Question for SafeSpeed......
Discussion
Paul,
One of the bigger sticks with which we batter the SCPs is saying that it's all about revenue generation. However, as was highlighted in Top Gear (the one where Mr Ladyman was in the reasonably priced car) it was pointed out that the amount of revenue they all generate is next to nothing on the scale of the British Economy, and therefore stating revenue raising as a reason for the Government to be wanting speed cameras is a bit thin. Mr Clarkson (whose side is he on?!) even went on to say that Simon Cowell pays more in income tax anually than cameras raise in fines annually!
I work at a TV company in West London, and there are a load of lefty anarchists working here who love pointing this out to me most days. How do you counter this argument? Is it just by saying (as I have pointed out) that it's not on a governmental level, and it's the SCPs that have realised the gravy-train that is current road safety policy? Or is there a better answer?
Cheers,
J.
One of the bigger sticks with which we batter the SCPs is saying that it's all about revenue generation. However, as was highlighted in Top Gear (the one where Mr Ladyman was in the reasonably priced car) it was pointed out that the amount of revenue they all generate is next to nothing on the scale of the British Economy, and therefore stating revenue raising as a reason for the Government to be wanting speed cameras is a bit thin. Mr Clarkson (whose side is he on?!) even went on to say that Simon Cowell pays more in income tax anually than cameras raise in fines annually!
I work at a TV company in West London, and there are a load of lefty anarchists working here who love pointing this out to me most days. How do you counter this argument? Is it just by saying (as I have pointed out) that it's not on a governmental level, and it's the SCPs that have realised the gravy-train that is current road safety policy? Or is there a better answer?
Cheers,
J.
The counter argument to "they are just revenue raisers" is often "Good, they only raise money from people breaking the law anyway". And there is often a confusion between "They are revenue raisers" and "Why don't the authorities/police do something more important". If they raise revenue, then they leave more resources available for "more important" issues.
I don't want to debate the above arguments, I'm just agreeing that the revenue raising issue is not the best one - road safety is.
I don't want to debate the above arguments, I'm just agreeing that the revenue raising issue is not the best one - road safety is.
minicity said:
The counter argument to "they are just revenue raisers" is often "Good, they only raise money from people breaking the law anyway". And there is often a confusion between "They are revenue raisers" and "Why don't the authorities/police do something more important". If they raise revenue, then they leave more resources available for "more important" issues.
I don't want to debate the above arguments, I'm just agreeing that the revenue raising issue is not the best one - road safety is.
It doesn't bear thinking about how much they have cost the economy through lost licences and slower traffic
- if there were no cameras then Fat Gordie would have a helluva lot more to invest wisely 
I agree that its not about money - more about removing freedom and pandering to lentilists.
jezzaaa said:
One of the bigger sticks with which we batter the SCPs is saying that it's all about revenue generation.
It isn't about revenue in any simple sense. As you say the cash that ends up in the treasury is chicken feed.
HOWEVER, the original motivation seems to have been revenue. It all started because camera manufacturers made heavyweight presentations to politicians and senior civil servants suggesting that they would be failing to fulfil their duties if they didn't buy speed cameras.
And most of these damnable camera partnerships are run as nasty little empires mostly by nasty little empire builders. More cameras means more fines means more importance and a bigger little empire to control. That's the way for a local authority style manager. And that's why DfT have ben forced into changing the funding arrangements. The partnerships have been running out of control. By taking back the purse strings the DfT is taking back control.
These days there are a lot of sincere people involved who really do believe that they are on a life saving mission. And don't forget DfT has a long term history of handing out trustworthy road safety information. These missionary types can fall back on that - "if the DfT says so, it must be right". It's only in the last decade or so that the DfT information has been dodgy and it's taking time for the world to withdraw its trust.
The senior politicians are also mostly sincere. They really do believe it. What we really need are more politicians with degreees in science, egnineering, statistics or maths - or even advanced driving qualifications. These degrees in history, languages or literature just don't cut it when it comes to dealing with systems.
What safespeed said ^^^^^^ is seconded.
I too don't think it is about the money at a Governemtal level. It could be argued, however, that HMG sees cameras as a much cheaper way of doing traffic policing's job and thus the number of traffic units can either be reduced and/or deployed on community policing issues, ie response cars deal with everything, thus achieving a cost saving in other ways. Not directly about the fine money but tangentially so.
Nevertheless I do believe, for the exact reasons Safespeed outlined, that at a local level it is about the money.
Let us look at one set of scamps who faced with the prospect of refunding a lot of fines due to ... shall we say .... maladministration by somebody then announced that they were going to lose money so they had to go out and be ... shall we say .. a bit more active with a bit tighter trigger limits.
