RE: More lies over scameras revealed
Monday 8th August 2005
Speed cameras don't make it saferA study published by the Transport Research laboratory, but not released to the public, has found that speed cameras do not make roadworks safer -- for either workers or drivers.
More lies over scameras revealed
Roadworks cameras make no difference to safety
Speed cameras don't make it safer
The report was exposed using the Freedom of Information Act by SafeSpeed's Paul Smith and comes soon after road safety group the Association of British Drivers discovered that driver inattention, not speeding, was the leading cause of motorway crashes (see related stories below).
The study, published in 2004 but not publicised or promoted, shows clearly that "No significant difference was observed in the accident rate for sites with and without speed cameras." In other words, speed cameras do not save lives in roadworks.
Mark McArthur-Christie, the ABD's road safety spokesman said: "Here is yet more data dug out using the FoI Act showing that cameras do not save lives and that speed is not a major cause of crashes. How much more do we need to see before the camera partnerships are disbanded and we can return to effective road safety policies?"
ABD chairman Brian Gregory said: "This is rapidly becoming a farce. Time and again we have to drag information out of camera partnerships - damaging information they'd rather keep in the dark. There is a culture of spin and secrecy that hides the true causes of crashes and the total lack of effectiveness of speed cameras from the public. It's time the Partnerships were made accountable."
Related stories
Discussion
I find myself agreeing with most arguments and findings by SS, but I am really surprised by this latest information snippit. I agree that speed camara's should be used at roadworks sites on dual carraigeways and motorways. Having nearly been beheaded by a passing truck at speed many years ago whilst I was working on the highway IMO accidents occur thru the inattention or distraction of workers as much as inattention of drivers.
If this information is true they why can't an organisation like the BBC quote them. No offence to pistonheads or SS, but they are small cogs in the public news. Can't SS or Pistonheads push this over to a main stream public forum. Obviousley SPIN wins 
P.S.
Love Pistonheads your top, SS/ASD also doing a good job. It's just all about spin and we need to spin it out of the standard car forums. We are seen as very biased towards cars. Hence arguments are easy to ignore.
P.S.
Love Pistonheads your top, SS/ASD also doing a good job. It's just all about spin and we need to spin it out of the standard car forums. We are seen as very biased towards cars. Hence arguments are easy to ignore.
Surely speed cameras are as counterproductive at roadworks as they are anywhere else? We want people to be aware of the hazards around them and drive accordingly. Making people aware of speed limit signs and cameras and drive at the speed limit addresses that risk of losing their license or being fined, but this is an artificial hazard that diverts driver attention away from the real hazards around them - it is the real hazards that they should be focussing on.
crankedup said:
I find myself agreeing with most arguments and findings by SS, but I am really surprised by this latest information snippit.
My FoI request uncovered a TRL report which says cameras make no significant difference to road works safety. I believe it and yesterday gave it some publicity. See these two PRs:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/76
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/77
This arose because I was highly suspucious of the official spin. Looks like I've been proved right.
chris_crossley said:
If this information is true they why can't an organisation like the BBC quote them. No offence to pistonheads or SS, but they are small cogs in the public news. Can't SS or Pistonheads push this over to a main stream public forum. Obviousley SPIN wins
It's in the Daily Mail today. I'm booked for BBC Radio Oxford tomorrow morning. I expect there will be a lot more said about the story - it's just starting to hit the media today.
It's always struck me when driving in France that it is not deemed necessary to have speed restrictions through m-way roadworks, so the UK habit has always puzzled me.
In reponse to the poster who mentioned worker safety, fair enough, just have restrictions when there are actually workers present, as 98% of the time I find myself passing through 4 miles of roadworks at an irrtatingly slow 40mph without a worker in site.
But of course this has nothing to do with road safety and everything to do with money.
In reponse to the poster who mentioned worker safety, fair enough, just have restrictions when there are actually workers present, as 98% of the time I find myself passing through 4 miles of roadworks at an irrtatingly slow 40mph without a worker in site.
But of course this has nothing to do with road safety and everything to do with money.
safespeed said:
It's in the Daily Mail today. I'm booked for BBC Radio Oxford tomorrow morning. I expect there will be a lot more said about the story - it's just starting to hit the media today.
Unfortunatly it's the only way to win this Scamera farse.
I have already used your stats to convince my old man and believe me that has taken some doing. I will be using the new stats to see what he thinks. He spent most of his life fixing roads :|. Most of his tall stories relate to muppet drivers and don't actually have anything to do with speed, just poor observation of signs/lights.
Keep up the good work
chris_crossley said:Show us a forum where the general consensus is reversed as we’ll be there; I haven’t found any to date.
It's just all about spin and we need to spin it out of the standard car forums. We are seen as very biased towards cars. Hence arguments are easy to ignore.
I have posted on a few camera partnership forums, a pointless endeavour in itself as those in support of speed cameras (or the whole website) tend to vanish when awkward questions are posed.
GreenV8S said:
Surely speed cameras are as counterproductive at roadworks as they are anywhere else? We want people to be aware of the hazards around them and drive accordingly. Making people aware of speed limit signs and cameras and drive at the speed limit addresses that risk of losing their license or being fined, but this is an artificial hazard that diverts driver attention away from the real hazards around them - it is the real hazards that they should be focussing on.
