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We've had them here in Wiltshire ever since the fixed sites were 'turned off'. Nothing to fear - just keep your eyes open!!
 
how long before the entire camera network is handed over to a private company?

The infrastructure is in place, these councils are not removing the cameras, they are just putting bags over them - if they were intending to get rid of them surely they would have started taking the cameras away?

To me it looks a lot like the councils are playing power games with the government - you cut our funds and we'll turn off one of your revenue streams.

Call me a cynic but I don't expect cameras to be going away anytime soon.

We can also expect to see a rise in hidden camera vans - which is worse?
 
There are 4 fixed speed cameras in the whole of Northern Ireland. They've been there about 10 years. Do they have an effect on accidents etc...doubtful.

But, the road death fatalities are running not only at the lowest ever...but are less than half of what they were to the same period last year and that was a good year. Better cars, roads and education resulted in these figures, not the reduction in accidents at the 4 fixed sites. In 1974 372 people died on the roads of NI, 2 years ago it was 106 this year it will probably be about 50-60...when records began in 1934 it was 117.

If you apply the statistics to the figures, then if the road death per cars on the road had continued then to-day, with 10 times the cars on the roads as was the case in 1974, 3720 pa would die. The reductions are not only very good they are absolutely amazing.

I see that other regions are also experiencing record low. Long may it continue.
 
how long before the entire camera network is handed over to a private company?

The infrastructure is in place, these councils are not removing the cameras, they are just putting bags over them - if they were intending to get rid of them surely they would have started taking the cameras away?

To me it looks a lot like the councils are playing power games with the government - you cut our funds and we'll turn off one of your revenue streams.

Call me a cynic but I don't expect cameras to be going away anytime soon.

We can also expect to see a rise in hidden camera vans - which is worse?

As they said, they left its there as a deterrent. As there is no funding for fixed cameras, there will be no funding for mobile too, I believe.

Who is going to do it if the fines go straight to the treasury and not local authorities? This is one of the spending challenge in the coalition, it a total waste of money when it does nothing to reduce accidents but created more due to impulse braking in vicinity of fixed cameras.
 
it a total waste of money when it does nothing to reduce accidents but created more due to impulse braking in vicinity of fixed cameras.

not all of the cameras are a waste of time - the one they installed on our local bypass had a drastic effect on serious accidents.

From four fatalities in three years to zero fatalities (or even accidents at that spot) in the last five years suggests something has worked.

It always amazes me that people are willing to slow down to save a few quid but are happy to drive stupidly and kill themselves
 
The problem is not that speed cameras exist but that the majority of them are misused. eg: Brighton and Hove.

Isn't having a massive metal structure in 'an accident blackspot' a very bad thing?

by the way, how do those trap detector gadgets work?
 
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I can remember Brighton and Hove before the cameras - the plod used to hide behind trees and all sorts trying to catch you just as you entered a 30 zone :(. At least with the big yellow boxes you get a chance to see them.

In the case of the camera here, the 'massive metal structure' that you refer to is a camera on a pole behind an Armco barrier situated about 100 yards before the blackspot.

No idea how the trap detectors work, I rely on the satnav and the roadside speed limit signs :)
 
Serve you right.

Speed cameras have caused 28,000 accidents in a decade | Mail Online

Without its, there would be 28,000 less accidents.



Just because it is in the Fail doesn't mean it's true :)

However, you have quoted it, so please explain to me how have they arrived at that figure?

The way I see it.....

They took a sample of more than 1500 motorists who had witnessed an accident OR a near miss - so the near misses don't count as part of the figures so how many accidents did their sample group witness? We don't know so there is no point to that survey.

They then quote another estimated figure from the DFT then go on to assume that of that estimated 2.7 million, their random, vague, unsubstantiiated sample estimates that 27,900 of those were caused by speed cameras whilst in their first paragraph it says more than 28,000.

Other than the ICM figure of 1% - all of the rest is meaningless drivel

Why anybody even reads the Fail amazes me, why they actually believe it enough to quote it simply is beyond me :)

oh and 1% of 2.7 million is 27,000 not 27,900 or even more than 28,000
 
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Just because it is in the mail doesn't mean it's true :)

However, you have quoted it, so please excplain to me how have they arrived at that figure?

