Traffic Camera's

kuohu

nives316 wrote:

I keep to the speed limit and am generally a good driver but in one journey got penalised for the slightest mistakes...

"..generally a good driver.." yet in one single journey caught for two separate violations. How many go uncaught when driving around provincial towns/cities with less cameras?

Those fines look steep though.

RAMBLER

I'll be honest - I am not the perfect driver.

I approve of speed camera's especially around schools, hospitals and any accident sites.

They should be in clear site - to deter the speeding motorist and make them slow down.

However the use of hidden,or where there are no warning signs, camera's can only be there to make profit.

hjb123

I dont like speed cameras either but if I get caught I accept it and pay up (only happened to me once over 3 years since now).

But the thing you have to think about is why the speed cameras are there (other than making lots of money). I dont see why there has to be warning signs for speed cameras - if you get caught on a speed camera you have been going over the legal speed limit. If you dont break the limit the camera wont get you!

MarkyMarkD

24 hour 7 day bus lanes drive me mad - there's no need for most bus lanes outside rush hours (and that's the rush hour in the relevant direction).

But, when they put in sensible bus lanes, 99% of the numpty drivers won't use them even when they are not in effect - dumbing down to the lowest denominator I suppose leads councils to think that it's "easier" to have them effective 24 hours.

fox2319

The thing that annoys me about cameras is that they take the common sense out of enforcement.

What the OP did in the bus lane sounds sensible enough. What if traffic going the other way was stopped because all the traffic had bunched up behind the right turner and blocked a right turner going the other way?

The whole point of these things should be to make the roads safer not to cash in, we've got enough taxation already thank you!

So far I've had 2 fines imposed by camera:
1 - Speeding on an empty dual carriage way on a clear summers day. I was going downhill round a slight bend and got caught as I wasn't concentrating on the speedo for a mo. Fair enough I thought, if it's an accident blackspot - It wasn't! The website said a camera had been put there because more than 50% of motorists exceeded the speed limit on that stretch. Safety Camera my A$$ <sigh>

2 - Aldi car park. Fined for parking for 4 hrs when only 1.5 allowed. I wasn't, I dropped into the car park twice for 5 mins approx 4 hours apart. During this little escapade I found out that the DVLA will sell your data to anyone. Data Protection bedamned! I won this one on appeal but only after a lot of hassle (I was away on business when the letter arrived and it worried the OH a helluva lot)

Altarf

MarkyMarkD wrote:

But, when they put in sensible bus lanes, 99% of the numpty drivers won't use them even when they are not in effect - dumbing down to the lowest denominator I suppose leads councils to think that it's "easier" to have them effective 24 hours.

Unless I know the area I will never use bus lanes. In the past a bus lane tended to have the same restrictions along the whole length, but now they vary along the whole length, so it is too easy to get caught out unless you pay too much attention to the signs. On a road in a local town, the whole mile long bus lane is Monday to Saturday daytimes, except a 20 foot stretch that is 7 days 24 hours.

In another local town there is a 24 hour bus lane that at least 25% of drivers ignore on a Sunday. So to turn into the retail park that is off this road legally, you have to stop in the outside lane of the dual carriageway and let the illegal drivers past, and then turn across. And in the 10 years of visiting this town I have never (no not once) seen a bus on this road.

Paul1_2

Safety cameras, if only they were about actually making our roads safer, sadly all of the research I have seen doesn't back this up. We really need a rethink about how and where these cameras are used.

Example: road near myself has a high accident rate, the road is 7 miles long. Fixed camera point over the brow of a hill, this is a few yards after a change to 30 from a downhill national speed limit section and the warning signs for the change in speed are obscured by bushes that the coucil doesn't cut back. Has there been any accidents at this point? not in 25 years, the reason the road is a blackspot is 6 miles away at a very poorly designed junction with a dual carriage way. So this is about safety?

The use of 20mph zones at schools, fully agree with these (not that you could do anything more than 20 at most schools when the schools are loading). Why are these zones 24/7? In the US zones are lit and active when schools intake and exit pupils, drivers respect them (most of us have children somewhere in our families) and it's much safer.

I have seen speed traps on the one near me at night, presumably this keeps the kids that have to do 6-8 hours detention safe (school is infants and closes at 3.30).

Enforcement of driving standards is needed, but as with many other areas of Policing it's a case of the quick easy fix against soft targets. My local police force and councils have used cameras to death and alienated the public, the result is a rise in accidents. A neighbouring area did not use cameras, increased it's traffic dept and took other initiatives and had a fall in accidents.

The sad thing is that while revenue is so high it really doesn't matter to Gov' if the cameras work or not.

Paul1

skintchick

hjb123 wrote:

I dont like speed cameras either but if I get caught I accept it and pay up (only happened to me once over 3 years since now).

But the thing you have to think about is why the speed cameras are there (other than making lots of money). I dont see why there has to be warning signs for speed cameras - if you get caught on a speed camera you have been going over the legal speed limit. If you dont break the limit the camera wont get you!

Yes. That's true. But it would help if speed limits were sensible.

There's a dual carriageway near me that should be 70 but is 40 for no obvious reason. I've been driving on it for about seven years and have never seen an accident on it.

Same with the 60/50 stretch of the M4 into London - why does a motorway have such a low limit? It's frustrating and unnecessary.

So, people will break the limit if it seems unnecessarily low, based on their knowledge of the road (I will speed on roads I know where I consider the limit stupidly low, but not on ones I don't as how could I tell if the limit is too low?).

Tight_Old_Git

The OP can get a 50% reduction off the fines by paying promptly another money saving idea.:D

Then a £1.49 investment will save further hard earned finding its' way into TfL's coffers:)

The Highway Code