Who Else Thinks That Speed Cameras Are Actually Dengerous?

[OnionTerror]

Its going to be very interesting to see the results in Swindon, over next three years or so, seeing as they've got rid of fixed cameras. All fixed cameras do is that it slows people up at a certain spot, but then drivers soon speed up straight after they've passed the camera - how is that safe? Average speed routes as well as mobile camera routes are extremely dangerous because you are always staring at the speedo. I cannot see how that is safe. The number of police on the roads have dwindled, in favour of automated policing. Drivers will learn a lot more from being talked to from a copper than from a ticket you cannot remember what you did to get it in the first place...

Speed limits in this country have been cut and then cut a bit more. Safe, wide dual carriageways are cut to 40 mph, whereas narrow country lanes are kept at 60..I just cant see the logic in that...

Has anyone seen the policy of the Conservatives regarding speed cameras?

[King Stromba]

If they cared about road speed they would ban you if you got caught by a camera. Just another way to tax you until they think of the next better way.

[cybernoid]

I think for our own safety we must all be wrapped in cotton wool and strapped to our beds, if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to fear, if it saves just one persons life it's worth doing, won't somebody think of the children.

[Number79]

That's the thing an actual cop can see if you're driving dangerously or not. A speed limit seems to be a somewhat arbitrary thing though. I've driven down lovely bit's of dual carriage way that were 30 mph and then a couple of minutes later I was on a really windy, narrow road that was 60. Traffic cops would be able to judge if you had been driving safely rather than if you'd broken the speed limit by a couple of mph.

exactly. Far more dangerouse on our roads are drink/drug drivers which don't get caught by a speed camera. Personally I would rather have police on the roads using good old common sense and making them safer rather than cameras catching people doing 33 in a 30 at 3am. But then that wouldn't make any money would it?

[betterToDo]

I don't think speed cameras themselves are dangerous.

However, they form part of a ridiculous myriad of controls, signs, information thrown at drivers in the belief it will make them more safe. I think often that belief is entirely misguided.

People know what the speed limit is (although I occasionally find myself temporarily unaware, and frantically searching the horizon for a sign to inform me whether I'm breaking the law which is in itself dangerous). We know (in general) the rules of the road. If drivers aren't going to obey, they're not going to obey. Putting up speed cameras with signs saying "heres a speed camera", or with gps saying "theres a speed camera" seems to me the ultimate act in futility. It gets people to drive strictly within an arbitrary limit for, ooooo, 50 metres?

What really distracts me is those "Slow down" signs that flash if you drift a couple of miles over the limit as you approach them. What kind of futility is this? They really are dangerous as your attention gets drawn entirely away from what you're doing, which should be driving safely. Driving safely centres fundamentally and most importantly around being aware of your surroundings and other road users, and driving accordingly. Having a large flashing sign come on in your face as you drive past is just nuts. Why not just set off a firework and be done with it?

Such high levels of "controls" and regulation lead, in my belief, to a diffusion of responsibility of the driver. If they're "following the rules" then it'll surely be fine won't it? I believe there have been experiments, certainly in town centres, where all forms of direction are actually removed and the driver is forced to assess for themselves (can't even begin to remember the link). Such experiments have proven successful, as with direction removed, the driver is actually forced to take more responsibility in assessing the environment or actions of other road users, and hence in general drive more slowly.

People who want to drive like nutters drive like nutters no matter how many signs you put up saying "Don't Drive Like That!".

[edit]

AND ANOTHER THING!!

Speed limits drive me batty. They represent a constant dilemma. Why? Because I actually obey them (or maybe the cheeky 2 mph over if I'm "hurrying", and obviously 70mph on a motorway is meaningless (yet we're somehow supposed to respect the other limits when the police clearly don't care about that one). What drives me nuts is most people don't stick to limits, so its a rock and a hard place for me. I dont want to be the slow loser in front holding people up by "only doing 40". But I dont want to break the law just to avoid having some impatient person staring daggers in my rear mirror. The presence of the limit puts me in that impossible situation almost every time I drive, and I resent it a great deal.

[RichB]

Probably safest to just do 15mph by default, unless you hit a national limit area when 20 will see you safe.

[scuuzeme]

And what is it with those people that have to slow down to 10 mph UNDER the limit as they go past a camera? I just don't get that - it drives me nuts!

What on earth goes through their minds?

