A Glimmer of Hope

[FH]

 

The Conservative Party today (Wednesday) announces a 10 point plan to

restore confidence in speed limits and how they are policed. The Shadow

Secretary of State for Environment and Transport, Theresa May MP said:

 

"The public have lost faith in the way speed limits are being enforced on

our roads. People believe that there is a war on the motorist, and that

speed cameras are being used to raise money, not as safety measures.

 

"We want to restore people's confidence in speed limits and how they are

policed. This means intelligent policing, honest information about speed

cameras, and an emphasis on safe driving, not income generation.

 

"As part of the plan, stricter speed limits around schools and parks will

be used to help reduce child deaths. This will be coupled with Vehicle

Activated Warning signs, to alert drivers about their speed.

 

"A full audit of every speed camera would be undertaken, in order to ensure

that cameras are sighted at accident black spots, rather than on roads

where they raise the most revenue from fines.

 

"By choosing to put up more and more speed cameras, the government is

ignoring other more effective ways of changing driver behaviour. The

Government must realise that changing driver behaviour lies at the heart of

improving road safety. We believe that extending driver education schemes

and teaching drivers about the implications of excessive speed is more

important than raising millions in fines."

 

SAFER DRIVING 10 POINT PLAN

 

* Recognition that cameras are not enough- our policy would promote

intelligent driving by improving road design, and the effectiveness of

alternatives to penalty-generating cameras, such as electronic sign

indicators and driver education.

 

* To restore public confidence, an independent audit of the estimated

6000 speed cameras in Britain, in order to establish safety needs and

positioning of existing fixed speed cameras. Fixed speed cameras will be

positioned in genuine accident black spots. The safety criteria for

sighting each camera would be published on a website, along with the

revenue (or the number of fines imposed) generated from that camera each

year.

 

* Speed limits to be changed-limits near schools, parks etc to be

reduced, perhaps at certain times of day only with flashing warning signs.

(e.g. 20 mph outside all schools). These speed limits may be variable at

times when the school is not in use.

 

* Move to variable penalty points. Points would range from 1 point to 6

points. Standard fine to remain. Bans for excessive speeds would remain.

 

* Extend driver education programmes for those caught speeding. Any

offender with less than six points will have one opportunity to take a

driver awareness course, paid for by the cost of the fine, rather than have

points on their licence.

 

* Revenue generated from cameras to be spent on road safety, including

alternatives to cameras, such as flashing electronic displays. Communities

would be encouraged to bid for money for placing such displays where

residents want them.

 

* More active traffic policing - we want intelligent policing and

intelligent drivers.

 

* Abolish camera partnerships as an unnecessary tier of bureaucracy.

Police to be responsible for enforcement.

 

* Every speed camera to have the speed limit sign clearly displayed on

the camera, as well as on each speed camera warning sign.

 

* Change planning laws which prohibit the use of 30mph repeater signs,

to allow clearer indication of speed limits on all roads.

 

Ends

 

 

FH

[scooby dooby doo]

sounds fairly positive - its the only thing that would make me interesting in voting to be honest...

 

I like the sign with the limit on the back of every camera idea as well

 

what's the last point about Aren't 30s allowed to be repeated

 

HOOPY R706KGU Hoopylight R

[ewenm]

I believe 30 repeats are implied by the spacing of the lamp posts but that doesn't help in the rural rash of 30 limits ☹️

 

72511 miles and driven daily

[FH]

Hoopy, in the "good ol' days" once you crossed the 30 sign, there was no need for repeaters, because you could only have a 30 where the lampposts were evenly spaced (I forget the exact distance but it's around 200 yards) and it was therefore deemed unnecessary to have repeaters. By comparison in 40s, you do have repeaters.

 

FH

[GTD]

Which is presumably why the little lane we live on, unlit, winding between houses, trees and fields, without pavements for kiddies and people is a 40 mile an hour limit - which people seem to see as a minimum speed - at the cost of several cats (including my beloved Eric), many bunnies, and potentially people.

 

Whereas well lit roads with wide pavements are 30 mph?

 

Yes, that makes sense to me!

 

 

G 4 Geoff

 

Leather Good - Carbon Fibre Bad

 

 

619 GTD here here

[FH]

Geoff, it's an historical situation. When speed limits were first imposed, built up areas were designated 30 IF they had the prerequisite street lighting. If you lived in a country village with no street lights, you were designated 'national' or as it was then ... de-restricted. You're lucky to have a 40

 

What gets my goat is that we need limits at all. If we could just educate people to drive at the appropriate speeds, we wouldn't need all these ugly signs. If you see a group of houses, with the potential for other, more vulnerable road users to be around, then we should reduce speed accordingly. Then when we get to the open roads, we could "use the full potential" of our little cars 😬

 

A small minority have spoiled it by their selfish behaviour and some bright sparks in the corridors of power have been making lots of dosh

 

FH

[scooby dooby doo]

but lamposts aren't always regular and some 30 limits don't have the lamposts, and some lamposted places aren't 30

 

HOOPY R706KGU Hoopylight R

[Boonie Hound]

Not sure about the abolishment of the partenerships side - only because the police are not geared up for the engineering etc that goes with cameras. They don't usually hold the accident data and of course if the money from fines is to go on safety schemes, driver education - etc etc - this is often done by the partner organisations i.e council, health authority, the police themselves, fire and courts. You would have a situation were the police are making the decisions as to where this money would be spent.

