Safespeed in Evo Edspeak
Discussion
Apache said:
Congratulations to Paul at safespeed who enjoys a mention in EVO Edspeak this month (July)! You are reaching a wider audience at last.
Cheers,
Steve
When he gets mentioned in the Guardian it'll be more useful, he's still preaching to the converted in EVO
True!
Apache said:
Congratulations to Paul at safespeed who enjoys a mention in EVO Edspeak this month (July)! You are reaching a wider audience at last.
Cheers,
Steve
When he gets mentioned in the Guardian it'll be more useful, he's still preaching to the converted in EVO
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1529643,00.html
Freeze placed on new speed cameras
David Fickling and agencies
Friday July 15, 2005
The government has announced a freeze on setting up new speed cameras, it was announced today.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said that no applications for new speed camera sites would be approved until an annual review of the programme had been completed.
Last year's review found that speed cameras resulted in a 40% reduction in deaths and serious injuries, equivalent to 870 fewer people killed or seriously injured each year.
Crashes were also 33% less common at camera sites, equivalent to 4,030 fewer collisions nationwide.
But the department said it needed to assess the results of this year's study, being conducted by University College London, before installing more cameras.
"There's a lot more data now from the camera sites and we want to be sure that we have a much clearer picture of things before we proceed," a spokesman said.
The study had been due in June, but at present the department is unsure when it will be ready.
Road safety campaigners said that the halt risked lives. "We should be doing absolutely everything we can to tackle speeding," said Jools Townsend, spokeswoman for road safety charity Brake.
"If we are held back on placing speed cameras in communities where they are desperately needed then it's going to be costing lives," she said.
But the decision was welcomed by anti-speed camera campaigners.
Paul Smith, founder of Safe Speed, said: "Now we know the true reason why road deaths fell last year. The government got cold feet with their dangerous speed camera programme, put on the brakes and saved some lives.
"Speed cameras are a dangerous distraction to drivers, police and local authorities alike. In almost every case there's something else that's more important to road safety than strict speed limit compliance."
The group also welcomed DfT figures showing that the growth of speed cameras had been "strongly curtailed" in 2004.
Safe Speed said that while the number of fixed and mobile sites between 2002 and 2003 grew by 33%, the growth was under 1% for 2003 to 2004.
The AA last month published maps for the first time showing the location of speed cameras, and since 2002 the government has painted cameras yellow to alert motorists to their presence, a policy which safety campaigners say may make them less likely to avert accidents.
Speed camera partnerships still have the right to increase or decrease their number of speed cameras by up to 15% without approval from central government.
(not sure if this is in the Paper, or just the web site...)
apache said:
Although this might've been a bad analogy, " The government got cold feet with their dangerous speed camera programme, put on the brakes and saved some lives.
Nah. That's there because I'm learning to give the press the right sort of thing to actually get printed. It might be a mixed metaphor, but it featured in a PR because I knew it was likely to get used.
>> Edited by safespeed on Saturday 16th July 09:40
safespeed said:
Although this might've been a bad analogy, " The government got cold feet with their dangerous speed camera programme, put on the brakes and saved some lives.
Nah. That's there because I'm learning to give the press the right sort of thing to actually get printed. It might be a mixed metaphor, but it featured in a PR because I knew it was likely to get used.
>> Edited by safespeed on Saturday 16th July 09:40
Paul
saw you on Newsnight Scotland. You made a good account of yourself. Nice one.
KennyGti
Apache said:
When he gets mentioned in the Guardian it'll be more useful, he's still preaching to the converted in EVO
Does the Observer count?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,6903,1530242,00.html
The freak factor
Watch the birdie and cause a crash
Leader
Sunday July 17, 2005
The Observer
Anyone who has been reading Freakonomics, Professor Steven D Levitt's unlikely summer bestseller about behavioural statistics, will know that big numbers rarely act as we expect. The self-styled 'rogue economist' applies the tricks of number-crunchers to some of the riddles of modern life: if drug-dealers make so much money, why do most still live with their mothers? Which is more dangerous - a gun or a swimming pool?
The professor's chaos theory of risk is bleakly addictive; it makes you want to remind the thousands of commuters who bought bicycles after the Underground bombings that they are vastly more likely to be the victims of a road accident than of a terrorist bomb. The theories creep into other debates. Last week, the government announced a three-month moratorium on further speed cameras. This was partly in response to the work of engineer Paul Smith, who has spent 5,000 hours finding out why, though the number of cameras has risen exponentially, there has been no corresponding reduction in traffic fatalities. He concludes that, far from acting as a deterrent, speed cameras take responsibility for safe speed away from drivers, and their concentration from the road. Cameras are as likely to cause an accident as to prevent one. The Department of Transport seems in two minds, aware, perhaps, that cause is not always easily paired with effect, and that these days there are lies, damned lies and freakonomics.
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