ABD Launches Campaign Against Speed Awareness Courses
Discussion
Not sure if this has been posted already, but the ABD is looking for support in trying to tackle the legalised robbery that is 'speed awareness courses' before it snowballs into a more humongous scam than it already is. Please read the link at the bottom of the press release for more detailed information...
Alliance of British Drivers (London)
Press Release
Date: 16 July 2016
AMPOW Campaign Against Misuse of Police Waivers
The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) has launched a campaign against the misuse of speed awareness courses because the actions of the police in offering such "Education Courses" as an alternative to prosecution for speeding and other offences are distorting road safety policy. It is leading to the proliferation of speed cameras and threatened prosecutions because the police now have a direct financial incentive to maximise their activities in this area. This is wrong.
In our view there is no statutory support for this activity and it is contrary to law. In addition it is a perversion of justice for the police to waive prosecution on the basis of money being paid to them.
There is also no hard evidence that putting people through a speed-awareness course has any impact on their subsequent accident record, or behaviour in general. So what we now have is an enormous industry dedicated to raising money to pay course operators, the police and other organisations who benefit from these arrangements.
The Government has claimed that the police only recover their "administration" costs but that is not in fact true. They are actually using their proportion of fees paid by course attendees to finance more cameras and more staff to operate them plus to fund other equipment and activities from the surpluses generated. We can provide evidence on this.
We ask the Government to put a stop to these arrangements forthwith simply because Parliament has never approved these activities. If they do not we will consider a legal challenge to prevent these abusive practices from continuing.
More Information
You can learn more about this campaign from a new web site set up to support the campaign here: http://www.speed-awareness.org . Members of the public can register their support for the campaign and sign a petition here: http://www.speed-awareness.org/join.html
A document that gives all the evidence on what has been happening and why it is illegal is present here:
http://www.speed-awareness.org/Speed-Awareness-Cam...
Alliance of British Drivers (London)
Press Release
Date: 16 July 2016
AMPOW Campaign Against Misuse of Police Waivers
The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) has launched a campaign against the misuse of speed awareness courses because the actions of the police in offering such "Education Courses" as an alternative to prosecution for speeding and other offences are distorting road safety policy. It is leading to the proliferation of speed cameras and threatened prosecutions because the police now have a direct financial incentive to maximise their activities in this area. This is wrong.
In our view there is no statutory support for this activity and it is contrary to law. In addition it is a perversion of justice for the police to waive prosecution on the basis of money being paid to them.
There is also no hard evidence that putting people through a speed-awareness course has any impact on their subsequent accident record, or behaviour in general. So what we now have is an enormous industry dedicated to raising money to pay course operators, the police and other organisations who benefit from these arrangements.
The Government has claimed that the police only recover their "administration" costs but that is not in fact true. They are actually using their proportion of fees paid by course attendees to finance more cameras and more staff to operate them plus to fund other equipment and activities from the surpluses generated. We can provide evidence on this.
We ask the Government to put a stop to these arrangements forthwith simply because Parliament has never approved these activities. If they do not we will consider a legal challenge to prevent these abusive practices from continuing.
More Information
You can learn more about this campaign from a new web site set up to support the campaign here: http://www.speed-awareness.org . Members of the public can register their support for the campaign and sign a petition here: http://www.speed-awareness.org/join.html
A document that gives all the evidence on what has been happening and why it is illegal is present here:
http://www.speed-awareness.org/Speed-Awareness-Cam...
I did suspect many people would miss the point. This is exactly how they are getting away with offering these courses and raking in millions!
To summarise:
Speed camera partnerships were originally allowed to keep the money they raised through fines, which meant they expanded and got ever more greedy, buying more and more mobile vans and spreading like wild fire.
When the Tories came to power they told the camera partnerships off, and told them that fines must now be paid to the treasury, thus disincentivising the partnerships and halting their expansion.