Another scameraship known to me has within its forecast, for want a better phrase, very clear monetary targets, and there is only one way they can achieve that. How they would continue to achieve these targets if everyone stopped speeding would be interesting I wager.
I bet it would not result in them saying "Our job here is done"
Cynical? Moi?
FiF
edited i before e except after c when the sound is e
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Friday 20th January 20:18
I too don't think it is about the money at a Governemtal level. It could be argued, however, that HMG sees cameras as a much cheaper way of doing traffic policing's job and thus the number of traffic units can either be reduced and/or deployed on community policing issues, ie response cars deal with everything, thus achieving a cost saving in other ways. Not directly about the fine money but tangentially so.
Nevertheless I do believe, for the exact reasons Safespeed outlined, that at a local level it is about the money.
Let us look at one set of scamps who faced with the prospect of refunding a lot of fines due to ... shall we say .... maladministration by somebody then announced that they were going to lose money so they had to go out and be ... shall we say .. a bit more active with a bit tighter trigger limits.
Another scameraship known to me has within its forecast, for want a better phrase, very clear monetary targets, and there is only one way they can achieve that. How they would continue to achieve these targets if everyone stopped speeding would be interesting I wager.
I bet it would not result in them saying "Our job here is done"
Cynical? Moi?
FiF
edited i before e except after c when the sound is e
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Friday 20th January 20:18
Third what safespeed says.
In my opinion it is ALL about money, not for the Government, but for the multi million pound business that the partnerships have become. If they were not allowed to keep the fines to pay for the business costs, then they would not be taking pictures of people driving above a nominal limit, to keep their jobs going. After all, they have contributed nothing to road safety, apart from arguably causing an increase in overall road accidents and deaths.
Think of it this way, breaking the speed limit is a criminal offence, just like serving someone alchohol who is already under the influence of alchohol. Police do not charge all Landlords for serving drunk people, as it is not important, or in the public interest. Now if the Government invented an anti drinking partnership, where people could go into pubs, create imediate fines for serving drunk customers (the law states under the influence, so legaly they could do this if you had drunk one pint), and fund their jobs from doing this, then Landlords would soon be out of jobs. In my opinion this is what they have done with speeding fines. They can even spend their ill gotten gains on false and often illegal advertising to put their false message accross.
In my opinion it is ALL about money, not for the Government, but for the multi million pound business that the partnerships have become. If they were not allowed to keep the fines to pay for the business costs, then they would not be taking pictures of people driving above a nominal limit, to keep their jobs going. After all, they have contributed nothing to road safety, apart from arguably causing an increase in overall road accidents and deaths.
Think of it this way, breaking the speed limit is a criminal offence, just like serving someone alchohol who is already under the influence of alchohol. Police do not charge all Landlords for serving drunk people, as it is not important, or in the public interest. Now if the Government invented an anti drinking partnership, where people could go into pubs, create imediate fines for serving drunk customers (the law states under the influence, so legaly they could do this if you had drunk one pint), and fund their jobs from doing this, then Landlords would soon be out of jobs. In my opinion this is what they have done with speeding fines. They can even spend their ill gotten gains on false and often illegal advertising to put their false message accross.
I still believe the cash generation motive.
In the beginning, they estimated transgressions would rise to 5 million per year...and remain at that level forever. Prudence Brown will not sniff at £300,000,000....he needs every penny he can steal.
In the beginning, I would hazard a guess they thought the scheme would cost very little.
If the motive is not money, why haven't they scrapped cameras in favour of vehicle activated signs.....revealed as a superior tool by the Road Research Laboratory?
In the beginning, they estimated transgressions would rise to 5 million per year...and remain at that level forever. Prudence Brown will not sniff at £300,000,000....he needs every penny he can steal.
In the beginning, I would hazard a guess they thought the scheme would cost very little.
If the motive is not money, why haven't they scrapped cameras in favour of vehicle activated signs.....revealed as a superior tool by the Road Research Laboratory?
Having read a lot on the current Marxism sweeping across Europe, I believe it is part of the "drive" to make motoring as miserable and uncomfortable as possible as decreed by the Copenhagen Declaration.
See here:
www.myflorida.com/fdi/edesign/news/9708/reviews/mobility.htm
It has been decreed that the car is a major cause of social exclusion( lefty garbage) and para 7 reads:
. We must move toward a society respecting environmental limits. All decision-makers at the local, regional, national, and European levels are urged to play their part in changing our culture of mobility!
