Helpless Speed Cameras Witness Huge Increase in Speeding

[RobBrady]

The Independent has reported that many of Oxford's drivers have reverted to their old habits of speeding now that they think that their local speed cameras have stopped spying on them.

The thing is, two of the cameras haven't actually stopped. For a five-day test period the gatsos were left running just to see whether the widely publicised switch-off gave carte blanche to drivers to start speeding again.

The drivers won't actually face prosecution as the initiative was purely a test - a test that caught 110 drivers travelling at more than 35mph along the 30mph A44 Woodstock Road. That's a whopping 18% more than those caught during an average seven day period.

The recent decommissioning of Oxford's cameras were blamed on government funding cuts. Oxfordshire had to cut £13m from its overall budget.
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Robert Brady

[h5djr]

But were there any more accidents.....

Or was the traffic just going a little faster.
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Dave R (h5djr)

TomTom XL + Audi A3 (with navigation)

[Wazza_G]

They can't tell you that... It's commercially sensitive information.

[Guivre46]

If I can do the maths [not my strong point - see other posts], then they logged 110 drivers exceeding 35 mph, when normally they log 90. In my distant recollection of statistics, I think these numbers lack statistical significance ie too small to draw a firm conclusion.

"Huge increase" seems a bit strong.
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Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
Go 530T - unsupported
Go550 Live [not renewed]
Kia In-dash Tomtom

[Skippy]

[BigPerk]

I agree with the sentiment about careless use of statistics, especially in the hands of the ill-informed or ill-intentioned, but I'm not sure of the criticism here. The original quote says

[M8TJT]

[BigPerk]

Ahh, I should've gone to specsavers, M8TJT (and so should whoever wrote the article in the first place). I reckon that to be an increase of just under 12% per day, a bit different from the 18% originally quoted. So Skippy's certainly right about 'damned lies and statistics...' (especially in the hands of journalists, who usually qualify as both ill-informed AND ill-intentioned! )
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David
(Navigon 70 Live, Nuvi 360)

[M8TJT]

Pardon? They caught 110 people in 5 days (22/day) where they caught 90 people in a 7 day period 12.85/day). That's an increase of a little over 71% (if my maths is correct). Why didn't they junp on this rather more sensational figure? Perhaps they also thought that it did not pass the 'SO WHAT?' test.

[Guivre46]

Over such a short period the numbers are not a good statistical sample. I'd suggest they take Sept/Oct/Nov number and compare it to the same period last year. Also the spread of speeds clocked would be interesting, and any accident information, such as day of week time of day, and whether vehicular, pedestrian, motorcycle, pedal cycle etc.

As has been said "instant' news drives stories, real information takes too long.
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Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
Go 530T - unsupported
Go550 Live [not renewed]
Kia In-dash Tomtom

[M8TJT]

[DennisN]

[Skippy]

[Guivre46]

[OrangeJuiceMan]

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