The new A40 average speed cameras

The new A40 average speed cameras all seem to be up and the signs have started to go up too. It looks like they will be put into operation shortly.

I thought that I would see if the speed limit was feasible to keep to so I tried driving from Paddington to Northolt Airport.

This report is about the elevated section of the A40, I will post about the other sections later this week.

Driving at 40mph on the elevated section of the A40 was very hard, I was getting flashed by other drivers who were speeding (pun intended) past me. As I drove I realised why 40mph felt so slow. I remember that when I first drove on the A40 elevated section it was a restricted urban motorway, called the A40M with a speed limit of 60mph, which felt about right for the road even in my aged early 1970s car. Some years later, maybe when it ceased to be a motorway in 2000, the speed limit was reduced to 50mph which always felt a little slow but most people continued driving at 60mph anyway. This state of affairs continued for quite a while and then there was the issue with the lights failure on the elevated section and the speed limit was reduced to 40mph. This of course makes no sense: in daylight the lighting is of no relevance and at night I believe that most cars have headlights.

In fact I have done some digging and it seems from this and this that the speed limit was meant to go back up to 50mph when the A40 repairs had been finished. Indeed this report from May 2011 says that:

'Transport for London (TfL) dropped the limit from 50 to 30mph in February as it made repairs to the expansion joints.

...

But TfL will put the limit up to 40mph on the eastbound carriageway on Sunday morning, and on the westbound carriageway one week later. They say it should be back to 50mph by late summer.'

That's late summer 2011, why did this not happen?

Instead what we have on the elevated section of the A40 in London is the speed limit reducing from 60mph to 50mph and then to 40mph and then the introduction of a average speed cameras to enforce this reduced speed limit.

Some would argue that this was about revenue raising, using the driver as a cash cow. Others would claim that it was about criminalising the motorist. I wouldn't disagree with either of these points but I actually think it's more sinister; this is about control. As I drove along at 40mph on the elevated section of the A40 I felt cowed by the cameras, powerless in the face of the state; and that is how the state want us to be.

Average speed cameras to blight the life of many Londoners

One of my early pieces on this blog was about the new cameras appearing on the A406 that I thought could become average speed cameras. They didn't but anyone travelling along some of London's main roads will have noticed new gantries and cameras appearing. These are for a new average speed camera system that will soon infest four trial sites and then no doubt spread their revenue raising way across the capital.

The first four road sections to be blighted are the A406 (North Circular Road) from the Hanger Lane Gyratory to Bounds Green Road; the A40 from the Polish War Memorial to the Paddington slip road, the A2 from Black Prince to Tunnel Avenue and the A316 from the M3 to the Hogarth roundabout.

The claim from Transport for London (TfL) is that these are to eradicate accidents at gaps between existing, but obsolete spot speed cameras. But the reality is that they are to a) raise revenue and b) victimise drivers who realise that the 40mph speed limit on most of these roads is set far too low for the quality of the roads.

A report to TfL’s finance policy committee, which approved the spending on the trial, said members had “concerns about the public acceptability” of the new cameras.I bet they have.


In France there would be riots, I'm not suggesting that we go down that route but the motorist needs to fight back somehow. Any suggestions?

I favour a drive slow when 20 motorists in each direction on each section on the same day all drive at 4mph preceded by a man with a red flag, for that is what  the anti-car zealots would like us to return to, after all it would reduce traffic accidents for as well know, 'Speed Kills'. Except it doesn't...

This is of course rubbish as I pointed out over seven years ago

"A DfT strategy paper claimed speed was "a major contributory factor in about a third of all road accidents". The "excessive and inappropriate speed" that helped "to kill about 1,200 people" each year was "far more than any other single contributor to casualties on our roads". The source given for this claim, to be repeated as a mantra by ministers and officials for years to come, was a report from the government's Transport Research Laboratory, TRL Report 323: "A new system for recording contributory factors in road accidents". Not many people would have looked at this report, since it was only available for £45. But some who did were amazed. The evidence the report had cited to support its claim that speed was "a major contributory factor in about a third of all road accidents" simply wasn't there. Many other factors were named as contributing to road accidents, from driving without due care and attention to the influence of drink; from poor overtaking to nodding off at the wheel. But the figure given for accidents in which the main causative factor was "excessive speed" was way down the list, at only 7.3 per cent."

