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some councillor has arbitrarily picked a number out of the air
Actually, determining speed limits, and other variable road rules is done by technicians who write and run simulations and compute masses of relevant data and have to make decisions about acceptable levels of fatalities and injuries. They then their decisions got into conference with enforcers who say 'that's ridiculously low, people won't do it' etc. It's hard not to creep over the limit. But I would hate to take it on my own head to say, ah, I'm not going to crash, when someone with the evidence and statistics to back up their claim says some percent of people going at that speed are this likely to crash, and may get this badly hurt, assuming everyone involved drives well.
Speed cameras do work. They are usually placed strategically, and accidents do go down, and fatalities do go down; even if they create a bit of reckless braking.
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Actually, there's evidence of the opposite: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/19/gatso_deaths_link/"Hertfordshire saw a 24 per cent rise in speed camera numbers between 2003 and 2004. In the same period, road fatalities rose by 34 per cent.
Likewise in Wiltshire, camera numbers went up 14 per cent, and those killed 22 per cent. In County Durham, meanwhile, a lone Gatso oversaw a 22 per cent drop in fatalities.
The Sun is also delighted to report that in North Wales, where "Gatso fan Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom has a league table for traffic cops", 56,247 speeding tickets were issued although this had little effect on safety, with an 18 per cent increase in road deaths.
The reason? Simple, says safety expert Paul Smith: “Crashes are avoided by making a safe plan based on what you see. Cameras move attention away from hazards to speedometers.”
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Not JUST you, though yes, not to put too fine a point on it, you are included in the generic 'people'. As its your LJ, you can whinge about it all you want, won't stop me arguing with you though :P. I would apologise for my abrasive style, but I'd be lying - I thought you'd be used to me by now.
I rarely hear anyone complaining about speed cameras until they get a speed ticket. In fact, I don't remember you mentioning it before - or did I miss that post? :P In fact, the only people I personally know who disagree with them are people who habitually break the speed limit. I don't know many folk who either walk, cycle or use public transport (as opposed to driving themselves) who think they're a bad idea, either.
Odd that, isn't it?
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I think we're going around in circles here. If I'm driving the speed limit - which, as an experienced driver, I always have a good idea of the speed I'm driving - I don't freak out when I see a speed camera. If I'm speeding, I do. Your conclusion is to remove the camera, and mine is to not speed.
My whole point from step one is that the logic of "People act dangerously when they don't want to get caught breaking the law" is a weak reason for not enforcing laws. Before I see this apply to speeding laws, I would apply that logic to, say, drug use. People would behave _much_ less dangerously with drug use if the laws against it weren't enforced. It also applies to a lot of other laws. For example, lots of people behave more dangerously when they want to murder people, for fear of getting caught. If the laws against murder weren't enforced, the likelihood of, say, drive by shootings would probably plummet. Nevertheless, I'm still more in favor of not breaking the law against murder than dropping the enforcement of it.
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Hypothetically, which is more dangerous. A collision between two vehicles, one travelling at 80 miles an hour, and another doing 75, or a collision between two vehicles where one's doing 70, and one's doing 40?
I'm not sure what you mean by this. It depends on things like the angle of impact, but if the two cars met head-to-head, the first situation would be worse. If you mean that one car bumps into another from behind, then the first one (80MPH bumping into 75MPH) would do less damage than a 70MPH car hitting a 40 MPH car. However, in neither case would the slower car be at-fault. And that is true only if the person driving 75MPH continues to drive on completely unaffected by the bump from behind, which is unlikely. In actuality, he'd probably swerve, hit the brakes, or have another panic reaction, which would end up with losing control of his speeding car.
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: July 21st, 2005 08:30 pm (UTC) |
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speeding
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it's a common misconception that 'speed kill'. it doesn't. it's in appropriate speed, or someones silly action that does. I was in a car park near here. Just leaving, and doing about 20mph. A young child (about 4) ran through the cars and nearly ended under my front wheels, the responsible!!!! adult was clearly not controlling him/her. If I had been doing 21mph, we would have contacted. If I had been doing 25mph, I would have well past the area where we would have contacted!! Also there is a legal requirement that speed (revenue) cameras can only be erected when there have been 3 fatal accidents on the stretch of road. I do wonder, however, once they are in place, the accident rate will reduce, so when is the situation revisted to see if that stretch of raod is STILL dangerous bob6pp
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From: veremit |
Date: July 21st, 2005 10:56 pm (UTC) |
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Ok, I'll admit that I do break the speed limit in technicality .. but only by a margin which I consider 'reasonable'. This takes into account the fact that my speedometer over-reads (a deliberate manufactured feature) and that despite this margin I shall be additionally alert to factors for which the limit has been set. Additionally I shall not be causing a significantly greater hazard, although I am aware of the arguments between injury and death occurring over very small speed differences. If conditions prevail that I should travel slower (eg. corners, obstructions, traffic, poor light, children, dogs/animals, etc, etc) I shall do so - this also includes driver and passenger comfort. I would also like to remind the drivers amongst us that there are limits in urban areas which are implied by spacings of street lighting to 30mph. These must be adhered BY DEFAULT unless signed otherwise. Tedious, but fact and LAW. Another point for discussion...?!
I fully agree with wolflady too, her points, arguments and reasonings are quite true. I think also that with the increasingly poor standard of driving in this country that all drivers should me made to retake a driving test every 5-10 years to refresh their knowledge of driving and highway good practice.
On another related note; as a company vehicle and van driver, isn't it strange how the community of "professional" drivers - as I shall call them - can take into account the actions of themselves and those around them when driving, much more intelligently than car drivers .... !!!
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