Look out - speed camera ahead!
The Times reports on a controversial new gismo. We'll hear from the people selling it and from a critic in the programme. Feel free to share your view. Drive carefully.
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That is totally fantastic....
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What about one to alert bank robbers to cameras too?
After all, like speeding motorists, they're "law abiding citizens" except when they're breaking the law.
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http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/mcn/2008/October/6-12/oct1008-bbc-lampooned-for-hiding-crash-video/?&R=EPI-103461
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xJLlH6GgmfU
I discussed this footage with a motorcycling friend at the weekend, he also thought that a sports bike rider doing 137mph in a high visibility vest didn't seem quite right. He said
it seemed 'funny'.
It's legal for the BBC to make the news, rather than just report the news.
Speeding is being spun.
Couldn't the government make more progress towards road safety, responsible road usage, congestion and pollution by introducing mandatory periodic retests for all drivers?
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I recommend that lots of people buy this product and habitually report speed cameras in their local areas regardless of whether there are speed cameras operating or not. That way lots of drivers will stick to the speed limit.
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why not fit speed limetors, and stop mowing down the innocent
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Speeding fines fund the quango that imposes them. they are one of the few hypothecated taxes in the UK.
It is frequently possible to hide a camera behind a yellow road sign or bushes.
If it is possible to tell motorists when they ask what the speed limit is, why is this not a system in being?
I have been fined for speeding in circumstances where I could not know I was speeding. (The sign was flat on its face!!)
The whole system is a tax raising fiddle and should be recognised as such. It has nothing to do with road safety.
DRG
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Speed camera device: What a great idea! If everybody who cares about people driving too fast buys this device and sends consistent false alerts, we will have everybody driving at the correct speed in no time.
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It's diabolical how drivers will do anything to speed. Useless single-point cameras are thankfully to be replaced with average speed camera systems, which cannot come fast enough.
We need a one minute silence and an armistice for those killed and seriously injured on the roads. In the last ten years this adds up to 30,000 deaths, 300,000 seriously injured and 3 million other casualties. If these casualties had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last ten years, the troops would be brought home by now.
The policitians are urging us to save money - imposing a real speed limit would do the trick overnight in health and other cost savings.
Shame on you device makers!
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Harringay Social Services; As a rest-bite and emergency fostercarer I have been delighted in the way the Social Services try their hardest to keep families together, however, this can often mean children going to and fro between foster carers and 'the family' as they try again (and again)to 'cope'.
This can mean that a child at risk will experiance many different foster carers before a long term placement is made. Because if this upheaval I have often wondered if it would be better to have policy which means once a child is removed for the first or second time it never goes back to the natural parents. It sounds harsh doesn't it? but possibly the baby in question would have not have been killed because he would have never been returned to the family home.
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ey-ooop, Eddie's touched a public nerve again!
A public service announcement for the benefit of people who are new to the blog: your comment is being delayed because they moderate everyone's posts for the first couple, and take a while to do it if the blog is busy. You aren't being denied a voice, just checked up on. I don't know whether you think that is better or worse, but that is how it seems to work.
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Can't see this does anything my Road Angel 9000 Sat Nav can't do. Though must admit they are far from perfect; more than once it has directed me the wrong way on one way streets, including motorway slip roads!!!
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Re the legality - I thought that it was every citizen's duty to prevent others from breaking the law. Indeed I thought it was against the law to ignore others breaking the law. Therefore to warn speeders to slow down must be a legal requirement.
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Most people know that speed cameras are not designed to save lives,but as a revenue earner. Havng to keep an eye out for cameras rather than watching theroad is positively dangerous.In Portugal they are not used, but in built-up areas (where most accidents happen) there is a series of traffic lights which only stop the driver if he is speeding. If he is stopped he earns the resentment of following traffic, as well as delaying himsel. IT WORKS, is cheap, and much safer.
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Totally unacceptable.
If you're breaking the law - and risking other people's lives in the process - you should be caught. I'd rather lawbreakers were caught by actual live policemen/women, but cameras are a good second option.
Drivers should not be adjusting their speed depending on whether they know there's a camera about, they should be adjusting their speed according to the signage and Highway Code recommendations.
There will now follow a stream of replies along the lines of, "I'm a fantastic driver, *I* should be the one to set my own speed limit!" or worse, "These cameras are just there to generate revenue for the police!"
If anyone can prove just one case of someone travelling below the limit being prosecuted wrongly on camera evidence, I might start to entertain the possibility of that last being true. Maybe.
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I'm a cyclist. I would prefer to be overtaken by motorists obeying the speed limit. What is to stop me buying one of these products, and just holding my finger on the button whenever I'm on public roads? Then it will appear to other subscribers that there are speed cameras on all roads that I use.
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The Dept. of Transport commissioned a report by Dr. Jeremy Broughton of the TRL. It's summarised in the Summer 2005 IAM Magazine 'Advanced Driving'.
The two largest groups of fatalities are young inexperienced drivers and born again motorcyclists.