The speed camera partnerships were given a fixed budget to operate with, which many couldn't survive on, and over the next few years many of them withered away and disbanded, hence the turning off of fixed cameras and mobile vans in many counties. Here in Somerset they were disbanded around 2010 from memory.
Some greedy, clever ex police chiefs then saw an opening in the market, to make lots of money by bypassing the Fixed Penalty Notice method (which the treasury now receives) and instead offering speed awareness courses. This way they could once again cream off most of the money. The courses now make multi millions of pounds which is divided among the operating parties, including the police.
I belive the police make around 30% of the take, thus incentivising them once more to buy more and more camera vans with the profits, and hence resuming the expansion of the mobile camera industry which the government had previously tried to halt. Meanwhile the fat cat course operators have already become multi millionaires.
This campaign is about stopping the courses, which in turn will once again disincentivise the expanding speed camera industry by drastically cutting their funding.
A while ago I heard a BBC report that the fines paid by drivers via FPN's for speeding offences had remained stable or fallen, yet they glaringly (ignorantly or deliberately) forget to mention that the revenue raised from speed awareness courses has increased to multi millions, and that more drivers than ever are falling foul of camera vans (whilst typically driving at a safe average speed for the road).
Please don't think with the mindset that stopping the courses will mean you have to take the points, that's exactly the way they want you to think and it's how they are getting away with it. The fact is if the courses are stopped the camera vans will largely disappear once again.
I must admit, I find it painful to see how people so willingly accept this scam, this legalised robbery, as can be seen by the responses in this thread.
Each to their own though, I guess if this is going to be the typical repsonse then there will be very little support.
It's explained in more detail here, but is quite a long read... so I guess if you're happy to keep paying the course fees as punishment for travelling at a walking pace above a dumbed down speed limit, don't bother reading it
Hopefully that won't include all of you though
http://www.speed-awareness.org/Speed...gn-Summary....
To summarise:
Speed camera partnerships were originally allowed to keep the money they raised through fines, which meant they expanded and got ever more greedy, buying more and more mobile vans and spreading like wild fire.
When the Tories came to power they told the camera partnerships off, and told them that fines must now be paid to the treasury, thus disincentivising the partnerships and halting their expansion.
The speed camera partnerships were given a fixed budget to operate with, which many couldn't survive on, and over the next few years many of them withered away and disbanded, hence the turning off of fixed cameras and mobile vans in many counties. Here in Somerset they were disbanded around 2010 from memory.
Some greedy, clever ex police chiefs then saw an opening in the market, to make lots of money by bypassing the Fixed Penalty Notice method (which the treasury now receives) and instead offering speed awareness courses. This way they could once again cream off most of the money. The courses now make multi millions of pounds which is divided among the operating parties, including the police.
I belive the police make around 30% of the take, thus incentivising them once more to buy more and more camera vans with the profits, and hence resuming the expansion of the mobile camera industry which the government had previously tried to halt. Meanwhile the fat cat course operators have already become multi millionaires.
This campaign is about stopping the courses, which in turn will once again disincentivise the expanding speed camera industry by drastically cutting their funding.
A while ago I heard a BBC report that the fines paid by drivers via FPN's for speeding offences had remained stable or fallen, yet they glaringly (ignorantly or deliberately) forget to mention that the revenue raised from speed awareness courses has increased to multi millions, and that more drivers than ever are falling foul of camera vans (whilst typically driving at a safe average speed for the road).
Please don't think with the mindset that stopping the courses will mean you have to take the points, that's exactly the way they want you to think and it's how they are getting away with it. The fact is if the courses are stopped the camera vans will largely disappear once again.
I must admit, I find it painful to see how people so willingly accept this scam, this legalised robbery, as can be seen by the responses in this thread.
Each to their own though, I guess if this is going to be the typical repsonse then there will be very little support.
