The Great Speed Awareness Course Scam

AndyMc.....

Guerillatoker wrote: »

The vans and the cameras are produced, maintained and often operated by private companies.

The £49 per person, per course, to the course operator is still money that could have gone to the police force or the exchequer. I'm sure if you look into the course operators it will be rife with cronyism, like private security.

The only way the police make money from speeders is by way of the course. They see no money from FPN's or court convictions.

Johno100

Guerillatoker wrote: »

The vans and the cameras are produced, maintained and often operated by private companies.

Where are you getting that idea from? Safety Camera Partnerships are local multi-agency partnerships between local government, the police and sometimes the Highways Agency.

Guerillatoker wrote: »

The £49 per person, per course, to the course operator is still money that could have gone to the police force or the exchequer.

Partly correct re the exchequer and as I said earlier in this thread if people opted for the fine and points rather than a course then they'd go out of business. And there'd also likely be a huge drop in the number of operational static cameras and vans because cash strapped police and local authorities wouldn't have the money to run them without getting the surplus money from the courses.

Guerillatoker wrote: »

I'm sure if you look into the course operators it will be rife with cronyism, like private security.

You may or may not be correct, all I'd say is I've yet to come across a course operator where the controlling interest (director(s) or partners) of the business aren't ex-coppers.

Ganga

Johno100 wrote: »

You mean you've never been caught?

As someone once said to me "speeding is like masturbation, 90% of people do it, the other 10% are lying".

And yes lower speed limits outside some schools but why 24/7? A couple of hours in the morning and a couple in the afternoon for 190 days a year is all that is needed.

And how are you going to make that work? are you going to put up a huge sign with the speed limit on and the times and dates?
What about the kids who do " after school activities " also some kids go in early for Breakfast Club.
The reason for making it 24/7 and 365 days a year is then the idiots who break the speed limits past schools can not claim " I thought the school was closed/kids allready in etc. "
Does slowing down for a couple of hundred yards make that much difference to your life?no people who speed do it all the time.

Mercdriver

Ganga wrote: »

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And how are you going to make that work? are you going to put up a huge sign with the speed limit on and the times and dates?
What about the kids who do " after school activities " also some kids go in early for Breakfast Club.
The reason for making it 24/7 and 365 days a year is then the idiots who break the speed limits past schools can not claim " I thought the school was closed/kids allready in etc. "
Does slowing down for a couple of hundred yards make that much difference to your life?no people who speed do it all the time.

Lower speed limits at certain times already exists. Have you not seen 20mph when lights are flashing - the 20mph is in a red circle so not advisory. Some schools near me have them

AndyMc.....

Mercdriver wrote: »

Lower speed limits at certain times already exists. Have you not seen 20mph when lights are flashing - the 20mph is in a red circle so not advisory. Some schools near me have them

Same here, so it's really not that difficult.

Johno100

Ganga wrote: »

And how are you going to make that work? are you going to put up a huge sign with the speed limit on and the times and dates?

Think you need to get out more.

Knapper

NBLondon wrote: »

Clearly you weren't paying attention... the point of that demo is to show how much longer the stopping distance is at 35 than at 30 and so on because many people don't leave enough. Not to mention those who think they are better drivers than Tiff...

No you're wrong. The point of that video is to demonstrate how much actual speed your car has at the tail end of your braking distance. It demonstrates that if you go 32mph and brake then when you reach the point where you would have stopped if you were travelling at 30mph, you are, at that point still travelling a surprising number of mph.


And whilst that bit of maths and physics is interesting, it remains completely irrelevant because if a person, child or otherwise is going to run in front of a moving car WITHIN that car's braking distance, whatever the speed, then the person is going to get hit. Simple as.


For any of this kidology to make any sense or be relevant one has to make a case to suggest that statistically speaking people tend to walk/run out in front of cars WITHIN their braking distance a certain % of the time. I saw absolutely no attempt by the video or the course presenters to make any such case.


So we are left with just the basic facts which we all know anyway.


Put a person in front of a travelling car within its braking distance and the person will be hit. Doesn't matter what speed the car is travelling, 30mph, 35mph, 50mph, 100mph. If the person steps out within the car's braking distance an accident will happen.


The response to that situation and to any high number of related statistics is NOT to make everyone travel at 5mph to give huge braking distance. The response should be to do something to prevent kids/pedestrians from stepping out within a car's braking distance in the first place.


So that's pedestrian/child education. Strong teaching of crossing roads, anticipation, judgement of car speeds, stuff like the Green Cross Code they taught in the 70s/80s.


It could also be the installation of lots more metal railings to make it difficult for pedestrians to cross the roads in busy areas except by using proper pedestrian crossings.


