New Police Bike with Speed Camera

[AndyMac]

Speed cameras are evil.

I could rant about this for some time but I shan't.

I got a ticket for doing 60mph in a 40mph zone on the A605 past Thrapston on 27th June 2004. First ever ticket in 9 years of driving. I thought "Oh pants must have missed that one" when the ticket came. Then I had need to use the same stretch of road a few weeks later. That stretch is uphill away from a roundabout, no houses nearby, no signs after the roundabout (where reminders are usually placed) I had accelerated up the hill in my shockingly poor performing Ford Ka! and went through it!

The point is - why is the speed limit 40mph on a single carriageway A road with no houses nearby?

Answer, several years ago, there was 1 fatal accident which occured when a car pulled into the road from a semi-disused track to a farm outbuilding and was T-boned by another car.

So, everyone is now having to crawl due to one accident! Ridiculous.

Would it not be more sensible to spend the huge governemnt revenues from motorists (3/4 of the total cost of petrol, 5% of the cost of insurance, company car tax, waste tyre disposal tax, Road tax) on improving the road infrastructure to remove the accident black-spots, pull out the cameras and let people drive in peace.

PS - A1(M) stretch from Peterborough down to Alconbury, that is what a road should be like. 4 lanes, clear, clean, straight and smooth. Excellent!

[Dave]

[SHC]

I have been nabbed and sent to a "speed seminar" instead of £60 and 3 points. I have to say it was a good presentation and I have modified my driving.
However, how can it be fair to be done at 48 in a 40 at the exact point the limit changes from 70 to 40 on an empty duel carrigeway in perfect conditions? (the white van was partially hidden by its position in the shrubbery!)
The other effect it has is I now spend more time looking at my speedo than the road ahead.

[Berisford]

SHC....I was caught by a Humberside white van 10 days ago, 36 in a 30, (I'm not a serial speeder, it was 8.00am on a Saturday, van parked just inside the 30 after a 60 stretch) my first offence in 32 years!

I've not been offered the lecture, does it come with the NIP or after from Humberside?

Or is 36 considered too serious for a lecture?

(I used to pride myself on my good observation but this was well hid! Or happen I'm getting too old. I often use a 2210 and TT3 in the car with the database but last Saturday I was out on my bike. It's not practical / waterproof enough.)

[SHC]

Beresford...once you have sent off the form verifying you were the driver you may be offered a speed seminar... or not. It seems to be about 50:50 talking to friends. Hope you are lucky!

[Eeyore]

Not too long ago I saw the guys from Top Gear ranting about the same subject. Amongst others they reported that at several/many of the worst known accident blackspots there are no/hardly any speedcams (the cameras that could be used there are apparantly being used at more moneymaking sites).

Assuming that information is true it sheds some interesting light on the discussion.



8)

[Lampman]

With all the hi tech now available surely it would be a simple and relatively cheap exercise to fit roadside transmitters ,these would transmit to the onboard receiver and tell the driver what speed zone he was in.Call me an old dodderer,but half the time whilst out of my local area,I don't always realise what the speed limit is in a particular area.I would be interested in seeing if the speed fine stats were then lower.

[Privateer]

Hi Lampman,

[NMatthew]

I had a rather frustrating speed camera experience this weekend that I think has a bearing on these discussions. I had need to travel the A14 from Kettering down to Cambridge on Saturday morning.

At Junction 8 of the A14 there is a speed camera that is widely known by the locals and its existence is advertised by warning signs. At that point the A14 is a de-restricted dual carriageway and the camera is at a point just on a bend passing a the junction. I can believe that the blind slip road on to the A14 can be a difficult spot, with traffic joining a busy road. I do not know the accident history there, but there may be a benfit it slowing traffic on the A14 just there.

However, what happens in practice as you approach the site of the camera is that drivers on the A14 hit their brakes and traffic bunches up making for a hazard in itself. It happened to me this weekend, as I am pootling along at 70 mph at a reasonable distance from the guy in front who is doing a similar speed. He sees the camera, slams the anchors on - apparently without checking his mirrors - slows to 60 mph and goes past the camera. Once past his speed increase back to 70 mph. Now, while I was in no great danger, being a safe distance behind him, I also had to slow. Idiot. Does this guy not know the speed limit? Or maybe he doesn't know how fast he's going and overreacted. Or both?

And this was not an isolated incident. On the same journey, on the A14 between Huntingdon and the M11 there are many cameras. I followed a woman in a Ford Ka the entire way. At each camera she slowed from 70 to 60 and then back up to 70. Do people really think the cameras are set 10 mph BELOW the speed limit? And she wasn't alone, I could see it happening on the way back too.

Funnily enough I think that the A14 in that area has benefitted from the cameras. It's a busy road and the best throughput would be achieved if everyone does the same speed, and does not change lane. The cameras bring that ideal a bit closer. You don't get so much stop/start and it flows better.

So, it seems to me a real problem that people do not know the speed limits. I think the camera warning signs should be more explicit and state what the limit is - and there should be more of them. Educate the idiots who slam on the anchors (unless we can scrap the cameras entirely).

