M4 scamera protest planned
Time for a protest against oppression of the motorist
 Cameras on the bridge |
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Image courtesy |
There's going to be a protest about soon sparked by the M4's new speed cameras in Wiltshire.
It is planned that a protest convoy will leave Membury services M4 westbound at 10:00 on Saturday 30 April, and drive along the motorway to junction 17 (the other side of Wiltshire). Another convoy may leave Leigh Delamere services eastbound at the same time.
This is the weekend before the general election, so is your chance to pay back the government for all the anti-car nonsense they have enforced on us over the last eight years.
The media are bound to be there in force, and are likely to video the gathering at the services beforehand, so print some of the speed camera signs from the ABD website and display them in your car, make them into banners, make up your own banners.
When in the convoy, put your lights on and wave at any TV crews you see, make it clear to the powers that be that drivers are not going to tolerate speed cameras on motorways.
If you don't want to join the convoy itself, there are over a dozen bridges over the M4 betweens junctions 14 and 17 where you could show your support with banners and flags.
The organiser, M4 Protest, said it hoped this action will show the driving public's dissatisfaction with speed cameras in the run up to the general election, and show that safe driving is too complex to be measured simply in miles per hour.
Campaign founder, Robin Summerhill said, "After £700 million pounds of speed camera fines, road deaths are going up, yet the greedy camera partnerships simply keep expanding, placing more and more cameras. The motoring public is at breaking point and something has to give. I believe it is important that the entire ethos of speed cameras in the UK is re-examined from the very foundations."
Robin said, " We've been running for less than 24 hours and already the response is amazing. I hope drivers and riders will turn out in big numbers on the day. Speed cameras are an issue that affects road users everywhere. Let's hope that the politicians get the message - we're not going to stand for it any more."
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Don't hold an apple in the waving hand though!
Mind you, there is potential here for lots of bookings for committing a Regulation 104 Construction and Use offence :
No person shall drive, cause or permit any other person to drive, a motor vehicle on a road if he is in such a position that he cannot have proper control of the vehicle, ...
Streaky
streaky said:
No person shall drive, cause or permit any other person to drive, a motor vehicle on a road if he is in such a position that he cannot have proper control of the vehicle, ...
Streaky
Shirly speed camera operators force you into a position whereby you "cannot have proper control of the vehicle" as your more interested in speed than control.....
Anyway if I wasn't planning on spending the entire weekend in bed with the GF I might go....
Could you call the police and tell them that someone is blocking the pathway?
Rick
I haven't had a car for the last 4 years and cycle everywhere, but I am still 100% behind this. I am pretty fed up of improving safety for cyclists and pedestrians being claimed as justification for speed cameras. Personally speaking I'd rather have a driver sensibly overtake my bike at 37 MPH, rather that crawl past me at exactly 30, with their attention fixed on the speedo rather than where I am. Let alone all the other issues about the driver being drunk/uninsured/turning without looking/not judging my speed. Compared with these things, which could generally be described as bad driving, exceeding an arbirtary speed limit is trivial.
gjohnsto said:
I generally don't post on PH, but read it regularly, but the issue of M4 cameras has become the straw that broke the camels back. I shall be cycling down from Bristol to the west end of the protest to offer some support from one of the bridges.
I haven't had a car for the last 4 years and cycle everywhere, but I am still 100% behind this. I am pretty fed up of improving safety for cyclists and pedestrians being claimed as justification for speed cameras. Personally speaking I'd rather have a driver sensibly overtake my bike at 37 MPH, rather that crawl past me at exactly 30, with their attention fixed on the speedo rather than where I am. Let alone all the other issues about the driver being drunk/uninsured/turning without looking/not judging my speed. Compared with these things, which could generally be described as bad driving, exceeding an arbirtary speed limit is trivial.
Top Post! Hopefully i'll be there as well depending on my hangover!
pmanson said:
I generally don't post on PH, but read it regularly, but the issue of M4 cameras has become the straw that broke the camels back. I shall be cycling down from Bristol to the west end of the protest to offer some support from one of the bridges.
I haven't had a car for the last 4 years and cycle everywhere, but I am still 100% behind this. I am pretty fed up of improving safety for cyclists and pedestrians being claimed as justification for speed cameras. Personally speaking I'd rather have a driver sensibly overtake my bike at 37 MPH, rather that crawl past me at exactly 30, with their attention fixed on the speedo rather than where I am. Let alone all the other issues about the driver being drunk/uninsured/turning without looking/not judging my speed. Compared with these things, which could generally be described as bad driving, exceeding an arbirtary speed limit is trivial.
Hopefully i'll be there as well depending on my hangover!
If too hungover, you could always vomit over one of the scamera vans!
And they rip the sumps out of police cars! Especially when the lights on them fail.
Sorry if this is in the wrong thread, but I'd just like to show some solidarity with our push-biking friend.
>> Edited by mrmaggit on Thursday 21st April 12:59
I think all cars should come as standard with jammers and camera detectors then let people judge what is a safe speed to drive at.
I don't, however, actually see what this protest will achieve. In fact, by going slow, it will annoy other drivers who don't want to protest by getting in their way and will give additional publicity to the government policy. (I can already see Blair and Darling and the muppets over at T2000 saying "This is great, we want people to go slow"). Furthermore given that the protest will last no more than a few hours it will only have a tiny impact on the revenue generated by the cameras and will therefore not upset the government.
Bizarrely (and annoyingly) I think the best way to defeat the cameras would be for everyone to drive within the limit for a couple of years (clearly never going to happen!). This would reduce their revenue to zero while their costs spiral. In the mean time it would most likely reduce accidents by nothing and expose the policy for what it is. All cameras would be decommisioned and we could all live in a driving nirvana going out for hoon at 160mph. Ok, so I'm joking about the 160mph.
sam_strachan said:
Bizarrely (and annoyingly) I think the best way to defeat the cameras would be for everyone to drive within the limit for a couple of years (clearly never going to happen!).
Bad idea.
They will lower the speed limits ad-infinitum as they need to recoup the money somehow.
You are still thinking from the point its about safety - its not its about the money and now they have had a taste of it they will not stop.
gh0st said:
They will lower the speed limits ad-infinitum as they need to recoup the money somehow.
You are still thinking from the point its about safety - its not its about the money and now they have had a taste of it they will not stop.
Possibly yes - I don't put it forth as a sensible suggestion, but if anything I was thinking from an economic perspective, certainly not safety as I think they are an irrelevance in respect of the latter
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