It could also be the manufacture of more reflective clothing which kids should be encouraged to wear at night.


There's a whole raft of measures that could be thought up before you get to the lame money spinning idea of penalising motorists from doing 35 in a 30 limit.


I'd hazard a guess, in fact I'd wager a lot of money that your average kid could NOT judge the difference between a car travelling at 30mph and 35 mph. So to the kid, the speed makes no difference. What matters is that they take the appropriate measures to cross a road safely. Wait for all cars to pass, don't stand behind cars and other obstructions, look out for motorbikes and cycles and so on.


If the pedestrians don't have the required education to cross a road then it doesn't matter how fast you are going.


This said, I fully appreciate that a car screaming through a 30mph built-up area doing 60mph is irresponsible. And there are times when doing 30mph is equally a poor choice and 20mph would be more appropriate. All comes down to driving judgement.


As with others' comments in this thread I 100% don't deem my speeding event to have been the least bit dangerous. I was on an empty 30pmh road with an incline. Good pavements both sides of the road, 7.15 in the morning, good visibility. No other cars, not a pedestrian to be seen. Just a private firm detector van clocking people for the purpose of generating revenue.
I drive the same road every day and drive it the same way. Only difference is I now look out for the detector van. That's not a good thing. It means my driving is now distracted every day around that point as I look out for speed vans.

TooManyPoints

The £49 per person, per course, to the course operator is still money that could have gone to the police force or the exchequer.

Anybody feeling strongly about that can simply decline the course and accept the fixed penalty. He then pays all his £100 in to the General Fund (and gets three points). If they are really public spirited they can decline that as well and pay about twice as much in court. You pays your money and takes your choice.

Its a shame some responses were taken as sarcastic. Mine was probably one of them. Sorry about that but when somebody suggests motorists are being scammed because they are given the opportunity to avoid a criminal prosecution by paying a fee that is about half the minimum that a court would impose, I can only laugh.

Knapper

Johno100 wrote: »

No, not really. Those caught pay to attend the course out of their pockets, a proportion of that goes to the course operators and any surplus goes to the Safety Camera Partnership to pay for the cameras and the vans to keep the circle going.

So I'm not sure where you are getting "tax money being piled into a private enterprise" from? Unless you are suggesting the course organisers are charging more than the fee paid by the participants to attend and the balance is being made up by public funds?

The average course cost is about £90 of which the POLICE get about £35 I believe.


As the other poster stated, if you took the fine instead then the money would into the Treasury, all of it. Thus it would be reinvested in public services.


The lion's share of the money is going into these private firms that have sprung up all over the country, unsurprisingly because a £500 per HOUR or more earning rate is extremely attractive.


That lion's share is not going back to the public. It's going into the private firm fat cat's pockets.


The police are happy with the situation because the government have cut their budgets over the years so having a nice money generating scam that produces anywhere from £35m to £50m a year for them is clearly something they are going to support and perpetuate.


Note that running around the streets of Britain catching drink drivers and drug drivers, whilst being hugely important and beneficial to us all, DOES NOT generate £35m to £50m for the police coffers. Motorists remain a soft and easy target for massive money generation. It really is just about the money.

Johno100

Knapper wrote: »

The average course cost is about £90 of which the POLICE get about £35 I believe.

No it goes back to the Safety Camera Partnership to run the cameras and the vans. Not to pay for a new chauffeur driven car for the Chief Constable.

Knapper wrote: »

As the other poster stated, if you took the fine instead then the money would into the Treasury, all of it. Thus it would be reinvested in public services.

And as I have also stated at least twice on this thread. "Reinvested in public services" or used to cut the government deficit? No guarantee any of it'll go back to the police.

Knapper wrote: »

The lion's share of the money is going into these private firms that have sprung up all over the country, unsurprisingly because a £500 per HOUR or more earning rate is extremely attractive.

That lion's share is not going back to the public. It's going into the private firm fat cat's pockets.

Yes, and we've both stated that that can be prevented by taking the fine and points.

Knapper wrote: »

The police are happy with the situation because the government have cut their budgets over the years so having a nice money generating scam that produces anywhere from £35m to £50m a year for them is clearly something they are going to support and perpetuate.

One of the things they cut in 2010 were the Road Safety Grants to police forces up and down the country. That money used to pay for speed cameras operations and the withdrawal led to a lot of cameras being switched off and van hours being reduced.

http://www.roadsafetyknowledgecentre.org.uk/issues/speed/knowledge/288.html

The surplus received from the courses (after the cost of operating them) has filled that gap and most forces, if asked, will say the money is ring fenced for road safety matters specifically running the cameras and the vans via the Safety Camera Partnerships.