TfL Behaving Illegally
Discussion
I predict accidents are going to tick back up in some locations.
Take the new cameras along the A501/Euston Road - there are so many in a short length of road that there are way more people braking unexpectedly when they spot them.
It's already such a busy road with so much to look out for, the added cameras is really testing drivers' and riders' attention capacity.
Take the new cameras along the A501/Euston Road - there are so many in a short length of road that there are way more people braking unexpectedly when they spot them.
It's already such a busy road with so much to look out for, the added cameras is really testing drivers' and riders' attention capacity.
turbobloke said:
A curious thread bump but why not...and data management possibly with TfL behaving stupidly could be a common theme. Marked O/T so as not to offend purists on a Sunday morning.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11291390/Boriss...
Boris Johnson’s Transport for London (TfL) recently announced that it was planning to install more than 600 new digital speed cameras around the city. TfL claimed that its old film cameras, most of which it closed down three years ago, had reduced fatal or serious accidents by a staggering “58 per cent”, meaning that its new cameras will “help to prevent 500 deaths or serious injuries a year”.
No one was more startled by these claims than Idris Francis, an engineer and reader of this column. For 12 years he had been feeding into his computer huge quantities of data from police sources and TfL itself.
First he tracked back into the late Eighties the number of “KSIs” (killed and seriously injured) recorded at each camera site. This did indeed show a dramatic and steady decline. But he then compiled a graph showing the accident rate for the whole of London, subtracting the data for the sites with cameras. The result was unequivocal. The two graphs, though very slightly apart, showed exactly the same rate of decline. In other words, any evidence that cameras affected the accident rate was virtually nil.
Since July, Mr Francis has been trying to persuade TfL to look at his evidence, which has been checked out by an eminent academic statistician, but to no avail. In the end, TfL refused to answer his messages and seemingly ordered its switchboard not to put through his calls. Equally in vain have been Freedom of Information requests, which have been published on the Whatdotheyknow blog, trying to elicit the cost of this scheme, estimated at more than £20 million. TfL’s repeated reply was that such information cannot be disclosed because it is commercially sensitive.
So Mayor Johnson’s traffic officials have embarked on a scheme that will do little or nothing for road safety; made claims flatly contradicted by their own data; and are refusing to reveal what we will have to pay for it. It sounds like everything we have come to expect from modern government.
We don't mind the gap here as cameras aren't randomly sited, and the key result is that there is no trend gain in the speedcam locations. Good ol' TfL for listening to the voice of reason.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11291390/Boriss...
Boris Johnson’s Transport for London (TfL) recently announced that it was planning to install more than 600 new digital speed cameras around the city. TfL claimed that its old film cameras, most of which it closed down three years ago, had reduced fatal or serious accidents by a staggering “58 per cent”, meaning that its new cameras will “help to prevent 500 deaths or serious injuries a year”.
No one was more startled by these claims than Idris Francis, an engineer and reader of this column. For 12 years he had been feeding into his computer huge quantities of data from police sources and TfL itself.
First he tracked back into the late Eighties the number of “KSIs” (killed and seriously injured) recorded at each camera site. This did indeed show a dramatic and steady decline. But he then compiled a graph showing the accident rate for the whole of London, subtracting the data for the sites with cameras. The result was unequivocal. The two graphs, though very slightly apart, showed exactly the same rate of decline. In other words, any evidence that cameras affected the accident rate was virtually nil.
Since July, Mr Francis has been trying to persuade TfL to look at his evidence, which has been checked out by an eminent academic statistician, but to no avail. In the end, TfL refused to answer his messages and seemingly ordered its switchboard not to put through his calls. Equally in vain have been Freedom of Information requests, which have been published on the Whatdotheyknow blog, trying to elicit the cost of this scheme, estimated at more than £20 million. TfL’s repeated reply was that such information cannot be disclosed because it is commercially sensitive.
So Mayor Johnson’s traffic officials have embarked on a scheme that will do little or nothing for road safety; made claims flatly contradicted by their own data; and are refusing to reveal what we will have to pay for it. It sounds like everything we have come to expect from modern government.