Agreed - plus forcing people to drive in close proximity to each other is just asking for a collision to happen. More risky than allowing a small amount of leeway with peoples' speeds so they can try and manoever themselves out of people's blind spots, etc. I don't understand how people can say that these heavily enforced limits can reduce the risk of minor collisions (on other threads). Limits during roadworks may be necessary (when managed properly) - but fewer cameras and more illuminating signs would do the job far, far better.
I resent very slow speed limits on unobstructed motorways when there are clearly no workmen around to be at risk. People seem to ignore these signs unless there are cameras to enforce them, and who can blame them?
On the other hand we get the same limits when there are workmen in the carriageway with just a line of plastic cones to separate them from the traffic. They seem to be at a significant risk, and I wouldn't want to be doing more than 20-30 mph in the adjacent lane or 30-40 the next lane over. Still much prefer to be paying attention to the workmen and surrounding traffic than concentrating on speedo and cameras.
On the other hand we get the same limits when there are workmen in the carriageway with just a line of plastic cones to separate them from the traffic. They seem to be at a significant risk, and I wouldn't want to be doing more than 20-30 mph in the adjacent lane or 30-40 the next lane over. Still much prefer to be paying attention to the workmen and surrounding traffic than concentrating on speedo and cameras.
Did anyone realy think that cameras on roadworks would make a difference?
If you're driving and there are no workers visible, then people may not slow but, if there are workers about, then any driver with a modicum of intelligence will slow down.
You need to see what's in front and around you, not spend half the time watching the roadside or gantries for cameras.
If you're driving and there are no workers visible, then people may not slow but, if there are workers about, then any driver with a modicum of intelligence will slow down.
You need to see what's in front and around you, not spend half the time watching the roadside or gantries for cameras.
timmy30 said:Indeed. I got my first points for doing 57mph in a NSL dual carriageway on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately for me it was a poorly signed temporary 40mph limit due to roadworks, although not a worker in sight at that time.
In reponse to the poster who mentioned worker safety, fair enough, just have restrictions when there are actually workers present, as 98% of the time I find myself passing through 4 miles of roadworks at an irrtatingly slow 40mph without a worker in site.
JonRB said:
In reponse to the poster who mentioned worker safety, fair enough, just have restrictions when there are actually workers present, as 98% of the time I find myself passing through 4 miles of roadworks at an irrtatingly slow 40mph without a worker in site.
Indeed. I got my first points for doing 57mph in a NSL dual carriageway on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately for me it was a poorly signed temporary 40mph limit due to roadworks, although not a worker in sight at that time.
I saw you posting about fighting it earlier, did you get anywhere?
smeggy said:
Show us a forum where the general consensus is reversed as we’ll be there; I haven’t found any to date.
There aren’t any forums that will make a difference, unless the population and public hear it. What we need is crusaders in the form of SS/Pistonheads.
Lobbying parliament is how the minotiry scamera partnership/supporters have achieved their goal so far. Burry the truth and lobby the politicians with spinned facts and promise of money. No doubt funded by Good meaning groups and the companies who make speed cameras. Add a few parents who have lost there kids
to Road Traffic and the spin is complete. Who cares if it makes no difference and the death toll keeps going up. The people think they have a moral victory/stand point and there is money to be made. This is a classic case of miss-direction and corruption. A British farse at its best. No doubt someone will make a TV movie about it in years to come. The Scamera partnership and other organisations have financial and political reason to bury this information. Thus needing the FOI act to be used by people who are prepared to dig. How dare the Department of transport bury this information? They are a public body and MUST! Serve the people. Who ever classified or dropped this information should be held accountable.
We need traffic cops, they cost but have been effective in the past. Just dump the speeding farce and get them doing what there good at. Dooing numpties who need to be re-trained or Banned. Maybe then the public will re-gain respect for the police as I am sure it’s caused them serious damage.
chris_crossley said:
Lobbying parliament is how the minotiry scamera partnership/supporters have achieved their goal so far. Burry the truth and lobby the politicians with spinned facts and promise of money.
My feeling is that far from merely being pursuaded by the arguments from the scamera lobbies, the government actively wants motorists to be charged, fined, have licenses revoked, discouraged through congestion and generally make private motoring as unattractive as possible, as long as they (the government) don't get too much political backlash. They haven't made much secret of their goal of reducing private car use, and the safety and environmental reasons they use to justify it are just that - justifications. I believe the true reason is purely political.
chris_crossley said:
This is a classic case of miss-direction and corruption. A British farse at its best. No doubt someone will make a TV movie about it in years to come.
Good idea. Anyone know any good script writers?
Unfortunately I only ever write stuff people have to read as opposed to want to read.
Who would you cast as Tony Blair and John Prescot. My vote is one of the weasels from Wind in the Willows for Blair, Jabba the Hut as Prescot and we could have Mr. Toad as Clarkson.
GreenV8S said:
I believe the true reason is purely political.
I can only see it a eventual political suicide to follow the route of alienating the british motorist. I have tried public transport and have been forced back into my car. I just think they see us as a cash cow. There already milking us through most orifices. Only one left and as soon as they can get a good enought spin they will get that one too. It's time to say no or bend over
Like the castings for MY (c) patent pending moving. I have cameron diaz staring. Sod the plot. Well it's ment to be an ironic TV movie
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