Tories pledge to halt rise of speed cameras, road pricing and cowboy clampers
.. at least according to the Daily Mail.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278161
|
|
You can thank me. Philip Hammond is my MP and I voted him in for you. HJ was fighting with some red shirts in bangcock so it was my vite that counted
|
|
This is where splits in the coalition will appear apart from Europe that is. The Fib Dems wanted to install road pricing asap and abolish road tax. I think the figure of £1.26p per mile was muted. Well it was a fortnight ago in the Telegraph with Mike Rutherford in his column. The fib dems defo had it in their manifesto about road pricing not the Tory's.
|
The Mail story has changed since originally posted but:-
The tories seem to be as good as labour at facing both ways on cameras
Labour were also committed to no road charging in this Parliament
Legislation to deal with 'cowboy' clampers was passed before the election.
|
I finally realised that the Brompton is the fold-up bike that people often leave next to the train doors, in a cunning attempt to trip me up, or at least take up a good place to stand, while they go and take a seat.
I was bored the other day and happen to glance at the stamp on one such abandoned bike.
I guess there must be some responsible owners too ;)
|
Yeah, yeah, it's a brand new government. They're all using the word "change", and maybe throwing in the occasional "hope".
Lots of energy and looking to the future. Photos of the new cabinet looking energised, Cameron pointing into the distance and looking Prime Ministerial.
Lots of quick, populist policies to look like a big change is happening, without the need to really change anything.
Then gradually taxes creep up (not for the very wealthy you understand, not for the Eton crowd), then things gradually slow down and they start indulging their self interest.
The masses don't mind for a while, because they are mesmerised by the promises of less speed cameras and less CCTV cameras. They never actually get any less, and maybe gradually get more, but that doesn't matter because nobody is actually held to account for specific policy backtracks, and in fact the cameras never really affected most people, they were just something to get irate about and become a cheap vote winner.
Then 10-20 years later we snap out of it, realise that the government has done nothing of any notes, suddenly hate and mistrust them and then go back to the red ones again...then blue...the red...then blue...
tinyurl.com/2ax545m
|
It's time for some massive cuts in what is laughably called road safety, surely? No more money to be spent on sabotaging urban road systems and persecuting innocent motorists...
Perhaps the cuts won't be all pain after all.
|
>> No more money to be spent on sabotaging urban road systems and persecuting innocent motorists...
I thought that it was local councils that did that, rather than national gov... in our area its certainly the County Council that are responsible for reducing perfectly good dual carriageways into single lane 50mph roads...
|
Well said Steelspark.
Brentus - '£1.26p per mile was muted.'. That'll be an end to that then.
|
Tolls for new roads are qute reasonable, as long as there's an alternative, as with the M6. Tolls for existing roads are a sure-fire vote loser.
I used - as a highish-mileage motorist - to be against the idea of abolishing road tax and putting it on to fuel. But I can see the point if it encourages more economical and efficient (and environment-friendly) engines: it may still not be popular as there is so much tax already loaded on to the price of fuel.
Last edited by: Avant on Fri 14 May 10 at 18:57
|
I think the rise of speed cameras has made me a better, more observant driver. I used to have a GPS gizmo to warn me of their presence, but now rely on my Mk 1 eye-balls and common sense to avoid getting caught.
I probably still speed if the road conditions make it safe or sensible, but I might well be a safer driver as a result of the speed cameras.
|
Speed cameras have certainly made me slower but I don't think they have made me better or safer. Indeed it could be said that they are a distraction from the maximum speed/minimum stress project that driving ought to be.
The really awful thing about them, and the associated nursery-level speed-kills rubbish so willingly swallowed even by some here, is that they have made the slow drivers slower too. Unbearable smug cud-chewers who waddle along at 35 or 40 on open but narrow NSL roads are getting commoner, as are those who slow to ten miles an hour below the speed limit for cameras on dual carriageways. It makes you want to weep.
|
>> those who slow to ten miles an hour below the
>> speed limit for cameras on dual carriageways. It makes you want to weep.
>>
Ah on dual carriageways, you overtake them at the point of camera.
The A1 is best for this, they bimble along an an indicated 50mph, and I zip past on the camera spot at 55mph sat nav speed, - say 57mph on thier speedo. They do look astonished.
|
>> Ah on dual carriageways, you overtake them at the point of camera.
If you can Z, if you can. But obviously I'm talking about the ones who do it in all three lanes simultaneously, as they so often do on the A3 Kingston bypass of varied reputation.
Carphounds.
|
Speed doesn't kill, impacts do.