It's explained in more detail here, but is quite a long read... so I guess if you're happy to keep paying the course fees as punishment for travelling at a walking pace above a dumbed down speed limit, don't bother reading it
Hopefully that won't include all of you though
http://www.speed-awareness.org/Speed...gn-Summary....
addsvrs said:
Also far more productive than 3 points, so i dont agree with the petition, infact i think they should make all new drivers sit it as an extra to a driving test.
This sums up perfectly how people simply miss the point.The course as part of the driving test, or even part of a 10 year refresher would be fine.
But as a blackmail tool to recapture lost funding, it is wrong on all levels.
The camera vans mainly prey on roads that have a speed limit below the 85th percentile speed of traffic on that road. That is to say, the average safe flow of traffic on that road is above the limit, typically roads that have had the limit lowered from NSL to 40 or even 30mph.
With the proliferation of these courses and the funds they raise, you will be seeing a lot more of this.
Roads should be policed by the police, not by civilians operating speed cameras from the back of vans to fund a multi million pound speed awareness course industry.
Most of the responses in this thread strangely remind me of the responses I get when I try to teach people how to gamble successfully. As we all know, gambling is a mug's game, we've been told that for ever, and largely that's true. But it's only a mug's game if you don't know how to succeed.
When I teach people I explain that the outcome of a bet is irrelevant, whether a bet wins or loses is totally 100% irrelevant to success.
I place in the region of 150 bets per day, each bet being judged at the point of placement. The price achieved means everything, the result of each bet means nothing and is of no interest to me.
Probably less than 1 in 100 gamblers can fully understand that simple truth. Most will continue studying endless stats and form trying to predict the future, and continue losing.
So here we are on a driving enthusiasts website, where it appears by responses here that possibly 1 in 100 drivers cannot see that SAC's used as a tool for speeding offences is producing a multi million pound rapidly expanding industry, leading to the proliferation of speed camera vans. The more you all want to go on the course, the more vans they will buy.
Perhaps understandably, most have a short term view and can't see the bigger picture beyond their own selfishness of choice between penalty points or a course, and in that respect the course operators have played a blinder.
But long term the bottom line is, supporting SAC's makes the driver their own worst enemy.
When I teach people I explain that the outcome of a bet is irrelevant, whether a bet wins or loses is totally 100% irrelevant to success.
I place in the region of 150 bets per day, each bet being judged at the point of placement. The price achieved means everything, the result of each bet means nothing and is of no interest to me.
Probably less than 1 in 100 gamblers can fully understand that simple truth. Most will continue studying endless stats and form trying to predict the future, and continue losing.
So here we are on a driving enthusiasts website, where it appears by responses here that possibly 1 in 100 drivers cannot see that SAC's used as a tool for speeding offences is producing a multi million pound rapidly expanding industry, leading to the proliferation of speed camera vans. The more you all want to go on the course, the more vans they will buy.
Perhaps understandably, most have a short term view and can't see the bigger picture beyond their own selfishness of choice between penalty points or a course, and in that respect the course operators have played a blinder.
But long term the bottom line is, supporting SAC's makes the driver their own worst enemy.
Riley Blue said:
Your first four paragraphs are irrelevant, the remaining three are bovine excreta - insulting those whose support your seek is not going to help your cause.
Please quote where I have insulted anyone, I cannot see it.Edited by Riley Blue on Saturday 23 July 09:03
Your words however I would see as an insult, hence why I haven't lowered myself to that sort of language.
waremark said:
What are the stats on numbers of operative mobile camera units? I have the impression that it has significantly reduced since the days of Speed Camera Partnerships retaining the fines.
I would have attributed the growth in the SAC industry to the broader parameters for escaping fines, and as such I welcome it.
Good question. Here in Somerset the speed camera partnership was disbanded when they could no longer keep the money from fines, fixed cameras were turned off and vans were scrapped. The job was rightly left to traffic police.I would have attributed the growth in the SAC industry to the broader parameters for escaping fines, and as such I welcome it.
Then the clever SAC's were invented, securing a huge flow of money for funding speed camera vans, which have returned with bells and whistles.
