Speed Cameras, are they for safety, or revenue?
Poll: Speed Cameras, are they for safety, or revenue?
Total Members Polled: 478
Discussion
Jasandjules said:
Devil2575 said:
Aside from the usual anecdotes there is mo evidence whatsoever to support the assertion that standards are declining.
I'm tired of explaining to people on PH why personal experiences are not good evidence so I'm not going to bother again.
No need to bother indeed.I'm tired of explaining to people on PH why personal experiences are not good evidence so I'm not going to bother again.
I trust you don't drive either.
Do yourself a favour, Google confirmation bias and why personal experiences don't make good evidence.
Devil and singlecoil, you're both very aggressive (it isn't necessary)
I'm not intending to present my opinion as fact. I'm talking about what I observe and what I hear in conversation. You cannot have it both ways I'm afraid. The anti speed campaign has been very successful at getting people to directly associate speed with poor driving and therefore low speed with safe driving. You may not like it, you may disagree, but it is a general attitude which appears to me to have become very widespread due to the specific and direct efforts of successive campaigners and governments.
To put things into context for me and my attitude. I spend 90 to 95% of my time on the road below the limit. I do speed but only in very specific circumstances. I'm not trying to justify speeding. I recognise that speed is one element of safety, but its not the primary one. I'd rather be surrounded by skilled, attentive and competant drivers traveling at the appropriate speed limits than the awful driving I see every day for those who treat driving as secondary to everything else going on around them (kids, texting, lighting a fag etc) even if they're driving a good 10 % below the limit.
I'm not intending to present my opinion as fact. I'm talking about what I observe and what I hear in conversation. You cannot have it both ways I'm afraid. The anti speed campaign has been very successful at getting people to directly associate speed with poor driving and therefore low speed with safe driving. You may not like it, you may disagree, but it is a general attitude which appears to me to have become very widespread due to the specific and direct efforts of successive campaigners and governments.
To put things into context for me and my attitude. I spend 90 to 95% of my time on the road below the limit. I do speed but only in very specific circumstances. I'm not trying to justify speeding. I recognise that speed is one element of safety, but its not the primary one. I'd rather be surrounded by skilled, attentive and competant drivers traveling at the appropriate speed limits than the awful driving I see every day for those who treat driving as secondary to everything else going on around them (kids, texting, lighting a fag etc) even if they're driving a good 10 % below the limit.
Devil2575 said:
You haven't read all 47 pages. I've been posting in all of them. It's very frustrating when an argument that's been comprehensively knocked down and taken apart is brought up repeatedly and you have to go through it all again.
I read about 20. And bearing in mind that I'm not pro speeding. There is plenty of evidence that people focus on what is measured and monitored. An unfortunate consequence of a huge focus on one aspect is that the other factors suffer - the key issue takes priority. If this has been covered and comprehensively knocked down, I appologise, (and am genuinely surprised). Please point me towards it.
Hungrymc said:
There is plenty of evidence that people focus on what is measured and monitored. An unfortunate consequence of a huge focus on one aspect is that the other factors suffer - the key issue takes priority. If this has been covered and comprehensively knocked down, I appologise, (and am genuinely surprised). Please point me towards it.
There are more parking fines & people employed in their enforcement than any other motoring activity, does that make it the most important focus of people's car use?Hungrymc said:
Devil and singlecoil, you're both very aggressive (it isn't necessary)
I'm not intending to present my opinion as fact. I'm talking about what I observe and what I hear in conversation. You cannot have it both ways I'm afraid. The anti speed campaign has been very successful at getting people to directly associate speed with poor driving and therefore low speed with safe driving. You may not like it, you may disagree, but it is a general attitude which appears to me to have become very widespread due to the specific and direct efforts of successive campaigners and governments.
To put things into context for me and my attitude. I spend 90 to 95% of my time on the road below the limit. I do speed but only in very specific circumstances. I'm not trying to justify speeding. I recognise that speed is one element of safety, but its not the primary one. I'd rather be surrounded by skilled, attentive and competant drivers traveling at the appropriate speed limits than the awful driving I see every day for those who treat driving as secondary to everything else going on around them (kids, texting, lighting a fag etc) even if they're driving a good 10 % below the limit.
