hedgehog

So far only 180 people have voted so a few votes could easily swing the balance. Get on the site and vote against the cameras and at least do a small bit for the fight:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/vine/

Dracoro

Too generic a question.

I'm against them in the wrong place but totally for them in the correct places.

scoobynutta555

voted

scoobydooooo

yes i totally agree !!!

Prince Popeye

'So far only 180 people have voted so a few votes could easily swing the balance'

Maybe a few million more

ajm

I agree too, however I voted to scrap.

We can debate the niceties after the government has got it into their collective thick heads that the public do NOT place priority on speeding, especially speeding where they tend to place the cameras presently!

Chris L

Now 247 votes - 81% to agree to ban them.

Chris

Chris L

"There are very few drivers in Britain who can claim without hypocrisy to be expert drivers, but many who seem to think that obeying the speed limit represents the full extent of their responsibility for road safety." (Paul Ripley)

hedgehog

I can see what you are saying about the "right" places but would ask that you consider this:

Research has shown that when a camera is placed at a junction the average motorist spends 5 out of the 8 seconds it takes to approach and cross that junction looking at the speedo.

This may be one of the reasons why accidents have INCREASED at 743 camera sites, according to the government's own figures.

If motorists driving past, say, schools were spending in excess of 50% of their time looking in their glovebox there would soon be a law against it and yet that is, in effect, what the cameras cause them to do.

So in truth the most dangerous place to put a camera is somewhere that the motorist is required to concentrate and to watch out for conflicts with children or other vehicles.

Your actual point, when you consider it, is one of education rather than speed enforcement. Drivers should drive at a safe speed for the conditions and outside a school at a busy time that speed might be 10mph. The cameras take this responsibility from the individual and place it on "the system" giving motorists the out that they were within the speed limit even if they were driving way to fast for the conditions.

In truth the most dangerous place for a camera is outside a school and the most dangerous person to drive past it is someone who doesn't think for themselves but who believes they must stay within the limit to be safe. Cameras kill, driver education saves lives.

Ray_li

I voted agaist them but think they should be up in suitable locations.
Wow makes me think. cant believe i used to design the buggers. Well guess graduates would do anything.
Anybody know Lime House link Tunnel in London? my babies

Ray

Flame suit on

messiah

agree with scrapping them as revenue generators but think they should be relocated to areas like accident hotspots and outside schools etc.

...not half way along "safe" overtaking places like they always seem to be...

Ray_li - you'll need more than a flame suit mate!

scoobynutta555

a concrete suit with some flippers

Nick

If outside a school is dangerous, why are mothers, taxis, buses etc allowed to jam up the road & double park outside just about every school in the country? Outside a school at chuck-out time must be the most dangerous stretch of road in any town.

alter_ego

There is no such thing as a 'correct place' for a camera. We have already been told by government ministers that they are all 'in the correct places'.
Speed cameras are killing people, currently at the rate of about 1200 per year.
Why do the government and the scammers always quote KSI? To hide the increase in the dead, that's why.
Even the wilfully dishonest supposed 'reasearch' which claims to show benefits at camera sites, takes no notice of 'regression to the mean'; therefore, the purported benefits are no more than a statistical quirk. I.e., if there is a large rise one year, there will be a fall the next.
Britain is the only country in the developed world where road deaths (deaths per billion passenger kms) are rising, and they are rising fastest in the counties with the highest numbers of cameras. Why? Because we are the only country which uses speed cameras so Draconianly.

Speed cameras kill, full stop.

ScoobywagonGl

Should we scrap Speed Cameras?


Yes 86%
No 14%

Total votes: 459

colex

Speed camera do NOT kill (unless one falls on your head) it is ALWAYS the cars that do the killing even if the circumstances are blameless.



I have worked at the receiving end (not police) and met people who have been fortunate enough to survive (obviously! ) the consequence of large metal objects travelling at speed -v- human flesh and its not pretty.



Now I'm not advocating the use of cameras, indeed all they probably do (now this is my own opinion) is change speed profile (fast, slower, faster again). Surely the problem is volume of traffic in populated areas with often inadequate footways or crossing points resulting in the two being forced into uncomfortably close proximity.



The whole argument about cameras is futile in my view and a distraction from the root causes of the deaths - lack of central investment and support in the development of safer roads systems incorporating cycle paths, footbridges and separators (from the road). Sticking my ultra cynical hat on for a while I could even imagine that it suits government to perpetuate the focus/anti on cameras, as the level of investment required for their continuation would be orders of magnitude less, but a debate that could or is being dragged out.



Phew!

Adrian F

Speed Camera's are all about making money. They have spread like a Virus since the Police profit from them.

