Speed Cameras, are they for safety, or revenue?

[vonhosen]

v12Legs said:

There is no evidence that can possibly exist that can excuse a driver pulling out when it is not clear to do so.

The law disagrees with you.

Automatism?
Duress?

[Devil2575]

Phatboy317 said:

er, I didn't make any claims

But, by the same token, you need to be a bit careful about making assertions such as, "None of the data provides a cast iron proof of anything, but combined they add up to produce a weight of evidence"

There are many potential sources of publication bias, such as who has the wherewithal to conduct such research in the first place.
And any research of a subject is most likely to be commissioned by parties with the most interest in finding one way or the other.
Also, when findings are not likely to be particularly strong in one direction or the other, people are unlikely to bother to publish research which shows in the other direction.

And you also get confirmation bias, ie people are more likely to accept findings which agree with their expectations.

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 14:14

In order to be published in the first place a research paper must be of a certain quality. Journals, such as the BMJ, don't just publish anything and everything. So it must pass peer review before it is published, at least in a journal of any note or value. There are journals that will publish anything but no one pays any attention to them. Reports that have obviously just been produced to come to a predetermined conclusion will not get through this process. This includes confirmation bias.

Once published the work is then open to critique by others and papers that have flaws or produce an outcome that is no one else is able to repeat can and do get withdrawn. A prime example being the paper that linked the MMR jab to Autism.

It's also worth bearing in mind that putting your name to something is a quite a big deal for people working in research. Reputations can be ruined if individuals are found to have falsified information and it has ultimately lead to people commiting suicide. From a journals perspective reputation is also everything so publishing flawed work carried a risk for them too.

The weight of evidence thing...

People rarely come to strong conclusions based on a single bit of research. But the more that work is repeated elsewhere by other people drawing the same conclusions the more confidence we can have in the result. A single bit of research producing a result in one direction but not by a large margin could just be detecting noise, however if multiple bits of independant research come to the same conclusion then the confidence that the effect is real becomes stronger.

[Jon1967x]

V8 Fettler said:

Flat cap or baseball cap (depending on age)? Sunglasses?

All those but you know the scenario I mean... you can kind of see but its far from easy due to the glare

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2778761/Au...

[Phatboy317]

Devil2575 said:

In order to be published in the first place a research paper must be of a certain quality. Journals, such as the BMJ, don't just publish anything and everything. So it must pass peer review before it is published, at least in a journal of any note or value. There are journals that will publish anything but no one pays any attention to them. Reports that have obviously just been produced to come to a predetermined conclusion will not get through this process. This includes confirmation bias.

Once published the work is then open to critique by others and papers that have flaws or produce an outcome that is no one else is able to repeat can and do get withdrawn. A prime example being the paper that linked the MMR jab to Autism.

It's also worth bearing in mind that putting your name to something is a quite a big deal for people working in research. Reputations can be ruined if individuals are found to have falsified information and it has ultimately lead to people commiting suicide. From a journals perspective reputation is also everything so publishing flawed work carried a risk for them too.

The weight of evidence thing...

People rarely come to strong conclusions based on a single bit of research. But the more that work is repeated elsewhere by other people drawing the same conclusions the more confidence we can have in the result. A single bit of research producing a result in one direction but not by a large margin could just be detecting noise, however if multiple bits of independant research come to the same conclusion then the confidence that the effect is real becomes stronger.

Just a scan of the first few references in the BMJ paper you linked to shows this piece, which is difficult to distinguish from third-rate sensationalist tabloid journalism, and is also from the BMJ.

As well as a paper by Rune Elvik, who is well-known for his outspoken views on speed, and is, incidentally, the editor of the highly-respected journal, "Accident Analysis and Prevention".

What awoke my interest in the subject of road safety in the first place, was reading the paper we were discussing in another thread, with the objective of seeing what the experts of the day were saying on the subject, and being shocked at the big holes I saw in it.
And, far from being withdrawn, it's become one of the most widely-cited papers on the subject.

So I'm a bit more sceptical than you are.

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 18:23

[Devil2575]

Phatboy317 said:

Just a scan of the first few references in the BMJ paper you linked to shows this piece, which is difficult to distinguish from third-rate sensationalist tabloid journalism, and is also from the BMJ.

As well as a paper by Rune Elvik, who is well-known for his outspoken views on speed, and is, incidentally, the editor of the highly-respected journal, "Accident Analysis and Prevention".