[chevin]

I live near the A3 where you can drive to the supermarket and back and get disqualified. Recently I've started thinking that speed cameras might actually be dangerous because I've noticed that when I'm going through them I pay more attention to the speedo than the road. The especially dangerous thing today was that I went through a speed camera that was situated just before a downgrade of the speed limit from 40 to 30 miles per hour. This was a new speed camera and because I know that they normally put a camera just after they change the speed limit downwards, I was paranoid that I'd missed a 30 sign and had done 35 though a 30 zone. The idea that I might have just got 3 points on my license distracted me for quite a while afterwards and I'm sure that everyone who get's done by one of these things and sees the flash will be fuming for a good while afterwards. This will put off anyone that is normally a good driver enough to make them potentially dangerous so that same effect on someone who is already dangerous and needs to be cautioned would make them all the more likely to kill someone with their car.

here's an idea; if you didn't speed either side of the camera you wouldn't panic so much when you pass one.

[Si1]

I think for our own safety we must all be wrapped in cotton wool and strapped to our beds, if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to fear, if it saves just one persons life it's worth doing, won't somebody think of the children.

screw them - they've got to pay the road safety officers' pensions

[Lepista]

Actually, I see lots of very dangerous driving, and all of it well within the speed limits. I also see a lot of people driving (presumably with driving licences) that are ignorant of the rules of the road.

If safety was really the issue, surely implementing taking a test (not necessarily a full blown one) every, say, 5 years would be able to weed out those drivers who have become incompetent, or forgotten the rules.

It would also be a boom industry, having thousands of new driving instructors and examiners. Money to the government, safer driving, quieter roads, result all round!

[Prof]

Speed cameras ?

Potrayed by "the powers that be" as an essential safety measure.

From my experience, many just happen to be situated behind a hedge/tree that happens to have been neglected by the local council, so the camera isn`t visible until your are very close to it. Many happen to be at the bottom of a hill, just around a corner. If the camera were to be perfectly visible, before the bend, it would serve it`s purpose to slow traffic down. Once you`ve gone past a camera above the speed limit, you already been driving unsafely, doesn`t that defeat the object of the excersise ? I will say that some cameras do seem to be installed in places where they should reduce speed and accidents, but many seem to be "traps".

Some one mentioned 60mph speed limits on many country lanes. What`s that all about ? I regularly drive down a narrow lane, with a 60mph limit. There are no warning signs to warn drivers of sharp, narrow bends, and over the years there have been many accidents on this road - unless someone is dumping shattered glass on the road. I have had a couple of bumps there, I know of a couple of cars that have rolled over. Even though I drive very carefully down this road, it only takes someone to approach a bend at 25mph+ (which seems reasonable) on a wet day, and it`s almost certainly another insurance claim.

If speed cameras (or "safety" cameras, as there are also known) did their job properly, no one would get fined for speeding.

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

not in wales though, my father recently got a ticket at 31mph.

Surely that could've been contested, they have to have some leeway to allow for inaccurate speedos?

[Executive Sadman]

Nope. Everything the govt and police do to clamp down on drivers has made the roads safer, and its got absolutely nothing to do with vastly improved safety standards in cars

[thod]

if it saves just one persons life it's worth doing,

The only way to eliminate road deaths is to have a zero speed limit. Yet without road movement the economy would cease too. Thus we are trading off economic gain for road deaths. There IS an acceptable level of road deaths for that gain. Reducing speed is not without cost. Every worker, every delivery, takes longer to perform their task. If they really wanted to restrict speed it would cheaper to stick RFID chips in roadside posts and have the cars speed limited by what they read. But that raises no revenue.

Next time you hear someone talking about reducing road deaths, ask them how many road deaths are acceptable. Do not be sidetracked by answers such as "as few as possible", ask for a real number. Anyone that answers zero has just told you they do not understand economics and should be removed from any post they hold. The same is true in our wars. "As few as possible" is not an answer. You have decide how many lives you are willing to spend to achieve an objective. Making tough decisions, where you lose both ways, is the price of power.

[fluffy666]

I live near the A3 where you can drive to the supermarket and back and get disqualified. Recently I've started thinking that speed cameras might actually be dangerous because I've noticed that when I'm going through them I pay more attention to the speedo than the road. The especially dangerous thing today was that I went through a speed camera that was situated just before a downgrade of the speed limit from 40 to 30 miles per hour. This was a new speed camera and because I know that they normally put a camera just after they change the speed limit downwards, I was paranoid that I'd missed a 30 sign and had done 35 though a 30 zone. The idea that I might have just got 3 points on my license distracted me for quite a while afterwards and I'm sure that everyone who get's done by one of these things and sees the flash will be fuming for a good while afterwards. This will put off anyone that is normally a good driver enough to make them potentially dangerous so that same effect on someone who is already dangerous and needs to be cautioned would make them all the more likely to kill someone with their car.