Car Occupant and Motorcyclists Deaths, 1994-2002 - Dr Jeremy Broughton, TRL?
Who read it? Why spend our money commissioning it, if it's just ignored?
How many accidents could have been avoided if someone had read Broughton's report and changed something?
Don't you know of a fatality that's happened on our roads that could have been avoided if someone had 'actioned' the hard data in Broughton's report?
Speed isn't the only killer on our roads is it?
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I am in favour of speed cameras and anything else that deters people from speeding. It is never acceptable and rarely understandable. The idea that we should be allowed to dictate our own speed is up there with the notion that we should be free to distribute other people's intellectual property. No!
If the person you interviewed who is selling this device really believes that many people "want" to observe speed limits, as he said, he is a pretty poor business man because most people would therefore not want to buy his machine. I was also amused by his claim that people should be able to see those large yellow camera boxes from around a corner :)
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I was really shocked to hear about Baby P. Why has it taken so long for someone to realise that 'at risk children' need protection rather than 'touchy feely' support being given to families who often have know real interest in bringing up well loved, well supported children. Many problems in schools today are caused by those who believe the 'touchy feely' approach to education is the way forward. It really isn't. Children need boundaries, love and direction. Children bringing up children continue the problem and the ' Let them know their rights' brigade perpetuate a feeling that ' I can get away with anything'... at home, in school, at work if they work, well any where. Sorry to be so negative, but the death of a child... its painful, being a mum myself, but horrific when its at the hands of its own mother. She may not have actually done it herself but to know its being done and do nothing about it...
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roblee5 (7) - regrettably, "If a driver repeatedly presses the button in places where no one else reports a camera, his transmissions will be blocked."
I'm largely with the Cat on this one, despite having recently acquired my first points for speeding. Yes, it was a bright sunny day, yes I'm a fantastic driver - but the speed limit was 40 and I was doing 50. And I knew both those things.
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At 5:36pm on 11 Nov 2008, Corybant wrote:
'I recommend that lots of people buy this product and habitually report speed cameras in their local areas regardless of whether there are speed cameras operating or not. That way lots of drivers will stick to the speed limit.'
I have a GATSO speed camera outside my house. The road is still a race track. Many of those that speed along the road are 'neighbours' that also live within eyeshot of the camera. The main culprits are an unsilenced V Twin motorcycle and an Impreza. The speed along the road daily.
I think having a camera outside my house gives me some grounds to voice an opinion based on experience.
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Cat: I couldn't agree with you more.
BoiledBunny: Living along a route which is a motorcyclists' favourite and where there are regular fatal accidents involving said cyclists, I entirely endorse your points. I am also aware of the problem of young drivers as we have regular fatalities in this rural area where 17 and 18 year olds are routinely driving cars filled with their mates late at night. I personally feel that the suggestions that I've read recently whereby young drivers will not be allowed to drive with more than one passenger are spot on (although it may not be the total solution).
It is tragic to see these needless deaths, but testosterone is a powerful drug, it would seem.
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The coyote is bound to be a distraction for drivers, causing more accidents and deaths.
If drivers want to be able to slow where there is a camera, they clearly want to be able to speed where there isn't a camera. Why should they be able to get away with this and risk death to others?
Car drivers have propagated an absurd myth that they are unfairly dealt with. Those who want to speed claim they can judge better than police what are safe speeds. They are hardly objective on the matter. They want what suits them - until such time as they have an "accident". Even the term "accident" we tend to use hides the fact that many drivers speed routinely and want to deny responsibility for the consequences of their speeding and other bad driving behaviour.
As for Nigel Carter, from Novus, who make the coyote; his statement: “This is ... a road-safety device because it will help prevent ... drivers stamping on the brakes when they spot a camera too late" would be funny if it were not obscene.
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CERAMIA - you might like to repost your comment in the current Glass Box. People who aren't interested in speed cameras will miss it here.
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Speed cameras are a good thing when well placed but the Chief Constable of Durham was being honest when he said that in his county there was no black spot and so he wouldn't have them....and Swindon Council was also being honest when they got rid of them the other day. There is now a great shortage of patrolling policemen and they are what we all really need.
I have been driving about 40,000 miles a year and by far the worst and criminally dangerous driving I have recently seen was all within the speed limits by a bullying middle aged driver in a BMW X5, by an idiot 25 year old in a Focus and another idiot youngster who was very very lucky not to kill a motorcycle driver.
In all cases the problem was NOT speed but was atrocious driving and that is the lie behind cameras. The Dept of Transport's own figures show that speed is rarely the prime cause of accidents. Bad and impatient driving is the real problem. The motorways are amazingly safe when you look at the density of traffic on them .... and of course the new GATSO cameras are on very high poles so are outside the drivers' sight lines. We need to be a lot more honest and scientific and rather less black and white about it.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/8pgyo/
'The story of a fatal car crash in Cornwall told by those whose lives it changed. In June 2007 a nursery nurse and former policeman were involved in a car crash in Cornwall. In their own words, those involved explain the life-changing consequences of the sort of car crash which happens every day in the UK but which often gets overlooked.'