What awoke my interest in the subject of road safety in the first place, was reading the paper we were discussing in another thread, with the objective of seeing what the experts of the day were saying on the subject, and being shocked at the big holes I saw in it.
And, far from being withdrawn, it's become one of the most widely-cited papers on the subject.

So I'm a bit more sceptical than you are.

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 18:23

The bit you refer too is an opinion piece, not research. There is a big difference between the two. You may not agree with the headline but they go on to explain why they have used it and given the number of people killed and seriously inured on the worlds roads every day i'd suggest that it isn't too over the top. The key is the first point though, it's just opinion.

http://lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/813/795/RUG0...

Is this the report you are refering too?

This is taken from the ned of the summary section:

Practical implications
Speed has been found to have a very large effect on road safety, probably larger than any other known risk factor. Speed is a risk factor for absolutely all accidents, ranging from the smallest fender-bender to fatal accidents. The effect of speed is greater for serious injury accidents and fatal accidents than for property damage-only
accidents. If government wants to develop a road transport system in which nobody is killed or permanently injured, speed is the most important factor to regulate. The report argues that driver speed choice may not always be perfectly rational; hence, a legitimate basis exists for limiting the freedom of choice with respect to speed. The need for such regulation is very widely recognised, as nearly all motorised countries have an extensive system of speed limits and a programme of enforcement. Speed limits and their enforcement are very important road safety measures.

[Phatboy317]

Devil2575 said:

The bit you refer too is an opinion piece, not research. There is a big difference between the two. You may not agree with the headline but they go on to explain why they have used it and given the number of people killed and seriously inured on the worlds roads every day i'd suggest that it isn't too over the top. The key is the first point though, it's just opinion.

http://lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/813/795/RUG0...

Is this the report you are refering too?

This is taken from the ned of the summary section:

Practical implications
Speed has been found to have a very large effect on road safety, probably larger than any other known risk factor. Speed is a risk factor for absolutely all accidents, ranging from the smallest fender-bender to fatal accidents. The effect of speed is greater for serious injury accidents and fatal accidents than for property damage-only
accidents. If government wants to develop a road transport system in which nobody is killed or permanently injured, speed is the most important factor to regulate. The report argues that driver speed choice may not always be perfectly rational; hence, a legitimate basis exists for limiting the freedom of choice with respect to speed. The need for such regulation is very widely recognised, as nearly all motorised countries have an extensive system of speed limits and a programme of enforcement. Speed limits and their enforcement are very important road safety measures.

I realise it's an opinion piece, but I don't believe it has any place in a well-respected journal.

This, btw, is the referenced report:

Effects of accidents of automatic speed enforcement in Norway. Same author, though

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 20:59

[V8 Fettler]

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

Do you have no other response than "the jury must be right"?

That's not my response.

My response is as they've seen all the evidence & I haven't, I'm not in position to call their verdict as perverse without some good evidence being presented to suggest why it is so.
I'm afraid the fact that you (without even seeing the evidence) can't understand how they could acquit, doesn't satisfy my requirement for good evidence needed to call into question or dismiss their verdict as perverse.

You appear to rely heavily on the fact that the jury declared the driver not guilty and that the jury is correct. I don't have enough faith in the ability of the average jury to correctly judge the hazards/risks associated with a road traffic collision where there are complicating factors. And I certainly don't trust the average jury to recognise potential means to reduce the risks.

No jury sees all the evidence, primarily because the evidence can never be collected in its entirety, the investigation has to stop somewhere.

You seem to think that I have to "satisfy your requirement for good evidence". For clarity, this is not a court, you're not the judge/jury and I'm not one of your minions who might have to "satisfy your requirements".

They've seen more than you & I trust their judgement on this case more than yours given that there were twelve of them with all the admissible evidence available before them (with somebody legally trained advising them on the law) whilst there's one of you who hasn't been privy to as much evidence as they have, or the legal guidance of a judge.

No you don't 'have' to convince me of anything, but you are still failing miserably to anyway.

Not only do you not 'have' to convince me, but you don't 'have' to reply now either. I suspect though that you just won't be able to stop yourself & will repeat yet again that they're wrong, whilst still not providing any pertinent evidence to support why they would be.