Actually, I've been driving on the M4 and you can often tell if a camera van is on the next bridge because of the lighting up of brake lights in front. I've seen this on other motorways even when a normal white van is parked on a bridge.

Now, if I went on a motorway bridge and hung out a banner, put up some bright flashing lights, or did something else that caused mass distraction to the people driving below, I would be likely arrested and prosecuted tor reckless endangerment.

The main problem, of course, is that lives saved through speed cameras are at best right at the edge of statistical detectability; and considering the millions of people criminalised, and thousands banned from driving (all of whom must have been properly registered and taxed, hence below-average accident risk drivers), it seems a bit disproportionate. A bit like trying to stop late night knife crime in a city center by having 24-hour checkpoints surrounding the center, strip searching everyone going in, and fining anyone carrying anything that could remotely construed as a weapon.

[mspL4]

Of course Speed Cameras are Dangerous!

They're not there to reduce accidents, (and have actually been found to not reduce accidents at all but actually cause more due to the points raised above). Speed Cameras are there to extract more money from unwitting drivers, driving at the speed limit is not a valid argument for their existence, (I know people who've been flashed at 31mph in a 30mph zone and have received £60 fine and 3 points).

Most Speedometers gauge speeds slightly differently due to their calibration and mechanics so I think it would be extremely unfair to penalise someone for being clocked at 1mph over the limit but it happens all the time.

In Holland for example, they ran a trial a few years ago where they removed all road markings, traffic signals and speed cameras from an area for a period of 3 months or so...accidents more than halved as drivers had to use their common sense rather than obeying markings on the floor and in the air so it just shows you that, whilst you will always get the Boy Racer and D1ckHead in any walk of life, it doesn't necessarily mean that arming the streets with money extractors will make them any safer...after all, if someone's just committed a Bank Job and is in the process of getting away, are they really going to give a fvck about getting a speeding ticket?, (OK, they shouldn't use their own car in the first place but that also happens a lot).

Put cling film over the lenses of any speed camera you see, (THEY can't tell from the ground) or set it alight, or better still get an old flash gun from an slr camera and stick it under your rear number plate on a high flash speed...the flash from the camera will invoke the flash from the slr flasher so as it takes a picture of your plate you'll flash it right back thus obscurring your plate info...nice!

Fvck Speed Cameras!

mspL4

[Goat]

Top Gear summed it up best with a quick video clip along the lines of:

And who's this: why it's Chavvy Kevin in his rusting uninsured Vauxhall Nova, he doesn't have a driving licence but he's too stoned on skunk to drive above 25 miles an hour so he's safe.

Next up: Why it's Osama Bin Laden, but he's doing 28 mph so he's safe as well.

Finally, it's Mrs Smith taking her cakes to the Women's Institute and she's doing 32 mph, good to see the camera's working properly and that's another menace to society dealt with.

[The Masked Tulip]

Counsellors have a huge increase in people suffering from anxiety and panic attacks - serious things - since the mass introduction of speed cameras. Usually from people whowould never go over the speed limit but who are now so anxious about doing so that driving has become a very stressful, anxiety filled thing for them to do.

These cameras are causing serious health risks - not aided by the boys in blue positioning mobile cameras at top or bottom of hills to catch people who have not braked enough or who have accelerated a tad too much to get up that hill... and who find themselves at 34mph instead of 30mph momentarily... Voila - 3 points and big fine!

Very stressful.

[Bobajobbob]

The roads would be a 1000 times safer if they removed 90% of the stupid signs, traffic calming measures, lights, cameras etc. They just distract and are for the most part completely pointless.

Speed cameras are binary, driving is not a computer game and it is impossible to drive regularly without occasionally making mistakes. Good drivers allow for this possibility and makes allowances with an adequate safety margin however even good safe drivers can be caught out by speed cameras completely by accident and through no intentional fault of their own.

Speed cameras also take traffic police off the roads, do not reduce speeds at any point other than their immediate position, distract, frustrate and annoy. They are simply another not so stealthy tax .

