Speed trap, flashing headlights offence?

moonrakerz

"Interesting to read in today's paper that Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman has admitted to having a speed camera detector fitted in his car"

Not surprised to read that - did you also know that the upcoming ban on smoking will not apply to the bars and restauarnts within the Houses of Parliament ?

Don't do as I do ............................

rdwarr

moonrakerz wrote:

.... - did you also know that the upcoming ban on smoking will not apply to the bars and restauarnts within the Houses of Parliament ?

Don't do as I do ............................

I don't think they made the law explicitly to say that
It just happens that the Houses of Parliament are a Royal Palace and thus exempt from normal legislation.

110frankie

>>>idependant organisations estimate that accidents where people were exceeding the speed limit represent somewhere between 2 & 3% of all accidents<<<

So between 97 and 98 per cent of accidents are caused by non-speeders? So shouldn't those be the ones being chased, not the speeders?

oh, and speeding cars don't kill pedestrians by the way. Pedestrians walking into the road in front of cars kill pedestrians. Yet jaywalking is not illegal.

exil

Police estimates are more like 30% of accidents where speed is the primary cause.

Look - the laws of physics mean that if you drive at 60 instead of 30
- your breaking distance is now 4 times longer, so you're more likely to hit something.
- when you hit something, the energy of collision (and hence any consequent
damage to other vehicles, occupants or pedestrians) is 4 times as great.

Anybody who says excessive speed is not dangerous is talking through their exhaust pipe.

"Speeding cars don't kill pedestrians". Not always, but if you hit a pedestrian at 60
you will turn them into raspberry jam. If you hit them at 30 they may well survive.

Twopints

aussielle wrote:

Interesting to read in today's paper that Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman has admitted to having a speed camera detector fitted in his car

But not surprising - he has had 9 points on his licence from previous speeding offences. The lesson he has learnt from this is not to stop speeding but to make sure he doesn't get caught again.

An unreconstructed speeder as minister for transport; what next a robber as Chancellor ?

moonrakerz

"Police estimates are more like 30% of accidents where speed is the primary cause."

As I said before this is a totally meaningless figure, put out purely to justify all the speed cameras. If every motorist obeyed the speed limit there would be only a 2 or 3% drop in road accidents. In fact there might even be an increase, because of the bunching of traffic caused.


Excessive speed IS dangerous but all those speed cameras which have sprung up ONLY catch people exceeding the posted speed limit, NOT those driving within the speed limit but at an excessive speed for that bit of road/weather conditions etc, etc.

Tahiti

Twopints wrote:

But not surprising - he has had 9 points on his licence from previous speeding offences. The lesson he has learnt from this is not to stop speeding but to make sure he doesn't get caught again.

An unreconstructed speeder as minister for transport; what next a robber as Chancellor ?

I saw him on Top Gear a while back. At the time, he was driving an Alfa as his every day car and admitted that he speeds. At least he's honest on that front.

Oh and as for police figures saying 30% of accidents are as a result of speeding... I am playing devil's advocate, but for every piece of data you find to support that, there will be just as much to call it a figment of someones imagination.

The fact that a camera close to me was installed after there were 12 casualties on the particular stretch of road in three years (and one of those was from someone commiting suicide by jumping from a bridge that crossed the road) just frustrates me. I wonder how many more of the other casualties were people injured by tripping on curb stones, or falling over in the street when pis*ed rather than as a result of speeding drivers??

Prove to me beyond all reasonable doubt that speed cameras save lives rather than simply make money and I'll support them. Except on Motorways where I maintain that the speed limit should be raised anyway.

moonrakerz

The trouble with speed limits and their cameras is that they are totally inflexible.

The main road through my village used to be unrestricted, ie: 60mph. Because of a small minority of lunatics on this road we campaigned, and paid towards a speed limit to be put in place. The road is now 40mph and people are getting "done" for driving through above this speed; I have to say I think this is rough justice, the road is safe at 50, probably safe at 60.
The week before the signs were put up a radar trap caught someone at 106 mph; it is idiots like this man who has now ended up by getting lots of "innocent" motorists fined and given points for exceeding what is an artificially low limit.

We need far more of the old fashioned traffic police around, not more cameras, what few police we do see now are hiding in the bushes taking your photograph.


"Prove to me beyond all reasonable doubt that speed cameras save lives rather than simply make money and I'll support them. Except on Motorways where I maintain that the speed limit should be raised anyway."

Totally , totally, 100% agree !

catkins

rdwarr wrote:

It goes to show that, regardless of how many children are killed on our roads, speeding is still not considered a crime in the same league as drunk driving. If you saw somebody burgling a house you wouldn't warn him if the police were coming, so why should an offence that kills far more people than housebreaking be treated differently?

It is obvious you are brainwashed by the lying Camera Partnerships or you work for them. IF it was all about safety these cameras would be in every side road where exceeding the limit by 1MPH should be an offence. The problem with that is that they would not make money. The figures used by camera groups are misleading and emotive. Did you know a broken finger is a serious injury!? There are documented cases where cameras increase accidents.

Mark7799

Taking a slightly different analogy to the 'housebreaker' scenario posted earlier, are these cameras there to slow people down or to raise money? If someone flashes their lights and gets a motorist travelling in the opposite direction to slow down then surely they have done the job the speed camera was trying to do - how can this be an obstruction of a police officer's duty.

(That is unless the real purpose of the cameras is not to get people to slow down but to catch them speeding and raise money from fines levied :rolleyes: )