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/DRIVER-CAUSED-DEATHS-SURFERS/article-456577-detail/article.html
Look! It's not just speeding is it?
Banging on that it's speeding when it isn't the only cause is as phoney as the eBay description fairy tale that was spun to justify our invasion of Iraq.
Those that pull at our emotional heart strings in justifying the ineffectual speed camera regime, are also those that think it's acceptable to send our servicemen and women to their deaths in Snatch Land Rovers and C130s without Gas Inerting systems.
Speeding isn't the only cause of accidents and deaths on our roads and many posters here exceed the speed limit without incident so go figure.
You can maintain your Dubya still 'You're either with us, or against' stances but people will continue to speed, and the fatality rate on our roads will remain largely static.
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I have yet to hear a convincing argument against speed cameras. The evidence is clear that between 30-40 MPH, the chance if dying if hit by a car goes up exponentially.
If we agree that there should be speed limits, they simply must be enforced, or, as is the case with any law, there is no point in them being there. I don't see why there firstly cameras are so obvious and there are signs warning about them, and second, why there aren't more of them.
Some roads clearly have the wrong speed limit, but that is a separate issues, and a better process should be put in place for drivers to be able to alert authorities to this.
But I normally find that it is actually those who speed, and have been caught for it before who don't like speed cameras.
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(9) CERAMIA - take note of (23) from Sid. Your comment is terribly important. Please put it on the other thread suggested so that concerned bloggers might see it.
While the speed camera issue is something that should be addressed... a tiny, helpless little boy had a dreadful, horrible life and has now died. This is overwhelmingly tragic and terrible and the social workers involved should be taken to task, at the very least. As for the mother and the two men... I can't think of bad enough things to say about them that would be allowed on this blog.
(14) Cat: agree entirely. Speed cameras are there for a good reason!
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Reposted and corrected from 29th October's Glass Box:
Examining the spreadsheet for Road Casualties Great Britain: 2007 is interesting. The spreadsheet is called "Article 4 - Contributory factor statistics (Excel 243 kb)", about half way down the "Downloads" column on the right hand side of this site:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/roadcasualtiesgreatbritain20071
(Pasted in neat in an attempt to avoid the <br /> problem)
Bearing in mind that multiple factors can contribute to the same accident, these are the top ten factors:
35% - failed to look properly *
19% - failed to judge other person's path or speed *
17% - careless, reckless or in a hurry
15% - loss of control *
14% - poor turn or manoeuvre *
10% - slippery road (due to weather conditions)
10% - travelling too fast for conditions #
7% - sudden braking *
6% - exceeding speed limit #
6% - following too close #
Categories:
* - driver error or reaction
# - injudicious action
Slippery road - road environment contributed
Careless - Behaviour or inexperience
-oOo-
So the rise in speed cameras and chevrons is because they're about the only two accident factors the government can directly control [1]. However, as the above shows, by far the majority of accidents are caused by driver error - which can't be legislated against. Hazard perception is an element of the theory test, but of course (a) a simulation cannot hope to match the variety of real-life situations a driver is likely to encounter, and (b) the majority of drivers on the roads today will not have studied hazard perception.
Periodic compulsory re-testing of drivers could perhaps reduce the statistics, but would probably be even more of a lead balloon with the public than a massive increase in cameras...
[1] And I think camera partnerships are only allowed to erect new permanent cameras at known accident blackspots, and both fixed and mobile sites should have the warning sign posted. I think there are different requirements for different types of road, but I don't know if they're legally binding...
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Car Occupant and Motorcyclists Deaths, 1994-2002 - Dr Jeremy Broughton, TRL contains the hard data. Not anecdotal asides.
What's been down with it?
It's been ignored.
Why has it been ignored? Or 'shelved'?
Let's get the late Gweneth Dunwoody and her band of helpers to write another report that suits our ends better it would seem.
It would seem Hanging Chadism, and ignoring what doesn't concur with the result we want is alive and well in the speed camera justification industry in the UK.
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Whatever the cause of an accident, it is exacerbated by the square of the combined speed of the participants, being the kinetic energy released into the bits and the victims.
So speed squared is a factor in every accident, so instead of trying to excuse going too fast as a habit and getting caught, study the applied mathematics.
The government could help by insisting on the setting of the maximum speed on electronic governors, fitted as standard on imported German cars, at 250 kph down to say 75 mph.
Incidentally who buys a car capable of 200 mph when the limit is 70 mph? Why are such cars certified for use on British roads? The government is culpable.
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mittfh wrote:
Bearing in mind that multiple factors can contribute to the same accident, these are the top ten factors:
35% - failed to look properly *
19% - failed to judge other person's path or speed *
17% - careless, reckless or in a hurry
15% - loss of control *
14% - poor turn or manoeuvre *
10% - slippery road (due to weather conditions)
10% - travelling too fast for conditions #
7% - sudden braking *
6% - exceeding speed limit #
6% - following too close #
Are you sure?