 

 

I think, and this is just my oppinion I hasten to add - the best way of tackling road safety is to look at the whole problem and tackle it from all angles. One thing the partnerships have done is to bring agencies together to work much closer on a range of road safety iniatives - not just speed/ safety cameras. Perhaps cameras should be put under a bigger road safety partnership umbrella.

 

[Meldrew]

I'm glad Theresa May isn't the Shadow education spokesperson. Her - or her assistants' - English is appalling.

 

FH - in an ideal world, we'd all love to be able to police/please ourselves, but I think that's naive, to say the least. Speed limits are a necessary evil even if we may take a unilateral decision to turn a blind eye to them...

 

Boonie - it seems to me that the ringfencing of cash for camera partnerships is a useful justification for taking bobbies and squad cars off traffic patrols, as the cameras are seen as doing the job for them. Until someone actually promises to increase police budgets so that Chief Constables don't see this as a cost-saving option (or have it thrust upon them), I'll continue to believe that the partnerships are a back-door tax to fund government spending. Fines collected by cameras should be routed to the treasury in the same way as all other fines and accounted for as such. The sums involved might then be visible and be positively embarrassing politically.

 

I do agree with Theresa May (first time for everything) that the safety camera partnerships are a hideous waste of public money. Mrs T would never have held with this sort of nonsense.

[Boonie Hound]

Meldrew - fines collected by partnerships already go to the treasury. Anything more than is needed for running/ placing the cameras goes to the treasury. I haven't got a problem with more police and traffic officers - in fact if all the fines were kept within the partnership authorities then this could go to providing more traffic officers rather than the treasury deciding where the money goes. I would personally like to see the fines from people caught speeding at accident blackspots stay in my County.

[Meldrew]

Yes, but the partnerships are paid for from speed camera revenue first, and have been expanding, thus soaking up a lot of the cash before the treasury has to account for it. There are very few police forces who have not taken the opportunity to use these pernicious bits of town-hall, interfering-busybody expansionism as a means of cutting traffic budgets to redeploy resources elsewhere. Ergo, it appears to me that traffic enforcement is being ever more substantially paid for by fines generated from cameras AND is being conducted by quangos representing more groups than it is healthy to have empowered to undertake law enforcement.

 

I find it fundamentally objectionable that enforcement of any kind is paid for by fines. It's an obvious conflict of interest and flies in the face of good governance.

[Boonie Hound]

Actually the fines go straight to the treasury who then pay the partnerships only after they have prooved the need for the money - there are very tight rules governing this. Not all fines go back to the partneship - for example partneships can only have money from fixed penalty fines not those imposed at court.

 

The partneships are much more accountable than say just the police as they include councils who have elected members. In fact before partneships the councils were the people putting up the cameras based on local policies and not the police.They put up the cameras not the police before the partnerships were formed - now there are strict national guidelines governing where the cameras can go - i.e at accident blackspots - and the siting involves the police and other emergency services. Typically the partneship will include the County Council (Local authority) police, NHS (who spends millions on treating accident victims, fire and the courts. As I said before the partnerships have actually brought many of these organisations together to better target a wide range of road safety issues - from mobile phone use, to over loaded vehicles, drink-driving etc etc.

 

I take your point of traffic police cut backs - this has been traditionally happening for sometime. I want to see more on the road. But I haven't got a problem with this being paid for by people speeding past my child's school or known accident sites around my home village. What I may object to is Government telling me how this money should be spent locally or indeed deciding to spend it somewhere completely different.

[Meldrew]

Thanks Boonie - I am certainly enlightened.

 

I can't agree that the camera partnerships seem very accountable, though, nor that it's a good idea to use fines to pay for enforcement. The Police are controlled by the local Police Authority and the PCC. The Council is electable (well, one has a vote in it...I'm not convinced that all my local councillors are strictly electable by any realistic and absolute yardstick, but hey, we'll let that go). How is the local safety camera partnership accountable to the public? Other than via a very convoluted series of approaches to the bodies involved, that will get bundled in with every other concern thrown their way as part of the democratic processes underlying them, I can't see how it is.

 

What the NHS has to do with law enforcement is quite beyond me. It might as well get involved in running greengrocers to try and get people to eat better and employing people to go around snuffing out cigarettes. And the fire brigade? And the council? Perhaps we should lobby for Lotus 7 club, Max Power and the BBC (who make so many TV programmes about the subject) to nominate local partnership members, too. By all means consult these interested parties about enforcement, but putting them in charge of it is frankly daft when there is an authority already responsible and which has the means to integrate the enforcement into the wider context of traffic management and safety.

