Thursday 2nd November 2006

MPs slammed over scamera report

ABD condemns transport report as "deeply flawed"

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"Pointless" says ex-chief cop

The recent report from the UK's House of Commons' Transport Committee, which earlier this week called for more speed cameras, has attracted more opprobrium, this time from the Association of British Drivers (ABD).

The ABD said it was "deeply concerned that today's Transport Select Committee report has missed the signs showing that speed cameras simply do not work. More than that, the policy behind them is deeply flawed."

The ABD continued:

• The Committee missed the sign of the BMJ report on serious road traffic injuries showing virtually no change from 1996 to 2004 for hospital admissions, despite government claims of a substantial reduction.
• The Committee missed the sign of the DfT's publication of contributory factors showing that exceeding the speed limit is a contributory factor in just five per cent of road traffic accidents.
• The Committee missed the sign of the 'bucketfuls of cash' admission by the former head of the Warwickshire Speed Camera Partnership, who was caught on camera by an undercover sting which exposed speed camera policy as a cash-raiser.
• The Committee missed the sign of the serious error of 'regression to the mean' which flatters camera statistics, and led to the following comment by Paul Garvin when Chief Constable of Durham: "Statistics adopted by certain forces show a woolly area regarding the proximity of speed cameras, some statistics are taken from an area 20 metres from a camera and others from a two-kilometre radius. The speed camera issue is not a point of principle, it is a fact that they are pointless."

ABD Director of Policy, Mark McArthur-Christie said: "There is a literally fatal flaw in camera policy, and it is the simplistic flaw that equates legality with safety. This is equivalent to closing every hospital down and replacing it with a machine on the high street that just dispenses aspirin, no matter what the illness."

In spite of this overwhelming evidence showing that speed cameras are failing to improve road safety, the Committee have released the Report 'Roads Policing and Technology: Getting the Right Balance' calling for more speed cameras with relaxed placement rules, as well as more traffic police officers.

McArthur-Christie said: "Yes, we need more traffic police, but we need to balance that with putting an end to speed cameras. Not only have they given no safety benefits, but we do not know what dangerous side-effects they have.

The government badly needs to get the nation's road safety strategy back on track in terms of lives saved. That means recognising that hard-line enforcement of speed limits is not - and never has been - a useful road safety policy."

Related stories

• MPs ignore speed camera reality
• MPs call for road policing change

[Eberhardt]

It is a pity that Mr M Stone has given up his previous profession the motorists of Britain could find some use for his skills.

[annodomini2]

article said:

This is equivalent to closing every hospital down and replacing it with a machine on the high street that just dispenses aspirin, no matter what the illness.

Best Analogy of Speed Cameras yet IMHO

[CTE]

Money money money. Narrow minded, uncreative, blinkered, arrogant, corrupt, incompetant, spineless, in it for what they can get....just some of the thoughts which come to mind when thinking about the government and really any public organisation, well most.

There will not be a change in any camera policy, or any real creative answer to reducing road casualties, until "WE" do something about it.

I wonder how much the lack of reduction in road casualties, which have occured since the introduction of "speed cameras" has cost the national health...sorry you and me "the tax payer", oh and the fine payers.

[bigbox]

Call me defeatist but when have "we" done anything about anything and got the government to change their mind about anything that matters - especially where it involves a huge amount of revenue for the governement.

The solution is to either plan a mass destruction of fixed speed cameras or just not get caught.

They have us by the proverbials.

[safespeed]

bigbox said:

Call me defeatist but when have "we" done anything about anything and got the government to change their mind about anything that matters - especially where it involves a huge amount of revenue for the governement.

The solution is to either plan a mass destruction of fixed speed cameras or just not get caught.

They have us by the proverbials.

Believe me, you wouldn't say that if you were sat where I am. We're winning every little battle and inflicting great pain on the enemy. I've never had so much fun in my life!

[bigbox]

Without wanting to offend, all i ever hear about is on the one hand that speed cameras aren't that effective in saving lives and on the other, that the government and local councils are talking about putting up new ones left, right and centre.... i wonder what the ratio is of cameras going up to cameras being taken out of service?!

However i apologise for my ignorance but from what little i have read about your work, i am grateful as i'm sure without this, we'd have an even bigger problem on our hands.