Can that be correct?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xJLlH6GgmfU
The BBC say speeding is responsible for 1/3rd of accidents.
But your list says it's only 6%?
Why am I so unhappy with the BBC and the police pulling that footage?
Well it undermines their authority doesn't it!
Surely the BBC should give us the facts and let us make up our own minds?
How can the police and the BBC maintain the respect of the public when they get embroiled in spin operations?
I seem even more angry about this than I usually am?
The BBC piece starts on a dual carriage way near Wymondham.
I have friends that live near Wymondham. I've known them since 1995 and they asked me to the godfather of their 2nd child.
A few weeks ago in the lanes near Wymondham, a lone, male, young driver pulled out of a give way into their path. The car hit their NS front wing. The car is a write off.
Not speeding. Just some chap not paying attention.
Years ago before speed cameras become big business and I rode a motorcycle there was that statistic that most accidents occur at junctions.
What's changed?
We all drive a lot better around junctions?
All junctions have been remodelled and made infinitely better than they were 2 decades ago?
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mittfh @ 28, I note that sudden braking is higher in the table of 'causes for accident' that you have given than is 'exceeding the speed limit'.
Now, if there is one thing I am *absolutely* sure speed cameras do, it is to cause people who suddenly notice them to slap on the anchors without warning and for no reason that is likely to be apparent to anyone behind them. I notice this particularly when I am on the North Circular: every time there is a speed camera, there will be two or three people in the fast-lane (and thus clearly in my view where I am pootling along at fifty in the slow one!) suddenly pulling back from twenty or thirty miles faster than the speed limit to 'legal', by jamming on their brakes.
This does make me wonder slightly whether there might be a cause-and-effect factor at work.
You also note:
'And I think camera partnerships are only allowed to erect new permanent cameras at known accident blackspots, and both fixed and mobile sites should have the warning sign posted. I think there are different requirements for different types of road, but I don't know if they're legally binding...'
I think the rules are supposed to be that there must have been a certain number of accidents in a place within the past three years before a new camera is put there, or so someone from a ministry said on a R4 programme this year. This doesn't explain why there was a camera in place on the road that leads out of Bath towards the A4 *when it was opened* -- at which time there could not possibly have been any accidents on it during the past three years, since it hadn't existed before. Nor does it explain the siting of the cameras at each end of each set of lanes of the Limehouse tunnel in London as people are entering and leaving it: I simply do not believe that those are accident blackspots.
Neither of these comments are either pro or anti cameras, just mild worries about their efficacity and about the honesty of the people using them.
I do feel that cameras in known blackspots, and perhaps in built-up areas, are probably a good idea; I am unsure the same is necessarily true about cameras on the 'open road', particularly where the speed-limit is dictated by whether a road is a 'dual carriageway' or merely a road with two lanes in each direction but without the right sort of barrier between the directions and thus having a lower speed-limit.
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Force = Mass X Acceleration.
Dr. Jeremy Broughton has done the research.
Why has his research been brushed under the carpet?
Can't the BBC and Radio 4 move the debate on a bit from Daily Mail type ranting, and ya boo you're wrong political style banter?
What happened to Dr. Jeremy Broughton's report that was commissioned by the DoT themselves as they could see that the drop of fatalities on our roads wasn't dropping in line with the increasing use of speed cameras?
When the DoT can see it and commission a report because of it, how can you shout down those that opine that speed cameras don't work and just raise revenue?
Can I suggest that Eddie and the PM team call up Dr. Jeremy Brougton and ask him about his report, what happened to it, whether the accidents we see on our roads in 2008 differ greatly from those in his report and what changes he's seen to address the matters highlighted in his report.
If you pass your RoSPA RoADAR advanced driving test and maintain your relatively modest annual subscription you get a free retest every 3 years.
Wouldn't all drivers benefit from having their driving tested every 3 to 5 years?
Do RoSPA RoADAR drivers having been retested every 3 years have less accidents?
If the powers that be want us to view driving as a privilege rather than a right can that be best achieved by mandatory periodic driving tests for all drivers or by fines from speed cameras?
As a government sponsored job creation scheme more driving examiners assessing our driving every 3 to 5 years would be much better than the useless, as endorsed by Caroline Flint of the transparent document folder, HIPs packs.
http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/mcn/2008/October/6-12/oct1008-bbc-lampooned-for-hiding-crash-video/?&R=EPI-103461
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xJLlH6GgmfU
The BBC is getting roped into such scientifically dubious claims and government orchestrated spin operations just gives credence to what Paul Dacre said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7718961.stm
Radio 4 comedies are awash with cheap jibes about the Daily Mail and the tabloids, but look at the editorial standards of the BBC.
The BBC work for the licence fee payer?
Or the BBC work for the government?
Should we believe the BBC?
Are the BBC trustworthy and beyond doubt?
That mobile phone using, BMW driving hotel manager that killed that cyclist.
I was informed by a colleague at work that the cyclist had jumped a red light.
So it seems we can't trust the BBC to give us just the facts and are quite up for pushing whatever the government road safety agenda is at that time regardless of what the facts are, or actually telling us what they are.