Do read the whole of that piece but this extract might also prove interesting:

"The statistics for Durham showed that, of 1,900 collisions each year, only three per cent involved cars that were exceeding the speed limit, just 60 accidents a year. Look more closely at the causes of these 60 accidents, the "actual cause of the accident invariably is drink-driving or drug-driving". Drug-taking was now involved in 40 per cent of Durham's fatal road accidents. Many accidents, he said, were caused by fatigue, although one of the most common causes was the failure of drivers to watch out for oncoming vehicles when turning right. To none of these could speed cameras offer any remedy. "The cause of accidents," Garvin (chief constable of Durham) concluded, "is clearly something different from exceeding the speed limit"."

Also

"In September 2006, the DfT finally conceded one of the central points that Safe Speed's Paul Smith had been arguing for five years: that only five per cent of road accidents were caused by drivers who were breaking the speed limit. In The Daily Telegraph, Smith was quoted as saying "the government's case for continuing to install cameras has been destroyed"."

So the truth is that speed cameras do not make the roads safer, are not needed and are being used to raise revenue - who would have thought it?

Do speed cameras reduce accident numbers?

The Association of British Drivers (ABD) have their doubts and the figures to prove it. This is the first article from July:

'Lancashire has been one of the first counties to publish its speed camera statistics under new government rules and locals are horrified.

The Lancashire Evening Post has found three speed cameras in Preston alone where the number of accidents and casualties has increased since the cameras were installed (countywide analysis may reveal more).

According to the Evening Post those same three cameras raked in £18,000 in fines from motorists in 2010. 1

ABD chairman Brian Gregory commented.

“Not only is it scandalous that cameras where casualties have increased have been kept in operation for many years, it is even more disturbing that the authorities have hidden this data and authorised continued operation whilst being in possession of this knowledge. The government should get a grip and insist that those responsible for such malpractice in all regions are removed from public service with immediate effect.”'

 You might be even more interested in this pdf of a report entitled 'A Review of the Effectiveness of Speed Cameras'. Here's the Preface:

'A careful examination of the RAC Foundation report entitled “The Effectiveness of Speed Cameras”, authored by Professor Richard Allsop, by the Association of British Drivers has identified some questionable methodological procedures, defective analyses and significant omissions. In our view these severely
compromise the validity of its conclusions and recommendations.

The excessive reliance on speed cameras in the UK over the last two decades has affected road safety adversely. A massive diversion of resources towards speed enforcement and away from more cost-effective alternatives has regrettably resulted. This process has primarily been driven - and supported - by
the financial interests of the equipment manufacturers and of the safety camera partnerships, rather than by concerns for improvement in UK road safety.

Speed cameras are far less effective than Prof. Allsop’s paper claims. They are also far less cost effective than other available devices. Resources misdirected on speed camera enforcement would, in our view, have resulted in far greater road casualty reductions - and particularly in the KSI (Killed and Seriously
Injured) figures - had they been employed on alternative road safety measures.

Independent evidence shows that Vehicle Activated Signs are 50 times more cost effective than speed cameras; yet the proponents of speed cameras continue to argue for their use. It is in the public interest to correct any misapprehensions which may have been created by the widely distributed, but
potentially misleading, Allsop paper.

We therefore commissioned the attached report which has been produced by a suitably-qualified ABD member. It has been peer-reviewed by a number of other senior ABD members; and by other, wholly independent researchers with an interest in this topic. We believe that it addresses all the key points.
Despite their complexities, we hope that you will read both studies and so identify for yourself the shortcomings in the Allsop paper. These are sufficient in number to seriously compromise many of its conclusions regarding the effectiveness of speed cameras as a road safety tool.'

Friday morning catch-up (part 2)

Even more Firefox tabs that need closing.

1) The Spectator thinks that David Cameron is heading towards a 'crunch with Europe':

'No contraceptive is 100 per cent effective: not even if it’s called Oliver Letwin. For that degree of assurance, you need the snip. That is to say: an end to Brussels diktats once and for all. Either out of the EU; or inside it, operating under the original 1975 free trade deal alone. That, I suspect, will be the end result. A crunch is coming. The only question is how long we have to wait.'

I wish I shared their hope but I have severe woriies about David Cameron's soundness on this as on many policies.


