Speed Cameras, are they for safety, or revenue?

[vonhosen]

LoonR1 said:

To all those quoting the 85th percentile, how do you measure that now?

It's never measured, because to do so you'd have to have no limit in force in the first place for it not to affect the driver's speed choice.
Even most of those that intentionally speed do so with a mind to what the limit in force is, so you never see a true 85th percentile.

[mybrainhurts]

singlecoil said:

mybrainhurts said:

singlecoil said:

Jasandjules said:

Right, given that it appears some feel that speed cameras are about safety whilst I believe they are about Revenue and that it is inherently illogical to suggest that sticking to a speed limit is "safe".

This Poll is, in all the circumstances, open to those members who have been here in excess of five years.

So, please vote.......

Oh God, not that boring stupid strawman argument again!

No-one has ever even suggested that sticking to a speed limit is safe. No-one, ever.

The only people who use it are the 'I want to go faster' brigade.

Are you locked in a cellar, or what?

I invite you to prove that someone has ever claimed that sticking to a speed limit is automatically safe.

I give you Barbara Castle and most socialist politicians who followed her.

And the woman down the road at number 47.

[vonhosen]

mybrainhurts said:

vonhosen said:

You want people to be obeying the limit everywhere, not just at the site where a camera is (the same reason you have covert Police cars as well as marked to enforce all road laws, so that people moderate their driving when a marked car isn't visible).

You keep trotting this one out.

A talented encyclopaedia of the law you might be, but you're absolutely crap when it comes to human nature.

Your average person gets complacent and I'd risk a little bet that a huge majority of people don't give a second thought to your ambush cars.

Get all your unmarked cars liveried up and you'll remind more people to be careful.

Doing anything less is irresponsibly negligent and ought to be an offence...

Rubbish. You're working 'with' human nature where there is a greater fear of enforcement that can't be seen, than that that can be seen, if you want to encourage system wide compliance.

All that you're proving is that there is insufficient covert enforcement to work with that human nature & I agree

If the government were really serious about system wide strict compliance there'd be far more (& inventive) covert enforcement.

You don't want out of sight out of mind for system wide compliance, you need to feel a much higher level of scrutiny is taking place than just that which is visible. You want to play on that part of human nature than encourage the other part.

Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 3rd January 17:23

[singlecoil]

mybrainhurts said:

I give you Barbara Castle and most socialist politicians who followed her.

And the woman down the road at number 47.

I knew you wouldn't be able to. Which makes my original point absolutely correct.

[Phatboy317]

singlecoil said:

Phatboy317 said:

singlecoil said:

Phatboy317 said:

singlecoil said:

What idiot would encounter a dangerous situation and fail to deal with it by watching for cameras or staring at his speedometer?

Most dangerous situations are seen, or anticipated, in good time to be able to slow down or take some other action to mitigate the danger.
But it's the few situations which arrive suddenly with little or no warning which you have to watch for. And it's in such situations which leave you little or no time to think that you don't want to have your mind on extraneous factors.

Well, maybe you are the kind of driver who, instead of dealing with an emergency that arises unexpectedly, would instead be distracted by thoughts of cameras etc, fortunately the rest of us aren't like that.

So, unless you're on a road you know, how do you know you're always within the limit unless you're looking out for speed limit signs?
How can you be sure you don't exceed the limit in dynamic traffic conditions, where you're speeding up and slowing down all the time, without looking at your speedo?

Never had a problem with it myself, so find it difficult to put myself in to the mindset of someone who does have that problem. Probably a subliminal thing, glance at the speedo when safe to do so, and the rest of the time judge whether the speed is changing by assessing a number of visual and aural inputs.

You should try driving in a place like Bristol, where it's now 20 everywhere - including wide, straight downhill runs, where the only way to keep within the limit is to keep your foot on the brake and your eye on the speedo.

And I do have first-hand experience of situations suddenly developing without warning.
One evening many years ago I was driving down a long, straight NSL road, when a drunk driver coming the other way suddenly decided to overtake the car in front of him, and pulled out onto the wrong side of the road without indicating.
I only had enough time to scrub off around 15mph, according to the skid marks, but that 15mph less may have been enough to save me from serious injury, perhaps even my life. If I had been glancing somewhere else at that moment then I might not have had enough time to brake at all.