Your impression of a reduction in vans is incorrect, I don't know where you received your information?
The amount of course venues in most counties around the country is staggering, each holding 2 or more sittings per day. It's a mind boggling amount of money when you attempt to work it out.
ZX10R NIN said:
To me the ABD should be fighting Mayor Khan's proposal for his ULEZ zone, this is a far bigger issue than speed awareness courses.
Have read and agree with each of your points, although I wouldn't agree it's a bigger issue than the SAC issue, it's equally as important.You should contact the ABD with your points, I'd be surprised if they're not already working on it, but it helps when people with a common sense practical attitude put suggestions forward.
More than one of the campaign supporters are former police officers, and it's well worth reading what one had to say in this blog post:
“As a former senior police traffic officer and ABD member I have grave reservations about Speed Awareness courses. In my view they ‘offer’ an expensive alternative to prosecution for excessive speeds which in the past would not trouble the guides to prosecutors, so low are the infringements.
So it is that the great and the good sit meekly through half a day’s instruction whilst persistent, dangerous speeders get away with it because the police service has given up overt traffic enforcement. Add to this the proliferation of new speed limits which do not meet long standing criteria and more speed cameras and you have the recipe for both a cash cow and a feeling of driver persecution. Road safety? I don’t think so…….. Malcolm B “.
“As a former senior police traffic officer and ABD member I have grave reservations about Speed Awareness courses. In my view they ‘offer’ an expensive alternative to prosecution for excessive speeds which in the past would not trouble the guides to prosecutors, so low are the infringements.
So it is that the great and the good sit meekly through half a day’s instruction whilst persistent, dangerous speeders get away with it because the police service has given up overt traffic enforcement. Add to this the proliferation of new speed limits which do not meet long standing criteria and more speed cameras and you have the recipe for both a cash cow and a feeling of driver persecution. Road safety? I don’t think so…….. Malcolm B “.
davepoth said:
It'll vary by region, but certainly I agree with you about Avon & Somerset - the number of vans around here is silly. There's one parked at the end of my road most days, I almost feel like waving!
It's a legalised scam through and through. Just site vans on roads where the safe average speed of traffic is above the dumbed down limit, invent a method - a SAC to collect the revenue and bypass the FPN, throw in a dose of propaganda, add some 'save the children' spice, and kerching kerching all day long. They rake in multi millions, their overheads are a drop in the ocean compared to the colossal turnover.The only way to halt the expansion is to hit the funding via SAC's, which will prove difficult no doubt because of the clever way it's been set up to appeal to the very people it's creaming money out of, as can be seen by replies in this thread, although it's also possible many of the contributors here have come across from Brake or other such orginisations.
Gary C said:
So why doesn't this ABD campaign against excessively low thresholds and over enforcement, rather than a course which everybody would prefer to an endorsement ?
Arse & elbows.
They do campaign and have been successful in having some dumbed down limits raised, such as the A38 in Somerset.Arse & elbows.
Your point about people prefering the course I've tried to cover several times, it's the very meat of the issue, so either people aren't reading what's been presented previously or are playing dumb. I have the feeling some people are making lazy comments without reading the links presented.
Artey said:
The amount of hate deeps gets for telling it like it is is astounding. Doesn't surprise me since the sheep will be sheep but I'd at least hope for 1 sheep out of 10 to wake up and smell the coffee.
Thanks for restoring my faith in human nature Artey. From the continued responses I can only assume that still very few people, if any, have actually taken the time to read the document linked, the points repeatedly being raised are covered in the document...
http://www.speed-awareness.org/Speed-Awareness-Cam...
I would copy and paste it to save people the trouble of clicking the link, but that doesn't work.
poing said:
Couldn't be bothered to read the entire thread since it went off the rails but to summarise it seems to me:
The police make a bit of money which means less for the tax payer.
The driver receives an education rather than meaningless points.
I'm not seeing a problem.
