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Villagers Catch 17500 Speeders Claiming More Action Needed
Article by: rob brady
Date: 2 Jan 2013
Volunteers from the village of Weston are calling for fines for speeding motorists after they caught 17,500 drivers flouting the speed limit but lacked the authority to issue anything other than notification letters.
Recording the number of drivers speeding as part of the Speedwatch scheme (which began in 2009), villagers remain concerned by the number of drivers who continue to speed despite being sent letters of notification.
More than 4,500 official police warnings have also been issued to those caught breaking the speed limit but apparently to little avail.
Whilst the overall number of speeders has decreased from 43 cars per hour to 28 cars per hour, representing a 35% reduction, local speed statistics are still worrying the community.
Speedwatch co-ordinator for Weston, Tom Longstaff expressed frustration that these drivers "are still flying through the village" due to insufficient punishment.
Projects such as Speedwatch lack the authority to issue formal punishments and can only send letters notifying drivers of their misdemeanours.
The community has therefore called for tougher action - campaigning for the introduction of Speed Indicator Devices (SIDs) and an increased use of speed camera vans by the police.
"We don't just want to stand there with a speed gun and send people gentle warnings" explained Mr. Longstaff, "we want something done about it".
Source
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| Comments
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 Posted by Philip on Wed Jan 02, 2013 6:41 pm |
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Such wide-spread non-compliance with the speed limit in Weston does raise the question of whether the limit has been set at a sensible level in the first place.
It's also impossible to know what to make of the story without a lot more information - the metric that 17,500 drivers exceeded the limit since 2009 does not tell us (a) how many vehicles went through the village in that time (so we don't know what percentage of drivers were in excess of the limit) or (b) how much was the mean speed over the limit - was it 1mph? 10mph? 100mph?
Even more important is that it's totally the wrong metric that's being reported. What we really need to know is how many accidents there have been in that village over the period, and for how many of those was excess speed the main causal factor.
Without a LOT more information it's a pretty meaningless story, trying to lead to a possibly incorrect conclusion (i.e. that greater enforcement is required, rather than that the limit needs to be reappraised).
Philip |
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| Posted by sussamb on Wed Jan 02, 2013 7:10 pm |
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Well regardless of the details far too many drivers IMHO are breaking the limit and something should indeed be done 
Where there's a will ... there's a way. |
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| Posted by DennisN on Wed Jan 02, 2013 7:44 pm |
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Setting aside arguments over how to check/enforce (Speedwatch is amateur), it begs the question as to whether speed enforcement should have to wait for accidents/KSIs to A) happen, B) reach proportions of greater than none.
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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| Posted by Philip on Wed Jan 02, 2013 7:56 pm |
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| DennisN Wrote: | | Setting aside arguments over how to check/enforce (Speedwatch is amateur), it begs the question as to whether speed enforcement should have to wait for accidents/KSIs to A) happen, B) reach proportions of greater than none. |
That's a totally fatuous argument - the reductio ad absurdum consequence would be that we'd reduce all speed limits to 0mph, because at any speed above that there will (given sufficient traffic or time) always be accidents.
Setting speed limits is always a trade-off between traffic flow and accident rates; I am not aware of any speed reduction scheme that realistically attempts to achieve a zero accident result.
The story as printed suggests that EITHER the current traffic limits need to be better enforced OR the existing speed limits need to be reappraised. It tells us nothing about which of these would be the correct course of action.
Philip |
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| Posted by Jaz666 on Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:04 pm |
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Something doesn't add up, entering the village from the East brings you in from the A51, where there are two 40mph Gatso cameras, from the West is the A518 which is NSL.
According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720 there was one accident within the 30mph village zone between 1999 and 2010.
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| Posted by DennisN on Wed Jan 02, 2013 8:24 pm |
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| Philip Wrote: | | DennisN Wrote: | | Setting aside arguments over how to check/enforce (Speedwatch is amateur), it begs the question as to whether speed enforcement should have to wait for accidents/KSIs to A) happen, B) reach proportions of greater than none. |
That's a totally fatuous argument - the reductio ad absurdum consequence would be that we'd reduce all speed limits to 0mph, because at any speed above that there will (given sufficient traffic or time) always be accidents. |
Ah yes, I had completely overlooked the good old reductio ad absurdum factor.
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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| Posted by M8TJT on Wed Jan 02, 2013 10:37 pm |
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One accident in 10 years  then WTH are they banging on about?
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| Posted by Andy_P on Thu Jan 03, 2013 2:14 am |
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| Philip Wrote: | | [color=darkblue]Such wide-spread non-compliance with the speed limit in Weston does raise the question of whether the limit has been set at a sensible level in the first place. (etc.) |
Well said, Phillip.
If indeed there has only been one accident in 10 year or more, it seems to indicate that a higher speed limit may be in order.
"Settling in nicely" ;-) |
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| Posted by DennisN on Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:28 am |
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From memory, Main Road, Weston, is not the world's most dodgy village road, no severe bends and reasonable width.
The statement of one accident between 1999-2010 is misleading. The linked page map doesn't show even one, but on the other hand, the page is about deaths, not accidents - it includes information which demonstrates that there are thousands of injuries for each death and hundreds of thousands of minor injuries, so if there is one recorded death, there will probably be a great number of other accidents.
We all seem to be forgetting that what these people are talking about is that they perceive that traffic passing through is going too fast - i.e. the residents feel threatened when traffic whizzes past. This is not like going to a racecourse, where visitors pay to witness and experience close encounters (trackside) with hurtling vehicles. This is outside people's homes - y'know, places where kids and pets live. Have we no memories of places where villagers perpetuate the myth that they are born and live their entire lives at one side of a road, simply because crossing the road is too difficult? StreetView shows not one single pedestrian crossing on the entire length of Main Road in the village. Have we forgotten how difficult it is to get a vehicle out onto a main road during rush hour, far less cross on foot?
Or are roads only for those who drive as fast as they wish? To my personal knowledge, there has not in the last 15 years been a vehicular killing outside the local school 100 yards from my house. Does that mean we should derestrict the speed limit? 
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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| Posted by Graculus on Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:12 am |
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| Philip Wrote: | | The story as printed suggests that EITHER the current traffic limits need to be better enforced OR the existing speed limits need to be reappraised. It tells us nothing about which of these would be the correct course of action. |
Or, if there is actually a problem, engineer the road to reduce traffic speeds. And I don't mean the Devil's own traffic-calming measure that are speed bumps. There are other ways of making traffic move slower.
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| Posted by sussamb on Thu Jan 03, 2013 8:18 am |
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Yeah, it's called people sticking to the speed limits
Where there's a will ... there's a way. |
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