Petition To Ban Speed Cameras

[Sam Nichols]

So why bring it up if when the majority of cameras aren't in residential areas?

Also why employ other traffic calming measures when speed cameras are a way of saying 'this is the speed limit, stick to it or be punished'

In my opinion humps and bumps and swervey bits and all those other things are bloody annoying.. fine in a town/pedestrianised area. But thats where they belong,

I vote more speed cameras personally. Stiffer penalties too.

[TomR]

But if you go past a camera too fast, you get a measely £60 fine and 3 points which counts for nothing. Various other restrictions mean you have to stop to see if its safe, have to slow down in case of oncoming traffic etc.. they add personal risk, and therefore a responsibility to ensure your own safety through the knowledge that you can't judge the road ahead without taking a slower/more calculated approach.

But i do agree, cameras work on larger carriageways and the more common bump, humps and narrowing for resi roads, but i've seen other traffic calming measure used pretty effectively on dual carriageways too, on approaches to roundabouts and the like.

As for the majority of cameras not being in resi areas... you'd be surprised. A large number of cameras are used near schools, housing developments, and all sorts of areas where a camera isn't the only option.

Edited June 11, 2007 by TomR

[SaltWaterHippo]

Sheehan is obviosuly a cool kid. It's irresponsible retards like you who cause crashes or accidents, Whats good about that?

[JT!]

Don't go over the speed limit, no problem.

[Joel]

So where is the next petition where I HAVE to sign to legalize pedophilia?

To be frank, what a honest guy, I think ban speed cameras is almost the same as legalizing pedophilia. Reason is, your letting the bad twats doing the utterly stupid / wrong stuff and you basicly saying the victims have to suffer instead of the criminal.

To topic starter twat, how the hell you going to get a hair dryer to disobey speed cameras? Are there speed cameras on 20 mph limited roads?

To Mr cool aviator Russian dude's first post, damn thats f**ked up.

[nickyw]

hope this is a piss take...not in a million years will speed cameras get banned.

there quite smart things too,heres why:

the other day my mum was having a chat with a guy who went on this dual carridge way and was doing 25mph and got flashed.

so,obviously he was all confused and stuff.so he turned back and got flashed again..but this time he was doing 20mph.

went back again,this time doing 15mph..got flashed again...brilliant.

what came in the post the week after was 3 £60 fines for not having a seatbelt on.

cool eh?

[Joel]

hope this is a piss take...not in a million years will speed cameras get banned.

there quite smart things too,heres why:

the other day my mum was having a chat with a guy who went on this dual carridge way and was doing 25mph and got flashed.

so,obviously he was all confused and stuff.so he turned back and got flashed again..but this time he was doing 20mph.

went back again,this time doing 15mph..got flashed again...brilliant.

what came in the post the week after was 3 £60 fines for not having a seatbelt on.

cool eh?

Lol, I haven't heard that from radio 4 for sure

[froggy]

I haven't read the replies but I don't think I need to to comment that this is one of the most stupidest things I'v ever heard.

[JT!]

hope this is a piss take...not in a million years will speed cameras get banned.

there quite smart things too,heres why:

the other day my mum was having a chat with a guy who went on this dual carridge way and was doing 25mph and got flashed.

so,obviously he was all confused and stuff.so he turned back and got flashed again..but this time he was doing 20mph.

went back again,this time doing 15mph..got flashed again...brilliant.

what came in the post the week after was 3 £60 fines for not having a seatbelt on.

cool eh?

LMAO!

[TomR]

How would a speed camera know hes not wearing a seatbelt? Unless it was a manned camera, in which case theres usually a car further up the road to pull them over.

[munkee]

How would a speed camera know hes not wearing a seatbelt? Unless it was a manned camera, in which case theres usually a car further up the road to pull them over.

They do check the pictures you know

Petition not gonna happen, i speed.. i rarely look at my speedo infact as i drive around places. I go the speed i feel comfortable at in that situation. If i need to slow down i do it.. if i see a open road i accelerate. I set my own limits it seems and whether these are above or below the stated ones makes no difference to me. People drive how they want, if they get caught speeding woopty fine/points/jail. I get tired of people who go on about how people are inconsiderate pricks who dont stick the limits. Please tell me who the f**k worked out that hitting someone at 40mph isnt going to kill them and hitting them at 43mph will. Hell.. you can kill people in a car thats not even moving.

