So, speed cameras undoubtedly save lives and reduce accidents.

"Speed cameras have saved far fewer lives than the Government claims,
a study shows.

Instead of saving 100 lives a year, the true figure could be less than
50, they say.

'Speed cameras do reduce accidents but not quite as much as has
sometimes been claimed,' said Dr Linda Mountain of Liverpool
University's engineering department.

Official figures compiled by the National Safety Camera Programme
compare accident rates before and after a speed camera goes up..."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1053865/Speed-cameras-saved-HALF-lives-ministers-claim.html

--
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http://www.worldcarfree.net/
Help for your car-addicted friends in the U.K.

On 10 Sep, 07:01, Doug  wrote:
> So, speed cameras undoubtedly save lives and reduce accidents.

May I infer from your lack of response on the thread "The moment a
pensioner smashed his car through a supermarket" that you now admit
you were talking out of your anus on the subject of manslaughter,
Gollum?

Doug  wrote:

> So, speed cameras undoubtedly save lives and reduce accidents.
> 
> "Speed cameras have saved far fewer lives than the Government claims,
> a study shows.
> 
> Instead of saving 100 lives a year, the true figure could be less than
> 50, they say.

It's difficult to know where to start with this. Firstly it's obvious
that you didn't bother to read the article, just the headline and then
you snatched the first paragraphs.

What the article does is to completely vindicate the work done by the
late Paul Smith of Safespeed, he was right, regression to the mean is a
significant factor and knee-jerk installation of cameras at "black
spots" does turn out to be a naive policy instututed by mathematical
illiterates.

The article takes no account of the BMJ article:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7558/73

Which shows that improvements in road safety could be completely
illusory because of changes in how accidents are reported.

And the *best* figure for the potential reduction in accidents
calculated by the copycat "researcher" is 19%, not the 50% that the
Daily Mail headline and your fuckwitted response indicate.

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:11:07 +0100, %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth)
wrote:

>Doug  wrote:
>
>> So, speed cameras undoubtedly save lives and reduce accidents.
>> 
>> "Speed cameras have saved far fewer lives than the Government claims,
>> a study shows.
>> 
>> Instead of saving 100 lives a year, the true figure could be less than
>> 50, they say.
>
>It's difficult to know where to start with this. Firstly it's obvious
>that you didn't bother to read the article, just the headline and then
>you snatched the first paragraphs.
>
>What the article does is to completely vindicate the work done by the
>late Paul Smith of Safespeed, he was right, regression to the mean is a
>significant factor and knee-jerk installation of cameras at "black
>spots" does turn out to be a naive policy instututed by mathematical
>illiterates.
>

On the hill where I live they installed 12 cameras  (6 each side of
the road ) on 1.2 miles of road.

There had been two serious accidents but one involved drink & / or
drugs, and the other was a probable suicide.

I can't see how the presence of these cameras could have sensibly been
expected to influence either the transit van full of 6 pissants who at
3-30 am one Sunday morning ploughed into the corner of a 150 year old
graveyard at Ca. 70 mph exposing the graves (the road had been lowered
100 years ago) or the random suicidal solo motorcyclist with no local
connections who rode 243 miles from Glasgow and turned into our estate
chosen at random and ran smack into the first lamp post he came
across. 

Still if their agenda was inclined that way they could represent this
as 7 fatalities in 2 years, must be an "Accident Black Spot". We
prefer to think it was the result of political shenanigans in the
council on the lines of "be careful what you wish for lest it come
true". 

A local independant councillor had been making a nuisance of himself
campaigning for *one* camera, which had been refused over many years.

Derek

Derek  wrote:

> On the hill where I live they installed 12 cameras  (6 each side of
> the road ) on 1.2 miles of road.

Jings crivens.

A similar incident close to where I live saw a similar knee-jerk
response by councillors. The bald facts were that a car driver, who was
driving at 85mph in a 50mph limit crossed onto the other side of the
road killing seven people. Local councillors ranted about the speeding
and the inevitable loss of life and demanded speed cameras and "traffic
calming" by which they meant chicanes, on a major 'A' road.

During all the hysteria the hysterical forgot to take account of the
fact that drink and drugs seemed to be the real cause of the accident.

"Steve Firth" <%steve%@malloc.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:1in2bwl.1e8kfpg1jrfiq4N%%steve%@malloc.co.uk...
> Derek  wrote:
>
>> On the hill where I live they installed 12 cameras  (6 each side of
>> the road ) on 1.2 miles of road.
>
> Jings crivens.
>
> A similar incident close to where I live saw a similar knee-jerk
> response by councillors. The bald facts were that a car driver, who was
> driving at 85mph in a 50mph limit crossed onto the other side of the
> road killing seven people. Local councillors ranted about the speeding
> and the inevitable loss of life and demanded speed cameras and "traffic
> calming" by which they meant chicanes, on a major 'A' road.
>
> During all the hysteria the hysterical forgot to take account of the
> fact that drink and drugs seemed to be the real cause of the accident.

