Villagers Catch 17,500 Speeders - Claim More Action Needed

[RobBrady]

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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Robert Brady

[Philip]

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).
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Philip

[sussamb]

Well regardless of the details far too many drivers IMHO are breaking the limit and something should indeed be done

[DennisN]

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.
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[Philip]

[Jaz666]

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.

[DennisN]

[M8TJT]

[Andy_P]

[DennisN]

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?
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[Graculus]

[sussamb]

Yeah, it's called people sticking to the speed limits

[M8TJT]

I can't understand why people find it necessary to change the font colour of posts to one that makes them more difficult to read

[M8TJT]

[Philip]

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