[King Kong]

It’s not about safety, it’s not even about money, it’s about fear and control.
The Government will not rest until we’ve all been upgraded with gps-enabled rfid tags (to combat terrorism/reduce crime/save lives/protect us) and they’ve turned the country into a giant and very unpleasant hybrid of The Sims and Total Recall. Then, if you stray into a red zone, say within 1 square mile of parliament, or move too fast, your behaviour could be corrected with a (chargeable) transgression modification signal. Even better, the new technology would be self-financing and prisons could be converted into tax farms.
I’m now off to drive my gas-guzzling 1961 Mercedes with no seatbelts and numbers plates which were designed for a time when speeding was not tantamount to attempted murder.
Rant Over / I feel better now.
PS Thank you ABD & Safe Speed for the marvellous job you're doing.

[apache]

safespeed said:

bigbox said:

Call me defeatist but when have "we" done anything about anything and got the government to change their mind about anything that matters - especially where it involves a huge amount of revenue for the governement.

The solution is to either plan a mass destruction of fixed speed cameras or just not get caught.

They have us by the proverbials.

Believe me, you wouldn't say that if you were sat where I am. We're winning every little battle and inflicting great pain on the enemy. I've never had so much fun in my life!

Wish you could divulge more Paul. How does this sit with the proposals for more scameras though? and have you any evidence for closed loop surveillence? if that's what all these cables are being laid for

[hahithestevieboy]

the montana parodox. need i say more?

[mybrainhurts]

Expect more of the same from Gwyneth Dunwoody's Committee...

They are hopelessly incompetent....

[BliarOut]

hahithestevieboy said:

the montana parodox. need i say more?

Nope, that covers it quite nicely.

[safespeed]

apache said:

safespeed said:

Believe me, you wouldn't say that if you were sat where I am. We're winning every little battle and inflicting great pain on the enemy. I've never had so much fun in my life!

Wish you could divulge more Paul.

It's not about secrets - it's about judgements from meetings, PR and encounters in media. There are a few encouraging secrets in the Safe Speed members' forum.

apache said:

How does this sit with the proposals for more scameras though? and have you any evidence for closed loop surveillence? if that's what all these cables are being laid for

As I wrote here recently, policy is a giant machine and takes a lot of slowing. But slowing it is and it's becoming ever more unpalatable for the likes of DfT.

We have to win the 'speed and safety' argument in all its forms at all levels. After that surveillence and ISA have to follow speed cameras down.

But I could do much much more with better resources. I need some professional PR help and some expensive help with publications (graphic design, professional authorship, stuff like that.) I would so love to 'seed' university research. I'm doing everything I can, believe me.

[Lord-Flasheart]

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it DFT

[francis m jones]

What we are continually faced with is a Government made up of totally incompetent and useless people who feel the need to penalise us all with more and more taxes to be gleaned in whatever way possible.
Scameras are an easy revenue raiser and no government is going to back-track on such an easy source of revenue.Safety my Ar-e!
They have never been located purely on safety grounds as we all know full well.
What these prats don't realise is that it is leading to a universal hatred of the uniformed police and that non-cooperation with them is increasing alarmingly.
How that will help solve crimes which affect us all,I just don't know.
I wonder how many of our current crop of MP's could hold down a job in the private sector?
Not many I think!
Current rant now over but,I'll be back soon enough,no doubt.
FMJ

[Jaakko]

This whole topic drives me bananas...I agree a waste of time.

I guess this idea is impossible but...

Let's drive to the speedlimit for a few months, won't be long before they run out of money to run the cameras...and when accidents don't go down the gov will be forced to scrap the whole thing.

The gov is just blinded by money...

[spnracing]

ABD said:

The Committee missed the sign of the BMJ report...
The Committee missed the sign of the DfT's publication...
The Committee missed the sign of the 'bucketfuls of cash' admission...
The Committee missed the sign of the serious error of 'regression to the mean'...

The ABD missed the point that speed limits are there for noise pollution, pollution, pedestrian and safety reasons and cameras just enforce the limits. Maybe thats why they weren't consulted before the report was published.

Then again they also propose that our school children should practice driving around school playing fields in MOT failed cars.

I wonder why no-one takes them seriously?

This report is bad bad news for the motorist and we need a sensible balanced reaction, not the ABD and 'Safespeed'.

