It's not about the money (yeah, right)!

[Red Devil]

vonhosen said:

Speed limits are merely a compromise between the ability to get somewhere & a multitude of competing factors.

It's not the existence of speed limits that I object to. The issue is the choice of figure in the roundel.
Often driven by emotional/political dogma that is routinely trotted out in justification.

On motorways a large swathe of Europe has no problem with 130kmh(~80mph).
http://autotraveler.ru/en/spravka/max-speed-limits...

However the proposal to increase ours provoked screaming outrage from the usual suspects
Philip Hammond was in favour but he only lasted 18 months in the job.
His successor Justine Greening was SoS for an even shorter period: 11 months.
Her scepticism may well have been due to the Labour opposition coming out in favour of the increase.
Patrick McLoughlin was in the pocket of the 'road safety' lobby and, suprise surprise, the idea was shelved.
He was in post for nearly 4 years (2012-2016). The longest of anyone since Alistair Darling (2002-2006).
In between it was a revolving door: no less than 6 of them came and went.

vonhosen said:

I don't believe they are fixated on reducing speed. limits by & large remain the same.

It seems to be very much a lottery depending on where you live.
Certain counties seem to have a policy agenda in that respect.
Ones that spring to mind are Surrey, Oxfordshire, and Warwickshire.
I'm sure there are others that I don't visit or seldom enough to be aware of the extent of it.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

ashleyman said:

According to that spreadsheet 4.35% of the population are driving round with points on their license. That seems a lot which probably goes to show limits are unreasonable.

I draw the opposite conclusion. Less than 1 in 20, which hardly seems indicative of a "war on motorists" we're always reading about.

[JNW1]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

ashleyman said:

According to that spreadsheet 4.35% of the population are driving round with points on their license. That seems a lot which probably goes to show limits are unreasonable.

I draw the opposite conclusion. Less than 1 in 20, which hardly seems indicative of a "war on motorists" we're always reading about.

But those figures don't include all the people who've taken a SAC and thereby avoided points and, if you want to measure the extent to which the level of enforcement has been increased, surely you need to take all those into account? I suspect that would give a rather different result and if you compare the adjusted figure to the like for like equivalent from (say) 20 years ago my guess is the percentage will have gone up.....

[cmaguire]

It also doesn't include those that have had points does it?

[JNW1]

cmaguire said:

It also doesn't include those that have had points does it?

It doesn't but what I'm thinking is if you're trying to get a feel for how the level of enforcement has increased you need to include the number of people who've been on a SAC in the last 4 years (on the basis if SAC's didn't exist they'd have 3 points on their licence). If you then compare that adjusted figure to those who had points on their licence 20 years ago my bet is the percentage of licence holders with points on their licence will have gone up; whether it will demonstrate a "war on the motorist" is another matter but to argue the level of enforcement hasn't increased significantly as a result of technology is to argue black is white IMO.

Edited by JNW1 on Friday 27th October 10:19

[Markbarry1977]

Here's my simple take on how it should be done.

Drive to the conditions.
Speed limits in Spain for example change if its wet - Good Idea.
Its safer driving on an empty motorway at 2am than rush hour. 50 mph limit during rush hour times, 80 or 90 mph during the early hours.
Use smart motorways to prosecute middle lane morons (these in particular boil my piss).
20mph speed limits around all schools with a zero tolerance.

Driving without a licence mandatory 3 month jail term. (how many police camera action shows are there where Mr or Mrs blogs has no licence but is given another 6 points for no licence, no insurance etc when they don't have a fking licence. Mandatory jail 3 months and serve the lot. That would soon change peoples minds)

Unfortunately I am fully aware that this will never happen. Because in part it makes sense to the averagely competent driver. The problem is you have to legislate for the morons amongst us who just bimble around in there dream world, completely ambivalent to what is going on about them and generally causing mayhem in the process.

[otolith]

While the idea of sending people on courses instead of prosecuting them for minor motoring offences has been around for a long time, much longer than the explosion of automated speed enforcement, I am very sceptical that they would have proliferated the way that they have were the SCPs still able to raise revenue through fines. Of course it's about the money. If it's also making drivers safer, that's nice.

As to whether the degree of enforcement is also about the money - well, tying the funding of an aspect of law enforcement to the amount it can raise from people it catches rather than to the extent to which doing so is in the public interest always risked disproportionate outcomes. It also risked a shift from being primarily interested in making the roads safer to being primarily interested in catching offenders. I don't think that has happened to traffic officers. I'm less convinced about camera vans and static cameras.