I was quoted in the Evening Standard yesterday for my view on speed cameras to govern 20mph zones.
This is a long-running issue and my thoughts are two-fold.
Firstly, 20mph zones bring a variety of issues for road safety (and not all good). The roads should be self-governing anyway since various traffic calming measures are introduced.
Secondly, I'm really worried about TFL's 'mission creep'. It starts out with security cameras and then become an ANPR network. These 20mph cameras will come in and then they are monitoring who was where, doing what and for how long. In addition, it's a cinch to bring in road tolling with this kind of network.
We don't want tolls but Boris and the TFL might have different ideas.
Here's what I said:
The campaigner known as “Captain Gatso”, from Motorists Against Detection, said: “Twenty and 30mph zones should already be self-policing because of traffic-calming measures. Average speed cameras are just another idea to keep the gravy train running for TfL.”
Read the Evening Standard story.
Captain Gatso
The Motorists Friend
speedaholics.com
Showing posts with label road safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label road safety. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
'Most dangerous' roads in Britain named by safety group
So here we go again.
The most dangerous roads in the UK are not highways but junctions. AS WE HAVE TOLD PEOPLE FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS (OR MORE).
And what doesn't appear from the news coverage is that the danger point for motoring accidents is at a junction LESS THAN A MILE FROM YOUR HOME.
Here's part of the story:
Junction danger
It examined accident data relating to roads across Britain. Among the Road Safety Foundation conclusions were:
A third of all fatal and serious crashes happen at junctions
Single roads carry six times the risk of motorways and twice that of dual carriageways
One-in-four fatal or serious crashes on A-roads or motorways involves a motorcyclist
There was a 5% reduction in the number of fatal crashes on such roads in the past three years
Read more
Captain Gatso
The most dangerous roads in the UK are not highways but junctions. AS WE HAVE TOLD PEOPLE FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS (OR MORE).
And what doesn't appear from the news coverage is that the danger point for motoring accidents is at a junction LESS THAN A MILE FROM YOUR HOME.
Here's part of the story:
Junction danger
It examined accident data relating to roads across Britain. Among the Road Safety Foundation conclusions were:
A third of all fatal and serious crashes happen at junctions
Single roads carry six times the risk of motorways and twice that of dual carriageways
One-in-four fatal or serious crashes on A-roads or motorways involves a motorcyclist
There was a 5% reduction in the number of fatal crashes on such roads in the past three years
Read more
Captain Gatso
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Strange case of the man terrified of speed cameras
It's almost beyond belief but I have an understanding of how this man feels. I have issues whenever I drive past a speed camera. Sadly, I don't think I would get a speed camera partnership to help me overcome my anger.
Anyway, good luck to Colin Gant who couldn't drive past said cameras because he had a phobia.
Let's hope he doesn't get any points now that he has been 'cured' by the speed camera partnership!
Though I would have thought the easiest solution would be to remove the speed cameras from the road.
Captain Gatso
The Motorists Friend
Anyway, good luck to Colin Gant who couldn't drive past said cameras because he had a phobia.
Let's hope he doesn't get any points now that he has been 'cured' by the speed camera partnership!
Though I would have thought the easiest solution would be to remove the speed cameras from the road.
Captain Gatso
The Motorists Friend
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Spain puts UK to shame on road deaths
This is a press release from the Association of British Drivers. Basically, it underlines what we all know but very few actually say.
Figures released by Spain's Dirección General de Tráfico show a drop of one fifth in road fatalities. 2,182 were killed in 2008, some 559 fewer than the previous year. Despite Spain having a similar number of vehicles on the road as the UK, the most recent fatality figure in the UK was 2,946, a damning inditement of failing UK road safety policy. Trends over the past fifteen years have seen Spain more than halve their annual fatality figure despite rapid traffic growth whilst the UK have only seen a reduction of around 20%.
So, how have Spain achieved this success and how can the UK road safety establishment learn from their experience?
ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries explains: "Spain, like the UK will have benefited from the dramatic improvement in car design. Without this it is likely UK casualties would have risen, road safety policy here can take little credit for our miserable achievement. Spain, unlike the UK has invested greatly in engineering, ironing out blackspots, realigning and junctions, bypassing towns and villages and replacing the most dangerous roads with dual carriageways. They have also relied on good old fashioned policing. 'Trafico' officers can often be seen watching the roads and pulling up suspicious looking vehicles or drivers. They have introduced a positive points system, as suggested by the ABD for the UK, and clamped down on drink driving. What they have not done is to flood the country with speed cameras, nor does there seem to be a great emphasis on speed enforcement. Here in the UK road safety policy has concentrated almost solely on cameras and enforcement and people are still dying."
ABD Chairman Brian Gregory commented: "The UK road safety chiefs need to learn and learn fast that their policies are failing. We need a return to good old fashioned policing and investment in engineering. How many more need to die before they wake up?"
Figures released by Spain's Dirección General de Tráfico show a drop of one fifth in road fatalities. 2,182 were killed in 2008, some 559 fewer than the previous year. Despite Spain having a similar number of vehicles on the road as the UK, the most recent fatality figure in the UK was 2,946, a damning inditement of failing UK road safety policy. Trends over the past fifteen years have seen Spain more than halve their annual fatality figure despite rapid traffic growth whilst the UK have only seen a reduction of around 20%.
So, how have Spain achieved this success and how can the UK road safety establishment learn from their experience?
ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries explains: "Spain, like the UK will have benefited from the dramatic improvement in car design. Without this it is likely UK casualties would have risen, road safety policy here can take little credit for our miserable achievement. Spain, unlike the UK has invested greatly in engineering, ironing out blackspots, realigning and junctions, bypassing towns and villages and replacing the most dangerous roads with dual carriageways. They have also relied on good old fashioned policing. 'Trafico' officers can often be seen watching the roads and pulling up suspicious looking vehicles or drivers. They have introduced a positive points system, as suggested by the ABD for the UK, and clamped down on drink driving. What they have not done is to flood the country with speed cameras, nor does there seem to be a great emphasis on speed enforcement. Here in the UK road safety policy has concentrated almost solely on cameras and enforcement and people are still dying."
ABD Chairman Brian Gregory commented: "The UK road safety chiefs need to learn and learn fast that their policies are failing. We need a return to good old fashioned policing and investment in engineering. How many more need to die before they wake up?"
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Cameras, not coppers
Below is a post by Hilton Holloway from Autocar. He writes very well and examines the news about police not enforcing minor traffic violations.
Hope you don't mind Hilton, but I'm going to 'cut and paste' your blog here for everyone to read.
Many thanks Hilton. We need more people like you to stand up and explain why this move is so very dangerous.
When will the rest of us take to the streets?
Hilton's blog:
It’s said that the UK has the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world. Some estimates say we have 4.2m CCTV cameras – one for every 14 people. Walk through central London and you could be caught on camera 300 times in a single day.
Well, in the last two days the creeping automation of the policing of everyday life took another couple of significantly leaps forward.
Press reports on Tuesday said the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) had given the go-ahead for the rollout of Specs average speed cameras in urban areas. The cameras will be used in new 20mph zones, which many in local London politics have been lobbying hard for.
Perhaps the one glimmer of good news is that the cameras will be used in place of speed humps, which, the anti-car brigade suddenly now agree, lead to huge increases in local pollution and noise. Even so, as any experienced driver knows, sticking exactly to a 20mph limit on a narrow, urban street will not be easy. Avoiding a fine will become a serious issue.
But there’s even worse news. Last night it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police have been stripped of their powers to deal with offences involving major road signs. These include such things as ignoring ‘one way’ and ‘no right and left turn’ signs.
Although drivers can be stopped and ‘advised’, the Police can no longer give a ‘formal warning’ or take any ‘reporting action’.
Apparently, powers to prosecute (ie send out big fat fines) now lies with Transport for London and London local authorities, who will use the extensive CCTV camera network to scan the streets.
Understandably, some coppers are hoping mad. As I pointed a few days ago, Traffic Police make a major contribution to road safety by stopping drivers on the spot and issuing strong words of advice or a ticket. And Traffic Cops have a huge success rate in uncovering other wrong doing, thanks to their instinct for dodgy cars and dodgy driving.