Edited by vonhosen on Wednesday 21st January 18:59

You are rather good at giving orders aren't you. To summarise, you appear to believe that it's acceptable for a man to die because another man made an avoidable error, I disagree with that.

[vonhosen]

V8 Fettler said:

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

Do you have no other response than "the jury must be right"?

That's not my response.

My response is as they've seen all the evidence & I haven't, I'm not in position to call their verdict as perverse without some good evidence being presented to suggest why it is so.
I'm afraid the fact that you (without even seeing the evidence) can't understand how they could acquit, doesn't satisfy my requirement for good evidence needed to call into question or dismiss their verdict as perverse.

You appear to rely heavily on the fact that the jury declared the driver not guilty and that the jury is correct. I don't have enough faith in the ability of the average jury to correctly judge the hazards/risks associated with a road traffic collision where there are complicating factors. And I certainly don't trust the average jury to recognise potential means to reduce the risks.

No jury sees all the evidence, primarily because the evidence can never be collected in its entirety, the investigation has to stop somewhere.

You seem to think that I have to "satisfy your requirement for good evidence". For clarity, this is not a court, you're not the judge/jury and I'm not one of your minions who might have to "satisfy your requirements".

They've seen more than you & I trust their judgement on this case more than yours given that there were twelve of them with all the admissible evidence available before them (with somebody legally trained advising them on the law) whilst there's one of you who hasn't been privy to as much evidence as they have, or the legal guidance of a judge.

No you don't 'have' to convince me of anything, but you are still failing miserably to anyway.

Not only do you not 'have' to convince me, but you don't 'have' to reply now either. I suspect though that you just won't be able to stop yourself & will repeat yet again that they're wrong, whilst still not providing any pertinent evidence to support why they would be.

You are rather good at giving orders aren't you. To summarise, you appear to believe that it's acceptable for a man to die because another man made an avoidable error, I disagree with that.

No, it's the fact that just because a man dies following a collision with another, it doesn't follow that the another 'must' be guilty of an offence.

You are making it up, there were no orders in there.

[MGJohn]

There are bad drivers out there. Some may or may not speed and get caught by the cameras. Do Speed cameras weed out these often dangerous folks when behind the wheel? Doubt it.

Nice little earner though.

So my vote and answer to the OP's question is for ... or revenue.

[2013BRM]

MGJohn said:

There are bad drivers out there. Some may or may not speed and get caught by the cameras. Do Speed cameras weed out these often dangerous folks when behind the wheel? Doubt it.

Nice little earner though.

So my vote and answer to the OP's question is for ... or revenue.

Yup, lazy, cost effective and easy way to appear to be doing something

[Devil2575]

Phatboy317 said:

I realise it's an opinion piece, but I don't believe it has any place in a well-respected journal.

This, btw, is the referenced report:

Effects of accidents of automatic speed enforcement in Norway. Same author, though

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 20:59

Given that unless you subscribe to the BMJ you can't read the full article i'm not sure how you can think that. You may not agree with the opinuions expressed but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it.

Another interesting paper. So you only see a statistically significant drop in KSI on roads with cameras where the road met the criteria for having a camera. So speed cameras can make the roads safer but only if they are used appropriately.

[Phatboy317]

Devil2575 said:

Phatboy317 said:

I realise it's an opinion piece, but I don't believe it has any place in a well-respected journal.

This, btw, is the referenced report:

Effects of accidents of automatic speed enforcement in Norway. Same author, though

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 20:59

Given that unless you subscribe to the BMJ you can't read the full article i'm not sure how you can think that. You may not agree with the opinuions expressed but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it.

Another interesting paper. So you only see a statistically significant drop in KSI on roads with cameras where the road met the criteria for having a camera. So speed cameras can make the roads safer but only if they are used appropriately.

???
You lost me somewhere along the line - we no longer seem to be talking about the same thing(s)
Can you please clarify

[Devil2575]

Phatboy317 said:

Devil2575 said:

Phatboy317 said:

I realise it's an opinion piece, but I don't believe it has any place in a well-respected journal.

This, btw, is the referenced report:

Effects of accidents of automatic speed enforcement in Norway. Same author, though

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 20:59

Given that unless you subscribe to the BMJ you can't read the full article i'm not sure how you can think that. You may not agree with the opinuions expressed but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it.

Another interesting paper. So you only see a statistically significant drop in KSI on roads with cameras where the road met the criteria for having a camera. So speed cameras can make the roads safer but only if they are used appropriately.