Its like that advert years ago that did the "if blah blah was travelling 5mph slower this child would have survived". They had to change that advert to "if blah blah was travelling 5mph less then they would have stopped in time" purely because there are no facts that the limits set are going to stop people dieing. For all you know at 10mph the body could go up the bonnet face through the windscreen, slit throat blood pouring out on to the dash.. or.. someone could just snap a leg.

Keep the cameras, keep your bumps, keep all the other traffic calming they just make people late for work so they accelerate afterwards.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Spacemunkee

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

employ some better road designs, where i live, there are so many t junctions onto major roads, and where there are roundabouts, there are traffic lights immediately on most of the exits.

if not that, then there's one side of the road blocked off for traffic calming.

don't get the opportunity to speed! f**kers!

but yeah, dont speed, no beef.

[Tony Harrison]

This is the most ridiculous petition I've ever heard. What a waste of time. Whoever has to deal with that will laugh hysterically for at least an hour. The majority of speed cameras are bright yellow - if you still get stung then you probably deserve it.

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

if you still get stung then you probably deserve it.

petition to have a 5mph 'allowance' on how close to the speed limit cameras could be, and i'd sign that

i don't even drive, but it annoys me to see ten people get flashed in a 30 doing 31/32 or something.

[Robwalker]

Thats stupid, the speed limit is the speed limit, its there for a reason, even that advert shows how much of a difference 5mph makes. And is it really worth the extra 5mph? Which is probaly only going to get you where your going to about a minuite quicker?

[munkee]

Thats stupid, the speed limit is the speed limit, its there for a reason, even that advert shows how much of a difference 5mph makes. And is it really worth the extra 5mph? Which is probaly only going to get you where your going to about a minuite quicker?

With calibration errors and the fact your eye is unlikely to be able to even judge how fast 5mph truley is on your speedo id say.. most people dont even have a clue if they are speeding or not. If you drive 40 in a 40, id say you are one of those who likes to speed. If you drive 20 in a 40 id say you are old and truley are not a "speeder"

[CurtisRider]

dont you guys find when you drive fast, you catch up with an old person whos doing a silly slow speed and they dont let you overtake? or is that just where i live?

[Towler]

To be fair up North here in Scotland there is possibly two speed cameras I can think of that actually are there for a good reason (where there have been loads of accidents) that’s fair enough. I know where all the speed cameras are through the whole of my region so it doesn’t bother me. But if you take away the camera that will mean more traffic cops. I don’t ever really speed through town anyways its just on back roads and duller.

[Tomm]

I hate speed bumps. If they're the alternative to cameras then I'm a fan of the cameras.

Its like that advert years ago that did the "if blah blah was travelling 5mph slower this child would have survived". They had to change that advert to "if blah blah was travelling 5mph less then they would have stopped in time" purely because there are no facts that the limits set are going to stop people dieing. For all you know at 10mph the body could go up the bonnet face through the windscreen, slit throat blood pouring out on to the dash.. or.. someone could just snap a leg.

It's all about playing the percentages though. There's that advert on TV at the moment with the little girl dead against a tree - saying if you hit someone at 40mph, there's an 80% chance they'll die. At 30mph, it's an 80% chance they'll live. That's a pretty big difference, no? Obviously you COULD kill someone at 5mph, but it's very very unlikely. Whereas if you speed lots, it becomes very likely.

No one is saying that a crash at 40mph won't kill you but at 41 you'll die.

[munkee]

But i dont see how a 10mph difference causes such a big difference in death. There is literally no way they can have statistical data showing that there is more chance you live being hit at 30 than there is 40. The results would be so skewed its unreal since a car can stop much earlier at 30 than at 40 = more people being hit at 40. If theres more people being hit at 40 then yes there is more "chance" people will be killed at 40mph but it does not mean that if they were hit at 30 they would suddenly survive. Its just a case of less people being hit at 30 to be killed.

