Speed traps could be replaced with "fairer" cameras.

tomstickland

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3409713/Geoff-Hoon-Speed-traps-could-be-replaced-with-fairer-cameras.html

Rather amusing article which actually says nothing.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

They understand nothing about road safety. They're imbeciles.

It'll never happen anyway. If more motorists observe speed limits in SPECS controlled areas, that means less income in fines. Less income = no money to pay for system = no system.

Happychappy

So what in the "experts" opinion is the way to deal with vehicles speeding ?

Conor_3

More Traffic Police and increase the penalties.

tomstickland

There is an assumption made by many that speed is the root cause of the majority of accidents, so if you could only cut speeds then accidents wouldn't happen.

It might be true for some cases, but it's not an immutable law. For example, say that there's a junction on an A road where several accidents have occured due to vehicles pulling out. The current solution would be to place a 40mph limit on about 2 miles of the road, including featureless straights. When driving along said section, most people will think "what's this all about, I see no reason why it's necessary to do 40 here?". So they'll do, say, 50ish.
Many thousands of people would have used said road for decades without incident. Probably because as they approached the junction they'd look to see if any vehicles were there waiting to pull out and slow down to mitiagtate the risks. ie: They'd apply some basic intelligence to the situation. A blanket 40 limit would be the solution of dumbing down.

I can think of several places near me where blanket limits have been applied far too readily. It's very frustrating, and there's no susrpise that many just ignore the new limits.

anewman

Happychappy wrote: »

So what in the "experts" opinion is the way to deal with vehicles speeding ?

An enforced system installed in all cars which prevents speeding. http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicles/intelligentspeedadaptation/

The technology is there to prevent speeding and has been researched with lots of government funding, but why stop people speeding when you can fine them for it?! My cynical view is road charging will come in and all the boxes installed in people's cars. And then after a while, the data will be used to send speeding tickets out.

bargepole

anewman wrote: »

An enforced system installed in all cars which prevents speeding. http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicles/intelligentspeedadaptation/

The technology is there to prevent speeding and has been researched with lots of government funding, but why stop people speeding when you can fine them for it?! My cynical view is road charging will come in and all the boxes installed in people's cars. And then after a while, the data will be used to send speeding tickets out.

More poorly thought out garbage from those in power who want to monitor and restrict every free action by the people who vote for them.

What's needed is mass civil disobedience; if everyone refused to pay fixed penalty tickets, and made them go to court, and also refused to have anything to do with their insidious black boxes for road charging/speed monitoring, the whole corrupt system would grind to a halt.

Generali

bargepole wrote: »

More poorly thought out garbage from those in power who want to monitor and restrict every free action by the people who vote for them.

What's needed is mass civil disobedience; if everyone refused to pay fixed penalty tickets, and made them go to court, and also refused to have anything to do with their insidious black boxes for road charging/speed monitoring, the whole corrupt system would grind to a halt.

Out of interest, do you think there should be speed limits?

Altarf

tomstickland wrote: »

For example, say that there's a junction on an A road where several accidents have occured due to vehicles pulling out. The current solution would be to place a 40mph limit on about 2 miles of the road, including featureless straights. When driving along said section, most people will think "what's this all about, I see no reason why it's necessary to do 40 here?". So they'll do, say, 50ish.
Many thousands of people would have used said road for decades without incident. Probably because as they approached the junction they'd look to see if any vehicles were there waiting to pull out and slow down to mitiagtate the risks. ie: They'd apply some basic intelligence to the situation. A blanket 40 limit would be the solution of dumbing down.

So what would your solution to the dangerous junction be, other than reminding the unintelligent to slow down with a speed limit?

anewman

Generali wrote: »

Out of interest, do you think there should be speed limits?

Speed limits are actually a bad thing IMO as they give the impression that that speed is safe no matter what, when in actual fact you need to take care to adapt your speed as appropriate to the conditions. I can think of numerous national limit single track roads where you're guaranteed to die travelling at 60mph.

tomstickland

Altarf wrote: »

So what would your solution to the dangerous junction be, other than reminding the unintelligent to slow down with a speed limit?

Something that actually focusses on the problem, not insults the intelligence of the other 99.99% who use the road.

Now, ideally, this would be an attitude and education based thing. Like, don't assume that driving is ever totally safe; pay attention; observe; think. Also for those pulling out of said junction, make more effort of estimate the speed of approaching vehicles.

The road layout itself might not be ideal.

Declutter the roads of their pointless signs, but use warning signs where there is a real risk. So a "dangerous junction" sign.

We need to move away from the lazy assumption that "accidents just happen". One or both parties will have made a mistake.

I detest the hang wringing and laziness associated with the calls that "something must be done" and the resulting inappropriate solutions.