Surely the more accurate message to spread is "dont crash" rather than "dont speed".
To focus on speeding is to say that the primary crash cause (driving too close to another car or object) is not as important as keeping speed down.
I want a new message publicised.
LEAVE A GAP!
|
I'm not necessarily in favour of speed cameras, except perhaps average speed cameras, due to the distraction element.
However, I still don't get the argument that increased speed doesn't raise the risk of a collision and raise the likelihood of damage from a collision.
Certainly other factors are more important, basically how safely you drive, but taking them as a constant, how can you be just as likely to avoid an obstacle (say a car that suddenly changes lane) when you are heading towards it at 55 mph rather than 50 mph and how can you be likely to suffer exactly the same harm if you hit it at 55 mph rather than 50 mph?
Not to say that speed limits might be too arbitrary and that other factors are far more important, but it seems to make sense to me that, whether you are running, driving, flying or whatever else, the faster you are moving towards an sudden danger, the less likely you are to avoid it and the more likely it is to hurt if you don't.
|
The problem with speed cameras has become the fact that a large percentage of people think that providing they keep just below the speed limit, they don't have to do anything else at all to be safe from danger. No concentration, no reading the road ahead, no sympathetic driving or courtesy, just keep to the speed and everything else can go out of the window.
SS, I appreciate your views but look at it this way.
Liken the speed of a car to the speed of wind.
If you leave a door open and the wind blows an expensive antique off the hall table at 55 mph, but wouldn't have done at 50MPH, the reason it happened is because no-one bothered to close the door, not because the wind blew 5 MPH harder.
AC has it about right in my opinion.
Pat
|
>> The problem with speed cameras has become the fact that a large percentage of people
>> think that providing they keep just below the speed limit, they don't have to do
>> anything else at all to be safe from danger. No concentration, no reading the road
>> ahead, no sympathetic driving or courtesy, just keep to the speed and everything else can
>> go out of the window.
Ah yes, I can understand that, as I said the other aspects of driving safely are no doubt more important.
The problem is, of course, that you can't control all of the factors (e.g. can't ensure that the other guys isn't suddenly going to pull out in front of you, or somehow lose control in front of you).
So I take the antique analogy, but I think it is imperfect, because you have no control over the actions of the person that you might be having to avoid at 55 mph.
In other words, even if you take all the precautions you can, it doesn't mean that the action of other person isn't going to put you into a situation where you do have to avoid them at whatever speed you choose to drive (and the faster that is the harder it will be to avoid them).
But yes, if the argument is that "focusing on speed only ignores the other important aspects", rather than "you are just as likely to be able to avoid a danger at 55 than at 50" then I completely agree.
I think the reason that they try to enforce speed, is that it is something that can be done easily. Very easy to create a sensor that detects speed, but not one that detects other dangerous aspects.
The degree of culpability is also at question, I suppose. A friend of mine claims that his wife very often speed quite excessively, although I have never been in a car with her myself.
She has had a couple of accidents, nobody hurt but one write off I believe, which in both cases seem to have been caused by the actions of others. The upshot is that she still speeds because it wasn't her speeding that was the primary cause. I've no reason to not believe that, but she doesn't seem to put any faith in the argument that if she hadn't been speeding, she could have avoided the collisions (mind you, I am hearing all of this second hand).
|
The fundamental problem with speed enforcement at the moment is that it focuses entirely on illegal speed not inappropriate speed. Inappropriate speed is frequently and usually far more dangerous than an illegal but appropriate speed. This subtlety has been lost on the motoring public. Also it is nonsensical to argue that where the limit has changed on a road from a previously higher one that previously safe speeds are now suddenly lethal when no other factors apart from the legal limit have changed.
I'm with Steve Haley who describes accidents as involving speed, space and surprise. Running out of space is just the same as 'too fast' for the conditions. The more space you keep around you the less the surprise element can get you but it is harder to measure space so authorities just measure speed then wonder why average speeds fall, accident rates don't, and everyone is driving up each others backsides as there hasn't been enough road building and sensible road design to allow for the growth of traffic. We still build new prisons, new schools,new hospitals and new houses but apparently it is morally wrong to cope with an increase in travel demand by a private car.
I think the late Paul Smith said that there was no such thing as a non fault accident. You are always partly culpable even if you think it was entirely the other guy's fault eg could have done something differently so the bozo didn't run up the back of you or could have done something to stop the slip road merger from side swiping you.
