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Speed cams cause prangs
By MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Editor
A POLICE chief yesterday said speed cameras can CAUSE accidents.
Surrey chief superintendent Bill Harding said drivers braking hard to avoid being snapped can be “a recipe for disaster”.
Chief Supt Harding wants a return to officers dealing face-to-face with motorists.
He said: “The over-use of cameras does cause problems.
“You can’t tell if someone has been drinking or driving or even if they are a criminal.
“By having cameras rather than officers, police are missing out on a lot of opportunities to nick villains.”
Chief Supt Harding said relying on cameras meant cops did not get the chance to speak to drivers and point out their faults.
He added: “Cameras do not give you an opportunity to really address bad driving.
“Our aim is to save lives by making people alert and in turn ensuring there are less collisions.
“The problem with cameras is they cannot get the safety message across in the way an officer can.
“The majority of traffic offenders are people who do it without knowing. They might drift over the speed limit without even realising. Those are the people we should be trying to educate — without prosecuting them.”
There are only 30 speed cameras in the whole of Surrey — all at accident blackspots.
The force targets persistent offenders and those who deliberately flout speed rules — such as slowing down for the cameras and then speeding off.
And Chief Supt Harding has pioneered a successful new scheme called the Driver Alert Manual.
Motorists who break traffic laws are shown harrowing photos of fatal crashes.
A total of 1,600 drivers have been shown the book since it was launched last year — and not ONE has come to police attention again.
The manual contains 12 pictures of crashes caused by different types of bad driving.
Chief Supt Harding said: “The person making an illegal right turn will be shown a photograph of a fatal collision caused by someone who also made an illegal right turn.
“Normally, it has quite a big effect on the driver.”
Link here www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003432062,00.html . Is the tide turning. ATB Derek
By MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Editor
A POLICE chief yesterday said speed cameras can CAUSE accidents.
Surrey chief superintendent Bill Harding said drivers braking hard to avoid being snapped can be “a recipe for disaster”.
Chief Supt Harding wants a return to officers dealing face-to-face with motorists.
He said: “The over-use of cameras does cause problems.
“You can’t tell if someone has been drinking or driving or even if they are a criminal.
“By having cameras rather than officers, police are missing out on a lot of opportunities to nick villains.”
Chief Supt Harding said relying on cameras meant cops did not get the chance to speak to drivers and point out their faults.
He added: “Cameras do not give you an opportunity to really address bad driving.
“Our aim is to save lives by making people alert and in turn ensuring there are less collisions.
“The problem with cameras is they cannot get the safety message across in the way an officer can.
“The majority of traffic offenders are people who do it without knowing. They might drift over the speed limit without even realising. Those are the people we should be trying to educate — without prosecuting them.”
There are only 30 speed cameras in the whole of Surrey — all at accident blackspots.
The force targets persistent offenders and those who deliberately flout speed rules — such as slowing down for the cameras and then speeding off.
And Chief Supt Harding has pioneered a successful new scheme called the Driver Alert Manual.
Motorists who break traffic laws are shown harrowing photos of fatal crashes.
A total of 1,600 drivers have been shown the book since it was launched last year — and not ONE has come to police attention again.
The manual contains 12 pictures of crashes caused by different types of bad driving.
Chief Supt Harding said: “The person making an illegal right turn will be shown a photograph of a fatal collision caused by someone who also made an illegal right turn.
“Normally, it has quite a big effect on the driver.”
Link here www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003432062,00.html . Is the tide turning. ATB Derek
Excluding the emergency services members, which PH readers have attended a serious injury/death RTA? Which of you have seen a very high speed accident occur? Which of you have had friends/colleagues killed or maimed in an accident (at any speed)? And what was the effect short and long term on your driving.
I'll go first. In 38 years of driving in some 26 countries have seen over a dozen RTAs involving injury/death occur before my eyes. I have then become involved in assisting drivers and passengers in varying states of injury. I have ruined several pairs of trousers, two business suits and other assorted garments which were soaked in blood. On the racetrack I have watched helpless as a driver was trapped and died in a blazing car (Paul Hawkins at Oulton Park) - we couldn't get to him. I have had a F5000 impact beneath my feet at a flag point, break in half and the back end with driver attached go over my head into the (fortunately empty) spectator area behind (Pete Hawtin at Oulton Park). Pete also died. I have attended accidents where people's faces have been dragged along the tarmac rendering them a mass of gouged tissue and blood. I have seen limbs torn off.
