RE: Are scamera bodies legal?
Thursday 9th February 2006
Scamera bodies not legal...Roads minister Stephen Ladyman admitted in Parliament recently that "Safety Camera Partnerships are not ... a legal entity" and "are not ... directly accountable to any elected bodies".
Are scamera bodies legal?
Roads minister admits their unusual legal basis
Scamera bodies not legal...
Road safety campaign Safe Speed described it as "an extraordinary admission" and said that it believed the situation to be "totally unacceptable". The campaign demanded the creation of an independent Camera Partnership Commissioner, who would be responsible for:
- Publishing a code of practice
- Handling and adjudicating complaints - including awards of compensation
- Ensuring a reasonable standard of public communication, entirely devoid of threats or intimidation
- Ensuring that camera partnerships use statistics honestly and accurately
- Ensuring that partnership-generated road safety information is highly accurate and never misleading
- Ensuring that refunds are handled quickly, accurately and professionally when mistakes are made
Campaign founder Paul Smith said: "While the camera partnerships remain unaccountable we should not be surprised to see them running out of control. Their behaviour is extraordinary. They bluff, bluster and intimidate the public. They publish highly misleading statistics. They fail to inform the public even when they have made gross errors.
"If the camera partnerships remain, it is urgent and absolutely essential that we create a scheme of accountability and the Camera Partnership Commissioner is probably the only way that this can be achieved. Department for Transport has proved itself unwilling to exercise adequate control."
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Discussion
They need to be careful. If these guys aren't held properly to account there's a danger that they'll adopt ill informed policies, putting cameras and speed traps up where there's no scientific basis. Plus they'd most likely use statistical errors like regression to mean to support their endevours should genuine accident figures fail to show their performance in the proper light.
In short they would cynically create spin to ensure their continued employment.
Anyone seen any of this happening yet?
SM
In short they would cynically create spin to ensure their continued employment.
Anyone seen any of this happening yet?
SM
supermono said:
They need to be careful. If these guys aren't held properly to account there's a danger that they'll adopt ill informed policies
A danger? I think it may already be happening. I had to question the legality of volunteers stopping people from speeding by being trained on radar guns.
Combover
combover said:
They need to be careful. If these guys aren't held properly to account there's a danger that they'll adopt ill informed policies
A danger? I think it may already be happening. I had to question the legality of volunteers stopping people from speeding by being trained on radar guns.
Combover
I think he was being sarcastic!
supermono said:
They need to be careful. If these guys aren't held properly to account there's a danger that they'll adopt ill informed policies, putting cameras and speed traps up where there's no scientific basis. Plus they'd most likely use statistical errors like regression to mean to support their endevours should genuine accident figures fail to show their performance in the proper light.
In short they would cynically create spin to ensure their continued employment.
Anyone seen any of this happening yet?
SM
You could well be right.
However, only a set of complete idiots in government would ever create such a situation on purpose - oh, wait a minute, even if it were by accident and they didn't forsee the obvious, they are still idiots.annodomini2 said:
They need to be careful. If these guys aren't held properly to account there's a danger that they'll adopt ill informed policies
A danger? I think it may already be happening. I had to question the legality of volunteers stopping people from speeding by being trained on radar guns.
Combover
I think he was being sarcastic!
It was very subtle though...you had to look hard to spot it!!!
You can expect them to try to keep this dodgy situation for as long as possible -
As government agencies they are accountable and MPs would have difficult questions to answer.
As legal companies they would have to publish accounts and details of directors - we could see exactly how much we are being ripped off and by who.
Sickening, but our politicians generally are...
As government agencies they are accountable and MPs would have difficult questions to answer.
As legal companies they would have to publish accounts and details of directors - we could see exactly how much we are being ripped off and by who.
Sickening, but our politicians generally are...
Ladyman said:
"Safety Camera Partnerships are not ... a legal entity" and "are not ... directly accountable to any elected bodies".
So by what legal right do they enforce on our roads?
If they have no legal basis for existence and are unaccountable to anyone, just why are we allowing ourselves to be bullied by a "body" thats not legally entitled to do so????
Stands by to be corrected....
I was going to ask the same question but then thought about it and decided that in effect the Pratnerships are acting as pimps by generating business for the Police, who do all the legal stuff such as issuing the NIP and FPN
It still leaves a small possibility that they dont actuallly have the authority to get the police to act on their behalf, but I cant quite bring myself to think that the Government and/or the ACPO would be quite so stupid as to leave a loophole like that open.