???
You lost me somewhere along the line - we no longer seem to be talking about the same thing(s)
Can you please clarify

I'm talking about the report in the link.

The summary is:

Automatic speed enforcement by means of photo radar was introduced
in Norway in 1988. The results of a before-and-after study of the effects
of automatic speed enforcement on accidents are reported in this paper.
The study controlled for general trends in the number of accidents and
regression to the mean. A statistically significant reduction of 20 percent
in the number of injury accidents was found. The number of propertydamage-
only accidents was reduced by 12 percent. This change was not
statistically significant at the 5 percent level. The effect of automatic
speed enforcement on the number of injury accidents varied according
to the level of conformance with official warrants for its use. The warrants
refer to accident rate (accidents per vehicle kilometer) and accident
density (accidents per kilometer of road). A decline of 26 percent in
injury accidents was found on road sections conforming with both warrants.
On road sections not conforming with any of the warrants, injury
accidents declined by 5 percent. The results of this study confirm the
results of previous studies of the effects of automatic speed enforcement
on accidents.

So on sections of road that complied with all official warrants for the use of a camera there was a decline in injury accidents of 26% after a camera was introduced.
On sections where there was no compliance with any official warrants only saw a 5% reduction in injury accidents.

[V8 Fettler]

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

vonhosen said:

V8 Fettler said:

Do you have no other response than "the jury must be right"?

That's not my response.

My response is as they've seen all the evidence & I haven't, I'm not in position to call their verdict as perverse without some good evidence being presented to suggest why it is so.
I'm afraid the fact that you (without even seeing the evidence) can't understand how they could acquit, doesn't satisfy my requirement for good evidence needed to call into question or dismiss their verdict as perverse.

You appear to rely heavily on the fact that the jury declared the driver not guilty and that the jury is correct. I don't have enough faith in the ability of the average jury to correctly judge the hazards/risks associated with a road traffic collision where there are complicating factors. And I certainly don't trust the average jury to recognise potential means to reduce the risks.

No jury sees all the evidence, primarily because the evidence can never be collected in its entirety, the investigation has to stop somewhere.

You seem to think that I have to "satisfy your requirement for good evidence". For clarity, this is not a court, you're not the judge/jury and I'm not one of your minions who might have to "satisfy your requirements".

They've seen more than you & I trust their judgement on this case more than yours given that there were twelve of them with all the admissible evidence available before them (with somebody legally trained advising them on the law) whilst there's one of you who hasn't been privy to as much evidence as they have, or the legal guidance of a judge.

No you don't 'have' to convince me of anything, but you are still failing miserably to anyway.

Not only do you not 'have' to convince me, but you don't 'have' to reply now either. I suspect though that you just won't be able to stop yourself & will repeat yet again that they're wrong, whilst still not providing any pertinent evidence to support why they would be.

You are rather good at giving orders aren't you. To summarise, you appear to believe that it's acceptable for a man to die because another man made an avoidable error, I disagree with that.

No, it's the fact that just because a man dies following a collision with another, it doesn't follow that the another 'must' be guilty of an offence.

You are making it up, there were no orders in there.

I thought that I should reply in light of your orders regarding not replying.

WRT evidence, as usual it's not in the public domain. I can understand why details regarding injuries and personal information should be withheld, but the "why" and "how" could be available to Joe Public after any likelihood of an appeal has been extinguished. The fatality occurred on public roads, shouldn't road users be aware of the hazards and risks that occur on public roads?

The "low sun" statement rings alarm bells, sunset (April 9th) must be a couple of hours after the reported incident time of 1735hrs. Additionally, the prosecution is reported as stating

prosecution said: said:

“How low in the sky was the sun? How bright was that sun?

This suggests that there was doubt in court about the position and brightness of the sun at 1735hrs on April 9th. Does this mean that no photographs of the sun in an identical position (or near identical position) were available in court?

From the info that is in the public domain, the calculated solution for the position of the sun at 1735hrs BST on 9th April 2011 is:



Bike heading towards camera on major road, car on left waiting to pull out from minor road and cross major road.

Seems a bit high and off to one side of the major road to create dazzling, particularly if the driver was aware of the risk (sunglasses, hat).

(Shadows are wrong...)