The way I see it.....

They took a sample of more than 1500 motorists who had witnessed an accident OR a near miss - so the near misses don't count as part of the figures so how many accidents did their sample group witness? We don't know so there is no point to that survey.

They then quote another estimated figure from the DFT then go on to assume that of that estimated 2.7 million, their random, vague, unsubstantiiated sample estimates that 27,900 of those were caused by speed cameras whilst in their first paragraph it says more than 28,000.

Other than the ICM figure of 1% - all of the rest is meaningless drivel

Why anybody even reads the Fail amazes me, why they actually believe it enough to quote it simply is beyond me :)

oh and 1% of 2.7 million is 27,000 not 27,900 or even more than 28,000

are you sticking up for speed cameras ?????????????????????
 
Surely it's not the camera, but the driver's panicked reaction to it, that represents an accident risk. If drivers learned to read the road ahead and act accordingly, this would cease to be a problem. One day, perhaps...
 
are you sticking up for speed cameras ?????????????????????

In some cases they serve a purpose - I don't think that can be disproved.

I'm not sticking up for speed cameras, but I would rather see big yellow boxes on poles, with big signs warning you where they are at fixed locations where anybody with eyes can actually see them or anybody with a sat nav can download the latest positions than go back to the bad old days where police teams would hide behind trees, in people's drives, between cars etc etc in order to catch motorists.

So, no defence for speed cameras but no defence for crap sensationalist, poorly researched and badly written 'journalism'.
 
Whilst I agree that cameras are a cash cow for the government I'm also of the opinion, as are others it seems, that if people abide by the law, they don't get caught. The 3 points on my licence, whilst entirely my fault were from a hidden camera van (there was no justification to put a static camera there as there are never any accidents there). I was very distracted at the time, but had it been a big yellow box and marks on the road i would have had plenty of time to slow down. If even half of the yellow boxes became mobile camera vans the amount of people caught would go through the roof imo.

If you drive safely, you won't get fined. After that day, if I'm even slightly distracted or have things on my mind, I make a conscious effort to check my speedo more often than normal (probably unsafe in itself but there you go)

For anyone who is interested - the stretch of road I speak of is where the Princess Parkway A5081 in Manchester turns into the M56 (ish) and the 40 limit all the way down remains so even when well past anything remotely residential. The bit between the two bridges is where this bugger was hiding. Why its 40 is still beyond me, maybe because it makes so much money?
 
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without wishing to start a fight, but i don't understand the amount of effort people seem to take checking their speed.

There is no need to 'constantly look at the speedo' to drive a car at any set speed. You can hear the engine note. You know what gear you are in, you should know what speed you are driving at etc.

Manufacturers go to great lengths to make the dials visible why do some drivers struggle with the concept of glancing down? Do they have the same problem with the rear view mirror?

Every one of us (hopefully) here managed to do it on our driving tests when we were relative novices why does it become so difficult afterwards.

There is much more to driving a car than pressing a pedal and pointing it where you want to go :)
 
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There is no need to 'constantly look at the speedo' to drive a car at any set speed. You can hear the engine note. You know what gear you are in, you should know what speed you are driving at etc.

Might be true in an Alfa. In my Merc estate, with silky smooth 7 speed auto it's damned hard to hear the engine let alone guess what gear it's in :)
 
without wishing to start a fight, but i don't understand the amount of effort people seem to take checking their speed.

Ahh... Well if you happen to drive a 5 litre V8 and have been done by a speed camera for 35mph then you'll understand. :eek:

Now that all camera proceeds go to central government, local councils are protesting by taking the camera out of action... not that they had anything to do with the proceeds of course.
 
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Ahh... Well if you happen to drive a 5 litre V8 and have been done by a speed camera for 35mph then you'll understand. :eek:

I did drive a 5.4 litre V8 and managed to not get caught doing 35 mph :devil:

I've also driven 3.5 litre V8s, a 7 litre V8, a 4.5 litre V8, 3.2 litre straight sixes and a 3.0 litre V6 all of which I managed to avoid (so far) getting caught by cameras :)
 

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