BTW - my vehicle was not involved in any of those accidents. I have had five 'fender-bender' accidents, of which one was arguably my fault.
I won't go on. The members of the emergency services on this forum have seen more and worse.
Each accident affected my driving. Collectively they have conditioned my driving style. I am continually conscious of the potential risks and my situation awareness is high (aided by competition driving in the past and E&E driving training some years ago).
Do I dawdle along? No, I drive at a reasonable speed for the circumstances. That might be 10mph past a junior school at 16:00, it has been at over 150mph on an Autobahn.
Have I been booked for speeding? Once in the USA (enforcing a 55 limit on a dead straight road with light traffic was a joke - but like the 'scammeras' over here, the Highway Patrol in Florida was largely financed by speeding fines).
Am I a 'numpty', or a 'nimrod' or an 'oldie' (in the perjorative sense in which some PHers use that term)? I don't think so. I wouldn't just have bought a 155mph, 0-60 in 4.8s motor car just to hold everyone up.
Do I drive in the middle lane of a motorway? Yes - the tramlines in the inside lane make keeping a straight line very difficult
.
Hunkers down and waits for incoming!
No, seriously, guys and gals (or gals and guys), please answer the questions at the start of this thread.
Streaky
I'll go first. In 38 years of driving in some 26 countries have seen over a dozen RTAs involving injury/death occur before my eyes. I have then become involved in assisting drivers and passengers in varying states of injury. I have ruined several pairs of trousers, two business suits and other assorted garments which were soaked in blood. On the racetrack I have watched helpless as a driver was trapped and died in a blazing car (Paul Hawkins at Oulton Park) - we couldn't get to him. I have had a F5000 impact beneath my feet at a flag point, break in half and the back end with driver attached go over my head into the (fortunately empty) spectator area behind (Pete Hawtin at Oulton Park). Pete also died. I have attended accidents where people's faces have been dragged along the tarmac rendering them a mass of gouged tissue and blood. I have seen limbs torn off.
BTW - my vehicle was not involved in any of those accidents. I have had five 'fender-bender' accidents, of which one was arguably my fault.
I won't go on. The members of the emergency services on this forum have seen more and worse.
Each accident affected my driving. Collectively they have conditioned my driving style. I am continually conscious of the potential risks and my situation awareness is high (aided by competition driving in the past and E&E driving training some years ago).
Do I dawdle along? No, I drive at a reasonable speed for the circumstances. That might be 10mph past a junior school at 16:00, it has been at over 150mph on an Autobahn.
Have I been booked for speeding? Once in the USA (enforcing a 55 limit on a dead straight road with light traffic was a joke - but like the 'scammeras' over here, the Highway Patrol in Florida was largely financed by speeding fines).
Am I a 'numpty', or a 'nimrod' or an 'oldie' (in the perjorative sense in which some PHers use that term)? I don't think so. I wouldn't just have bought a 155mph, 0-60 in 4.8s motor car just to hold everyone up.
Do I drive in the middle lane of a motorway? Yes - the tramlines in the inside lane make keeping a straight line very difficult
. Hunkers down and waits for incoming!
No, seriously, guys and gals (or gals and guys), please answer the questions at the start of this thread.
Streaky
Never stopped at a RTA involving serious injuries or been involved in one, although have driven past many. Not stopped as I am not trained to help and therefore if others have stopped theres no point me stopping. Obviously if one happened immediately in front of me, I would stop, to do what I can, but if others have stopped I don't.
As regards driving styles I believe that it is not necessarily something that can be trained. People fall into a number of catergories. They may be: -
Fast Safe Drivers - They drive at speeds appropriate for road conditions whether that is over or under the speed limit, they are keeping an eye out for factors that may need them to adjust their speed etc
Fast Careless Drivers - They drive fast irrespective of the conditions, tailgating other drivers etc
Slow careful drivers - They stick to speed limits but are at least alert to conditions
Numpties - drive at a fixed speed irrespective of the conditions often not payin attention to whats going on around them.
As regards driving styles I believe that it is not necessarily something that can be trained. People fall into a number of catergories. They may be: -
Fast Safe Drivers - They drive at speeds appropriate for road conditions whether that is over or under the speed limit, they are keeping an eye out for factors that may need them to adjust their speed etc
Fast Careless Drivers - They drive fast irrespective of the conditions, tailgating other drivers etc
Slow careful drivers - They stick to speed limits but are at least alert to conditions
Numpties - drive at a fixed speed irrespective of the conditions often not payin attention to whats going on around them.