I disagree about being aggressive, and have no idea why you would say that, unless you always see disagreement as aggression.I'm not intending to present my opinion as fact. I'm talking about what I observe and what I hear in conversation. You cannot have it both ways I'm afraid. The anti speed campaign has been very successful at getting people to directly associate speed with poor driving and therefore low speed with safe driving. You may not like it, you may disagree, but it is a general attitude which appears to me to have become very widespread due to the specific and direct efforts of successive campaigners and governments.
To put things into context for me and my attitude. I spend 90 to 95% of my time on the road below the limit. I do speed but only in very specific circumstances. I'm not trying to justify speeding. I recognise that speed is one element of safety, but its not the primary one. I'd rather be surrounded by skilled, attentive and competant drivers traveling at the appropriate speed limits than the awful driving I see every day for those who treat driving as secondary to everything else going on around them (kids, texting, lighting a fag etc) even if they're driving a good 10 % below the limit.
In your next paragraph you set your straw man up again (I've emboldened it, for clarity). Just as you can't be bothered to read the thread properly, I can't be bothered to knock your straw man down again.
Singlecoil, I think you misunderstand strawman argument. See the parking point above? That's a strawman as you won't find charity's set up and transport ministers claiming it's the major cause of most serious accidents.
I'd say people don't take parking to seriously as it doesn't tend to cost people their licenses or insurance difficulties etc?
I'd say people don't take parking to seriously as it doesn't tend to cost people their licenses or insurance difficulties etc?
Hungrymc said:
Singlecoil, I think you misunderstand strawman argument. See the parking point above? That's a strawman as you won't find charity's set up and transport ministers claiming it's the major cause of most serious accidents.
I'd say people don't take parking to seriously as it doesn't tend to cost people their licenses or insurance difficulties etc?
There are plenty of groups concerned over parking (including road safety charities & local governments etc) continually calling for more enforcement. It also collects far far more money than speeding fines.I'd say people don't take parking to seriously as it doesn't tend to cost people their licenses or insurance difficulties etc?
http://www.localgov.co.uk/CCTV-parking-ban-puts-ch...
Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 24th January 22:10
Hungrymc said:
Singlecoil, I think you misunderstand strawman argument. See the parking point above? That's a strawman as you won't find charity's set up and transport ministers claiming it's the major cause of most serious accidents.
No, I don't misunderstand straw man arguments, a good example of which is the one you (and several others) have been making about speed limits and their enforcement leading people to believe that driving at or below the limit is automatically safe. Nobody has ever said that, and nobody thinks it, no matter how well you might think such nonsense serves your argument.I'll give you the opportunity to prove me wrong, by posting a link to where someone has said that driving at or below the limit is automatically safe...
Hungrymc said:
Devil2575 said:
You haven't read all 47 pages. I've been posting in all of them. It's very frustrating when an argument that's been comprehensively knocked down and taken apart is brought up repeatedly and you have to go through it all again.
I read about 20. And bearing in mind that I'm not pro speeding. There is plenty of evidence that people focus on what is measured and monitored. An unfortunate consequence of a huge focus on one aspect is that the other factors suffer - the key issue takes priority. If this has been covered and comprehensively knocked down, I appologise, (and am genuinely surprised). Please point me towards it.
It's not enough to say that the general principle of 'people focusing on what is measured and monitored' is supported by evidence, because you need to actually demonstrate that it applies to driving in the UK. Then you need to actually demonstrate that it is having a negative effect.
So far I have yet to see anyone on PH offer up any evidence to support declining standards of driving more substantial than "I've been driving for 30 years and I've witnessed it myself"
This is what is commonly referred to as anecdotal evidence or personal experiences.
The problems with evidence of this kind are universally accepted within the scientific community and it is fundamentally flawed.
People suffer from confirmation bias. We see what we want to see i.e. whatever supports our existing beliefs. Even the most objective people working in research accept that you cannot avoid this and it is why medical trials are conducted double of even triple blind.
Sample size. No matter how long you have been driving is is very unlikely that you have seen or collected enough data to be statistically significant.
Representative sample. How can you say that the driving you have observed is representative of the country as a whole?
Data, or a lack of. Unless you have made notes after every drive then you don't actually have any data to back up your opinion. It's all just in your head, or your memory which brings us on to the next point...