See here:
www.myflorida.com/fdi/edesign/news/9708/reviews/mobility.htm
It has been decreed that the car is a major cause of social exclusion( lefty garbage) and para 7 reads:
. We must move toward a society respecting environmental limits. All decision-makers at the local, regional, national, and European levels are urged to play their part in changing our culture of mobility!
jezzaaa said:
Paul,
One of the bigger sticks with which we batter the SCPs is saying that it's all about revenue generation. However, as was highlighted in Top Gear (the one where Mr Ladyman was in the reasonably priced car) it was pointed out that the amount of revenue they all generate is next to nothing on the scale of the British Economy, and therefore stating revenue raising as a reason for the Government to be wanting speed cameras is a bit thin. Mr Clarkson (whose side is he on?!) even went on to say that Simon Cowell pays more in income tax anually than cameras raise in fines annually!
J.
This is only part of the story though surely. OK the actual revenue generated for the Treasury is not large in the scale of things, and I agree that it's the partnerships that benefit most, but there is another side to this coin.
How much is the Treasury saving by not having to employ extra trafpol to achieve the governments stated aims of reducing speed to improve road safety.
Add all these factors together and it then does become a significant amount to add to the Treasury budget, so they can than afford to have their delusions of grandeur and go off playing 'world policeman' with the Americans without raising taxes by an amount the public would stand for.
The cost of 10,000 trafpol would be in the region of £800 milliion. The overall return from cameras is around £200 million, so the total treasury saving is around £1 billion annually.
However....
The cost of the loss to the expected trend of road fatality reduction over the last 12 years is annually well over 1000 lives per year. If each fatality costs + £1,2 million total, then the cumulative loss to the nation is not only in personal emotional terms, but also financial, as the annual cost of the loss of trend is currently in the region of £1.2 to £1.5 billion.
The difficulty with this aspect of the anti-camera argument lies in proving the cause of the loss of the fatality reduction trend.
However....
The cost of the loss to the expected trend of road fatality reduction over the last 12 years is annually well over 1000 lives per year. If each fatality costs + £1,2 million total, then the cumulative loss to the nation is not only in personal emotional terms, but also financial, as the annual cost of the loss of trend is currently in the region of £1.2 to £1.5 billion.
The difficulty with this aspect of the anti-camera argument lies in proving the cause of the loss of the fatality reduction trend.
The ACPO top bod for traffic police was on Radio 5 the other day. I sent in an email asking why they were claiming such success when death rates hadn't changed significantly since the introduction of cameras.
His reply was that more accidents were now occuring in areas where there were no cameras.
The presenter unfortunately didn't pick him up on this totally nonsensical answer!
His reply was that more accidents were now occuring in areas where there were no cameras.
The presenter unfortunately didn't pick him up on this totally nonsensical answer!
PetrolTed said:
The ACPO top bod for traffic police was on Radio 5 the other day. I sent in an email asking why they were claiming such success when death rates hadn't changed significantly since the introduction of cameras.
His reply was that more accidents were now occuring in areas where there were no cameras.
The presenter unfortunately didn't pick him up on this totally nonsensical answer!
So what's he saying - a camera stops someone from making a fatal mistake? All it does - perhaps slows down for a second - then they speed up. Our guy here - "Speedfinder General" calls them "manipulators". To some extent I would agree with him on this - they slow for the cam - well below limit and definitely not safe - then speed up again immediately.
But it only checks speed for a second or so and it does not coprrecdt the underlying cause - total lack of road sense and distinct shortage of common sense.
IaHa said:
The cost of 10,000 trafpol would be in the region of £800 milliion. The overall return from cameras is around £200 million, so the total treasury saving is around £1 billion annually.
However....
The cost of the loss to the expected trend of road fatality reduction over the last 12 years is annually well over 1000 lives per year. If each fatality costs + £1,2 million total, then the cumulative loss to the nation is not only in personal emotional terms, but also financial, as the annual cost of the loss of trend is currently in the region of £1.2 to £1.5 billion.
The difficulty with this aspect of the anti-camera argument lies in proving the cause of the loss of the fatality reduction trend.
Indeed Ian. But even with the pro-argument we still cannot account for the claims made. How much is RTTM? How much down to road improvements at the camera siting?
I would say that to some extent there is an over-reliance on "in car safety and a general complacency setting in insofaras "If I hit anything and anyone at a low speed - I will not hurt them that much!" - which depletes skills and pride in one's driving as well.
So far we cannot prove cams work in reality and the only thing we can be 95% sure of is that human beings make mistakes and when a series of such mistakes and circumstances combine by some quirk of tragic fate - we have a fatality.
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