How about the government sorts out road surfaces / blind spots / sharp bends so drivers can actually see potential hazards instead of slowing for a speed camera and thinking.. phew didnt get caught.

[Tomm]

But i dont see how a 10mph difference causes such a big difference in death. There is literally no way they can have statistical data showing that there is more chance you live being hit at 30 than there is 40. The results would be so skewed its unreal since a car can stop much earlier at 30 than at 40 = more people being hit at 40. If theres more people being hit at 40 then yes there is more "chance" people will be killed at 40mph but it does not mean that if they were hit at 30 they would suddenly survive. Its just a case of less people being hit at 30 to be killed.

No it's not that at all. The advert specifically says "if you hit me at 40mph, there's an 80% chance I'll die". It's not that hard to imagine that the the government probably have information on people that got hit at 40 mph.

Take someone driving along at 40mph in a 40mph zone, and a child runs out in front of them. They can't stop, not their fault at all. This probably happens, maybe, 20 times a year in this country. OK, that's not very often (usually there will be some braking time which can complicate things) but when you multiply that by ten years, and take data from other countries etc, It's easily enough to work out the statistics.

[Gazza]

There are up to 10 people killed in car accidents every day just in Moscow. So there is, unfortunately, loads of statistic data (that we may share with any country). And cops can and they DO calculate the speed of hitting. They take into consideration CCTV cameras, length of the braking trace and weight of the car, how heavy the wounds are. That's enough for telling almost exact speed.

They have to do it because if a person was crossing the road at an illegal place and the guy was not speeding - then it is the dead person's fault. If the guy was speeding, then he had less opportunity to stop then it is his fault and he goes to prison.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Gazza

[TomR]

They do check the pictures you know

But to check the picture it would need to have taken one, and how does radar know if you're wearing a seatbelt?

'doing 40 in a 40' doesnt make you the kind of person to speed at all, speed limits arent just limits, theyre also suggested speeds, things like that are big factors in keeping traffic flowing.

And if you cant see how going faster makes people more likely to die in the event of an accident, then you're evidently not too bright. 40mph insteads of 30mph is a 33% increase, whhich is a fairly big leap. And as Tomm said, its not about stopping from that speed (although that obviously helps) what its saying is if you hit someone at 30 this will happen, if you hit someone at 40 that will happen.

As for blind spots, if you cant see the road ahead enough to judge the situation, slow down. Roads arent designed to drive at the speed limit for every inch of the road. Why the hell do people these days rely on everything but their own basic judgement to get them through such simple things in life?

[Joe Sheehan!]

The reason i posted this is to get rid of GATSO cameras, they just cost people money. They've started hiding speed cameras too. Did you know that when a speed camera is low on film, the limit at what speed it flashes is lowered, so you can be doing 30mph and still get flashed. I'm not totally against the government putting speed cameras into place, but stupid inaccurate cameras like the Lti 20-20 handheld cameras are crap and cost us money when we arent speeding. Even if this petition doesnt go through, the government still should re-think the cameras.

Im up for the cameras that are spaced, so they tell your average speed over say 10 miles. People who get caught by these cameras deserve the fines. You can say that these cameras are useless, because you can do 200mph through the first camera, pull over and have some lunch and then drive off again and your average speed would be 65mph, but then if you had to stop so you didnt get a ticket, what would be the point in speeding anyway?

I think that GATSOs and handheld cameras are useless, inacurrate and cost people money, and even if this petition doesnt go through, the government would hopefully see why people hate speed cameras.

[Tomm]

My problem with the 'average speed' cameras is that they will get more and more accurate the further you go. So perhaps over a mile stretch of road they are only accurate to +/- 10mph (for example), you can happily do 80 on the motorway without fear. Whereas if you're doing much longer distances (say 40 miles on one stretch of motorway without stopping) they can probably be accurate to within 0.1 mph or something daft. Thus you wouldn't be able to cruise at 80mph.

But I don't think there are any plans to put them on motorways, only where there are roadworks. Which makes sense and I support them.