 

It smacks of jobs for the boys, I'm afraid. Why not just let the cops get on with the job they did admirably for many years, that brought reductions in the accident rate?

[Boonie Hound]

Meldrew - I can see your points - I guess I am saying lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

Enforcement is already paid by fines - fines go to treasury - treasury gives money to police, except when the treasury doesn't always give enough and the rest comes out of your council tax. Police Authority is usually made up of elected (I know it depends on your definition )councillors.

 

As I said before partneships the Councils were making up were the cameras were going - so if a local community made enough noise they could get one (depending on local policy) this meant Council Tax paid for the camera, police had to enforce it anyway out of their existing budget and there was no national policy to say this was the right place to put it in the first place. Everyone was out of pocket except the treasury who could then decide where that money went to.

 

Now the police - who should carry out enforcement - have a better say on the siting of cameras. And they do not have to find the money out of over stretched budgets to pay to look after them. The police do not have the expertise in the actual siting and installment of these things which is another reason why the partneships work. The Councils traditionally keep the accicdent data and the means to evaluate it so the cameras can be put strictly where they are needed.

 

As to the NHS - the partneships are about reducing casualties on the roads, which is exactly what the NHS is about - one of their key aims. Less casualties = more money for other treatements etc. They support the partneship in promoting road safety - sometimes NHS staff are a better advocate for getting people to slow down than a boring road safety officer. They do not say where a camera is going to go as they have no expertise in that field.

 

Actually cameras are reducing casualties, in general, where they are being placed. For example - sorry to hark back to Cambs but that's what I know - there has been a large drop in Killed and Serious injuries at these sites I think 2002 was 20% and it has improved since then - despite a massive increase in traffic.

 

So without partneships the police would still be getting money from fines but have none of the support of other expert agencies who all have the same goal of making roads safer.

 

As to the availablility of information you notice I only disagree with the getting rid of partnerships not the other points FH has posted.

 

 

[Myles]

Good god! There are altogether too many wibble-free words in this thread...

 

My brain can't cope!

 

It reminds me of that Gary Larson cartoon - 'what the owner says - what the dog hears'....

 

...blah, blah, blah, speeding, blah, blah, blah... points...

 

Lighten-up (or even light-up if you prefer )

 

Keep BC free and open for ALL. Membership No. 43xx

 

Alcester Racing 7's Equipe - 🙆🏻™

[Boonie Hound]

😬 😬 😬

 

Sorry Myles - lights soap box and uses it to cook marshmellow....anyone?

[Myles]

Ooh, was that lavender soap?

 

My cat used to love that...

 

...until she died* about 12 years ago

 

 

*of old age, not mis-placed 40mph limits - so I apologise for being O/T

 

Keep BC free and open for ALL. Membership No. 43xx

 

Alcester Racing 7's Equipe - 🙆🏻™

[scooby dooby doo]

i think the solution should come from a combination of sloths and potatoes. put the potatoes on the road so people have to slow to drive round them. Then, whilst they're going slowly, UNLEASH THE SLOTHS on them ❗

 

HOOPY R706KGU Hoopylight R

[Boonie Hound]

fish, wib, vibraphone, pencilcase

 

Edited by - Boonie on 23 Apr 2004 00:25:22

[rossybee]

Myles, thanks for bringing things back to my level

 

Rrrrrrrrrrroooossssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss !!!!! here

[Hibster.]

What sort of sloth ? 2 toed or 3 toed

 

Back on topic, are we not now in a position where road deaths have stopped falling despite all this effort from partnerships and use of cameras ?

 

I keep find my mind wandering (as it often does) back to the idea that slower speeds do not lead to fewer accidents in just means that most of the accidents happen at slower speeds and are therefore more survivable.

 

I find myself getting annoyed with that advert with the "speeding" car and the pedestrian in the road, The voice over talks about survivability rates for pedestrians at 30 and 20 MPH. But I believe the road has a 30 limit and the driver is doing 30, what the hell is the pedestrian doing on the road. The driver didn't cause the accident, the ped did but the drivers speed (or lack of it) gets the blame, grrrrrr

 

Supercheese R250

[scooby dooby doo]

and the muppet is locked up the whole time. 5 mph slower would may have made him stop in 10% less distance but braking properly would have made him stop 30% sooner.

 

HOOPY R706KGU Hoopylight R

[GTD]

Depends how heavy the car is though? Perhaps there should be, say, different speed limits for cars full of boxes?

 

G 4 Geoff

 

Leather Good - Carbon Fibre Bad

 

 

619 GTD here here

[Meldrew]

I will now only say silly things in the shed.

 

Sorry.

[scooby dooby doo]

car weight doesn't make *that* much difference - the tyres can generate more force if there's more weight on them.

 

HOOPY R706KGU Hoopylight R