One Step Closer to Black Boxes
ABD critical of Govt's plans for monitoring cars
The DfT announced yesterday that they are considering fitting black boxes in cars to determine the causes of accidents. They are also investigating ways to use these devices to externally control vehicle speeds by physically preventing them breaking speed limits or automatically issuing tickets if they do so.
"This announcement continues their flawed and dangerous "one-size-fits-all" approach to road safety," said the ABD's road safety spokesman Mark McArthur-Christie. "The DfT talk about using black boxes to investigate the causes of accidents, but seem to have decided in advance that crashes can be cured by simply sticking to the speed limit. We are very concerned that the "accident investigation" angle could be a ruse to bring in automated speed controls."
According to the ABD, existing police data shows that 95% of accidents are unrelated to breaking speed limits, and that the remaining 5% involve extreme behaviour (drunk, drugged or unqualified drivers way in excess of the speed limit) and other vital factors.
"The facts don't support mass, automated enforcement of inappropriate speed limits," continued McArthur-Christie, "But the Government had committed itself to this strategy based on false premises and is ignoring the truth about road safety. External speed control doesn't prevent poor lane discipline, poor observation, driving too close, inattention, tiredness, reckless, poorly judged manoeuvres or excess speed for the conditions. These are the real killers, and the more the Government try to turn us into remote controlled passengers and try to drive our cars for us, the less concentration we will apply to the task of driving and the less opportunity we will have to develop vital safe driving skills."
"A safe driver is one who can use his own judgement to determine what is a safe speed for the conditions," concludes Senior IAM observer and RoSPA-qualified driver and motorcyclist McArthur-Christie. "Government policy is doing nothing but undermine that in any number of ways. We cannot believe they will be foolish and cowardly enough to repeat the same mistakes with black boxes that they have with current camera technology."
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tony13579 said:
You need to write to your MP. Give them greif. It is not as hard as you think.
draft your complaint, add a little evidence , remove all the swear words and replace with " I am most disgusted" "very annoyed" spell check it (well I have to!)
then go to www.faxyourmp.com/index.php3
look up your mp and wizz it off...
for free... no paper,, stamp, you dont even need to drive to the post box
I've used that on several occasions to contact my MP. It works very well. The last time I used it, I had an email reply within 40 minutes telling me that the MP was investigating. 2 weeks later I had a letter from him with a copy of correspondence he had from the DoT.
You can find out quite a lot about your MP there too. Voting record etc. It's very handy when it comes to knowing how to pitch your question.
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