IAM lambasts scamera policies
Speed cameras "damage road safety"
A "plague of speed cameras"
Maxwell said: “Speed cameras should be about compliance, not capture. Posting speed limits on cameras and putting up early warning signs would leave drivers in no doubt about what maximum speed they should be doing.
“If the government wants to make speeding as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving, it has to raise public support for cameras. It should make all cameras conspicuous, not just some. And it should consider using the money from fines on what most people are calling for – more traffic police – instead of giving it to Gordon Brown.
“More than £20 million a year from fixed penalties is going to the Treasury. That money could buy more than 600 extra traffic constables, who can exercise more of the discretion that motorists want.”
A new survey by the IAM also reveals that an overwhelming majority -- more than eight out of ten drivers (84 per cent) – think speed limits should be varied according to weather and traffic conditions.
John Maxwell said: “The thinking behind the speed limits on many roads simply isn’t clear to many drivers, causing widespread frustration and disobedience. We need a national review so that speed limits are set at levels which are sensible, understandable and acceptable.”
ABD response
The Association of British Drivers concurred. It said it has always maintained that the Government has misunderstood the relationship between speed and accidents, and has therefore failed to deliver an effective and reasonable safety policy.
"The key to driving safely is to look at the road ahead and to adjust your speed according to what you see," said Mark McArthur-Christie, IAM Observer and ABD road safety spokesman. "But when the speed limit is set way below what is a reasonable and safe maximum for the road, drivers cannot do this without breaking the limit. When such limits are rigidly enforced, drivers can no longer pay attention to upcoming hazards and lose the ability to recognise and respond to them correctly.
"All road safety depends on drivers' ability to control their speed properly, and speed limits must work with this skill to enhance it rather than undermine it as they do now. This means they must be set at sensible levels and commence when the hazard does, not half a mile before.
"Enforcement of limits should be targeted at drivers who are failing to control their speed sensibly rather than at the very drivers who are. This means reduced use of cameras and more properly trained officers.
Above all, recognition should be given to improved driving skills, and these should be positively encouraged rather than treated with total contempt by speed limit and camera policy."
Safe Speed response
Meanwhile Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign reinforced the message. Smith said: "It's long been clear to me that speed cameras are damaging road safety. They focus everyone on the wrong safety factor. We're paying a price in blood for the DfT's ill-conceived blunders.
"Road safety is about skills attitudes and responsibilities, not about the number on a roadside sign. Speed cameras give a series of false messages and have terrible side effects. They are 'bad psychology', and road safety is founded in road user psychology. We need appropriate beliefs and behaviours.
"Having studied the science and the road safety statistics in minute detail I am convinced that we would have got road deaths down to about 2,000 a year by now if speed cameras hadn't distorted matters."
Image courtesy www.speedcam.co.uk
Road safety is about skills attitudes and responsibilities, not about the number on a roadside sign. Speed cameras give a series of false messages and have terrible side effects. They are 'bad psychology', and road safety is founded in road user psychology. We need appropriate beliefs and behaviours.
GTRene
>> Edited by GTRene on Friday 9th December 13:11
I've just come back from a 4 day trip to Germany, we covered 1,600 miles most of it on the lovely autobahn, cruise control set all the way at 100MPH & sprinter vans still go past me, if you see in the mirror a fast approaching car doing easily 130/140 then you get out his way, its not dangerous as long as your alert & aware of your surroundings, its odd to think id be banned & treated worse than a mugger if i did that in the UK.
The only time i nearly had a bump was back on the M4 when a blind t##at pulled out without indicating as i crawled past him at 75.
We all know it, speed is safe, stopping to quickly is what gets people killed.
Unfortunately the current government has a history of ignoring the obvious... rational arguments, public opinion, expert opinion with almost every policy decision (Iraq, Europe, taxation, fox hunting!) and I fear that they will almost certainly do the same in this case. Stealth taxation revenues and that common Labour trait, the socialists revenge on the British middle class will put paid to that.
Splodge S4 said:
I've just come back from a 4 day trip to Germany, we covered 1,600 miles most of it on the lovely autobahn, cruise control set all the way at 100MPH & sprinter vans still go past me, if you see in the mirror a fast approaching car doing easily 130/140 then you get out his way, its not dangerous as long as your alert & aware of your surroundings, its odd to think id be banned & treated worse than a mugger if i did that in the UK.
