'Safety' Camera and special cycle lane
Discussion
Here's a story for you that didn't make the headlines.
An Anaesthetic Registrar who had recently moved from our hospital to Plymouth was killed last week when cycling. He was in a reserved bus/taxi/cycle lane, coming up to the site of a 'Safety' Camera. A driver had braked hard to avoid being flashed, two others had virtually stopped behind him and a Beemer swerved into the left hand lane collecting the poor doctor through his side window, resulting in fatal head injuries.
Another staggering success of current road safety policies. A life and future of a highly gifted and useful member of society wasted.
RIP
An Anaesthetic Registrar who had recently moved from our hospital to Plymouth was killed last week when cycling. He was in a reserved bus/taxi/cycle lane, coming up to the site of a 'Safety' Camera. A driver had braked hard to avoid being flashed, two others had virtually stopped behind him and a Beemer swerved into the left hand lane collecting the poor doctor through his side window, resulting in fatal head injuries.
Another staggering success of current road safety policies. A life and future of a highly gifted and useful member of society wasted.
RIP
agent006 said:
Personally i think the driver who didn't see the camera in time should be banned for life. That sort of lack of observation is inexcusable and is what kills people, not speed or speed cameras. What's he going to not see in time next, the school bus queue?
Without knowing the circumstances, I don't think it's fair to condemn any of the drivers. Any of them COULD be at fault, and several of them probably were at fault (following too close, not paying attention, that sort of thing) but there isn't any of them that you can definitely say was at fault without knowing further details.
agent006 said:
Personally i think the driver who didn't see the camera in time should be banned for life. That sort of lack of observation is inexcusable and is what kills people, not speed or speed cameras. What's he going to not see in time next, the school bus queue?
Frankly all the drivers concerned should be prosecuted. All were travelling too fast, too close to the car in front and were unable to brake in a controlled way.
Firstly dreadful to hear of someones death, very bad news. But I think the point firstly being made was that the speed camera lobby are looking at the issue with a very blinkered opinion. I know a similar thing that happened near me but luckily the pedestrian (in this case) survived. These cameras may slow a few people down (by this I mean slow people down over a whole journey not just a few yards by the camera), but most carry on normally, slowing only at the camera location. There are fewer police on the road as cameras are introduced and I beleive that the standard of driving has thus fallen. Fact is that the doctor would probably be alive if there was no camera there, what we do not know what the other effects would be. My experience is that when cameras were on the M6 Manchester Ship Canal bridge set at 40mph for a 3 lane motorway it was jolly hard to maintain concentration to the same standard as when I'm travelling at normal motorway speeds. By the way I have crashed my car twice both well below the speed limit.
Its a driver reaction and education issue really. From experience (I travel a lot of miles in a year) there are lots of drivers who automatically slow down when they see a camera. Even if they are travelling at or below the limit already. This is most often seen on A and B roads rather than motorways. Some of these people slow down by braking very hard. Now this is mainly influenced by how sure you are of the speed limit (I think). So travelling down a road, see a camera - hmm I THINK its 40 down here but maybe its 30 - I'll slow down to be sure.
And of course theres that whole group of people who think NSL on a dual carriageway is 60 , so best to go past the scamera at 50 (why do people go past cameras 5 or 10mph less than the speed limit?) they brake creating a differential of 20MPH with the other traffic where before it was all flowing nicely.....
And of course theres that whole group of people who think NSL on a dual carriageway is 60 , so best to go past the scamera at 50 (why do people go past cameras 5 or 10mph less than the speed limit?) they brake creating a differential of 20MPH with the other traffic where before it was all flowing nicely.....
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