from Safe Speed on the subject including technical details and reference documents: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/rules.html

 

[Wolfie]

ABD WELCOMES EXPOSURE OF FLAWED SPEED CAMERA RULES

The Association of British Drivers supports the analysis by Safe Speed, reported in Motor Cycle News on 28 January, showing that the Department for Transport's guidelines for the siting of speed cameras are fundamentally flawed. This is because they only allow cameras to be installed where a substantial proportion of drivers exceed the speed limit - indicating that the speed limit is too low.

Malcolm Heymer, a retired professional traffic engineer, explains: "Decades of research into driver behaviour show that speed limits are effective only if set at the 85th percentile speed, that is, the speed that 85 per cent of drivers would not exceed in the absence of a speed limit. Research also shows that drivers who choose to travel at around this speed have fewest accidents - they are the safest drivers. Within the fastest five to ten percent of drivers are some who are using speed recklessly or carelessly and they are the ones who should be targeted for enforcement.

He continues: "The government's guidelines only allow a speed camera to be located where the measured 85th percentile speed is well above the speed limit, so even drivers who are travelling below the speed of the safest drivers are being penalised."

Roads and Traffic spokesman, Mark McArthur-Christie, comments: "The Secretary of State has asked for evidence of cameras being placed in contravention of the hypothecation rules, and there are many, but fundamentally it is the rules themselves that are at fault. They insist that cameras are placed where speeds are highest, but this may be hundreds of metres from where accidents have actually taken place. So safe, responsible drivers are being prosecuted simply as a result of the inflexibility of speed limits. I'm forced to wonder how many other fundamental mistakes in speed camera policy are awaiting discovery."

ABD chairman Brian Gregory says, "The rules have been cynically designed to make camera partnerships self-financing, by ensuring that cameras will generate a steady income stream. If they were located where it is actually dangerous to exceed the speed limit, they would catch those driving at inappropriate speeds but would also cease to be self-funding."

 

[Quiney]

Here, here

Cameras catch drivers at minor sppeds over the 'set' limit, but can do nothing for bad driving, i.e. drunks, use of mobile phones, undertaking etc etc

Bring back the traffic bobby

 

[DB on CBR1100XX]

Going back to basics for a mo.............

................how are speed limits arrived at in the first place ?? WE all know it's 30 in built up 60 single carriageway, 70 dual carriageway etc etc - but why ?

Why is it 50 on some country roads: why not 45 or 55, why not 80/85 on safer stretches of m/way ??

Who sets these seemingly arbitary limits that we all love to bend as far as possible ?

How is it I can be so far over a speed limit and still be riding safely [cue abuse: but seriously....]?..........and why do I seem to be so slow past schools, playgrounds etc etc where the limit is higher than I'm happy to be at ?

Before the government start fleecing/criminalising motorists let's at least see where the rules they apply came from in the first place..........................

 

[XXLarge]

I imagine it's the department of transport, with input from local authorities for 'special' considerations (like the 50mph limit in the peak district)

I seem to remember that when motorways first appeared in the 60's there was no speed limit (correct me if I'm wrong). I also remember that most police authorities in Britain were advocating 80mph on motorways not that long ago.

I take the rather arrogant view that speed limits are there for people who can't judge what is and isn't safe, If I pay for that with a fine and some points then so be it.

I reckon we should take positive action on these speed cameras. What we should do is spend the next three months sticking to the limits. These camera partnerships are self-funding, so if you take away the funding they will collapse. They would become a victim of their own success and afterwards we could return to more sensible riding.

Up the TFP

 

[Wolfie]

I reckon we should take positive action on these speed cameras. What we should do is spend the next three months sticking to the limits. These camera partnerships are self-funding, so if you take away the funding they will collapse. They would become a victim of their own success and afterwards we could return to more sensible riding.

Nice idea:bow:

but i tend not to use roads with cameras on if i can help it.

Better idea, the old rubber necklace i reckon.