[vonhosen]

Phatboy317 said:

singlecoil said:

Phatboy317 said:

singlecoil said:

Phatboy317 said:

singlecoil said:

What idiot would encounter a dangerous situation and fail to deal with it by watching for cameras or staring at his speedometer?

Most dangerous situations are seen, or anticipated, in good time to be able to slow down or take some other action to mitigate the danger.
But it's the few situations which arrive suddenly with little or no warning which you have to watch for. And it's in such situations which leave you little or no time to think that you don't want to have your mind on extraneous factors.

Well, maybe you are the kind of driver who, instead of dealing with an emergency that arises unexpectedly, would instead be distracted by thoughts of cameras etc, fortunately the rest of us aren't like that.

So, unless you're on a road you know, how do you know you're always within the limit unless you're looking out for speed limit signs?
How can you be sure you don't exceed the limit in dynamic traffic conditions, where you're speeding up and slowing down all the time, without looking at your speedo?

Never had a problem with it myself, so find it difficult to put myself in to the mindset of someone who does have that problem. Probably a subliminal thing, glance at the speedo when safe to do so, and the rest of the time judge whether the speed is changing by assessing a number of visual and aural inputs.

You should try driving in a place like Bristol, where it's now 20 everywhere - including wide, straight downhill runs, where the only way to keep within the limit is to keep your foot on the brake and your eye on the speedo.

And I do have first-hand experience of situations suddenly developing without warning.
One evening many years ago I was driving down a long, straight NSL road, when a drunk driver coming the other way suddenly decided to overtake the car in front of him, and pulled out onto the wrong side of the road without indicating.
I only had enough time to scrub off around 15mph, according to the skid marks, but that 15mph less may have been enough to save me from serious injury, perhaps even my life. If I had been glancing somewhere else at that moment then I might not have had enough time to brake at all.

If you'd been doing 15mph less before you had to react (because you were observing a lower limit still) the risks would have been even less.

I'm not seriously suggesting that lower limits in your case were the answer, because they aren't about eliminating all risks, they are a compromise between sometimes conflicting goals.

[NRS]

Phatboy317 said:

NRS said:

But how do you then judge a careful, competent driver?

The 85th percentile is a good guide.

NRS said:

I would argue for most motorists a lot of them will only be observing because of speed cameras and checks. So it would actually help those pedestrians and so on.

What makes you observe when you're driving?

As I mentioned do you actually trust the 85th percentile to judge it right? If nothing else PH is full of amazing drivers saying how no one else can drive, and they're all sheep who buy the cheapest equipment for the car and are texting away. I would say from PH that the speed limits are generally ok for those 85% of the idiot public,

I observe to see dangers, but it seems a lot of people don't according to PH so why not give them something that helps make them observe?

[singlecoil]

Phatboy317 said:

If I had been glancing somewhere else at that moment then I might not have had enough time to brake at all.

I think you should surrender your driving licence. AIUI you can't see roadsigns and the road at the same time, but other people can.

[mybrainhurts]

singlecoil said:

mybrainhurts said:

I give you Barbara Castle and most socialist politicians who followed her.

And the woman down the road at number 47.

I knew you wouldn't be able to. Which makes my original point absolutely correct.

Are you drunk? Have you never listened to Transport Minister after Transport Minsiter after DfT robot?

[singlecoil]

mybrainhurts said:

Are you drunk? Have you never listened to Transport Minister after Transport Minsiter after DfT robot?

I should know better than to try to have a discussion with the forum jester.

[g3org3y]

Brake said:

Driving slowly is one of the most important things drivers can do to protect themselves and others. That means staying well within limits, slowing down to 20mph around homes, schools and shops, slowing right down for bends, brows and bad weather, and avoiding overtaking

Brake said:

Stay well under limits, rather than hovering around them.

