RE: Mobile speed trap numbers explode
Wednesday 11th January 2006
GPS-based: legal but not wholly effectiveMotorists are picking up record numbers of speeding tickets from mobile police cameras, according to Safe Speed founder Paul Smith. He said that the Government has misled motorists, delayed providing information and continued to see speed camera revenue soar.
Mobile speed trap numbers explode
Use of talivans jumps by 40 per cent
GPS-based: legal but not wholly effective
Smith said that the Government has delayed reporting how many speeding tickets have been handed out to motorists. No official national figures have been published since 2003 and the information is now more than two years out of date. According to Smith's latest statistics, mobile speed cameras now generate more than half of all speeding fines in the UK.
Smith said: "Most motorists know where the fixed cameras are located so the camera partnerships have increased activity of mobile units. They are harder to spot and turn up in the most unlikely places, so it's no surprise they are keeping quiet – the motorist is being ripped off with no genuine improvement in road safety. Smith estimates that fines from mobile cameras are likely to have grown by at least 40 per cent since 2003.
Most mobile speed camera vans use a laser beam to detect a vehicle’s speed. Fourteen months ago the Government failed to ban products that detect mobile speed cameras, as the Road Safety Bill failed to make it through Parliament before the 2005 General Election. However, the measures to ban radar and laser-based detectors are back in a new Road Safety Bill -- it's just like the old one but with more in it -- that's currently wending its way through the legislative process.
So the fact that there's been a significant increase in mobile speed traps is hardly surprising, as GPS-based camera warning systems will not pick these up. You might wonder why the Government bothered leaving them legal...
Discussion
Do you reckon we will have cameras in our bathrooms soon?
put there by the government to see when we take a s***
they can use them to see how much water we use
Or maybe we will have ID chips implanted into our skulls so they can see where we are 24 hours a day.
SCAMS(Speed Cameras) suck and I havent seen one yet that is somewhere it deserves to be like outside a school or outside an old peoples home or a shopping centre etc etc
put there by the government to see when we take a s***
they can use them to see how much water we use
Or maybe we will have ID chips implanted into our skulls so they can see where we are 24 hours a day.
SCAMS(Speed Cameras) suck and I havent seen one yet that is somewhere it deserves to be like outside a school or outside an old peoples home or a shopping centre etc etc
smeggy said:
The mobile business is goooooood:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4601544.s
I notice it's called "Norfolk Casualty Reduction Partnership".
The A11 is Dual Carridgeway, so why the speedlimit of 30mph? Every set of roadworks I've driven through the limit is 40mph, by making the limit lower they have a good chance of catching more speeders?
The article says that GPS camera detectors aren't effective against mobile speed cameras. I've just bought one (by coincidence the one pictured!)- they're supposed to work off a database of mobile camera sites which it does regardless of whether there is actually a camera located there at that particular time. In other words it warns you of the site rather than a camera.
Aren't mobile cameras only supposed to be put where there are signs etc. (ie a pre-determined spot)?
Are they now saying that mobile camera's are now going to pop in completely random spots, causing the database of known loctaions to be obsolete??
>> Edited by dredgey on Wednesday 11th January 13:34
Aren't mobile cameras only supposed to be put where there are signs etc. (ie a pre-determined spot)?
Are they now saying that mobile camera's are now going to pop in completely random spots, causing the database of known loctaions to be obsolete??
>> Edited by dredgey on Wednesday 11th January 13:34
porkus said:
Do you reckon we will have cameras in our bathrooms soon?
put there by the government to see when we take a s***
they can use them to see how much water we use
Or maybe we will have ID chips implanted into our skulls so they can see where we are 24 hours a day.
SCAMS(Speed Cameras) suck and I havent seen one yet that is somewhere it deserves to be like outside a school or outside an old peoples home or a shopping centre etc etc
For this reason and this reason alone, I have decided to hold onto my radar/laser detector.
Did anybody honestly believe that the government would act honourably in this. There is far too much money at stake.
If you simply play the probabilities, you are more likely to get caught for speeding than you are to be prosecuted for having a radar detector.
If safety and accident reduction was the goal of this goverment, then static cameras would have been part of the solution, and driver education would have been another part. But, if you take the view that return on investment comes before reduction in accident rate, then Mobile Cameras are the most obvious answer.
I just wonder which ROI spreadsheet the powers that be use when deciding on policy, Do they look at Return On Investment, or Reduction Of Incidents. Hmmmmmm, let me think !!!
Did anybody honestly believe that the government would act honourably in this. There is far too much money at stake.
If you simply play the probabilities, you are more likely to get caught for speeding than you are to be prosecuted for having a radar detector.
If safety and accident reduction was the goal of this goverment, then static cameras would have been part of the solution, and driver education would have been another part. But, if you take the view that return on investment comes before reduction in accident rate, then Mobile Cameras are the most obvious answer.