We don't mind the gap here as cameras aren't randomly sited, and the key result is that there is no trend gain in the speedcam locations. Good ol' TfL for listening to the voice of reason.
I predict that if you plotted the accident rates decline against the average speed of (motorised) traffic in London you'd see that they correlate fairly well.
There might also be bumps (if we're basing this on KSI's rather than just collisions) when things such as ABS entered the main stream, but that's guesswork.
Anyway - the goal of the camera's is not to reduce average speeds, motorists do a fantastic job of that themselves by choosing to use the car in the first place, the goal of the camera's is to reduce peak speeds, where someone puts the foot down in a momentary gap in the congested flow.
There might also be bumps (if we're basing this on KSI's rather than just collisions) when things such as ABS entered the main stream, but that's guesswork.
Anyway - the goal of the camera's is not to reduce average speeds, motorists do a fantastic job of that themselves by choosing to use the car in the first place, the goal of the camera's is to reduce peak speeds, where someone puts the foot down in a momentary gap in the congested flow.
132 fatalities in 2013, 27,199 accidents (reported) in total: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/cas...
Dammit said:
Anyway - the goal of the camera's is not to reduce average speeds, motorists do a fantastic job of that themselves by choosing to use the car in the first place, the goal of the camera's is to reduce peak speeds, where someone puts the foot down in a momentary gap in the congested flow.
The goal is supposed to be to reduce accidents, that's why they are called safety cameras.Dammit said:
Yes, so their contribution is to stop people accelerating hard in gaps in the traffic.
If your average speed is 9mph putting the foot down hard to get to 40mph is going to give you wicked head of Kinetic energy.
Avoid that, reduce the impact of the accident, and the probability.
But the whole point at issue is whether they have succeeded in reducing accidents. If they haven't, what's the point of theoretically inducing someone to accelerate hard to only 30 instead of 40? Even assuming anyone is doing that when the average is 9MPH. When congestion is dictating the average speed it isn't usually possible to exceed the limit anyway. The cameras (and the limits themselves) are only relevant in free flowing conditions. If your average speed is 9mph putting the foot down hard to get to 40mph is going to give you wicked head of Kinetic energy.
Avoid that, reduce the impact of the accident, and the probability.
All they are doing is polling out to the DVLA to pull back information about your car and listing it against your name in their database. Nothing wrong with this.
The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which defines UK law on the processing of data on identifiable living people.
The definition of personal data is data which relates to a living individual who can be identified
- from that data, or
- from that data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller
Sensitive personal data concerns the subject's race, ethnicity, politics, religion, trade union status, health, sex life or criminal record.
By checking your car registration number against a type, model, and colour is not part of the DPA.
The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which defines UK law on the processing of data on identifiable living people.
The definition of personal data is data which relates to a living individual who can be identified
- from that data, or
- from that data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller
Sensitive personal data concerns the subject's race, ethnicity, politics, religion, trade union status, health, sex life or criminal record.
By checking your car registration number against a type, model, and colour is not part of the DPA.
cooperman said:
It seems that when you advance pay the London congestion charge TfL ask for details of your vehicle.
They then confirm with DVLA that these details are correct.
Fair enough, you might think. However, under the Data Protection Act this is an illegal act as they cannot request such details until they believe an offence has been committed.
A friend phoned them to pre-pay and a recorded message told him his call was being recorded. He then spoke to a 'real person' who asked for his car details. He gave these and said that he assumed this was checked and the 'real person' confirmed that it was immediately checked with DVLA. My friend now awaits a reply to his letter asking then to explain this breach of the DPA. Very interesting!
Of course, it also seems that if you challenge a penalty from TfL as void under the Bill of Rights they just give up and go away, as such fines are also illegal. One chap has, apparently, had 7 'fines' deleted recently.
DOes your Friend Belive that Words (words) have DIfferent MeaNings if they are put in (parenthesis) or InTeRestingLy Capitalised ?They then confirm with DVLA that these details are correct.
Fair enough, you might think. However, under the Data Protection Act this is an illegal act as they cannot request such details until they believe an offence has been committed.