Memory. The human memory isn't like a video recorder that provides and exact reproduction of what happened. Memories fade, can be changed, are subject to existing biases (we remember what we want to remember) and can even be completely wrong. Expecting to rely on your memory of an event, or multiple events or even how driving standards have declined over a number of years is a mistake.
The fact is that KSI stats having been trending down for decades now despite the numbers of cars on the road increasing. I've also read a report by a major insurer that stated that the number off claims being made was declining too. While there is no evidence as to the reason for this, declining standards would have the opposite effect.
vonhosen said:
Hungrymc said:
There is plenty of evidence that people focus on what is measured and monitored. An unfortunate consequence of a huge focus on one aspect is that the other factors suffer - the key issue takes priority. If this has been covered and comprehensively knocked down, I appologise, (and am genuinely surprised). Please point me towards it.
There are more parking fines & people employed in their enforcement than any other motoring activity, does that make it the most important focus of people's car use?Phatboy317 said:
vonhosen said:
Hungrymc said:
There is plenty of evidence that people focus on what is measured and monitored. An unfortunate consequence of a huge focus on one aspect is that the other factors suffer - the key issue takes priority. If this has been covered and comprehensively knocked down, I appologise, (and am genuinely surprised). Please point me towards it.
There are more parking fines & people employed in their enforcement than any other motoring activity, does that make it the most important focus of people's car use?So, we have the best example of a strawman argument being the parking nonsense (ever heard it beingsstated as 'needing to be seen as at least as socially unacceptable as drink driving)?
We have the argument that people won't focus most heavily on what is policed most vigorously ?
And we have a denial that the message is slower is safer (I actually said 'is associated with safer driving' )... In itself, it's not ridiculous so I wouldn't be so defensive.
We have constant referencing of confirmation bias (read up on attributional flip and then the tenuous linking of speed to accidents)
When seeking stats and evidence, we should consider that we have cars that assist the driver enormously compared to 20 years ago skewing accident figures. Never mind how well they protect the occupants (and increasingly pedestrians) there is an order of magnitude in the difference.
In your (commendable) search for perfect evidence, perhaps you've lost sight of the complexity of the entire issue, which is exactly what the focus on speed alone naturally encourages.... Don't fall for it.
Out of interest, I fully support cameras at sites of higher risk. I only believe we see the revenue raising attitude when they are placed in areas of no specific risk and higher likley speed.... Based on my observation (so apparently this has zero value) I suspect this is an increasing trend.
We have the argument that people won't focus most heavily on what is policed most vigorously ?
And we have a denial that the message is slower is safer (I actually said 'is associated with safer driving' )... In itself, it's not ridiculous so I wouldn't be so defensive.
We have constant referencing of confirmation bias (read up on attributional flip and then the tenuous linking of speed to accidents)
When seeking stats and evidence, we should consider that we have cars that assist the driver enormously compared to 20 years ago skewing accident figures. Never mind how well they protect the occupants (and increasingly pedestrians) there is an order of magnitude in the difference.
In your (commendable) search for perfect evidence, perhaps you've lost sight of the complexity of the entire issue, which is exactly what the focus on speed alone naturally encourages.... Don't fall for it.
Out of interest, I fully support cameras at sites of higher risk. I only believe we see the revenue raising attitude when they are placed in areas of no specific risk and higher likley speed.... Based on my observation (so apparently this has zero value) I suspect this is an increasing trend.
Hungrymc said:
So, we have the best example of a strawman argument being the parking nonsense
I didn't think you could be serious with what you were saying, it was therefore said in the same vein.Hungrymc said:
When seeking stats and evidence, we should consider that we have cars that assist the driver enormously compared to 20 years ago skewing accident figures. Never mind how well they protect the occupants (and increasingly pedestrians) there is an order of magnitude in the difference.
Skewing the figures?Surely the aim has been that the combination of measures reduce KSIs (amongst other goals) against increasing use.
It's been working.
Hungrymc said:
Out of interest, I fully support cameras at sites of higher risk. I only believe we see the revenue raising attitude when they are placed in areas of no specific risk and higher likley speed.... Based on my observation (so apparently this has zero value) I suspect this is an increasing trend.
They are enforcing limits that apply everywhere, not just in high risk areas.Edited by vonhosen on Sunday 25th January 01:14
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