Yes, human bodies don't look too pretty on the inside.
Any speed above zero mph is a risk.
We want skillful drivers who are aware of and ready for possible dangers ahead.
The driving test should be improved in this way, to improve predition of events while driving; showing people pictures of mangled bodies is OK, but becoming mangled won't happen to people just because of the speed they are travelling at, it's mistakes that usually cause accidents.
We don't want nervous, dithering drivers - I see enough of them already.
Any speed above zero mph is a risk.
We want skillful drivers who are aware of and ready for possible dangers ahead.
The driving test should be improved in this way, to improve predition of events while driving; showing people pictures of mangled bodies is OK, but becoming mangled won't happen to people just because of the speed they are travelling at, it's mistakes that usually cause accidents.
We don't want nervous, dithering drivers - I see enough of them already.
In the 15 years I have been driving I have been very fortunate in never being near an accident likely to cause serioius injury or death. I have never seen a collision above 10-15 mph (which I know can cause injury but did not in the cases I saw), and I hope this trend continues. (I have driven past the results of these types of accident - with, thankfully, the emergancy services in attendance)
About a year back whilst searching for the wrecked exotics web site (didn't think of the obvious)I came across a Spanish (IIRC) site which showed the aftermath of a highspeed crash involving a Ferrari.
I must admit that whilst I did not hang around on the site for long the images certainly made me think about my driving style and in fact was one of the main reasons I started visiting this site, buy roadcraft and generally think a lot more about what I was doing on the road.
edited for clarity
>> Edited by gopher on Saturday 20th September 09:37
About a year back whilst searching for the wrecked exotics web site (didn't think of the obvious)I came across a Spanish (IIRC) site which showed the aftermath of a highspeed crash involving a Ferrari.
I must admit that whilst I did not hang around on the site for long the images certainly made me think about my driving style and in fact was one of the main reasons I started visiting this site, buy roadcraft and generally think a lot more about what I was doing on the road.
edited for clarity
>> Edited by gopher on Saturday 20th September 09:37
Never been at the scene of a fatal and never had to get involved luckily.
Friend i worked with was killed, along with his girlfriend, when they were knocked off their motorbike.
The dead girl left a 4 year old daughter.
At speed? Nope. He was travelling at just under the 30 limit when a van pulled out and he went into the side of it.
By all accounts, the bike was hardly even marked, as was the van, yet two people died that day.
Im always aware of what happened as i travel that particular road, although the incident happened in 1989, it still seems a lot closer than that to me.
Has my driving style changed as a result? Hard to say for sure. I dont go hammering around corners if i cant see round them, i dont overtake if theres ANYTHING in sight on the other side of the road, unless its a couple of miles away.
I suppose in some ways it has altered my habits, but not my speeds. I was never one for flying through built up areas anyway, so nothings really changed there.
Thankfull to still be here, asif the speed kills dickwads are to be believed, i should by rights be dead, hell, we all should.
Friend i worked with was killed, along with his girlfriend, when they were knocked off their motorbike.
The dead girl left a 4 year old daughter.
At speed? Nope. He was travelling at just under the 30 limit when a van pulled out and he went into the side of it.
By all accounts, the bike was hardly even marked, as was the van, yet two people died that day.
Im always aware of what happened as i travel that particular road, although the incident happened in 1989, it still seems a lot closer than that to me.
Has my driving style changed as a result? Hard to say for sure. I dont go hammering around corners if i cant see round them, i dont overtake if theres ANYTHING in sight on the other side of the road, unless its a couple of miles away.
I suppose in some ways it has altered my habits, but not my speeds. I was never one for flying through built up areas anyway, so nothings really changed there.
Thankfull to still be here, asif the speed kills dickwads are to be believed, i should by rights be dead, hell, we all should.
Byff said:Don't fly with me either - three emergencies); and don't travel with me to foreign climes - shot at four times and wounded twice, blown up once, subject of a kidnap attempt once (failed - my driver had done the E&E course).
Remind me never to accept a lift from Streaky
I still have all my appendages and all my insides except tonsils and adenoids, I lost 60% of my hearing in one ear and some frequencies in the other (result of the bomb explosion) and wear reading glasses.
In none of my road accidents was I travelling at more than 15mph, in two I was stationary. I don't count incidents on the racetrack or special stage, but none of those hurt more than my bank balance.
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