Buck up BBC! There's some substance to what Dacre said!
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I can't see what the difference is, in legal terms, between a speeding driver being warned in advance that there's a camera ahead, and a thief being warned by a look-out that there's a police officer in view.
These are both cases of avoiding being caught breaking the law, but feeling free to carry on breaking it when the coast is clear.
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mittfh (28), Boiled Bunny (25):
Yes, plenty of other causes for accidents and shouldn't we try to curb them all?
Today on the way home I was quite surprised *not* to see an accident as a small-van driver sped through a red light, steering round a right turn, while holding a mobile 'phone to his ear. Sadly, I didn't get his number, though even if I had I doubt the local police would have done anything about it despite two concurrent illegal activities.
I'm quite surprised that running a red light isn't in mittfh's list. I remember seeing in Glasgow city centre one night a slightly damaged bus that had clearly been recently reversed out of an L-shaped mass of metal that had once been a Ford Fiesta. The missing bit had been where the driver of the car would have sat.
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The device has a technology flaw.
It relies a transmission to a base station. So the access must be from a modem with a network ID number. This makes it an easy task to prove the sender.
Since there is just one button to press then the police do not need to know the contents of the message only that a message was sent. Which is what they can record at present without too much trouble.
So no sane person is going to press the button!
However, I was amused at the repeated positioning of the police speed trap van. It is on a really wide road (but 30mph) on the border of the county. In the mornings it watches the people coming into the county and at night those that are leaving. So the police are not giving tickets to their own residents but targeting the outsiders. Clever.
The logic is a little obtuse. It is not speed that kills. Stupid drivers kill, however stupid drivers also speed. If stupid drivers are encouraged to watch the road ahead instead of tuning the radio (see below) then maybe we would be all safer.
(PS. My view point is clouded by watching a school friend fly through the air at the school bus stop, he died. When 13, hearing the screams of one of the family as the doctors tried to reset all the breaks, and finally watching a 70 year old suffer for 8 years all smashed up. They were all hit by cars going too fast for the conditions.)
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In Germany, mobile speed cameras are routinely announced in the traffic news bulletins by many radio stations. Noone has to press buttons...just listen to the updates, where the camera's are placed at the moment. There doesn't seem to be a legal problem with that - in fact, its quite amusing for what one can be prosecuted here in the UK.
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I love the BBC, but when they spin, or they give me half the story it's like doubting whether your other half is being unfaithful.
Why should the licence fee fund a govt. propaganda mouthpiece?
How many more years of more cameras, more fines and fatalities levelling off at 3000 before someone admits they aren't working?
I have a GATSO at the back of my house, and access to a school at the front that has no pedestrian refuge for those on foot. You take your chances with vehicles travelling up and down the road.
There's a time and a place?
Standards would improve with mandatory periodic retests for all drivers.
If England soccer players are to be drug tested 5 times a year, how often is the BBC going to be tested for telling the truth? How often should the BBC be tested for just giving us the facts and letting us make our own minds up?
The BBC spoon feeding of state generated and sanctioned output is all part of the great British dumbing down.
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The majority of responsible people think that speeds should be limited as a contribution to mutual safety. Few would vote for the abolition of Speed Limits.
So how can some apparently square this with the view that measures to enforce them are a Bad Thing?
After all, if we all respected each other enought to drive within legal limits, there would be no need for cameras [or speed-bumps].
How come it seems socially acceptable to play the innocent victim if caught over the [speed] limit, yet not if over the [alcohol] limit?
We need collectively to change attitudes so that illegal speeding and camera dodging are de-glamorised and no longer the cool thing to brag about.
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One thing no-one's pointed out yet...
The image at the top of this thread is a red light camera, not a speed camera (although it is made by Gatso)...
You don't have to search far on the web to discover the basic types of camera around:
Gatso - the most famous of the lot, takes a pic from behind so you're not dazzled by the flash.
Advantages: easy to hide behind signs / foilage.
Disadvantages: hard to spot the driver.
Truvelo - looks a little old-fashioned, with a big circular lens. Takes a photo from in front, and has an infra-red flash (i.e. invisible to the human eye), so you're not dazzled.
Advantages: easy to spot the driver
Disadvantages: pretty darn obvious, quite hard to disguise - especially as it's always accompanied by calibration markings on the road.
Red light camera - bit like a Gatso, but taller and slimmer. Advantages/disadvantages are the same as its big brother.
SPECS - average speed camera. Bright yellow CCTV type camera with a couple of IR lights either side, mounted on a bright yellow gantry above the carriageway. Operate in pairs - each takes a timestamped photo and ANPRs it, then a computer works out how long it took for you to get from camera A to camera B. Quite popular at motorway roadworks...
Advantages: combats sudden braking, encourages you to drive at a consistent speed. One camera can simultaneously monitor several lanes.
Disadvantages: can only really be used on open roads without laybys or many side roads for fairly obvious reasons...