And here driver just over one month after passing his test crashed old Fiesta 
into a field (below road level) on his way home from the pub with four mates, 
none of them had seat belts on and there was no evidence of speeding, 7 
cameras were put up in half a mile. Despite this and the fact as a county we 
have one of the highest number of speed cameras in the country we performed 
significantly worse than areas with virtually no cameras.

%steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

> A similar incident close to where I live saw a similar knee-jerk
> response by councillors. The bald facts were that a car driver, who was
> driving at 85mph in a 50mph limit crossed onto the other side of the
> road killing seven people. Local councillors ranted about the speeding
> and the inevitable loss of life and demanded speed cameras and "traffic
> calming" by which they meant chicanes, on a major 'A' road.
> 
> During all the hysteria the hysterical forgot to take account of the
> fact that drink and drugs seemed to be the real cause of the accident.

<mode=Ed Chilada>
But he was speeding. 85mph is more than 50mph.

Adrian  wrote:

> %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth) gurgled happily, sounding much like
> they were saying:
> 
> > A similar incident close to where I live saw a similar knee-jerk
> > response by councillors. The bald facts were that a car driver, who was
> > driving at 85mph in a 50mph limit crossed onto the other side of the
> > road killing seven people. Local councillors ranted about the speeding
> > and the inevitable loss of life and demanded speed cameras and "traffic
> > calming" by which they meant chicanes, on a major 'A' road.
> > 
> > During all the hysteria the hysterical forgot to take account of the
> > fact that drink and drugs seemed to be the real cause of the accident.
> 
> <mode=Ed Chilada>
> But he was speeding. 85mph is more than 50mph.

Yeah, none of the councillors seemed to take note of the fact that the
road in question could be traversed at 130mph without endangering life
or limb. Of course saying so in public would lead to a lynching. AFAICT,
the most vociferous complainants are the biggest muppets. There's one
councillor lives along that road who insists on reversing out of his
drive into rush-hour traffic despite the fact that his drive is long and
wide enough to turn the car around. Of course the numerous near-misses
that he has suffered are all put to down to "speeding drivers" even
though very few people exceed the speed limit and the police have
informed him that whenever they do a speed survey the 85%ile is lower
than the speed limit.

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:36:39 +0100, %steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth)
wrote:

>Of course the numerous near-misses
>that he has suffered are all put to down to "speeding drivers" even
>though very few people exceed the speed limit and the police have
>informed him that whenever they do a speed survey the 85%ile is lower
>than the speed limit.

During the campaigning phase for a speed camera well before the actual
speed cameras arrived I attended a Neighbourhood Watch meeting when
the N.W. rep from the local police station said that whenever they'd
put a speed camera on the hill, all the speeders detected were locals.
So if they didn't want cars speeding down the hill the solution was in
their hands (or at their feet). 

The only 2 that I've known to get speeding tickets were our office
secretary (39 in a 30 limit, late for work) and the accountant (35 in
a 30 limit). Both live within 100 metres of the road.

The fallacy appears to lie in the common belief that "It's the cars
coming here from somewhere else that are doing the speeding".

Just as the parking mayhem around the school is not caused by local
mothers doing the school run - Oh no. It's mothers that bring children
into the world "They know what it's like". They wouldnt risk childrens
lives by parking like chimpanzees on acid around the school entrance.

Not much. 

Derek

On Tue, 9 Sep 2008 23:01:16 -0700 (PDT), Doug put finger to keyboard
and typed:

>So, speed cameras undoubtedly save lives and reduce accidents.
>
>"Speed cameras have saved far fewer lives than the Government claims,
>a study shows.

I don't think any sensible person would argue that speed cameras
*never* work. Used appropriately, they are a useful tool in the box,
along with a variety of other possible options that can be used to
improve safety on the roads.

The anti-camera campaigners aren't arguing against a limited,
appropriate use of cameras, they are arguing against an inappropriate
and indiscriminate use driven by a knee-jerk attitude to speed and a
misunderstanding (or even misrepresentation) of statistics. And this
argument appears to be born out by the report in question.

Mark
-- 
My rather pointless blog: http://mark.goodge.co.uk
My less pointless stuff: http://www.good-stuff.co.uk

Derek  wrote:

> The only 2 that I've known to get speeding tickets were our office
> secretary (39 in a 30 limit, late for work) and the accountant (35 in
> a 30 limit). Both live within 100 metres of the road.

Similar here. The woman who campaigned for speed cameras got caught
doing 43 mph in a 30mph limit by a scamera van.

OTOH when plod said at a village meeting that most of the people who
would get pulled for speeding would be 'local' I said that I was happy
to see them get done. I don't see why "being local" permits someone to
drive at a silly speed past their own/my home.