I just wonder which ROI spreadsheet the powers that be use when deciding on policy, Do they look at Return On Investment, or Reduction Of Incidents. Hmmmmmm, let me think !!!
woodlands said:
If you simply play the probabilities, you are more likely to get caught for speeding than you are to be prosecuted for having a radar detector.
A good point. There is such a lack of police presence on our roads, it's unlikely you'd get stopped. Just don't have any tell-tale sucker-pads on your windscreen, just in case a traffic warden or community officer records your plate when you've parked.
I reckon I could probably remove both number plates and tax disc from my car, and get away with driving it to and from work everyday.
I've never understood why mobile cameras are apparently exempted from the requirement that was applied to fixed cameras, to make them clearly visible.
Under the previous "hypothecation" scheme, the partnerships were given a big incentive to stop hiding fixed cameras, since they couldn't keep the revenue from hidden cameras. Making the cameras visible was clearly an attempt by the partnerships/Government to persuade motorists of the benefits of speed cameras.
But there didn't seem to be the same rule for mobile units, or at the very least it's inconsistently applied. Maybe that's because at the time the rule was made there weren't very many mobile units ?
Now, as Paul points out, these are much more widespread. Thames Valley have 29 vans and 289 fixed sites (so probably about 75 actual fixed cameras that they move around). So nearly half their actual enforcement is done by the vans, which are often placed quite sneakily.
I'm not surprised that the vans are now the big money maker. Especially as they seem to have started sending them out at night
>> Edited by outnumbered on Wednesday 11th January 14:10
Under the previous "hypothecation" scheme, the partnerships were given a big incentive to stop hiding fixed cameras, since they couldn't keep the revenue from hidden cameras. Making the cameras visible was clearly an attempt by the partnerships/Government to persuade motorists of the benefits of speed cameras.
But there didn't seem to be the same rule for mobile units, or at the very least it's inconsistently applied. Maybe that's because at the time the rule was made there weren't very many mobile units ?
Now, as Paul points out, these are much more widespread. Thames Valley have 29 vans and 289 fixed sites (so probably about 75 actual fixed cameras that they move around). So nearly half their actual enforcement is done by the vans, which are often placed quite sneakily.
I'm not surprised that the vans are now the big money maker. Especially as they seem to have started sending them out at night
>> Edited by outnumbered on Wednesday 11th January 14:10
Like child molesters hiding in the bushes, praying on normal drivers. 
The police who man these things get no respect from me. This does very little to address the road safety problem. All motorists are now just criminals waiting to be caught and fined.
It only makes everyone paranoid and adopt an adversarial stance toward police. Seems like it's us versus them now.
The police who man these things get no respect from me. This does very little to address the road safety problem. All motorists are now just criminals waiting to be caught and fined. It only makes everyone paranoid and adopt an adversarial stance toward police. Seems like it's us versus them now.
outnumbered said:
I'm not surprised that the vans are now the big money maker. Especially as they seem to have started sending them out at night
Yep. Mate got caught recently doing 38 in a 30. 2:30 AM, wide, well-lit, well-sighted and totally empty road. Casualty reduction? Yeah, dry that one out and you can fertilize the lawn.
ubergreg said:
Like child molesters hiding in the bushes, praying on normal drivers.
It only makes everyone paranoid and adopt an adversarial stance toward police. Seems like it's us versus them now.
This unfortunately sums up many things to do with our current form of government, policing, infrastructure, health etc. They don't really care about getting your respect, they only care about getting your MONEY
A policeman friend of mine has told me that the Regulations governing the use and enforcability of mobile Cameras require the operator to be a police officer or supervised by a police officer.
I wonder how many of them are? Seeing as how they are organised by civilian partnerships?
He also told me that Avon and Somerset Constabulary have stopped using mobile camera vans as they are so much trouble to man.
Apparently a Wiltshire polic officer boasted to him that the speed cameras on the M4 are so good that to put a camera there is like "printing money"!!!!
I wonder how many of them are? Seeing as how they are organised by civilian partnerships?
He also told me that Avon and Somerset Constabulary have stopped using mobile camera vans as they are so much trouble to man.
Apparently a Wiltshire polic officer boasted to him that the speed cameras on the M4 are so good that to put a camera there is like "printing money"!!!!
phillipj said:
A policeman friend of mine has told me that the Regulations governing the use and enforcability of mobile Cameras require the operator to be a police officer or supervised by a police officer.
I wonder how many of them are? Seeing as how they are organised by civilian partnerships?
He also told me that Avon and Somerset Constabulary have stopped using mobile camera vans as they are so much trouble to man.
Apparently a Wiltshire polic officer boasted to him that the speed cameras on the M4 are so good that to put a camera there is like "printing money"!!!!
I saw an Avon & Somerset van on Mon. A4 between Park & Ride & Hicks Gate Roundabout on the edge of Bristol & on Tues. in the little area by a field entrance outside Haycombe crematorium Bath. No safety reasons for them to be in either place!
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