2) ABC News decided to look at Barack Obama's two year record on Egypt, a fact-checking exercise. There's a lot, here's one part:

'As ably covered by the Washington Post’s Fact Checker – and former State Department reporter – Glenn Kessler, the Obama administration was far more quiet on the need for Egypt to engage in serious political reform, at least publicly, than the Bush administration.

Perhaps more glaringly, while the Bush administration tried to directly fund civil society in Egypt – pro-democracy groups and the like – the Obama administration changed that policy and cut funding significantly, ending an effort to provide direct funding to democracy groups not “approved” by the Egyptian government, and reduced funding in the budget for programs to promote civil society groups.

As Kessler writes: Bush’s final budget “proposed spending $45 million on democracy and good-governance programs in Egypt, including more than $20 million on promoting civil society…But that nascent effort was largely shelved when the Obama administration took office. For fiscal year 2009, the administration immediately halved the money for democracy promotion in Egypt; the civil society funds were slashed 70 percent, to $7 million. Meanwhile, money that was to be given directly to civil society groups was eliminated and the administration agreed to once again fund only those institutions that had Mubarak's seal of approval.”'

3) The Israel Project printed some photos that we in the West are never normally shown - of Israelis injured by rockets fired at them from Gaza. Here's one of' Five-year-old Lior Ben Shimmel who was seriously wounded when a rocket directly hit her neighbor’s home, where she was playing Jan. 16, 2008'

4) The Liberal Media's hate figure, Sarah Palin, Tweeted:

'Media: ask “Will Obama Admin exert as much ‘constructive’ pressure on Iranian govt to change & allow freedom ~ as they just did for Egypt?”'

The BBC and US Media appeared not to notice or ask the perfectly sensible question.


5) Working Class Tory doesn't think that the UK is a shining example of multiculturalism working in the past:

'British history has not been a successful one - if you're looking to find harmonious relations between the countries of the British Isles. We haven't a history of multi-culturalism, we've a history of ethnic and religious war. To pretend otherwise would have very few points of contact with reality. '

He even explains why Enoch Powell felt he had to speak out about immigration, of course quoting enoch Powell immediately removes your right to be listened to (according to the British 'left') but I am not of the left:

'Many, many conservatives oppose multi-culturalism and mass immigration precisely because when you have (or in the case of immigration, import) lots of different, and competing, communities, they will inevitably clash. Enoch Powell was motivated to speak out on immigration because he saw the atrocities that took place during the partition of India and feared something similar could happen in this country. '

6) The centre for Security Policy thinks that Barack Obama keeps bad company:

'President Obama’s trusted circle has been, if anything, even more problematic. For example, Mr. Obama has consorted with people who are revolutionaries, communists, liberation theologians and Islamists. Some have even been appointed “czars” in his administration.

At the moment, though, we must be concerned not only with who Barack Obama considers his friends, but with those who deem him to be one of theirs: The record suggests he must be seen as a “Friend of Shariah.”

How else can we explain the seeming inconsistency between, on the one hand, the president’s indifference to demonstrations in Iran last year that were vastly larger and more sustained than those to date in Egypt, and, on the other, his insistence after a week’s worth of protests in the latter that there be nothing less than complete “regime change,” starting immediately?

The only obvious common denominator is that, in both cases, Mr. Obama is pursuing policies favored by those who adhere to the repressive, supremacist and virulently anti-American Islamic political-military-legal program its adherents call shariah. In Iran, shariah is already the law of the land, ruthlessly enforced by the Shiite theocrats of Tehran. In Egypt, the Mubarak regime’s failure faithfully to enforce shariah is one of the principal impetuses behind the Iranian mullahs’ Sunni wannabe counterparts, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or, in Arabic, Ikhwan).'

7) Someone, and I forget who, has got very excited by a court decision on Council Tax.


8) The Mail reported that

'Axing speed cameras has caused road deaths to FALL

Road deaths dropped 14 per cent in three months while speed cameras were being axed or switched off.

Fatalities over a year fell 21 per cent to a record low, Department for Transport figures show.'

Why is anyone surprised? I have predicted this for a while.


9) Terry Smith thinks that ex-Labour Minister and friend of Gordon Brown, Baroness Shriti Vadera, doesn't really understand what inflation is:

'When the panel was asked about inflation Shriti Vadera replied:

‘If you strip out the inflation that is being driven by essentially emerging markets, the scramble for resources, whether its food, water and commodities, and any other type of one off event like VAT increases, that the underlying inflation levels are not yet at any point that we should be worrying about.’

