New M4 Cameras ?

[miniman]

Anyone else spot this in the BBC article:

But Saira Khan, of the Swindon and Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership, said: "I'm sure Mr Gray is aware, as is everyone else, that we have to comply with the rules.

That's the annoying blob off Apprentice, isn't it???

[rs1952]

ledfoot said:

The Tories candidate James Gray said :- "The M4 is virtually straight between those junctions," said Mr Gray. "I cannot think of any dangerous stretches. I am not aware of any safety reason why cameras should be there." As far as Labour is concerned it is only about revenue >> Edited by ledfoot on Tuesday 12th April 20:22

So, leaving to one side any miracle like James Gray not being returned to Parliament (Labout not having a cat in hell's chance around here), we will have a local MP who doesn't like the idea of these cameras. Perhaps he'd like to tell us what he's going to do about them, then?

[nickwilcock]

miniman, why not ring "Saira Khan, Communications Manager, safety camera unit, [phone]" and ask her? It's a fairly common name, so somehow I doubt it if it's the same person.

Telephone number is from the Scamera Pratnership's website.

It seems that they will be using vans situated on overbridges on the M4 rather than fixed cameras.

The guidelines used to be 10% +4 (i.e. 37 in a 40 limit, 48 in a 40, 59 in a 50, 70 in a 60 and 81 in a 70). Has this policy now changed?

Incidentally, the Swindonazis have a particular hatred of people speeding as was shown a year or so ago:

07/10/2003 - Magistrates award maximum penalty

Magistrates at Devizes Court fined a Cheltenham based business the maximum of £1,000, plus court costs for not declaring the details of the driver in charge of a company vehicle when an alleged speeding offence was recorded.

The vehicle was clocked travelling at 51mph in a 40 mph speed limit area on Queens Drive, Swindon. When a speeding offence is recorded the registered owner of the vehicle is sent a Notice of Intended Prosecution and asked to provide details of the person driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence.

If the company had provided details of the driver, the driver would have been prosecuted. As the company failed to do this, the company was prosecuted for not providing details of the driver, under the Road Traffic Act 1988.

“Contrary to what some people may believe, failing to provide driver details is an offence and in this case Magistrates awarded the maximum fine of £1,000. People cannot escape prosecution by simply not providing information ”, said Saira Khan, Communications Officer for the Safety Camera Unit.

In a separate case, a 35 year-old man from Devon was fined £960.00, plus court costs and given 6 points on his licence for speeding at 76mph in a 40mph temporary speed limit area along the A303, Chicklade road works.


“Speed limits are there to protect all road users and we need motorists to keep this in mind”.

“Motorists travelling through the county need to be aware that we take speeding seriously and if they don't observe the legal speed limits they may be caught and given hefty fines.”



>> Edited by nickwilcock on Wednesday 13th April 08:48

[autismuk]

nickwilcock said:

The guidelines used to be 10% +4 (i.e. 37 in a 40 limit, 48 in a 40, 59 in a 50, 70 in a 60 and 81 in a 70). Has this policy now changed?

I think the changes (to something like +1 = hanging ?) did not go through due to lack of parliamentary time.

[The Wiz]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4439123.stm

Speed cameras target M4 drivers

The first speed cameras targeting drivers exceeding the 70mph speed limit on a British motorway are due to be switched on along the M4. All speeding motorists - not just those well above the limit - on the Wiltshire section of the motorway now face £60 fines and three penalty points.

The Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership is putting marked vans along a 40-mile stretch between Bath and Hungerford.

It says it hopes they will reduce the high number of deaths on the route.

North Wiltshire Tory candidate James Gray attacked the plans as being for Labour's "politically correct, money-making reasons".

'Politically correct'

But a Labour party spokesman said they were there to help save lives.

"I fail to see how a speed camera can be politically correct," he said.

"Speed cameras are used as one of many means to help improve road safety in communities across the country."

But Mr Gray said that if the Tories were voted into power, they would raise the speed limit on motorways to 80mph.

He said: "If speed cameras are designed to reduce accidents, then I support them.

"However if they are designed to raise revenues for the government or to be politically correct - saying 'Aren't we being good, putting up speed cameras?' - then I don't."

