Tuesday, 25 March 2008

Ultimate Speed Camera

It's been shown many times that speed (or "safety" as they like to call them) cameras are not effective at reducing accidents and it's common knowledge that these cameras serve only to extract more money from the motorist by enforcing archaic speed limits.

You can understand it: it's free money for them. Sure, a bit of investment in the cameras, support and staffing but from then on it's ding 60 quid here, ding 95 quid here if they decide to take the driving course instead of the 3 penalty points on the licence. Easy.

Apparently they are going to start reducing speed limits on country roads which historically have been national speed limit (I think this is 60 mph on a single carriageway).

The problem I have with these cameras is that they were touted as being placed only in accident black spots - the implication being that they reduced injuries and fatalities caused by speeding motorists. I'm all for that if that is the reason.

The problem is that most of the ones I see are placed in places with no schools, no shops and no houses nearby and in many cases they slyly reduce the speed limit so people don't realise they are speeding and get themselves caught by a camera. For example on wide dual carriageways leading up to motorways.

What defines an accident black spot? This is a question I wrote in a letter to the local newspaper a few years ago in response to an article detailing the placement of a speed camera near my house. The residents of a house outside which the camera was placed understandably did not want the camera outside their home. My letter was published, however no responses were drawn from the moronic do-gooders at the 'Road Safety Partnership'.

I can think of loads of speed cameras nearby but these places are hardly black spots. I do know, though, that it was common to exceed the speed limit in these areas.

Taking another angle on it, if someone gets run over whose fault is it? In almost all cases the motorist ends up getting shafted, but lately almost all of the cyclists I have seen have had no lights on their bike. I have seen gangs of teenagers walking down the middle of the road deliberately to antagonise motorists. They tend to swagger along and move out of the way only at the last minute unless you stop, in which case they make abusive gestures at you.

I quite often see dogs that run out into the road on those extensible dog leads because the owner is on some different planet and doesn't restrict it. I always worry when I see parents walking along with kids that must be about 3 years old and they let the kid walk along the kerb without holding their hand. Are people that fucking stupid?

A motorist can be driving any speed and if someone be it child, or dog, or teenager runs into the road then it's quite likely that when colliding with a 1.5 ton lump of metal there will be injury whether the driver is driving at the speed limit or 3 miles per hour above it. But as always given all of the above examples the motorist ends up drawing the short straw.

There is also the factor of the drunk, uninsured, banned driver. It drives me mad that courts seem to think that banning a driver means they definitely wont be on the roads and there have been loads of cases where someone that is banned has got straight back behind the wheel and run someone over. No speed cameras or speed limits will ever change that.

Pressure groups like the Road Safety Partnership just love to blanket as many incidents as possible speed related because it feeds their own purpose and pays their wages: the reality is that crap drivers will always be crap drivers and idiots will always be idiots no matter the speed cameras, traffic calming measures, or whatever.

The best way to solve accident blackspots are to make them non-blackspots. Change the road design, add more saftey railings or pedestrian crossings. Encourage pedestrians to realise they have a responsibility for safety as well.

The Police must realise that people slow down for cameras and then speed up again provided the flow of traffic permits it. This is why they often position a mobile camera just after the fixed GATSO camera: to catch people speeding up again.

Speed cameras are unhelpful and frustrate motorists. The facts show clearly that they have made no impact on the number of fatalities on the road. In some cases, where they are hidden and may appear suddenly in the viewpoint of the driver causing him or her to slam the brakes on, it could be argued that they are dangerous too.

The ultimate form of speed camera would be one that could detect bad or erratic driving, drunk driving and so on however this probably wont ever be invented. The next best thing is to hit bad drivers hard with some jail time. This wont happen either.

I guess we are stuck with the draconian, unforgiving form of speed enforcement for now. I'm just surprised there aren't any vigilante groups going round spraying the lenses so they don't work!

No comments:

Post a Comment