Brake said:

The derestricted limit (60mph for cars and vans) is generally far too fast for safety – so stay well beneath this and slow right down for bends, brows, dips and junctions

Brake said:

Overtaking on single carriageways is incredibly risky and should be avoided. It is impossible to accurately judge the speed of approaching traffic, or the length of empty road in front of you, and when overtaking this can be fatal.

This group has the ear of the government. Emotive 'think of the children' rhetoric beats everything. Unfortunately chaps, it's a losing battle.

[Phatboy317]

vonhosen said:

Noise, pollution & health/safety (all environmental/social concerns) were less of a concern when the 85th percentile was introduced than today.

Why should that be? Surely you're not going to play the BS "it's the will of the people" card?

[singlecoil]

g3org3y said:

Unfortunately chaps, it's a losing battle.

It certainly will be if the anti-Brake mob can't come up with some logical arguments, and keep trotting out the same tired old guff they post on SP&L all the time.

[vonhosen]

Phatboy317 said:

vonhosen said:

Noise, pollution & health/safety (all environmental/social concerns) were less of a concern when the 85th percentile was introduced than today.

Why should that be? Surely you're not going to play the BS "it's the will of the people" card?

Speed limits are a political answer to a societal problem. As the societal problem shifts the way the answer is implemented will naturally.

[Phatboy317]

singlecoil said:

I think you should surrender your driving licence. AIUI you can't see roadsigns and the road at the same time, but other people can.

Against my better judgement, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but now you've reverted to your snarky BS.

I won't be making that mistake again.

[singlecoil]

Phatboy317 said:

singlecoil said:

I think you should surrender your driving licence. AIUI you can't see roadsigns and the road at the same time, but other people can.

Against my better judgement, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but now you've reverted to your snarky BS.

I won't be making that mistake again.

Ask your doctor to arrange a fields impairment test, and do it soon.

[Dammit]

I presume that this 85th percentile thing is setting speed limits at the 85th percentile of the observed "natural" traffic speed?

Which would give most central London roads a limit of ~5mph.

That aside, Phatboy keeps referring to this "careful, competent driver" and this needs to be called out - as they are vanishingly rare. Probably 5% of drivers meet this standard, based on observation (which is anecdotal, but hey - this is SP&L, which is built on anecdata).

So we have a situation where 95% of motorists are somewhere on a spectrum between "should never have been issued a driving licence" to "barely dangerous".

Given (based on a sample of posters in this thread) that the average urban limit would be 70mph if it was determined by "angry of Bristol" we clearly need some way of limiting the carnage, and reducing the self-selecting speed to something more sane is a straightforward way of doing it.

[NRS]

Dammit said:

I presume that this 85th percentile thing is setting speed limits at the 85th percentile of the observed "natural" traffic speed?

Which would give most central London roads a limit of ~5mph.

That aside, Phatboy keeps referring to this "careful, competent driver" and this needs to be called out - as they are vanishingly rare. Probably 5% of drivers meet this standard, based on observation (which is anecdotal, but hey - this is SP&L, which is built on anecdata).

So we have a situation where 95% of motorists are somewhere on a spectrum between "should never have been issued a driving licence" to "barely dangerous".

Given (based on a sample of posters in this thread) that the average urban limit would be 70mph if it was determined by "angry of Bristol" we clearly need some way of limiting the carnage, and reducing the self-selecting speed to something more sane is a straightforward way of doing it.

Don't be silly, none of those posters have died, so of course it means it's ok for everyone!

[Phatboy317]

vonhosen said:

Speed limits are a political answer to a societal problem. As the societal problem shifts the way the answer is implemented will naturally.

"Society's wishes" - with a good bit of a nudge from the likes of Brake, T2000 (as they were then) and the like, and the help of perhaps well-intentioned but ignorant politicians delivering the "speed kills" message ad nauseam.

Who can forget the "it's 30 for a reason" slogan which was screamed at us from every lamp post a few years ago, to be replaced a few short years later by, "Twenty's plenty"?
Society doesn't change that quickly!

And in my neck of the woods there have been endless complaints from all and sundry about the way speed limits have been constantly ratcheted down over the last few years.
So I don't know where your 'society' comes from.

[Dammit]

That's because you only count "society" as "people who think the same thing that I do".