As for that button pushing device, I suppose it would be possible to design a two-piece unit - one containing the speaker and main wireless apparatus, which would sit somewhere near the dashboard; and the other containing a button and small bluetooth transmitter, that could be strapped to the steering wheel, so the driver can push it without needing to take their eyes off the road...
But a better idea for road safety would be something like a small digital video recorder mounted behind the rear view mirror, which automatically records the last minute or so of your driving. If you crash, investigators can replay it and see at first hand a drivers-eye view, so they can determine the cause(s)...
Oh, and one interesting tidbit behind the KSI statistic - the definition of seriously injured is being admitted to hospital - even if you're discharged after a quick check-up, you still count as seriously injured...
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But it's not just speeding is it?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xJLlH6GgmfU
You have a Transit driver pulling his jumper over his face to hide his identity and the white van behind the black Corsa with the girl on the phone.
What about tailgating? Why weren't the van drivers in the footage shown done for tailgating?
Tailgating isn't dangerous?
Tailgating doesn't kill?
Autonomy of a Car Crash and the link to the 2 young lads going surfing killed in that cross over accident where the other driver could have nodded off.
3 people there dead that had nothing to do with speeding.
What about the woman and her kid that died when they left the A30 a few weeks ago. Were they speeding?
Anyway it was reported on the BBC News a few weeks ago, so it could be wrong, that the police statistics about those injured in road accidents wasn't matching those appearing at hospitals with injuries from accidents.
So the statistics are debatable, and speed isn't the only killer.
Are the van drivers shown that footage any more, or less dangerous than me doing 100mph on the M5, or the M4 in good conditions at the dead of night?
Look at the variable speed limits on the M25.
The technology is there to look at the volume of traffic on motorways, look at the prevailing conditions and set the signs to say '80', '90' or '100'.
SMA? Sealed Mastic Asphalt? How many accidents has that surface caused?
How many fatalities?
Look at these new Traffic Assistance Officers ushering Hugh Fearnley Whitingstall off the hard shoulder having stopped for scrumping?
Stop a deserted M-way hard shoulder in the dead of the night and get ushered off by the Motorway equivalent of PCSOs, and in other parts hard shoulders are being used for traffic and the govt. are looking at making hard shoulders 'Lexus lanes' and charging drivers that want to drive along the hard shoulder.
Is that safe?
It's all a bit inconsistent, and politicians are sticking their oars in with agendas rather than letting the experts get on with it.
I am not going to dig it out.
Dr Jeremy Broughton's report said most fatalities were single vehicle accidents on rural roads.
It's not speeding motorists mowing down innocents everywhere.
Don't believe? Me the report yourselves!
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I'm glad to see most of the comments posted are "in favour" of using whatever means necessary to prevent people from breaking (safety minded) speed limits, including speed cameras.
Where were all of you when Clarkson was on the blog last week? I seemed to be the only person critising him for his views on issues of road safety. (Testosterone-fuelled teenagers speeding and killing themselves and others? And TopGear- fuelled!) You can bet your bottom dollar JC will be first in line for one of these devices.
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Car Occupant and Motorcyclists Deaths, 1994-2002 - Dr Jeremy Broughton, TRL.
OK, self appointed road safety experts, read the report and tell me how speed cameras fix the problems identified within it?
Or just ask Eddie to get Dr. Jeremy Broughton on for a bit of a chat.
Let's face it, there is more stereotyping going on in this thread than there is scientific fact.
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I wonder how many accidents have been caused by people adjusting or being distracted by their SatNavs while driving? This will just be yet another distraction, whatever the legality.
Re the above arguements over what is responsible for most accidents, surely speed is also a factor in most of those categories - they wouldn't be driving too close or tailgating if they were driving more slowly, driving slowly without due care and attention is likely to cause less severe consequences etc etc etc.
I drive up and down the M6 a lot and the way some people drive is just scarey, especially just how close some mega-huge lorries drive behind you and pull out whether or not you're able to get out of the way. You need 360 degree eyesight and 100 percent concentration.
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I would feel much happier if I saw more evidence that drivers generally look out of their vehicle windows whilst driving!
Oh, and don't expect the police to police good driving practice. I was witness to some appalling driving by a solo cop in his jeely-piece on Sunday, culminating in his turning-right-to-turn-left at the corner of Keyhole Kate's in Stamford.
..After he'd screamed past me on one of the few non-bendy narrow bits of the road from Bourne. He did the statutory 30 through the villages, and speeded outrageously between them, and still I was right behind him at the lights in town.
Drivers not looking out of the windows, and pedestrians not looking around before stepping off pavements, worry me.
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'I would feel much happier if I saw more evidence that drivers generally look out of their vehicle windows whilst driving!'
Valid point.
Have you noticed the number of drivers that enter roundabouts without even turning their heads to look to the right?
I am almost wondering if that 'avoid eye contact when encountering road rage' has led to drivers not looking to the right at junctions and roundabouts?
Have humans lost the ability to turn their heads to look properly?
Evolution means we'll develop big posteriors for better in car comfort and necks that no longer rotate?