A friend phoned them to pre-pay and a recorded message told him his call was being recorded. He then spoke to a 'real person' who asked for his car details. He gave these and said that he assumed this was checked and the 'real person' confirmed that it was immediately checked with DVLA. My friend now awaits a reply to his letter asking then to explain this breach of the DPA. Very interesting!
Of course, it also seems that if you challenge a penalty from TfL as void under the Bill of Rights they just give up and go away, as such fines are also illegal. One chap has, apparently, had 7 'fines' deleted recently.
the mention of the 'Bill of Rights' is also a worry that we are straying into freewibbler territory
as others have said they have got a reasonable grounds to verify the vehicle details ...
Breadvan72 said:
Why on Earth was this utterly crackpot thread from 2006 revived after over eight years very sensibly buried?
Still, a nice reminder of when we had Cooperman, SafeSpeed and g_attrill here, instead of those who seem somewhat less concerned than them about the Marxist persecution of anyone who dares to defy state control by purchasing their own powered transport.Oh, but sorry, it's about safety, isn't it? And definitely not about disliking or distrusting our fellow men so much that we must use coercion to "stop them doing the wrong thing" at every turn.
I really wonder where some here (now) would stop, if they would at all. What was it someone called them the other day? The "PH Knobhead Squad"? Personally I think that's funny, but is also trivialising as "general dicks for no particular reason" those who actually have a very specific, persistent and mean-spirited urge to drastically limit the freedoms of most on this forum and beyond in order to achieve their "Utopia". Few insults are strong enough, quite frankly.
Interesting variety of points, albeit linked together by a whiff of tin-foil hat, a reek of entitlement and the almost overwhelming stench of whining.
In what way would you say the states control is lessened by you owning a car? In what way would you say the state has more control of you if you didn't have a car? Is this a sliding scale - i.e. are the owners of many cars demonstrably "more free" than those who walk to the shops? Or is this paranoid raving?
I think it's interesting that you view a desire to "not be dead" as mean spirited, and I'm terribly sorry that you view an attempt to prevent you doing 70mph through a village as limiting your freedoms, but that is rather the point.
The hugely entertaining irony of this whole thing is, of course, that it's almost entirely down to people like you that we need significantly more enforcement on the roads.
You've created the rod for your own back, but you are probably incapable of seeing that.
In what way would you say the states control is lessened by you owning a car? In what way would you say the state has more control of you if you didn't have a car? Is this a sliding scale - i.e. are the owners of many cars demonstrably "more free" than those who walk to the shops? Or is this paranoid raving?
I think it's interesting that you view a desire to "not be dead" as mean spirited, and I'm terribly sorry that you view an attempt to prevent you doing 70mph through a village as limiting your freedoms, but that is rather the point.
The hugely entertaining irony of this whole thing is, of course, that it's almost entirely down to people like you that we need significantly more enforcement on the roads.
You've created the rod for your own back, but you are probably incapable of seeing that.
Have you not noticed that the thread dates from 2006? The opening post was pure woo. Don't we have perfectly good 2014 woo to play with instead? It seems to have mutated pretty rapidly into the standard "giving people speeding tickets is worse than the Holocaust" thread, so perhaps there is some comfort in knowing that some things on PH don't change.
If you think it is mean spirited to laugh at the loons here who think that being told that they cannot always do just whatever they like means they are living in some sort of dystopic tyranny is mean spirited, then you must be a very gentle soul. Meanwhile, tomorrow I am going to go for a drive in my car, will almost certainly break the speed limit, and will almost certainly not be caught while doing so. This much vaunted fascist oppression machine seems a bit rubbish.
Going back to the original loony post, no, TfL were not breaching the DPA, and no, the Bill of Rights does not make it unlawful for TfL to bust people for congestion charge fines, red route fines or whatever it was that was making the OP's tinfoil hat explode. I still wonder why we need to dig up ancient whackjob threads when we have such wonderful contemporary whackjob threads to delight us.
Going back to the original loony post, no, TfL were not breaching the DPA, and no, the Bill of Rights does not make it unlawful for TfL to bust people for congestion charge fines, red route fines or whatever it was that was making the OP's tinfoil hat explode. I still wonder why we need to dig up ancient whackjob threads when we have such wonderful contemporary whackjob threads to delight us.
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 19th December 22:03
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