Camera van motorway 'sniping' - justifiable?

[DaveCWK]

Northbound M40 just before Beaconsfield in the middle of the day and what do I see on the motorway bridge, a speed camera van with his sniper scope out. This is a dead straight bit of 4 lane carriageway and the operator is clearly just picking people off in the distance doing the now ubiquitous 8x MPH before they even have a chance of seeing him.

Forgive me if i'm wrong but are these operations not part of the same police force who are forever complaining of 'cuts cuts cuts, frontline at risk, no time to investigate, no budget available for what we really want to do' etc etc? I don't know how much a van, the equipment and the operator cost but I doubt it's inconsequential.

HOW is this sort of blatant non-safety related target/revenue-driven enforement still justified and WHY do we go on accepting it?

[Krikkit]

Aren't they part of the local camera department rather than the police? Despite their vans looking police-ish I always thought they fell under someone else's jurisdiction.

And although I don't think speeding a bit on the motorway is a problem, the law is the law at the end of the day.

[StottyZr]

Money making exercise.

[rambo19]

Law enforcement exercise.

[dci]

The vans probably pay for themselves after a while. I don't like how they always seem to be on motorways and never where they would actually be useful, the main road near my house with a school on one side and a park on the other for example...

[robinessex]

Wouldn't it be a shame if where he ALWAYS parks, lots of debris was liable to puncture a tyre happened to be deposited!!

[Jezzerh]

Caltrops.

[Jasandjules]

DaveCWK said:

HOW is this sort of blatant non-safety related target/revenue-driven enforement still justified and WHY do we go on accepting it?

Justified by whom? The govt? Well, it makes money.

Why do we accept it? No idea.

[vonhosen]

DaveCWK said:

HOW is this sort of blatant non-safety related target/revenue-driven enforement still justified and WHY do we go on accepting it?

It is safety related, indirectly (through enforcement of a speed limit - i.e. we are safer with speed limits than without) as opposed to directly ( which would be prosecuting, for instance, an inherently unsafe behaviour).

Why do we go on accepting it?
Because people don't view it as sufficient an issue to do something about.

[pherlopolus]

Don't break the speed limit, that will fix their games ;-)

[XJ Flyer]

It's all about making sure that what 'would'/'should' be motorways like the M40 being subject to a realistic speed regime,are taken out of the frame,by unrealistic levels of enforcement of an unrealistic speed limit.All to justify the investment in,what 'would' be,an irrelevant pointless fast rail network.Just as would be expected of a Tory government that 'said' the war against the motorist is over.A UKIP government is probably our only hope.

[barker22]

It won't ever happen but what if the entire country were to 'not speed' for just a day or two.
Would the whole establishment come tumbling down?
There must be quite literally thousands of tickets everyday

[Captainawesome]

at least they aren't doing their usual and hiding around a corner. grrrrrr.

[goneape]

Drive it regularly myself. On that stretch of motorway it's more like 9x and often 100+ in the outside lane and justified I think.

Perhaps it's people's frustration at being pegged to 50 for 5 miles after Polish War Memorial on a road that is capable of sustaining higher, finally being let off the leash as it were.

[kambites]

As much as I dislike (and ignore) the 70mph motorway speed limit, I wouldn't consider legitimate enforcement of a criminal law to be "unjustifiable" just because I don't like the law in question. The problem is with the law itself, not its enforcement.

[0a]

No better than taking money from a wallet you find on the street instead of handing it in, and highly damaging to the reputation of the police.

[Jasandjules]

kambites said:

As much as I dislike (and ignore) the 70mph motorway speed limit, I wouldn't consider legitimate enforcement of a criminal law to be "unjustifiable" just because I don't like the law in question. The problem is with the law itself, not its enforcement.

There is a jurisprudential argument that says that if a majority of people do not obey a law it is inherently unjust.

[vonhosen]

0a said:

No better than taking money from a wallet you find on the street instead of handing it in, and highly damaging to the reputation of the police.

How on earth do you work that out?

No better than fining someone for having a tyre below the minimum tread depth would be nearer the mark.

[vonhosen]

Jasandjules said:

kambites said:

As much as I dislike (and ignore) the 70mph motorway speed limit, I wouldn't consider legitimate enforcement of a criminal law to be "unjustifiable" just because I don't like the law in question. The problem is with the law itself, not its enforcement.

There is a jurisprudential argument that says that if a majority of people do not obey a law it is inherently unjust.

Careless/inconsiderate driving is unjust?

[kambites]

Jasandjules said:

There is a jurisprudential argument that says that if a majority of people do not obey a law it is inherently unjust.

Yes, I can see that argument, but enforcing an unjust law is not in itself wrong. It's not really the job of the enforcement bodies to decide which laws are right and which are wrong. Again, I'd say the problem is with the law, not its enforcement.