[Deadly Dog]

Devil2575 said:

Another interesting paper. So you only see a statistically significant drop in KSI on roads with cameras where the road met the criteria for having a camera. So speed cameras can make the roads safer but only if they are used appropriately.

The report does not provide any evidence of the sort. It is just another example of an apparent statistical correlation being passed off as absolute causation.

- The author has not undertaken any research into accident causal and contributory factors at each site during the study period. This is fundamentally critical data.
- The author has not provided any detail regarding injury severity and type recorded at each site during the study period, either before or after corrective measure deployment.
- The author has not provided any granularity for incident numbers, time intervals and incident variance at each site over study period
- The author has provided no consideration to the potential impact of other influential changes that may have been introduced during the study period e.g. road engineering improvements, enhanced hazard signage.

Even the author admits the study contains some significant limitations:

Rune Elvik said:

There were a number of limitations in this study that ought to be addressed in future research concerning the effects of automatic speed enforcement.

First, the lack of speed data made it impossible to study the effects of automatic speed enforcement on traffic speed and the possible relationship between the effects on speed and the effects on accidents.

This statement alone makes a farce of any assertion that this document constitutes a credible performance evaluation summary.

Any claim that this report still can offer substantive evidence of automated speed enforcement effectiveness, after it openly admits to such a critical data omission, is quite laughable. And this is before any of the points I raised are considered.

For the report to be considered valid, each individual site should have been properly investigated and appropriately monitored throughout the study period i.e. each site should have been treated as special cause before the wider picture was considered. Instead, the injury accident figures for the various sites appear to have been crudely aggregated simply for the purposes of statistical convenience.

[Phatboy317]

Devil2575 said:

Phatboy317 said:

Devil2575 said:

Phatboy317 said:

I realise it's an opinion piece, but I don't believe it has any place in a well-respected journal.

This, btw, is the referenced report:

Effects of accidents of automatic speed enforcement in Norway. Same author, though

Edited by Phatboy317 on Wednesday 21st January 20:59

Given that unless you subscribe to the BMJ you can't read the full article i'm not sure how you can think that. You may not agree with the opinuions expressed but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it.

Another interesting paper. So you only see a statistically significant drop in KSI on roads with cameras where the road met the criteria for having a camera. So speed cameras can make the roads safer but only if they are used appropriately.

???
You lost me somewhere along the line - we no longer seem to be talking about the same thing(s)
Can you please clarify

I'm talking about the report in the link.

The summary is:

Automatic speed enforcement by means of photo radar was introduced
in Norway in 1988. The results of a before-and-after study of the effects
of automatic speed enforcement on accidents are reported in this paper.
The study controlled for general trends in the number of accidents and
regression to the mean. A statistically significant reduction of 20 percent
in the number of injury accidents was found. The number of propertydamage-
only accidents was reduced by 12 percent. This change was not
statistically significant at the 5 percent level. The effect of automatic
speed enforcement on the number of injury accidents varied according
to the level of conformance with official warrants for its use. The warrants
refer to accident rate (accidents per vehicle kilometer) and accident
density (accidents per kilometer of road). A decline of 26 percent in
injury accidents was found on road sections conforming with both warrants.
On road sections not conforming with any of the warrants, injury
accidents declined by 5 percent. The results of this study confirm the
results of previous studies of the effects of automatic speed enforcement
on accidents.

So on sections of road that complied with all official warrants for the use of a camera there was a decline in injury accidents of 26% after a camera was introduced.
On sections where there was no compliance with any official warrants only saw a 5% reduction in injury accidents.

I started out by mentioning that the BMJ paper you linked to referenced a paper authored by someone with outspoken views on speed.
You then came back with a link to another paper by the same author, asking me if that was the one I was referring to, to which I replied that it wasn't, and posted a link to the one which was referenced in the BMJ paper.
You have now quoted the latter paper as if that's the one which has been the subject of discussion here. It wasn't.

If you're referring to the opinion piece, in my experience any article, opinion piece or not, which has an emotive title such as "War on the roads" begs the question of which came first: the headline or the content.

Of course they're entitled to their opinions, just as I'm entitled to mine, it's just that, to me, the act of referencing such an opinion piece in a report betrays a certain amount of prejudice on the part of the authors.

Edited by Phatboy317 on Friday 23 January 07:41

[Devil2575]

Which paper are we discussing then? Please post a link to it so I can comment.