But instead of experienced officers, exercising professional judgment, Britain is going to be policed by unthinking 9-5, civilian camera operators whose idea of car crime will be illegal left turns. Will the cameras be able to breathalyse drivers? Stop drugged drivers? Pull over tailgaters?
Years ago, parking offences were handled by the Police. Then the whole system was hived off to civilian operatives who needed to hand out fines in order to pay their own wages and raise money for the council coffers. In short order, parking enforcement went from keeping the traffic flowing to an expensive game of cat and mouse.
Indeed, if you want an example of the current policy-maker’s hatred of drivers, consider this. A parking fine in London for overstaying by 3-4 minutes can easily be £80. Well, a couple of years ago, the law on shop lifting was changed so that anybody caught with less than £250’s worth of stolen goods would get an automatic, on the spot fine of…£80.
But I’ll finish by giving you the most chilling example of law-enforcement by robotic cameras and robotic people. In June 2007 terrorists packed two E-Class Mercs with gas tanks and parked one in London’s Haymarket and one in the adjacent street. The Haymarket bomb was spotted by an ambulance driver at around 1.30am and the area evacuated.
However, the other Merc was ticketed by a parking warden, then quickly towed off and stored at the huge Park Lane underground car park.
The traffic wardens and tow truck drivers clearly didn’t watch the news because, even though the car was parked outside because it smelt of petrol, they didn’t call the Police. The cops eventually tracked the second Merc-bomb down the following afternoon.
And still the policy makers would rather have cameras instead of coppers.
Mind how you go.
Keep up with the comments: http://autocar.co.uk/blogs/anythinggoes/archive/2009/02/05/cameras-not-coppers.aspx
Hope you don't mind Hilton, but I'm going to 'cut and paste' your blog here for everyone to read.
Many thanks Hilton. We need more people like you to stand up and explain why this move is so very dangerous.
When will the rest of us take to the streets?
Hilton's blog:
It’s said that the UK has the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world. Some estimates say we have 4.2m CCTV cameras – one for every 14 people. Walk through central London and you could be caught on camera 300 times in a single day.
Well, in the last two days the creeping automation of the policing of everyday life took another couple of significantly leaps forward.
Press reports on Tuesday said the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) had given the go-ahead for the rollout of Specs average speed cameras in urban areas. The cameras will be used in new 20mph zones, which many in local London politics have been lobbying hard for.
Perhaps the one glimmer of good news is that the cameras will be used in place of speed humps, which, the anti-car brigade suddenly now agree, lead to huge increases in local pollution and noise. Even so, as any experienced driver knows, sticking exactly to a 20mph limit on a narrow, urban street will not be easy. Avoiding a fine will become a serious issue.
But there’s even worse news. Last night it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police have been stripped of their powers to deal with offences involving major road signs. These include such things as ignoring ‘one way’ and ‘no right and left turn’ signs.
Although drivers can be stopped and ‘advised’, the Police can no longer give a ‘formal warning’ or take any ‘reporting action’.
Apparently, powers to prosecute (ie send out big fat fines) now lies with Transport for London and London local authorities, who will use the extensive CCTV camera network to scan the streets.
Understandably, some coppers are hoping mad. As I pointed a few days ago, Traffic Police make a major contribution to road safety by stopping drivers on the spot and issuing strong words of advice or a ticket. And Traffic Cops have a huge success rate in uncovering other wrong doing, thanks to their instinct for dodgy cars and dodgy driving.
But instead of experienced officers, exercising professional judgment, Britain is going to be policed by unthinking 9-5, civilian camera operators whose idea of car crime will be illegal left turns. Will the cameras be able to breathalyse drivers? Stop drugged drivers? Pull over tailgaters?
Years ago, parking offences were handled by the Police. Then the whole system was hived off to civilian operatives who needed to hand out fines in order to pay their own wages and raise money for the council coffers. In short order, parking enforcement went from keeping the traffic flowing to an expensive game of cat and mouse.
Indeed, if you want an example of the current policy-maker’s hatred of drivers, consider this. A parking fine in London for overstaying by 3-4 minutes can easily be £80. Well, a couple of years ago, the law on shop lifting was changed so that anybody caught with less than £250’s worth of stolen goods would get an automatic, on the spot fine of…£80.
