Avon and Somerset introduces motorbike cameras

[Darren]

Avon and Somerset have introduced three police motorbikes equipped with mobile speed cameras to patrol the force area.

Police Officers will be able to park up and deploy the tripod mounted cameras at locations where mobile speed cameras could not operate.

Costing £50,000, the motorbikes join the existing fleet of nine camera vans which already catch more than 66,000 motorists each year. Avon and Somerset's fixed speed cameras, turned off as a cost saving measure on 2011, are also to be reactivated.

Source: WesternDailyPress.co.uk
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Darren Griffin

[Guivre46]

If they were turned off to save costs, then they cannot have been vital for safety. So how do they justify reactivating them?

Edit: The van in the background with 'Thrifty' on it is more than ironic.
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Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
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[DennisN]

Those mobile vans must be worth their weight in gold. 9 vans, 66,000 per year = approx 7,333 per van per year. At £60 a throw, that's not far short of half a million per van per year. No wonder they can afford a few new bikes at £50,000, with the prospect of them earning their bit too.

Makes you wonder how it was possible to decide the fixed cameras weren't earning their keep - surely a mere 1,000 caught would clear the costs? But wasn't it to do with the money not going to the cameras, but to HM Government?
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[Guivre46]

'I'm getting a cat flap for my whippet'

Shouldn't that be a flat cap? I know, I know.....that was the whole point of the line - shoot me.

There is no peace in a home where a dinner swells....
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Mike R [aka Wyvern46]
Go 530T - unsupported
Go550 Live [not renewed]
Kia In-dash Tomtom

[lenfish]

Saw one of these for the first time near Leeds the other day.

Len

[DennisN]

[TieJustice]

The problem with fixed cameras not making any money is every one knows where they are( unless your not local ) and what you will see is every one slow down when they see them then speed off after passing them.

What would really work in the UK is the US cameras that are built into every police car that can be used then there moving,

Take it from me when I was stopped at 42kph in a 40 zone nice police man let me off with a warning, I did not notice the ghost van coming at me was a police van with this equipment.

UK has defiantly gone to the dogs when it comes to speeding and mobile use.

[Wazza_G]

But we all know why and that it's an easy way to raise revenue, that's all cameras are & all they ever will be.
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Be alert.. This country needs more lerts.

[sussamb]

You could argue it's only easy because too many people break the speed limit, if folks didn't it wouldn't make any money

Normally too you need to be at the limit + 10% + 2mph so it's folks well over the limit, if they backed off a tad revenue would drop and there would be far fewer accidents.

[Wazza_G]

No, I disagree.

If you dealt with the idiots who do UNDER the limit and when I say that I mean pillocks who do 40 on a 60 or 70mph dual carriageway/Motorway or 20 in a 30/40 zone, who cause frustration for those who'll do the limit & maybe a tiny bit more, the same as those who do well OTT, then we might get somewhere.

It's the slow ones who're just as dangerous to road users as those who go wayyy too fast.

Also you need to change the rules on mobile phone usage at the wheel, in that instead of just getting a fine for using a handheld mobile you not only get a fine & points for doing so, but you also get some time off the road in the form of a ban of a month or so for a first offence, 6 months for the second, 1 year for the third, get caught a 4th time it becomes a permanent ban from the road.

Anyway I digress, there's a world of difference between doing 40 mph past a school at chuck out or start time & doing 40 mph at 2am, when no one's around or during a school holiday. A police officer should have full discretion on whether to issue a penalty or whether to give you a right b0ll0cking instead.

I was caught doing 40 in a 30 at 2300, all I got was a right b0ll0cking, but some others will just instantly give you an instant fine.
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Be alert.. This country needs more lerts.

[sussamb]

Well I agree with all you've said. I was just saying that the only reason it's a revenue maker is because folks are over the speed limit

[DennisN]

[DennisN]

[M8TJT]

No, it's not the people who do 20MPH in a 30 zone or 40 in a 60 or 70MPH limit who cause the accidents. Don' blame the careful driver for the accident, blame the impatient behind who must just overtake when it's not safe to do so. People who bang on about careful drivers get up my nose.

[DennisN]

Some impatient censored overtook me this evening pulling out of Morrisons, we were both turning right and he jumped across the opposite side of the mini roundabout I was negotiating and shot off up the residential 20mph zone doing at least 30, probably more. And pulled into his driveway 300 yards up the road! Even Vera thought he was a censored. Censored. The sad thing is the fact that such a large proportion of accidents happen within a short distance of home - if his children or nephews and nieces were out playing, he might well have mown them down.
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

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