[Devil2575]

Deadly Dog said:

Devil2575 said:

Another interesting paper. So you only see a statistically significant drop in KSI on roads with cameras where the road met the criteria for having a camera. So speed cameras can make the roads safer but only if they are used appropriately.

The report does not provide any evidence of the sort. It is just another example of an apparent statistical correlation being passed off as absolute causation.

I don't think it is being passed off as absolute causation. The limitations of the study are clearly pointed as, as you have seen.

Given that roads and speed cameras don't exist in a lab do you actually think it possible that you could ever determine absolute causation? The real world changes all the time and any data is always going to be subect to external factors

Deadly Dog said:

- The author has not undertaken any research into accident causal and contributory factors at each site during the study period. This is fundamentally critical data.
- The author has not provided any detail regarding injury severity and type recorded at each site during the study period, either before or after corrective measure deployment.
- The author has not provided any granularity for incident numbers, time intervals and incident variance at each site over study period
- The author has provided no consideration to the potential impact of other influential changes that may have been introduced during the study period e.g. road engineering improvements, enhanced hazard signage.

Even the author admits the study contains some significant limitations:

Rune Elvik said:

There were a number of limitations in this study that ought to be addressed in future research concerning the effects of automatic speed enforcement.

First, the lack of speed data made it impossible to study the effects of automatic speed enforcement on traffic speed and the possible relationship between the effects on speed and the effects on accidents.

This statement alone makes a farce of any assertion that this document constitutes a credible performance evaluation summary.

Any claim that this report still can offer substantive evidence of automated speed enforcement effectiveness, after it openly admits to such a critical data omission, is quite laughable. And this is before any of the points I raised are considered.

For the report to be considered valid, each individual site should have been properly investigated and appropriately monitored throughout the study period i.e. each site should have been treated as special cause before the wider picture was considered. Instead, the injury accident figures for the various sites appear to have been crudely aggregated simply for the purposes of statistical convenience.

All the report does is look at accident and injury/fatality rates at a number of sites before and after a speed camera was installed. I don't agree that each site needs looking at in detail because the overall data shows a statisticaly significant variation. Looking at individual sites would tell you more about specific accidents, which if something else had also changed might illuminate another cause for the reduction. However there is a clear difference between sites that met the criteria for a camera and those that didn't. A cause of accident reduction unrelated to the camera would not have resulted in this difference. In effect a site where there was no requirement for a camera does show a result in accidents/injuries. I wouldn't say that this is conclusive, but it adds weight to the view that the camera has had an effect.

A statistically significant variation between before and after on a large data set. This tells ut that accident rates have reduced. The clear difference between sites that met and those that didn't meet the critera for a camera points to the camera having an effect. Of course if other actions had been taken at those sites that met the critera as well, such as changes to the road etc then that would change things.

It's a fairly crude analysis but it has value IMHO and the fact that it supports the conclusions of a number of other reports also goes in it's favour.

[Digby]

Mr GrimNasty said:

Mobile site popping up around a bend to do streams of commuters at 36mph on a road that was 40mph before and had no bad history associated with speed - revenue and jobs.

Yet, despite how obvious these situations became and despite some of those of great importance in camera & police circles suggesting this to be the case, there are those here who absolutely refuse to accept it.If you try to convince them in any way, you are likely to be branded a conspiracy theorist.

I would be embarrassed to display such an incredible lack of objectivity, but that does seem to be a trend on here.

[singlecoil]

Digby said:

Mr GrimNasty said:

Mobile site popping up around a bend to do streams of commuters at 36mph on a road that was 40mph before and had no bad history associated with speed - revenue and jobs.

Yet, despite how obvious these situations became and despite some of those of great importance in camera & police circles suggesting this to be the case, there are those here who absolutely refuse to accept it.If you try to convince them in any way, you are likely to be branded a conspiracy theorist.

I would be embarrassed to display such an incredible lack of objectivity, but that does seem to be a trend on here.

All of that could be said, and rather more accurately, about people from, shall we call it, your side of the argument. It's all because of a very basic misconception on your part. You believe that speed cameras are supposed to be like a kind of chicane, to slow people down in areas where speeding would be dangerous.And that whenever they are used in areas that you do not believe to be dangerous, they are there purely for revenue generation.

But that's wrong.

The idea of speed cameras is to stop people speeding EVERYWHERE. Having them where you don't expect them is part and parcel of this. They wouldn't do their job otherwise.