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And don't forget that cop who was caught doing 159mph whilst "familiarising" himself with his new car on the M54...
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Fifi: They're all too busy looking at their texts or dialling numbers on their mobiles ....
The number of lorry drivers that I regularly see on their mobiles while negotiating a double mini roundabout, with 90 degree corners, on the A29 not far from me beggars belief.
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As a former traffic policeman has commented on The Times site - "speed doesn't necessarily kill, bad driving does. Open your eyes"
Jason Macintyre was killed on January 15th after colliding with a van. In court, the driver stated that he "didn't see" Jason.
Didn't see or didn't look?
There are many similar tragedies on roads up and down the UK every year. Jason's story is particularly poignant because he was so talented and and his wife has been left to cope with the serious illness of one of their twin daughters.
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Eddie perhaps you and Mark Thompson could sit down and discuss the BBC broadcasting hard data rather than propaganda pieces?
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Mini roundabouts should be replaced with 3 or 4 way stop signs and USA rules.
Every day, at a local junction, drivers ignore the fact that they are supposed to give way to vehicles who are already on the roundabout. They do this because those drivers came in to it from their left. They drive straight over the centre circle and cut in front of the car already on the roundabout, completely convinced, in their ignorance, that they have the right of way.
The USA rotation rule would/might discourage such behaviour as the offenders would only have to remember one rule which, it seems, is all they are capable of doing anyway.
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I don't really understand why this is news. As sat nav already tells you when you are approaching a speed camera the technology is already there in the car. I would like to see cameras at every set of traffic lights to slam the drivers who either ignore the lights and go straight through. These people seem to ne in the majority in this area. At least four 'accidents' have been reported at traffic signals in the local paper in the last month. These are not accidents but the result of selfish drivers who feel that they have the right to get where they are going quickly and blow everyone else.
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(51) RJM - I disagree. The circle or roundabouts have one basic rule: Give way to the traffic approaching from your right. Mini-roundabouts have one more rule to stay off the central markings.
There is no rule about giving way to those on the roundabout!
The 4 way in the US is far more complicated. There is no rotation rule. It is a first to stop has the right to go next.
The absolute need to stop would ruin the idea in this country. The whole concept of the mini roundabout is to keep the traffic moving in low traffic conditions but allow equal throughput for each road when traffic density is higher.
There is a joke in California told by the British: Why do 4-ways stops work? Because you do not know which car has the gun under their seat.
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Stop lines in the US?
In TX. I stopped at a stop line, and then pulled away. It seems I fell foul of some stop line etiquette where I should have let the car travelling in the opposite direction pull away first.
The report by Dr. Jeremy Broughton cited falling driving standards. Surely what we see on our roads confirm that?
How do speed cameras raise the standard of driving?
They don't do they!
But they rake in a lot of money.
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As a matter of interest, there seems to be a certain amount of evidence that the callibration of speed cameras is not always as accurate as one might wish, and that a surprisingly high proportion of people who contest a speeding ticket from one of these devices will be shown not to have been breaking the speed limit at all.
As with the wildly inaccurate 'flashes' on those 'driver information boards' on the M4, giving wrong information (penalising people wrongly) is in some ways worse than giving none, since people are taught not to pay attention to signs if the signs are often mistaken. I have driven from Reading to Bristol at night on an absolutely clear, almost-empty motorway every sign on which said '30' for a speed-limit recommendation. For the first five miles or so I believed it -- until I noticed that it was saying the same in the other direction too, and I *knew* there was nothing wrong with the eastbound road. After that I ignored the signs: wouldn't anyone? When I got to Bristol I went into the local police-station and mentioned the matter, and got what amounted to 'oh, not again... OK, we'll tell them', which hardly inspired me with confidence in the general standard of accuracy of those signs.
At the moment they are fond of telling us 'pedestrians in road' with a speedlimit of 50 (which wouldn't save a pedestrian who ran in front of a car on a dark motorway). And there is the fine sunny day and the warning 'spray on road', again with a speedlimit of 50. Or the sign you can barely see that says 'FOG' -- no, gosh, I really hadn't noticed that I couldn't see the car in front of me, only its foglamps!
Things that can be clearly seen to be silly, or unjust, or inaccurate, will be regarded as such by most people after a bit. Some of the speedlimits now being put in place seem pretty daft and unhelpful, and the result is absolutely certain to be that people have less respect for *all* speedlimits, even the ones that *are* sensible, in just the same way that they frankly don't believe a sign saying 'pedestrians in road' -- which is very bad luck if by some amazing chance there *does* happen to be a nutcase wandering on the carriageway.
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Valid point. A motorcyclist caught by a GATSO in Oxford took his case to Court. He won.
The painted lines on the road proved he wasn't speeding.
The BBC South West Spotlight has shown handheld speed cameras to give incorrect results.
All the police spokesman could say was 'It's approved by the Home Office'
Every tool or utensil ever developed by man can be misused and give erroneous results, but somehow speed cameras are incapable of being incorrectly used, or giving false results?