It still leaves a small possibility that they dont actuallly have the authority to get the police to act on their behalf, but I cant quite bring myself to think that the Government and/or the ACPO would be quite so stupid as to leave a loophole like that open.
deltafox said:
"Safety Camera Partnerships are not ... a legal entity" and "are not ... directly accountable to any elected bodies".
So by what legal right do they enforce on our roads?
If they have no legal basis for existence and are unaccountable to anyone, just why are we allowing ourselves to be bullied by a "body" thats not legally entitled to do so????
Stands by to be corrected....
I think the legal rights are there OK for their 'normal work'. They effectively 'borrow' police powers by directing police departments and police employees to do the work.
It gets difficult if you have cause to sue a partnership. There's no legal entity there to sue. In practice you would have to attempt to sue the lead partner - or the partner responsible for the specific problem.
But the real problem with unaccountability is the extraordinary behaviour that they can - and do - get away with.
agent006 said:
"Safety Camera Partnerships are not ... a legal entity" and "are not ... directly accountable to any elected bodies".
I'd be interested to see what the words blanked by the ... are. Selective quoting? Spin? Of course Safespeed would never do that. Or would they?
Seeing as you can't be bothered to click the link.
Dr Ladyman said:
Safety Camera Partnerships are comprised of representatives from local authorities, the police, the Highways Agency and the magistrates courts and optional representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service, national health service trusts and the health authority.
Safety Camera Partnerships are not however a legal entity, and they complement, not replace, existing local authority and police statutory responsibilities in respect of road safety. Safety Camera Partnerships are not therefore directly accountable to any elected bodies. However each member of the partnership does remain locally accountable to its parent body.
I think safespeed's precis was fair enough.
agent006 said:
"Safety Camera Partnerships are not ... a legal entity" and "are not ... directly accountable to any elected bodies".
I'd be interested to see what the words blanked by the ... are. Selective quoting? Spin? Of course Safespeed would never do that. Or would they?
Your hostility to Paul's work wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you attended the Robert Gordon University, refuge of the good 'Professor' David Begg, all round good egg and hater of all things automotive. Or would it?
"Safety Camera Partnerships are comprised of representatives from local authorities, the police, the Highways Agency and the magistrates courts and optional representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service, national health service trusts and the health authority.
Safety Camera Partnerships are not however a legal entity, and they complement, not replace, existing local authority and police statutory responsibilities in respect of road safety. Safety Camera Partnerships are not therefore directly accountable to any elected bodies. However each member of the partnership does remain locally accountable to its parent body."
I see the basis for a challenge here. Under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights you are entitled to a fair trail. This includes the right to an unbiased tribunal and one that is deonstrably unbiased. If representatives of the Mags courts are part of the partnership how can there demonstrably be a fair trtial; the court is part of the partnersip that took your photo and nicked you, even if done by the agency of the police partner?
It is fo rhtis reason that the Lord Chancellor has stepped down as head of the judiciary. He was also a cabinet minister adn thus too closely linked the government with the courts/judiciary. Seems to me everyon ewho has ever been caught by a "safety camera" - even if they paid up as a challenge. They never had a right to a fair trtial and thus should not be penalised.
Wo will take this up. Of course there maybe partnerships that do not include the Mags, I am just going by what Ladyman said.
Safety Camera Partnerships are not however a legal entity, and they complement, not replace, existing local authority and police statutory responsibilities in respect of road safety. Safety Camera Partnerships are not therefore directly accountable to any elected bodies. However each member of the partnership does remain locally accountable to its parent body."
I see the basis for a challenge here. Under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights you are entitled to a fair trail. This includes the right to an unbiased tribunal and one that is deonstrably unbiased. If representatives of the Mags courts are part of the partnership how can there demonstrably be a fair trtial; the court is part of the partnersip that took your photo and nicked you, even if done by the agency of the police partner?
It is fo rhtis reason that the Lord Chancellor has stepped down as head of the judiciary. He was also a cabinet minister adn thus too closely linked the government with the courts/judiciary. Seems to me everyon ewho has ever been caught by a "safety camera" - even if they paid up as a challenge. They never had a right to a fair trtial and thus should not be penalised.
Wo will take this up. Of course there maybe partnerships that do not include the Mags, I am just going by what Ladyman said.
agent006 said:
"Safety Camera Partnerships are not ... a legal entity" and "are not ... directly accountable to any elected bodies".
I'd be interested to see what the words blanked by the ... are. Selective quoting? Spin? Of course Safespeed would never do that. Or would they?
I didn't blank any words. Here's the PR as issued: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/13
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