And having cycle paths is a luxury for the extremely small minority how use them may be we should have special walking area's for dog owners created as there are probably more of them or special roads for Scooby owners as they probably do more miles than cyclists per annum and it is all subsidised out of our Taxes. I live in a Town with miles of Cycles tracks and they are rarely used.

Like Bus lanes masses of Tarmac subsidised by the Tax payer and very inefficient used.

7 Foot

Voted.

I hate Jeremy Vine!!!

colex

My point is that mixing cars and people is always going to result in deaths or injuries. If we really want to reduce deaths then it is only through such measures that this could be achieved. If on the other hand we want to keep money in our pockets and not invest (through taxation) in a safer transport infrastructure then we have to accept the consequences. Lets face it, substantial investment changes are unlikely to happen in our lifetimes and therefore politics will always pay lip service to the lobby groups and never seek to truly appease either.

alter_ego

That is just as fatuous as the U.S. raving right's mantra, 'guns don't kill people, people kill people'.
If it's not the cameras that have caused the increase in deaths, what do you think that the mythical 'factor X' is?
Remember, it must be something unique to the U.K?

Didn't say it was (pretty), and why did the collision occur in the first place?

No, the problem is that drivers' attention is being diverted away from where it should be, on driving.

The argument about cameras is not futile. While the other points you make are valid, they are small beer beside the number of deaths due to cameras, i.e. one third of all road deaths, or, put another way 50% of road deaths due to all other causes.

Buckrogers

Very good point. I always check me speed. Shortly after passing I may increase my speed....

I thought it is the goverment that are taking the profit from the cameras? (The money left over after buying more new ones).

Chris L

I think the police authorities can keep the money now? Might be wrong. Don't think Buckinghamshire police will be making too much though - the Gatso in Denham has been destroyed for the second time in 3 months (Not that I condone such action).

Chris

hedgehog

The camera partnerships can keep whatever money they can manage to spend, the rest goes back to central government. So, it is in their interest to spend as much as possible, and also to make as much as possible.

The police benefit as their enforcement duties are all done on "overtime" for which your cash pays. Those involved make between £5000 and £7000 per year in overtime.

The actual magistrates courts, the people who decide who is guilty of what, benefit financially as well. Can you imagine it? The people who set the fines get the cash in their pockets!! That is immoral at the very least.

And then there are the civil servants who "organise" the partnerships. In each county their numbers increase almost from day to day and they spend millions on fancy offices to house the growing staff.

Now that this lumbering monster must be fed from your speeding fines what chance has road safety of being a factor in any decision making process? Once the cameras start to become politically tricky do you think this monster will disband? Unfortunately this is a monster that might be here for good and it's aim will be to persecute and remove money from motorists on the most flimsy of pretexts. Currently it's reason for taking your money is because it is killing you in road accidents. You are actually paying your local partnership to kill you.

Cameras kill, pay your fine and feed the monster.

scoobynutta555

sex offenders today, no surprise for the no vote

Are these polls mentioned on air?

messiah

AFAIK - who gets the "profit" from the camera's is denoted by the colour of the camera - yellow to the police and grey to the government, although I heard that all cameras where to be converted to yellow.

If all this increased profit is going directly to the police, why hasn't their service to the public improved? apart from speeding convictions, the effectiveness of the police on other crime - which just about everyone else in the country is more bothered about - is getting worse - burglaries, assaults etc... the police seem to push the "success" of their motoring convictions simply because it's the only thing they're any good at.

How many have had a car stereo knicked over the years? and how many have actually got one back? The second time I had a stereo pinched I didn't even bother reporting it, because of the hassle first time around, the police were not interested in the stereo because they knew they had no chance of retreiving it and were only interested in whether my car was legal or not.

Leslie

Dig up the "sleeping policemen" which damage our car's suspensions, put up well signed speed cameras there instead with fines big enough to deter people from overdoing it by schools, hospitals, elderly people's homes, and other constricted areas.

Get rid of the revenue raising cameras on the open roads especially those which are not in accident black spots, as so many of them are not of course. Get more traffic police on the roads to catch the really dangerous idiots and those who commit other offences such as drinking and drugs, and no insurance, MOT, untaxed and unregistered etc.

Les

CrisPDuk

About 5 or six years ago our local council started putting up cameras on traffic light junctions, the ones for catching red-light jumpers. I thought at the time what a great idea these were, but they seemed to have stopped installing these, and the ones that were installed are slowly disappearing

The only reason I can think of for this is that people knew they were there, so didn't jump the lights, therefore they didn't break the law (or get caught doing so). This demonstrates to a mere simpleton like me that the cameras WERE doing the preventative part of their job, but they obviously WERE NOT catching people breaking the law, ergo not raising revenue, so they've gone

Ironically the junctions that DID have them but don't have them anymore now have more people jumping the lights again