So it would seem the same way parking tickets are dished out (as covered in Law in Action on Radio 4 yesterday) even though the circumstances are questionable few bother to take the time or effort disputing the case?
How does incorrectly convicting motorists of speeding fit with the 'Speeding Kills' propaganda juggernaut?
It's OK to convict a few drivers even though they are innocent because of the greater cause?
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So the investigation at the former Childrens Home on Jersey is another Police News Generation operation gone wrong.
So the kiddies home, plods tipping off the press when 'celebraties' and footballers are to be arrested, and spin operations about road safety and speed cameras.
Why can't the police just do law enforcement, rather than playing the PR, news generation game.
The Flat Earth author is on PM now.
How many Police forces have adverts in the press now looking to recruit marketing and PR people?
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Whislt browsing my way around YouTube I discovered two extracts from a BBC South West edition of "Inside Out", which mention two problems that can occur in speed measurement using mobile devices: "Slippage" - if the camera is moved forwards on the car (e.g. from back of bonnet to front of bonnet) while it is taking its reading, then it will add the distance you have moved the camera along the car to the distance the car has moved, resulting in a higher reading.
"Reflection" - if the camera is aimed at the side of the car, then the infra red beam could reflect off the car and bounce off another car or roadsign before reflecting off the car again en-route back to the camera - again resulting in a higher reading.
Operators are supposed to train the camera on the numberplate to avoid these errors, but not all do, and particularly in the case of slippage, some people have proved this in court when appealing against their fine.
The two video clips are entitled "The Truth About Speed Cameras", and should be the first two results in a YouTube search on that string.
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Thank you mittfh, that's what I was referring to.
I live in that BBC area, but I rarely watch TV. I seem to get by with the Internet and an old transistor radio.
I saw the trailer for that broadcast, but I am unsure whether I saw it. Perhaps they trailed it in the local TV news.
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jf @53
"There is no rule about giving way to those on the roundabout!"
So it's OK to drive into people on roundabouts? I don't think so.
But it is the rule about the round bit in the middle that is the problem. They know it is OK to drive over it because buses have to, but they don't, like you, know that the roundabout rules don't permit you to drive over the centre or go round it the wrong way to cut up someone already on the roundabout.
They also don't know that they should not just charge on to a roundabout blindly asuming that those who can't see them (because there is a building in the way) will not be entering the roundabout at the same time. The white line across the road has a purpose - slow, look, proceed if clear.
If someone coming in from the left has crossed the white line before you have approached it, then the roundabout is not clear and you do not have the right of way. You do, however, have the right of way from the next car on the left who must stop until there are no cars to the right who are approaching or waiting at the line.
This does not mean that the car on the left, whose view of the road to the right is obstructed, must wait for 5, 10, 15 or 20 seconds in case a lunatic might charge unseen on to the roundabout. They are entitled to enter the roundabout, if they cannot see a vehicle, and are entitled be given way to from the right until they have cleared the roundabout.
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RJM @ 60, isn't it all even simpler than that? It is the business of every person in charge of a motor-vehicle to avoid collision, whether on a roundabout or not, and anyone ignoring this is being a blithering idiot whether or not he or she is 'in the right'. The rules are simply intended to make it easier for every motorist to avoid collision. That's what they are for.
The rule on any road is 'give way at a dotted line across your path as you are about to enter a major road, which has priority; i.e. at the signs that clearly indicate and say "GIVE WAY".'
On the basis of these lines and signs on the road, a roundabout is to all intents and purposes a major road, taking precendence over all the roads that enter it. Since it is a one-way street in effect, all traffic on a roundabout will be approaching from the right, and will have the right of way over traffic coming from any of the side-roads that enter it. Thus there *is* a rule about giving way to those on the roundabout: they are on a major road and have the right of way. The person entering the roundabout is on a minor road and must give way.
If there are traffic lights or other specific contra-indications to this simple rule, they will apply in the case of an individual roundabout, but the general fact continues to be that a sign that says 'GIVE WAY' probably means it.
If you choose to ignore this rule, that's your business, but if someone hits you as a result the police and the insurance company will not be on your side. The other car *will* be on your side, since it will be coming from the right: your side in this case is the driver's side of the car, and the car that hits you will hit your side of your car. This is called 'poetic justice', though it is a bit hard on the person who smashes into you because you barged into his path.
All this may not apply if you live in Swindon, in which case all bets are off and your safest procedure is probably by pogo-stick.
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CG@61
It is the traffic going the wrong way around the rounabout and hitting you from the right that is the problem. Hard to convinvice your insurance company you were on the major road first and they were not. Especially if they claim you barged in, which you did not.
Unless you can get a witness of course.
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RJM, sorry. I hadn't realised that you were talking about people going the wrong way on a one-way system.
I would suppose that if you were on the correct-for-your-manouevre side of the roundabout when you were hit, it ought to be possible to show that the car that hit you had not had the right of way when it did so; but I don't think I can draw the diagrams to show what I mean, in this medium, so I shall leave it.
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