[6538]

-/+ 4 mph isn't actually that great when you're dealing with speed cameras though, eg 30 mph + 4 = 34 which is more than the 10% grace that you apparently get with speed cameras.

I think the prosecution guidelines are 10% plus 2mph.

This would seem reasonable as it means that you have to be clearly over the limit, as your speedometer reads, to get done. The construction and use rules allows speedometers to over-read by up to 10%, andall of them will do, near as makes no odds. They aren't allowed to under read. So, if you are doing an actual speed of 30mph your speedo will actually be showing 33mph. To reach the 36mph (10% plus 2mph) prosecution threshold you will have to be doing an indicated speed of nearly 40mph, which is beyond what would be reasonable to unintentionally stray over.

[ken_ichikawa]

Counsellors have a huge increase in people suffering from anxiety and panic attacks - serious things - since the mass introduction of speed cameras. Usually from people whowould never go over the speed limit but who are now so anxious about doing so that driving has become a very stressful, anxiety filled thing for them to do.

These cameras are causing serious health risks - not aided by the boys in blue positioning mobile cameras at top or bottom of hills to catch people who have not braked enough or who have accelerated a tad too much to get up that hill... and who find themselves at 34mph instead of 30mph momentarily... Voila - 3 points and big fine!

Very stressful.

Its why I don't ride my sports bike in the UK anymore (except in Transit to the continent) , it seriously doesn't like being ridden at less than 5500rpm (jerky poppy engine) but 5500 rpm in 3rd gear is enough to take you to 110mph.

[Don]

I find the argument that speed cameras are dangerous because to keep at the speed limit you have to be watching your speedometer constantly absolutely ridiculous. When I was learning to drive I was told that your eyes should be constantly moving from the road up ahead to just in front of your car, your mirrors and your dashboard over a period of maybe 10 seconds. It only takes a fraction of a second to see what speed you're going at and if you can't maintain your speed for 10 seconds between glances you really shouldn't be driving at all.

Don't get me wrong. A lot of limits should be changed. Limits should be increased during the night and on motorways but that's a seperate issue and has nothing to do with cameras.

[Justice]

Come the revolution then first thing to go will be the speed carmers

Stealth tax by machines is not what i signed up for.

[Scunnered]

Counsellors have a huge increase in people suffering from anxiety and panic attacks - serious things - since the mass introduction of speed cameras.

Do you have any proof of this?

[Bobajobbob]

As highlighted by a poster above, this is very interesting and not at all surprising.

The UK Department for Transport funded, then suppressed, a study that shows a 55 percent increase in injury accidents when speed cameras are used on highway work zones and a 31 percent increase when used on freeways without construction projects. According to the Transport Research Laboratory, the "non-works [personal injury accident] rate is significantly higher for the sites with speed cameras than the rate for sites without."

An analysis of this data, buried on page 43 of the report, yields the following result:

Effect on Personal Injury Accidents

Enforcement Type Construction Zone No Construction

Conventional speed cameras 55% increase 31% increase

Speed-averaging cameras (SPECS) 4.5% increase 6.7% increase

Police patrols 27% reduction 10% reduction

View Table 3.18 in original format

Although the Department for Transport's Highways Agency funded the study, no information regarding these results was ever made public until a Freedom of Information Act request was honored earlier this month. The Transport Research Laboratory attempted to suppress the UK taxpayer-funded study further by charging £40 (US $72) for access to the results. Moreover, the study's executive summary calculates only the aggregate accident rate including the benefit of manned police patrol cars in the work zones. The significant decrease in accidents from a human police presence was used to offset the increase in camera accidents.

"It is outrageous that this sort of information has been hidden from the public," said Safe Speed road safety campaign founder Paul Smith whose FOIA request uncovered the study's existence. "We have all seen strange driver behaviour where fixed speed cameras operate. This report highlights the dangers. We're not surprised to see this information -- we have know for years that speed cameras were the wrong road safety strategy, and it's a huge relief to see the truth coming out so clearly"

The TRL study compared accident reports covering 29 highway construction zone projects over 730km of road from November 2001 to July 2003 with an equivalent period without the construction zones, controlling for changes in traffic volume. In the US, the state of Illinois plans to implement a similar freeway work zone speed camera program within the next few months.

Source: PDF File Safety Performance of Traffic Management at Major Motorway Road Works (Transport Research Laboratories, 8/5/2005)