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Originally Posted by b3lha
This website explains it better than I can:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr132.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/fatality.html
Essentially, the number of fatal accidents on British roads had been falling at a rate of about 5% every year since the 1950's. This is due to a number of factors including safety improvements to vehicles and better road engineering. Then in around 1993, when speed cameras were introduced the decline in fatal accidents stopped, and more recently has started to rise.
One of the problems with speed cameras is that when drivers see a speed camera, their natural instinct is to hit the brakes then look at their speedo, even if they weren't over the limit. When that happens, the driver behind has to hit their brakes too, and then the driver behind them. If somebody a few cars back isn't paying enough attention then you end up with a rear-end shunt.
There is a speed camera outside my house in a 40 zone that most drivers would reasonably expect be a 60 zone. Almost every day I see drivers lock up and a skid as they try to slow down for the camera. One particularly memorable evening, we heard screaming outside. A motorcyclist had braked suddenly because of the camera and a girl who was riding pillion, had fallen off the back of the bike and slid along the road. She was in a real mess, but fortunately our neighbour is a nurse and looked after her until the ambulance arrived. We never heard whether she recovered or not. The point is that this serious accident that would not have happened if the speed camera had not been there.
The speed camera policy in Britain is nothing more than a money making scam.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/...&icc=NEWS&ct=5
Without wishing to hijack my own thread, Manarius is quite right about the "big brother" thing too. The latest "safety cameras" that are being installed around the country read the number plate of every passing car and this is stored in a computer database. The plan is to track and record all vehicle movements and retain the data for several years. It's not going to stop with cars. There are plans to introduce compulsory identity cards containing RFID chips that can be read from up to 100 metres away and allow people to be tracked. As a law-abiding and tax-paying citizen I think that having all my movements recorded is a big invasion of my privacy. |
I'm in Ireland, not the UK as most people know, but I am with you on this one.
This Big Brother thing is looming larger and closer than most of us realise. Here in Ireland the number of fatal accidents has been seriously high, particularly in the last two or three years. A very high percentage are single vehicle only impacts very late at night, boy racers learning the hard way that they can't change the laws of physics.
The others are mostly head-on on main roads. These are often caused by bad roads and bad drivers.
The people who would "fix" this are all on the anti speed and anti drink-driving bandwagon. Recently the police came up with a list of all the "RED" zones, places where there have been a number of accidents in recent years. Great, you might think, they are at last going to fix the visibility at junctions, take away dangerous obstructions, fix pot-holes and put down a decent surface. Yeah, right!!!
They are using the RED zone list as justification for putting in contracted speed cameras!!!
On top of this, the latest motorway the M1 heading North is festooned with numberplate recognition cameras. As Phil says, they now have the capability to time your averages between every junction, check where you get on and get off the motorway, run your number past the road-tax database in real time and in general have their nose in your affairs as well as their hand in your pocket.
Ken Livingston started all this crap with the London tax. It opened the door to this numberplate recognition business. You guys in the UK should resist this tax based on road use TO THE DEATH!!
They don't need to know where you are all the time just to tax your road use, they could just as easily put the tax on petrol and diesel. If you are using lots of fuel, you are using lots of roads, so paying more tax is a fair approach.
They don't actually NEED to know where you are all the time or your average journey time. It is just that they WANT to know as it gives them more control.
Because of all the late night boy racer accidents we have over here, they are now talking up putting in speed limiters in younger drivers' cars. This of course is bull$hit, it is the driving capability that is at fault, not the speed capability. However, imposed speed limiters in all cars is way cheaper than having a load of traffic police out all night chasing joyriders. So this will be the next big thing.
Sign the petition and voice your opinion with the AA and the RAC and any other representative body that you know. This Big Brother approach is crying out for an election issue. It's time these people stopped using these scattergun approaches to put in control mechanisms on the law abiding citizens. Let them get out there and do their job, catch a few of the crazies, and keep the roads safe for the rest of us. That's what they get paid to do, and they are patently not doing it or incapable of doing it.
Joe