But I’ll finish by giving you the most chilling example of law-enforcement by robotic cameras and robotic people. In June 2007 terrorists packed two E-Class Mercs with gas tanks and parked one in London’s Haymarket and one in the adjacent street. The Haymarket bomb was spotted by an ambulance driver at around 1.30am and the area evacuated.
However, the other Merc was ticketed by a parking warden, then quickly towed off and stored at the huge Park Lane underground car park.
The traffic wardens and tow truck drivers clearly didn’t watch the news because, even though the car was parked outside because it smelt of petrol, they didn’t call the Police. The cops eventually tracked the second Merc-bomb down the following afternoon.
And still the policy makers would rather have cameras instead of coppers.
Mind how you go.
Keep up with the comments: http://autocar.co.uk/blogs/anythinggoes/archive/2009/02/05/cameras-not-coppers.aspx
Monday, 24 November 2008
Policing on the cheap - so make sure you love thy neighbour!
Calling this a 'road safety war' does not lessen its impact - it is policing on the cheap and should not be allowed.
The room for a disgruntled neighbour to abuse this position is just unbelievable.
Let's leave aside the fact the bloke with the speed gun will lower it when he sees friends/family; he will ensure his 'enemies' get the full reatment.
I'm really pleased that some schemes were abandoned because of disputes. I wouldn't stand for it if one of my neighbours was pointing a speed gun at me.
Should you get a 'warning letter' then just ignore it. It's worthless, just like the small-minded zealots who think up this barmy schemes.
Get proper police officers back on the roads to enforce the law - not grannies and layabouts.
* And once again the powers-that-be have opened up the drivers database for people to access private details. Unbelievable.
CG
The Motorists Friend
http://captaingatso.net
This is from the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088718/The-speed-trap-set-neighbour--police-recruit-residents-road-safety-war.html
The speed trap set by your neighbour - police recruit residents in road safety war
Motorists will face amateur speed traps run by local volunteer groups in towns and villages across the country, it was revealed yesterday.
Under rules to be sent to police forces in the new year, bands of volunteers will be supplied with speed detection equipment and asked to use it to identify drivers exceeding limits in their area.
The guidelines, prepared by the Association of Chief Police Officers, will set a national pattern for schemes which have been trialled in some areas – often with controversy.
Drivers caught breaking limits by 'community speed watch' groups have their numberplates checked on the police national computer and are sent warning letters by police forces.
They can be targeted for prosecution if they get three letters for speeding through volunteer group traps.
Motoring organisations warned yesterday that the proposals risk setting neighbour against neighbour and encouraging vigilantism. Some trial schemes had to be abandoned after they led to disputes between local people.
The room for a disgruntled neighbour to abuse this position is just unbelievable.
Let's leave aside the fact the bloke with the speed gun will lower it when he sees friends/family; he will ensure his 'enemies' get the full reatment.
I'm really pleased that some schemes were abandoned because of disputes. I wouldn't stand for it if one of my neighbours was pointing a speed gun at me.
Should you get a 'warning letter' then just ignore it. It's worthless, just like the small-minded zealots who think up this barmy schemes.
Get proper police officers back on the roads to enforce the law - not grannies and layabouts.
* And once again the powers-that-be have opened up the drivers database for people to access private details. Unbelievable.
CG
The Motorists Friend
http://captaingatso.net
This is from the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088718/The-speed-trap-set-neighbour--police-recruit-residents-road-safety-war.html
The speed trap set by your neighbour - police recruit residents in road safety war
Motorists will face amateur speed traps run by local volunteer groups in towns and villages across the country, it was revealed yesterday.
Under rules to be sent to police forces in the new year, bands of volunteers will be supplied with speed detection equipment and asked to use it to identify drivers exceeding limits in their area.
The guidelines, prepared by the Association of Chief Police Officers, will set a national pattern for schemes which have been trialled in some areas – often with controversy.
Drivers caught breaking limits by 'community speed watch' groups have their numberplates checked on the police national computer and are sent warning letters by police forces.
They can be targeted for prosecution if they get three letters for speeding through volunteer group traps.
Motoring organisations warned yesterday that the proposals risk setting neighbour against neighbour and encouraging vigilantism. Some trial schemes had to be abandoned after they led to disputes between local people.
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