Safety my arse
There was an item on the news last night about those fucking “Safety Cameras”.
I never heard such a load of horsecrap in all my life.
“These vans are there to save lives and not raise revenue”
Bollox.
Those vans haven’t saved a single life and they never will. Motorists aren’t going to change the habits of a lifetime just because of the off chance of being caught by one.
Time and time again, I have argued that speed does not kill. Bad driving kills and that has fuck all to do with speed. Which is worse – a driver doing 60 in a 50 limit on a clear stretch of road, or a driver overtaking at 30 on a blind bend? Speed is only dangerous if it is inappropriate under the circumstances and those circumstances cannot be determined by some jobsworth in the local council who decides to introduce a limit.
The idiot in the film is delighted that they have increased ‘detection’ by 60%. Of course he is delighted – that is a 60% increase in revenue. And have they saved a single life? Of course not. Not unless a bloke was just about to do something reckless and stopped when he saw the van.
The authorities know damn well that the vans are just money boxes on wheels. Why else would they be going to such pains to tell us that they are not? We have that irritating advertisement showing lifebuoys that turn into cameras to try to convince us that they are to do with safety. They just call them ‘Safety Cameras’ to try to give a cosy cosy impression that they are there to help us and keep us safe. If anything, they are liable to cause accidents, as drivers will be concentrating on the possibility of a trap instead of concentrating on the road.
What a load of shite.
Money box on wheels
Safe money box on wheels
Absolutely spot on GD.
I seem to remember there is a place in Engerland that did away with them and the accident rate actually went down. Or did I dream that?
I don’t know anything about these vans but it seems obvious that bad driving at high speed would kill more readily than the same bad driving at low speed. Wouldn’t you say?
They actually spent money on these vans and didn’t suspect for even a second that someone or someones would attempt to (rather successfully I might add) sabotage the things? How many thousands of euros did these things cost anyway? Never mind the life of the operator and how much he/she is paid. And does the operator get hazardous duty pay I wonder?
I remember when the States started doing something like this. It wasn’t some sort of mobile system that had an operator driving a van around, it was more a stationary, self contained system incorporating a computer, a radar system and a set of cameras. The whole system was crammed into a box which was mounted to post cemented into the ground and was powered by the electrical grid. Any vehicle the radar caught exceeding the speed limit would trigger the camera which would snap the vehicle’s picture both coming and going and transmit the images to the local law enforcement agency. The images would then be enhanced so the license plate number was readable and a speeding ticket would be mailed to the owner of the vehicle.
No one really like these things as you might imagine.
I was living on the south shore of Connecticut at the time (and had a crazy bunch of friends as well) which is more forest than anything else and these things were being placed in the treeline along the roads (they even painted them green the dirty bastards). Fortunately they were easily approached from the back and it only took a pry bar or a cordless drill (if you had one handy) and a bit of DYI HEX to take them out. Didn’t even damage the outside of the box. It’s amazing what a couple of fun loving individuals can accomplish all in a night’s work.
Mossy – I think you are right there. I’m sure I read something about that, but for the life of me I can’t remember where.
TT – You are right. However, speed would be a factor there and not a cause. Take away the speed and the bad driving still exists. Take away the bad driving and you have a perfectly safe vehicle.
Kirk – They have those boxes on pole all over the UK and the continent. In a way they are daft, because they always warn you in advance exactly where they are. So they are more a test of reading ability than speed!
My take from January last year
http://www.dwfisher.com/watching/2010/01/bbc-vandals.html#more
as if anyone cares…
The fact remains that the higher the speed limit the more folks die on the roads. Don’t get me wrong I accept this and am against speed limits in principle. But facts are facts. Similar to the gun control argument.
TT
Facts as you must well know are made up by the people who win!
I was speedily reading through your post until I saw the picture of the van.
So, it works.
If you could get a couple of monster “fuck you” tractors at each end of the worst windy roads and give them an almighty tug to straighten them out you’d reduce accidents by 47%. Or so I heard. It might even have been 48%.
The ironic thing is that the road deaths figures have gone up also in the first two months of the year since these vans were introduced. Maybe that’s a coincidence but if the figures were down you would see the RSA on every channel taking the credit.
Welcome there, Davis. It only works on this site, and that because the screen has speed-bumps.
Paulo1 – Actually I think the figure is nearer 46%. Ironically, straighter roads lead to higher speeds so you end up with a slower road than you started with, once they have dropped the limit. I’m not kidding – they did that with a road near here. Used to be 80, and now its 50.
Notgreen – The only thing that will reduce deaths on the roads is more stringent driver testing and more convictions for serious offences [and I don’t mean breaking an arbitrary limit].
looks like a clean kill hit on the second one. Good shooting, GD. Were you just getting some practice in before the tourista season?
Only stupid drivers are dangerous, but there are whole lot of them out there, be safe and carry.
For some reason the video didn’t play for me but no matter – it’s safe to assume that the van photos are before and after heh?
Well, it took 3 burnings down of the offices of the “private” local car crane – car pound parking nazis before they wound their necks back in and stopped doing it…
Yeah, speed is a contributory factor to the severity of an accident – but it isn’t a cause.
The race for funds in motoring law enforcement just gets folk narked – fines for this and fines for that – I’m wondering when they’re going to start random fines – wheeling out some extravagant statistical fib to justify it like erm your car’s not green enough.
My stepson had his van stolen – the neighbors saw the scrotes smash the window, screwdriver the steering lock etc. and called the police – who were “too busy” to attend. The fuel ran out a mile away and 4 hours later it was towed for being illegally parked – stepson had to cough £220 to retrieve £500 van from the pound…..
Here in Texas,they are trying to raise the speed limit to 85 on some roads. that is around 137 kilometers.
Not facts Bill. History.
The safest roads in the UK also have the highest speed limit. Strange that isn’t it?
Accidents are cause by tits that can’t drive, NOT speed!
Welcome David! For some strange reason the ‘authorities’ have a fixation about speed. To listen to them, you would swear it was at the root of all our problems. Wankers!
When the steam railway engine was invented, weren’t they worried that people would explode or something?
Maybe the fixation with speed is a throwback to that era.
As far as I remember, they claimed that anybody travelling in excess of 30 mph would explode. I suppose that explains a lot of the carnage on our roads?