Speed Cameras, are they for safety, or revenue?
Poll: Speed Cameras, are they for safety, or revenue?
Total Members Polled: 478
Discussion
Jon1967x said:
A better argument might be pulling out of a side road when the sun is low in the sky, the road is wet and its very difficult to see what might be approaching due to glare. The driver is compromised in their vision but what can they do? Sit there and wait for the sun to set?
Well that would be preferable to just pulling out and hoping there's nothing coming, which some people seem to think is entirely reasonable driving.v12Legs said:
singlecoil said:
Nonsense.
There are masses of situations where a vehicle approaching at 180 would not be visible to a driver exiting a side turning, simply because the road layout wouldn't allow it. You might not have noticed, but a lot of the roads in this country are curved.
Round a blind bend at 180MPH?There are masses of situations where a vehicle approaching at 180 would not be visible to a driver exiting a side turning, simply because the road layout wouldn't allow it. You might not have noticed, but a lot of the roads in this country are curved.
Come off it, even if the motorcyclist was that stupid, no bike can corner at that speed.
v12Legs said:
Jon1967x said:
A better argument might be pulling out of a side road when the sun is low in the sky, the road is wet and its very difficult to see what might be approaching due to glare. The driver is compromised in their vision but what can they do? Sit there and wait for the sun to set?
Well that would be preferable to just pulling out and hoping there's nothing coming, which some people seem to think is entirely reasonable driving.Jon1967x said:
Do you actually have a driving licence? I'm not saying not looking, I'm saying that the clarity of what you can see is not great and you squint, hold your hand above your eyes, make out as best you can what you can see but far far from ideal.
Yes, and have done for 20 years.If you can't see that it's safe to pull out, don't. Ever.
I'm shocked that anyone could possibly hold the view that it's OK to pull out without knowing that it's safe to do so.
v12Legs said:
Jon1967x said:
Do you actually have a driving licence? I'm not saying not looking, I'm saying that the clarity of what you can see is not great and you squint, hold your hand above your eyes, make out as best you can what you can see but far far from ideal.
Yes, and have done for 20 years.If you can't see that it's safe to pull out, don't. Ever.
I'm shocked that anyone could possibly hold the view that it's OK to pull out without knowing that it's safe to do so.
Have you NEVER driven into a blinding sun in the conditions I've described? Have you never been confronted with a situation that says "if I stop I might get rear ended and if I keep going I may do the same"?
I'm not talking about wilful recklessness, I'm talking about a situation which can occur as you go around a bend or even drive on a motorway. Ask anyone driving on the M6 southbound on monday morning through staffordshire - visibility was terrible because of the sun. Your way they may as well shut the motorway
If you suddenly have no meaningful forward vision (that goes beyond 2 or 3 seconds), the law expects you to pull over and stop. I'd go as far as to say most people on the motorway scenario or driving along a road they know when they're entirely blinded by the sun don't do that, but that's not the same as saying they shouldn't. To continue when you can't see ahead is at best Careless Driving and at worst Dangerous. If there's no incident you're very unlikely to be dealt with, though if there is and you blame poor forward vision, you might.
v12Legs said:
Jon1967x said:
Do you actually have a driving licence? I'm not saying not looking, I'm saying that the clarity of what you can see is not great and you squint, hold your hand above your eyes, make out as best you can what you can see but far far from ideal.
Yes, and have done for 20 years.If you can't see that it's safe to pull out, don't. Ever.
I'm shocked that anyone could possibly hold the view that it's OK to pull out without knowing that it's safe to do so.
There's reams of case law on the subject of liability for emerging vehicles. It can range from 100% one way to 100% the other, depending on the circumstances and behaviour of each driver. If it interests anyone, go spend a few hours on BAILII and look up some cases for reasoning. There's little anyone here is going to say to overturn the thinking of the courts built up over many years.
allergictocheese said:
If you suddenly have no meaningful forward vision (that goes beyond 2 or 3 seconds), the law expects you to pull over and stop. I'd go as far as to say most people on the motorway scenario or driving along a road they know when they're entirely blinded by the sun don't do that, but that's not the same as saying they shouldn't. To continue when you can't see ahead is at best Careless Driving and at worst Dangerous. If there's no incident you're very unlikely to be dealt with, though if there is and you blame poor forward vision, you might.
Have you ever encountered a sudden extreme downpour whilst on the motorway, where the rain is falling so hard that you literally can't see through your windscreen at all?It's a terrifying experience, because although all your instincts are screaming for you to stop, you also know full well that you'll almost certainly get rear-ended if you do.
v12egs said:
There is no evidence that can possibly exist that can excuse a driver pulling out when it is not clear to do so.
yes there is. as you get older visual accuity, the ability to see small objects, decreases. A 60-year old person is going to have difficulty in seeing a motorcyclist approaching at 40mph at sufficient distance to prevent a collision when pulling out onto the road the motorcyclist is on. Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
Edited by emmaT2014 on Wednesday 21st January 13:39
emmaT2014 said:
singlecoil said:
There is no evidence that can possibly exist that can excuse a driver pulling out when it is not clear to do so.
yes there is. as you get older visual accuity, the ability to see small objects, decreases. A 60-year old person is going to have difficulty in seeing a motorcyclist approaching at 40mph at sufficient distance to prevent a collision when pulling out onto the road the motorcyclist is on. Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
emmaT2014 said:
yes there is. as you get older visual accuity, the ability to see small objects, decreases. A 60-year old person is going to have difficulty in seeing a motorcyclist approaching at 40mph at sufficient distance to prevent a collision when pulling out onto the road the motorcyclist is on.
Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
That doesn't excuse them.Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
If their vision has deteriorated such that they cannot drive safely, they shouldn't be driving.
emmaT2014 said:
yes there is. as you get older visual accuity, the ability to see small objects, decreases. A 60-year old person is going to have difficulty in seeing a motorcyclist approaching at 40mph at sufficient distance to prevent a collision when pulling out onto the road the motorcyclist is on.
Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
Really? Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
I'll bet that most drivers who are on the wrong side of 60 would strongly disagree with your opinion.
Jon1967x said:
Personally, when we start getting into the realms of fanciful speeds and scenarios the debate has become a farce and good points people make are then subsequently undermined by ones made by the same people which are frankly rubbish.
A better argument might be pulling out of a side road when the sun is low in the sky, the road is wet and its very difficult to see what might be approaching due to glare. The driver is compromised in their vision but what can they do? Sit there and wait for the sun to set? I'd have some sympathy.
A driver who can't see out of their car because its covered in ice and steaming up because they've not defrosted it properly at the same junction and with a similar level of impaired vision I have no sympathy for.
There is a roundabout close to where I used to live where a road exiting a village joins a bypass. The roundabout sits at the top of a hill so the approach to it along the bypass is actually quite steep and it only levels out just before you reach the roundabout. The bypass has two lanes to allow cars to pass slower moving vehicles. So cars sometimes go quite quickly up the hill and so can enter the roundabout at a reasonable speed, which is possible due to its design. However when joining the roundabout from the village visibility of vehicles on the bypass approaching from the right is very poor and on more than one occasion I've had to stop after crossing the line because a car has suddenly appeared to my right travelling at a reasonable speed that was not visible at all when I moved off.A better argument might be pulling out of a side road when the sun is low in the sky, the road is wet and its very difficult to see what might be approaching due to glare. The driver is compromised in their vision but what can they do? Sit there and wait for the sun to set? I'd have some sympathy.
A driver who can't see out of their car because its covered in ice and steaming up because they've not defrosted it properly at the same junction and with a similar level of impaired vision I have no sympathy for.
The picture shows the approach from the village although the Google maps cars was on the other side of the road.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Brotton,+Saltburn...
Devil2575 said:
I actually posted a link to an RAC report a few pages back.
It's not conclusive but it does offer some evidence of an overall reduction in KSIs at camera sites, even once you take regression to the mean into account.
As for clear evidence, there's clear evidence about lots of things and it doesn't stop those who don't want to believe.
http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/330/7487/331.full.p...
http://www.roadsafetyobservatory.com/Evidence/Deta...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC196329...
There's plenty of stuff out there if you look.
Having had a quick look at those, (btw the first two links refer to the same thing) I'm not convinced that their conclusions are particularly solid, however I have to reserve judgement until I've had the opportunity to do a detailed study of those papers and relevant data - which probably isn't going to happen any time soon.It's not conclusive but it does offer some evidence of an overall reduction in KSIs at camera sites, even once you take regression to the mean into account.
As for clear evidence, there's clear evidence about lots of things and it doesn't stop those who don't want to believe.
http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/330/7487/331.full.p...
http://www.roadsafetyobservatory.com/Evidence/Deta...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC196329...
There's plenty of stuff out there if you look.
However I have previously looked in depth at a paper you linked to in your previous post:
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/pub...
I'm quite willing to discuss this one, although I don't think this thread is the right place.
Devil2575 said:
There is a roundabout close to where I used to live where a road exiting a village joins a bypass. The roundabout sits at the top of a hill so the approach to it along the bypass is actually quite steep and it only levels out just before you reach the roundabout. The bypass has two lanes to allow cars to pass slower moving vehicles. So cars sometimes go quite quickly up the hill and so can enter the roundabout at a reasonable speed, which is possible due to its design. However when joining the roundabout from the village visibility of vehicles on the bypass approaching from the right is very poor and on more than one occasion I've had to stop after crossing the line because a car has suddenly appeared to my right travelling at a reasonable speed that was not visible at all when I moved off.
The picture shows the approach from the village although the Google maps cars was on the other side of the road.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Brotton,+Saltburn...
Yours is a very good example of a poor road layout with inadequate lines of sight.The picture shows the approach from the village although the Google maps cars was on the other side of the road.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Brotton,+Saltburn...
Yes, I read that one when we discussed it in the other thread.
None of the data provides a cast iron proof of anything, but combined they add up to produce a weight of evidence. Those were just a couple I found on a very quick google search just to see if there was much out there.
The BMJ is a well respected journal and they have published other data on speed cameras.
It seems to me that most of the data published on the subject seems to support the view that speed cameras can/do make roads safer.
None of the data provides a cast iron proof of anything, but combined they add up to produce a weight of evidence. Those were just a couple I found on a very quick google search just to see if there was much out there.
The BMJ is a well respected journal and they have published other data on speed cameras.
It seems to me that most of the data published on the subject seems to support the view that speed cameras can/do make roads safer.
Phatboy317 said:
...which may just be down to something like publication bias
That's an argument that can be used to dismiss any theory thats evidenced with research though isn't it."The reason why all the research points to this conclusion is that no ones publishing the stuff that says otherwise..."
Unless you have a sound basis for making such a claim, such as people who have been unable to get papers published, then you need to be very careful before saying it.
singlecoil said:
emmaT2014 said:
singlecoil said:
There is no evidence that can possibly exist that can excuse a driver pulling out when it is not clear to do so.
yes there is. as you get older visual accuity, the ability to see small objects, decreases. A 60-year old person is going to have difficulty in seeing a motorcyclist approaching at 40mph at sufficient distance to prevent a collision when pulling out onto the road the motorcyclist is on. Perhaps moorcyclists should be made aware of this; I'm a motorcyclst and I am. I drive a car too but am not yet 59 or 60.
So it is possible and it does exist.
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