The friend's wife is right. It wasn't her physical speed that was the problem. It was her judgement and assessment of the situation where she was choosing to speed and maybe she just isn't aware and attentive enough to drive at those speeds safely. Again this point is lost that what is a safe speed for one person is not necessarily for another with different car, skill level etc. It's not an absolute. An absolute limit where anyone, even the most skilled person, with no one else around in the best car would crash with complete certainty would be at a speed much much higher than any limit for the majority of roads.
|
Well said Mr Belly.
There's
1 -appropriate and legal speed
2 -inappropriate and legal speed*
3 -appropriate and illegal speed
4 -inappropriate and illegal speed.
Most speed enforcement concentrates on no.s 3 and 4, whereas it ought to be 2 and 4. No. 2 can be a bit harder to deal with and no speed camera can help, but driver education and other offences such as 'without due care' could come in to play.
The problem is, a huge culture change would need to be instigated and the over reliance of speed cameras which are a very blunt tool, negated. This would neeed more traffic police officers.
(* thic could be legal for speed limit purposes, but illegal in other aspects e.g. driving WDC).
What's worse?... Someone doing 30mph down a narrow urban street, with cars parked either side, very limited vision, raining, 0845 hours on a school morning wih loads of kids about....or someone doing 70mph on a 60mph limit, straight and true 'A' road through the Scottish Highlands on a glorious bright sunny summer's morning, with a very high degree of forward vision and very little traffic.
There are plenty of people that think the former is o.k. and the latter is not...which is frightening and shows no judgement.
|
|
If there is other traffic on the A3 I dont speed. That 50mph speed limit is heavily justified.
|
|
Last time I was on the A3 into London it was pretty busy. I ended up in the outside lane couldn't move in for the traffic but doing 50 or so. I got overtaken by a rather irrate biker on the inside (swerving between the cars) who then slowed in front of me and turned himself around to gesticulate wildly. Clearly he was angry for me being in that lane. He shot off and must have missed the next camera by being sheilded by some of the high sided vehicles in the nearside lane. I have expected to see him under a car at the next junction.
|
I think the 50 limit on the Kingston bypass is absurd. But then I think people at the controls of cars should be expected to be capable of driving them.
Evidently this isn't so in the modern world.
Alas, the automobile seems to have fallen victim to its own success as, er, an economic pump just about covers it.
Tchah! I feel so sorry for all the terrified scrofulous rabbits clinging to the reins of their steeds and wishing it would all stop so they could have some cocoa and a nice knit over Coronaggerstaggers. But I wish they were on the damn train too, where they belong.
|
|
you need to have driven the kingston bypass in heavy traffic when the limit was 70 to understand. The lanes are too narrow, too many entrances and exits, too much traffic, to be safe at 70
|
>> you need to have driven the kingston bypass in heavy traffic when the limit was
>> 70 to understand. The lanes are too narrow, too many entrances and exits, too much
>> traffic, to be safe at 70
>>
Please read Westpigs post above.
''What's worse?... Someone doing 30mph down a narrow urban street, with cars parked either side, very limited vision, raining, 0845 hours on a school morning wih loads of kids about....or someone doing 70mph on a 60mph limit, straight and true 'A' road through the Scottish Highlands on a glorious bright sunny summer's morning, with a very high degree of forward vision and very little traffic.
There are plenty of people that think the former is o.k. and the latter is not...which is frightening and shows no judgement.''
speed limits are no substitute for using one's brain, and driving to suit the current conditions.
|
|
I can remember when the Kingston bypass was unrestricted, with cars that had drum brakes and would disintegrate in an accident. I prefer modern cars and a 50 limit on that road. It keeps most of the idiot drivers in check.
|
in heavy traffic when the limit was 70...
Done it centuries ago, got the smock and tabard. It wasn't the most reassuring bit of dual carriageway in the SE, but it wasn't the least either. I was on the A3 in heavy rain earlier this evening, heading for London and a bit further out than the 50 limit doing 80 and a bit of aquaplaning, quite safely of course, decent gaps, a firm but delicate hand on the reins.
Rabbits in lanes 1 and 2, what's the problem?
|
|
Ah, the idiot driver has arrived. :-)
|
Yes, and ON has just reminded me that it was a favoured venue for checking whether the plugs-and-points job had worked, or whether further tweaking was needed...
Who are these 'idiots' who have to be kept in check? Most of the ones I see need a kick up the jaxie to stop them from waddling about quite so damn slowly in the way.
|
>> Tories pledge to halt rise of speed cameras, road pricing and cowboy clampers
Petrol price rises cost me (and most other motorists) more than those.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Mon 17 May 10 at 07:14
|
Tories pledge to halt rise of speed cameras ... - Stuu