The plan involves installing cameras from junctions 14 - Hungerford - to 18 - Bath - of the motorway.

But Mr Gray said: "The M4 is virtually straight between those junctions.

"I cannot think of any dangerous stretches. I am not aware of any safety reason why cameras should be there."

'Speeding rate'

Saira Khan, of the Swindon and Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership, said: "I'm sure Mr Gray is aware, as is everyone else, that we have to comply with the rules.

"We know that if we have cameras then the speeding rate goes down and the severity of casualties goes down too."

Paul Fox, the Liberal Democrats' parliamentary candidate, said speed camera laws should be enforced.

"They are a good thing because they are the one thing motorists take notice of and speed kills," he said.

Labour's parliamentary candidate for North Wiltshire is David Nash. He says hardly a week goes by without there being an accident between the two junctions.

"Bearing in mind the motorway is virtually straight the only reason for this has to be speed therefore I fully support the introduction of speed cameras on this stretch," he said.

Also running is Neil Dowdney for the UK Independence Party.

[Fire99]

Hi all,

Im sure im just repeating what has already been said in this thread but we all know that one of the biggest safety problems on roads these days is people keeping one eye on the road and the other looking for cameras.

The intelligent public has no faith that cameras are solely in 'Accident black Spots' but are infact located in places where they stand the greatest chance of catching people drifting past the speed limit..

Lets face it, the Policians want us to speed... They want our cars to be bigger, quieter, 'safer' etc making the driver more and more remote from the road.
Compare 70 mph on a 2005 Ford Mondeo with 70mph on a Mk1 Cortina.....

By placing cameras in places where they can catch the responsible motorist driving moderately above the limit but in a safe manner purely makes the public further distrust the Police, the Government and all levels of authority.

Sadly cause this is soo blatant by the Government and police it is undermining the very essence of our Democratic Society..

Ive said this in another post but the other political parties may not be great but we have never had such blatant nannying before..

I dont honestly care who runs this country so long as those who currently run it dont after May 5th...

Heavy but true i feel!

[miniman]

Here's the list of locations from the Wilts (alledged) Safety Camera Partnership:

Approximately 8.3km east of junction 17
Approximately 3.1km east of junction 17
Approximately 8.4km west of junction 16
Approximately 3km east of junction 16
At Junction 15
Approximately 6.9km east of junction 15
Approximately 1.8km west of junction 15

Can't see how it's going to reduce accidents, frankly. Suspect we will see significant emergency braking going on as people spot the vans on the bridges.

[nickwilcock]

Of course if all the M4 overbridges were blocked by abandoned vehicles or had the edges covered in nicely matured manure, locating the scamera vehicles would be somewhat tricky....

[streaky]

[Also posted in the other M4 cameras thread, but valid here too.]

I went searching for the accident statistics for the M4 and found this:

This is Wiltshire (first published 16 Dec 2002)

The M4 motorway was today declared one of the safest motorways in the country ­ despite a catalogue of accidents and four deaths in the past year.

The 30-year-old 200-mile stretch of road, linking Wales and the West Country with London and the South East, is ranked as one of the safest by the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP).

EuroRAP, an independent European think-tank, has looked at recent historical data to measure and plot the rate at which people are killed or seriously injured on roads across the continent.

It has graded each section of road using a star rating system, awarding zero stars for the most dangerous and four for the safest.

And the 29-kilometre Swindon stretch of the M4 between junctions 15 and 17 is ranked as a four star road, even though commuters have faced chaos there this year after a series of accidents and hold-ups. [See link at foot - S]

Statistics reveal that between January 1 and October 31 this year there have been four fatalities, 15 serious and 87 slight accidents on the entire M4, compared with four fatalities, 10 serious and 93 slight for the same period last year.

Each weekday the M4 carries an average of 160,000 vehicles and is credited as being the main factor in the economic prosperity of the M4 corridor.

Inspector Bob Walton of Swindon police said: "... I don't think the M4 is the most dangerous road in the country. ..." [Edited to reduce in length - S]

Check out EuroRAP's safety assessments; M4 J14-J18 (plus a lot more) is rated 'LOW'.

Streaky