Trouble is in the UK a vast majority of road users now are NOT alert and aware of they're surroundings...
apache said:
The biggest problem I think is the severe speed differential on our roads. Only in the UK do we limit our trucks to 56 mph, in europe this is not the case and the congestion caused by this myopic vision of safety does not occur
urm, I was under the impression that our limit was brought down to 56 MPH from what it used to be (60mph) to conform with european laws, i.e 90 KPH.
Don said:
Nice to see more of the IAM bigwigs saying what many of the grass-roots membership believe.
Still. The IAM will, no doubt, get its DSA affiliation revoked at some point. Good thing too IMO.
The IAM is completely gutless. If being consulted means being a yes man to David Begg then much better to not be consulted. As my boss once said to me "Jesus your a total bastard I would much rather have you inside my camp pissing out than outside pissing in" The IAM is an organisation that is long established and can live outside the pockets of the government maniacs.
My recollection (I’m sure I’ll be corrected) is that during the petrol crisis, and the resulting reduced 60mph limit, the motorway accident rate increased! (admittedly at a survivable speed?).
At the end of the petrol crisis the speed limit was raised before the government was embarrassed.
Joe average has a goldfish mentality and forgets that you are overtaking him.
Now, isn't the first in practice "encouraging" the second ??.
How on earth did some of these people pass their driving test ??.
VBR CJ.
ps: Yes folks I have spotted my third "female driver reading a novel on the steering wheel at 60mph in the left hand lane of a motorway". It must be on the increase !!.
docjan said:
The biggest problem I think is the severe speed differential on our roads. Only in the UK do we limit our trucks to 56 mph, in europe this is not the case and the congestion caused by this myopic vision of safety does not occur
urm, I was under the impression that our limit was brought down to 56 MPH from what it used to be (60mph) to conform with european laws, i.e 90 KPH.
Yes but, as with most legislation, we employ methods to enforce it while the real world doesn't bother. Next time you spot a truck doing more than 60 see if it is from the UK.
That accident just wouldn't have happened if the scamera wasn't there - despite the guy being a bit of an idiot for looking at his speedo instead of the road (but that's what the damn things make you do, to a degree).
Picking up on the other point, I agree the main cause of accidents is just bad driving - period. I for one would be all for a test every 10 years and wouldn't even mind paying for the privelidge if it improved the driving habits of a lot of people you see around today - perhaps it would be recouped to some extent in lower insurance premiums. This has to be the way forward.
>> Edited by SpunkyM on Friday 9th December 13:24
SpunkyM said:
Picking up on the other point, I agree the main cause of accidents is just bad driving - period. I for one would be all for a test every 10 years and wouldn't even mind paying for the privelidge if it improved the driving habits of a lot of people you see around today - perhaps it would be recouped to some extent in lower insurance premiums. This has to be the way forward.
I don't think re-tests will help that much.
Plenty of people are good drivers, they just choose not to be in my opinion.
Bad attitude is the problem on the roads, and thats compounded by speed camera's distracting people and effectively saying "go slow, be safe".
For those that drive with disregard for other road users already, we can happily assume that they are also ignorant enough to assume that slow is safe too.
Every accident I've heard of or seen through friends and relatives was due to stupidity of another driver, not their outright speed.
Better to not crash at all than have people crashing all over the place at low speeds as we have now.
Dave
A couple of years ago I spent a few days with Bernard Aubrey doing advanced road driving. He used to teach police drivers road safety and pursuit techniques, he was also an official Porsche instructor. The simple things I learned with him have gone much further to improving my mental approach to safety and road situations than any speed limit has.
Driving smoothly, holding back from traffic and thinking about the road and surroundings ahead reduces your journey time. Driving becomes more positive and overtaking becomes swifter, more fun and importantly safer. It all boiled down to observation and interpreting simple things. Like the road side being lined with bins at the ends of peoples drives in the morning, highlighting that at any moment round the next corner you might copme up against a stationery dustbin lorry, so slow down and take it easy.
As for the IAM, didn't they recently sack their patron (Prince someone or other) for getting a ban due to totting up?
But this is lateral thinking, which the Government in incapable of. The answer is speed camera, now what's the question?
>> Edited by Splodge S4 on Friday 9th December 17:30
Just imagine 30 mph on urban roads when conditions are good (june20, july 7), the rest of the time due to various reasons the limits are lowered to 20 mph ie leaves on road, chance of frost, sun low in sky.
Just give us reasonable disgression as per IAM, Safe Speed.
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