There is a part of the A5 where it crosses the A444 that the de-restricted signs have been removed (when a camera went in). The only signs are three miles away in each direction. Now, many drivers creep past at 40 mph even though the limit is 60 mph. I suspect the sign removal was deliberate. As you follow someone who sees the camera you can almost see them wonder "what's the limit?". This is a worse situation than the A14.

Neil
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Audi TT Coupe Quattro
BMW 535d M Sport Touring

[robpow]

Not convinced about the limping argument that "nobody slows down thanks to speed cameras and the government just makes money of them".

I avoid speeding while driving and therefore don't get caught by the speedtraps, so there, proof that they work!

Also, isn't it so that the fines have to go back to road safety and policing and not to the governments coffers?

[phillos]

I find that in many cases speed cameras seem to cause traffic problems and in some cases hazards, themselves as a result of people slowing down going past them. Whilst I accept that some drivers do set out to deliberately break the limit, speeding up immediately after the camera, it seems to me that in many cases people are unaware of the limit at that point and thus slow down to 30mph (this being the lowest speed that cameras tend to be used for) - even if the limit (and camera) is higher than this. This is often as much a result of poor signage as much as driver awareness. I frequently have to break sharply from the correct speed as the car in front sees a camera at the last minute and slows to 30 'just in case'.

It strikes me that if the camera operators are serious in placing cameras to reduce accidents rather than make money, then why not publicise the speed limit better? Whilst driving recently in Holland where there are a vast number of Gatso (they did invent them after all), I noticed that they all appeared to have the speed limit painted on the back of each camera. This seems to be a pretty obvious (and low cost) solution, and I think it would go a long way to reducing this growing hazard along with generally increasing the awareness of the speed limit. Taking it a bit further, perhaps the best system would be for one of the speed measurement signs to be placed a short distance before the camera.....the idea being that the speed sign alerts the driver that they are over the speed limit....should this be ignored then they get caught by the camera. Obviously this increases the cost of the overall installation, but I’m sure there would be plenty available from the camera fines.

[SHC]

I too have travelled in Holland. There are several areas when you leave the A4 (Den Haag to Amsterdam) where if you exceed the limit you are warned visually, if you dont slow down there is a gatso a little further down the road.
speed signage is also better. The council here painted 30mph signs on the roads where cameras are active, the DOT told the council to remove them as "drivers should know the limit" (Built up, street light spacing etc)
I cant see the problem with extra signage if it helps, at least if the speed limit is very obvious you cant complain if you get caught. Trouble is we have several dual carrigeways which change from 40 to 30 and thats where the mobile cameras are parked. When the road itself is the same you can easily miss the sign and not realise that the limit has dropped.

[russgunn]

I too have slowed down considerably over the past few years. In fact it co-insided with the birth of my first child. Now that I have two young kids I'm very aware of how badly and fast others drive. On my own I still take the odd risk though. Not bad driving I hasten to add, as I don't consider exceeding the speed limit on a open motorway, in the dry and at in the daylight as bad driving. Under no circumstances do I speed in built up areas. I'm all for driving to the conditions and I think safety cameras should be remotely adjusted as per these conditions. Some 70mph limit locations can become 40mph limits when the weather turns bad or the traffic is heavy. The fact that the speed limit doesn't change during these periods maks a mockery of the system in my opinion. The Germans have been running flexible speed limits on their major roads for many years with no problems.

In relation to whether safety cameras are deemed as money making devices- let me tell you that I work in that industry, in supplying the film for the cameras and most police forces do consider them just that!

[Kirium]

I have read this topic with interest, seeing both sides of the argument intelligently put has made good reading.

At this point i would like to open myself up for abuse as a company car driver... No it isn't a vectra :D its a Laguna II 2.0 Turbo.

I cover approx 30k in a year, and for me these cameras are a complete bain. Talk about paranoid. The last ticket I received was for driving at 46mph in a 30 zone at 8.45am on a saturday morning in 1992. Not a thing since (more luck than judgement I think :D ), and i speed. Anyone who says they don't is, in my opinion, telling porkies. It is physically impossible to make a journey of any real distance (i.e not the corner shops) without inadvertently exceeding the speed limit. As we've read by as little as 10% is enough to get you a GATSO ticket in some places. A "real" cop will give you an error of 10% + 2mph before he will issue a ticket.

I have several good friends in the Police Force (I nearly joined them !) one of which is a traffic PC (the other in Armed Response) and both have commented on the fact that public support and perception of the police has plummented hand in hand with the increase of these speed cameras. My friend in Traffic has commented on the ritual abuse he receives from members of the public in social situations (some of which I have witnessed) solely based on Speed Cameras... His opinion of them ?? strictly of the record ... they are money making devices that have little or no effect on speeding or speeders, his words not mine.

Lets not forget the PC on the street has no input on whether these devices are used or where they are, but they take the brunt public opinion. Most "coppers" don't want them, its unfortunate that the ones that do we will never meet.

Do I agree with them ?, no i dont, not only do they persecute motorists (who doesn't these days) they don't work. People still speed and always will do, in my opinion speed doesn't kill, accidents do. Its the fact that a driver (somewhere along the line) made a bad decision, whether it was to exceed the speed limit or to pull out or to overtake. Its starts with a bad choice, made by a driver. Thats where the problem lies, to educate drivers in what was a bad decision or not takes policemen in cars on the roads.... NOT a Camera
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