Just to confirm what we already know

[Ed]

More on speed cameras and how they don't reduce accidents. Even if you don't accept the regression to mean argument, it shows that it is, at the very least, a serious argument.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6571257.stm

[Moffatt666]

They paid someone to find that out?

[Baph]

I applied for the job, but they didn't want to pay me the £40/hr for sitting on my R's (sorry Ed ;) )

Interesting reading though. Now, instead of telling the public this, slap the government in the chops with it already!

[embee]

My biggest worry about being involved in a road accident is being carted off to hospital and catching MRSA or c-diff.

3000 deaths per year on the road, 5000 (+?) a year from catching these things in hospital. You work out the risk.

[Beenz]

Just more stuff that the government will casually ignore....

[Biker Biggles]

You can't let the truth get in the way of a good revenue raiser.How else will we pay for all these "safety partnerships" if they can't skim dosh off the travelling public?Thousands of the great and good would find themselves looking for a real job.

[the_runt69]

Like every thing else with this government if it moves tax it, if it moves faster than they can come up with something that will improve education and the health service tax it more so watch out you tortoise owners

[Needsy]

Gatsos - the first thing you look at when you go past one - the speedo. Certainly not the row of stationary traffic 20 yards ahead of you.
I hate the damn things, they serve little purpose except to distract you from the task at hand, i.e watching the road and driving/riding properly.
Oh, and filling government coffers of course - not the Police ones. That would make too much sense.

[Moffatt666]

What really annoys me about 'road safety' where I am is that as far as the council is concerned road safely only extends to whacking-up cameras and speed bumps. They don't believe in maintaining the road network at all! In neighbouring Luton, the council tax is much less, there are no threats of bi-weekly bin collections and the roads are in a good state. Where the two districts border, you can clearly see the age difference in the tarmac! The A505 on this side was meant to be re-surfaced at the same time as in Luton. Was it? No, instead the top layer was scratched off the road around junctions meaning it's bloody lethal to take the corner at any more than 10 MPH with more than 2 degrees of lean due to the huge craters raised man-holes. Road safety? Not at really, instead of maintaining one of the junctions in question, they decided instead to erect a red light camera. I wouldn't mind if the revenue was used to repair the damage but it has been there for about 10 years with no change.

[Alpinestarhero]

I gotta say, going down the north circular, with all those speed camera's, it is dangerous - you spend alot of time looking for the next camera, and people how dont know jam on brakes very late. Also, if you decide you dont want to spend yur time looking for cameras and stick to the speed limit (I tend to, less hassle) then you spend alot of time looking in the rear mirros to make sure no-one is coming up behind too fast.

I'd certainly feel safer with less camera's on that stretch of the road.

Matt

[Spiderman]

Interesting stuff. Relayes nicely to the study they did in the you-essay in the late 70's to show that putting more and more "driver safety aids" into a vehicle only serves to make the driver feel safer and thus more likely to drive badly. There is always the small voice that says "but my ABS/airbags/ejector seat will save me if the worst comes to the worst....rather than driving in a way to ensure that the worst dont happen.

There is a famously badly sited camera on the A41 southbound approach to Brent Cross. The camera was allowed as there were (and still are) a lot of accidents there.
What the fools who make these decisions dont seem to take into account is that those accidents arent just down to speed but more often than not involve drivers who wont wait in the filter lane queue to turn off, use the other 2 lanes to get to the front and then just jam themselves in where they can and leave half their cars in the wrong lanes for others to have to avoid....or crash into!
But hey, they make a lot of money out of it, so it stays. I'd be interested to see that stats about this camera and its effect asi'm sure its done more harm than good.