Essex:County is the speed capital

[s a m]

Evening Gazette News said:

Essex: County is the speed capital of nation Essex has been unveiled as the speeding capital of England and Wales. Figures show the county accounted for more than ten per cent of all speeding prosecutions in magistrates' courts for the two countries in the year 2002. These latest available statistics show how Essex Police doled out a massive 17,004 speeding fines, over 5,000 more than the next force in the list, Thames Valley, which prosecuted 11,887. Essex's total was more than the combined sum of convictions for Wales, Surrey, Sussex and Suffolk put together. Essex road safety officer Dan Carlin said speeding was an issue throughout the county, especially on the major routes. He said: "We take speeding very seriously and we are particularly concerned with the problem on the A127. "If Essex has the highest number of prosecutions and that leads to a reduction in speeding, it has got to be a good thing." An Essex Police spokesman said the force would continue to maintain its hard line on speeding.

So speed cameras aren’t working, we have had them for years, and speed is still a 'problem' as they say, even if they are dishing out more fines than Santa did presents last night.

I wonder which force will be getting the Big Christmas Performance Bonuses this year, well the lads of the Essex partnership worked their little asses off for it dishing out all those NIPs.

Happy Christmas Folks, hope you all had a great day.

[8Pack]

Well, it's not called Exess county for nothing

[mybrainhurts]

Disagree with that.

If there are 3 million tickets a year, and very few cameras per mile.......

Most peeps must be........

Speeding.



And they expect this to rise to 5 million pa, then remain at 5 million forever and ever.....so even they don't believe the message will ever get through......but they know the cash will just keep rolling in........

[safespeed]

Evening Gazette News said:

Essex: County is the speed capital of nation [...] These latest available statistics show how Essex Police doled out a massive 17,004 speeding fines, over 5,000 more than the next force in the list, Thames Valley, which prosecuted 11,887.

That's not right. These figures apply to "speeding fines" in magistrates' courts.

Here's a Daily Mail article on the subject:
www.safespeed.org.uk/pr129dm.pdf

Essex issued 213,861 camera tickets in 2002.

[Big_M]

Well I am astounded. I can never speed on most of the Essex roads - I am lucky if I can get to 60 mph on the A12 on my way to work. (Unless I am in the inside lane )

[s a m]

Big M, duno what your taking about, A12 is alright Witham to avenue of remembrance (Colchester) which is the run I do every day, lots more than 60

[Big_M]

Sam - I am in the southbound queue mate, between Kelvedon and Chelmsford - look out for the Blue FTO and give me a wave.

[hornet]

Evening Gazette News said:

Essex road safety officer Dan Carlin said speeding was an issue throughout the county, especially on the major routes. He said: "We take speeding very seriously and we are particularly concerned with the problem on the A127. "If Essex has the highest number of prosecutions and that leads to a reduction in speeding, it has got to be a good thing." An Essex Police spokesman said the force would continue to maintain its hard line on speeding.

Surely that's an admission that ten years of "speed kills" campaigns and camera enforcement has utterly failed? If the campaign really worked, we'd be seeing a record LOW number of fines wouldn't we?

I love the way these people twist logic to make any situation fit their agenda. On the one hand they tell us that they'd rather nobody was speeding and the best camera is one that doesn't catch anyone, then, when it is revealed they've been fining a record number of peoplem, they claim that's a GOOD thing?! How can you "hard line" speeding policy be successful if you're doing record numbers of people? Surely that's a sign of abject FAILURE?

[V8 Archie]

Dan Carlin said:

"If Essex has the highest number of prosecutions and that leads to a reduction in speeding, it has got to be a good thing."

I ifs and buts were were pots and pans, there'd be no tinkers.

[DJFish]

Perhaps those statistics are due to the impossibly low limits that seem to be springing up everywhere in Essex, 30 and 40 limits seem to be creeping further and further into the countryside and NSLs are becoming an endangered species, presumably because standards are dropping and the only thing authorities can do is drop limits.

T'other day I had to go to the train station and pick up my car, it's a 20 minute walk but it was pi55ing down, bus journey took an hour and the return car journey took 30 mins, an hour and a half of my life to do a 5 mile round trip!

This county is grinding to a halt, not getting faster!

[nickwilcock]

Presumably the high speeds in Essex are simply the result of people trying to get out of the god-forsaken $hit-hole asap?

[DJFish]

Judging by all the people on the Northbound A12 this evening the opposite would appear to be true.

[hertsbiker]

DJFish said:

Perhaps those statistics are due to the impossibly low limits that seem to be springing up everywhere in Essex, 30 and 40 limits seem to be creeping further and further into the countryside and NSLs are becoming an endangered species, presumably because standards are dropping and the only thing authorities can do is drop limits. T'other day I had to go to the train station and pick up my car, it's a 20 minute walk but it was pi55ing down, bus journey took an hour and the return car journey took 30 mins, an hour and a half of my life to do a 5 mile round trip! This county is grinding to a halt, not getting faster!

so very true!

[zetec]

KSI figures for essex can be seen on www.abd.org.uk/ click on local issues then Essex.