[LongQ]

spnracing said:

ABD said:

The Committee missed the sign of the BMJ report...
The Committee missed the sign of the DfT's publication...
The Committee missed the sign of the 'bucketfuls of cash' admission...
The Committee missed the sign of the serious error of 'regression to the mean'...

The ABD missed the point that speed limits are there for noise pollution, pollution, pedestrian and safety reasons and cameras just enforce the limits. Maybe thats why they weren't consulted before the report was published.

Then again they also propose that our school children should practice driving around school playing fields in MOT failed cars.

I wonder why no-one takes them seriously?

This report is bad bad news for the motorist and we need a sensible balanced reaction, not the ABD and 'Safespeed'.

I'm not sure about your pollution points these days, most mass market cars are quieter and cleaner than they have ever been.

Road Planners seem to take great delight in removing pedestrian facilities that clearly and safely separated vehicles and pedestrians and now mix them all up again using the slogan 'reclaiming the streets'. Even worse if you consider conjoined pedestrian and cycle lanes - but at least they are hardly used by cyclists.

Speed cameras tend to be ... nowhere near pedestrian areas in very many cases.

I rather suspect that any group, even if they were the most sensible and logical people in the universe, that might be seen to be pro driving freedoms would be unlikely to be consulted on such a report. It's not the way things are done when you want to deliver against a previously defined political agenda. As we can see daily in the media.

In the main people drive because they feel thay have to. It is a necessary chore and cost in their lives, or so they feel.

A smaller number of people are more enthusiastic and actually care about the details and skills of driving. The majority don't give a damn.

But motoring is by its nature and individualistic thing and other than the groups set up to provide a 'club' for frequent breakdown services - the AA and RAC as they used to exist - there has never been a massed group of motorists. Hence there are no organisations of note, now the AA and RAC are parts of commercial businesses trying to flog insurance and finance, to be invited to present the enthusistic motorists view. Which must be very pleasing for the authorities as it allows them free rule with no one to object on behalf of the masses. I would guess that the ABD is the largest group around. That says something about the importance that drivers place on their right to be represented.

So really drivers have no voice and no representation. We all shell out large amounts of disposable income every year to stay mobile and many of us bitch and moan about government policy, no matter who is in government, but we obviously don't feel the need to organise and put forward a constructive case. Other than a few people who do band together on our behalf and try to do what they can.

Even if you look at PH, a successful and relatively large grouping of enthusiasts (mostly) with the potential to band together and raise large sums of cash in very short timescales as we have recently seen, there is little or no drive to co-ordinate a movement to represent the UK driving population, no matter that most of us rant against the system and its standards on a regular basis.

Why not?

Because we are all individuals. We don't belong to the 'drivers' tribe, we belong only to subsets of it and loosely grouped subsets at that. Many of our 30 million number, probably most, are so full of hidden self loathing at the need to drive that they welcome any restrictions and costs placed on themselves. They feel better for being chastised and nannied.

Motorist vs Government will never be a grand pitched battle - the numbers are just not there when the call goes out. At best it will be guerilla tactics that may result in some gains. We could learn from the likes of Brake and Transport 2000 who have somehow managed to obtain charitable status and grab a lot of influence using very little by way of resources.

If even a third of drivers - perhaps the proportion of licence holders who give driving matters any real thought - were prepared to cough up 10 quid a year for representation in the policy process that would provide a huge fund for developing and delivering the message.

But we won't, will we?

Oh well, it will be the EU juggernaut next if the Climate Change scam doesn't change all the rules first.

[fluffnik]

bigbox said:

They have us by the proverbials.

Destroy them.

Attack your encumbant elected reps from every angle; play dirty; discredit the local political elite.

As things stand we get a choice of marginal variations of bad mismanagement of a broken system.

Destroy them ALL.

[fluffnik]

frazer guest said:

fluffnik said:

Destroy them ALL.

are you alright tonite fluff? you seem a little agitated?

I'm fine.

...the world needs tweeking.

[apache]

spnracing said:

The ABD missed the point that speed limits are there for noise pollution, pollution, pedestrian and safety reasons and cameras just enforce the limits. Maybe thats why they weren't consulted before the report was published.

I must have missed all those signs telling me to slow down because it makes too much noise and a couple of mph of my speed will save the planet, again.
I understand your angst re Safespeed being a tad rabid but surely you can see he is fighting fire with fire. As for the ABD I felt they were fairly conventional in their responses.