This isn't fair, you can't expect me to explain the reality of the situation over and over again, especially if you can't even be bothered to read the posted links.The police make a bit of money which means less for the tax payer.
The driver receives an education rather than meaningless points.
I'm not seeing a problem.
I'll summarise one last time...
The police have no right in law to waiver prosecution for speeding offences.
Long story, but basically if a speeding fine (FPN) is paid it goes to the treasury. A clever few ex-police chiefs realised they could keep all that money if they waived the FPN and offered a course. Unfortunately for them that is not legal. This means they now profit colosally, hence the proliferation of speed camera vans to maximise revenue.
Scrapping the illegal courses will lead to the scrapping of most of the vans and a possible huge refund of illegal monies obtained.
It's difficult to get this across to people as the very nature of the choice between a course or penalty points is how they have gotten away with it so far. Everyone will choose the course over points, it's human nature, but in doing so the camera van industry expands and expands. Clever, but as always greed was their downfall.
Huff said:
Well I simply agreed with all of this early response:
Krikkit said:
I don't see the problem with a SAC - the end result is less money into the coffers to fund more cameras etc than a traditional fine -> Good.
That's the opposite of the truth. Please read the thread. Unless by slim chance you actually mean you want to see more cameras?Krikkit said:
Less points being dished out so the insurance companies can gouge us -> Good.
Anyone who's been on a SAC is well advised to declare it to their insurance company. You have committed the same offence whether paying by FPN or waivered FPN SAC fee. Krikkit said:
It also normalises post-test driver education, also a good thing.
I've done a SAC, and it was reasonably informative, and most people there agreed they actually learnt something which improved their driving on the day.
It's the chance to 'normalise post-test driver education' that matters, I think. I'd extend it to MLMs too...I've done a SAC, and it was reasonably informative, and most people there agreed they actually learnt something which improved their driving on the day.
Courses as part of the driving test and refresher courses are always good, but not as a blackmail tool to gain revenue by bypassing the FPN. I've actually said this before in this thread, so I'll let the thread die soon as it's clear most people don't bother reading it.
swisstoni said:
Hey Deeps, I'll try again;
Why is it going to be better when your campaign is a success?
Simple question. And before you say it, your blurb doesn't cover it.
Hey swisstoni,Why is it going to be better when your campaign is a success?
Simple question. And before you say it, your blurb doesn't cover it.
The 'blurb' does actually cover it but...
It will vastly reduce the amount of speed camera vans on our roads.
Enforcement will be carried out by trained traffic police officers, not civillians in camera vans maximising revenue at the expense of real road safety.
Sheetmaself said:
powerstroke said:
Ok but what about the lowering of speed limits on our A roads from 60 down to as low as 30 where nothing has changed
apart from maybe a local councillor now lives on that road,
Anyone think stupidly low limits are anything but counterproductive ????
Just because your, and likely my, perception of what the speed limit should be doesn't match what the speed limit is does not mean that you should be surprised should you be caught. apart from maybe a local councillor now lives on that road,
Anyone think stupidly low limits are anything but counterproductive ????
There is a lovely winding road near me which is a 40mph section, i see this as a road which has good sight lines, has no junctions, a footpath which isseperated from the road by a hedge, and no houses on it. I therefore regularly go over 60 on this road. Doesnt mean im not breaking the law and doesnt mean that by doing so i should be prepared to accept the consequences of my actions.
Unfortunately, some are now set using the dumbing down method, which basically means as low as possible for often no reason at all.
The ABD has succesfully campaigned to have some limits raised, such as the A38 in Somerset when it was dumbed down from NSL to 40 and 30, then consequently heavilly targeted by camera vans catching all the safe drivers above the dumbded limit. The limit was eventually reinstated, too late for the drivers caught of course.
Another drawback of dumbing down limits below the 85th percentile flow is the frustrated overtakes that it can contribute to. Dumbing down does not make a road safer, the 85th percentile method was employed for good reason.
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