To which I retorted: 'I find that if you strip out the bad stuff, things are always quite good!'. The idea that there is no inflation if you ignore the things where the price is going up has a rather obvious flaw.'

10) PC World magazine explained

'Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down
Does your government have an Internet kill-switch? Read our guide to Guerrilla Networking and be prepared for when the lines get cut.'

The role of the British police

Three relevant cases have come to my attention in the past few days. The best known is probably that of Michael Thompson who whilst driving his car in Grimsby noticed a mobile speed camera and that many oncoming cars seemed to be speeding. He decided to flash those cars to warn them to slow down. As a result he found himself in court and found guilty of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties.Now this strikes me as rather peculiar. Did any of the drivers flashed by Michael Thompson slow down? If they did then surely the road was safer as a result and thus Michael Thompson was providing a public good. So what offence did Michael Thompson actually commit? I cannot see how Michael Thompson stopped the speed trap from working or interfered with the work of the Police. Was the role of the police officers on that day to measure the speed of passing vehicles and to fine any that were driving faster than the legal speed limit? If so then Michael Thompson did not obstruct their work.If this was not their assigned role, then what was it?


If Michael Thompson was simply warning others to adjust their, then, future behaviour so as to reduce their exposure to criminal liability then how is this wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties? Surely the signs outside every office that Smoking is not permitted within this building is also preventing a crime from being committed, is not a sign in a town centre advertising that CCTV is in operation is also designed to prevent a crime from being committed. Why are some crimes worthy of being prevented but motoring offences must be captured and the drivers prosecuted or fined?

I believe that the Crown Prosecution Service's case explanation included the note that The Highway Code informs drivers to

'Only flash your headlights to let other road users know that you are there. Do not flash your headlights to convey any other message or intimidate other road users.'

It would seem that Michael Thompson clearly breached this part of The Highway Code; however a breach of the Highway Code is not necessarily a criminal offence and that was not what Michael Thompson was charged with.

So why has Michael Thompson now got a criminal record? Is it simply because he encouraged others to stay within the law and upset a police officer by so doing?
Is this what the 21st century British police think their role is?


In another story, The Mail reports that:

'A police officer escorted an expectant mother to hospital just minutes before she gave birth - then slapped her husband with a ticket for speeding.

John Coughlin was handed the penalty for driving 102mph in a 55mph zone as he rushed wife Angela to the delivery room of the Catholic Medical Centre in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The trooper waited outside as the couple’s baby boy Kyle was born, six minutes after their arrival at the hospital, then pounced on the excited new father as he emerged to call relatives.'

That story is from the United States but I wonder if you doubt it could happen in the UK. The cases of jobsworth police issuing tickets to people they know will pay the fine, rather than looking to catch burglars, muggers and vandals are legion.


Finally Kable reports that:

'Millions of people who reported crimes have had their details stored on police databases

The revelation has emerged from information provided in response to a freedom of information request from the Press Association. It shows that police forces in England and Wales have kept data about people who call 999 or non-emergency numbers to report their concerns or pass on information.

The study discovered that West Midlands Police has more than a million records on people who have reported offences over the past 12 years.

Other forces, including Lancashire, Cleveland, Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire, West Mercia and North Wales, hold more than 150,000 each.

The Press Association said that senior officers admitted the information could be used against people as part of any future police investigation. However, they insisted gathering the data was necessary to fight crime, protect the vulnerable and ensure concerns were dealt with properly.'

To the modern British police and their political masters, every member of the public is likely to be guilty of something and so should be watched. The number of crimes on the statute book increases year after year so that the State could choose when to arrest any one of us, after all we are all likely to have infringed one law or other at some time.


Over two years ago I blogged that:

'These transgression taxes are easy to collect if middle-class, law-abiding people are the transgressors and that is why it is them rather than the violent or dangerous that are targeted. A 'street warden' will be more likely to issue a fine to a 50 year-old householder whose bin is overfull because they had a party or who has managed to include a piece of plastic wrapping in the paper recycling bin, than he/she would be to try and fine six youths who are throwing empty beer cans at a bin on the High Street, and missing. The householder is easier to identify, more likely to pay and much less likely to give the "street warden" a good kicking.

If Michael Thompson had heeded my words and stayed cowed rather than protesting when pulled over by the police maybe he would not have been charged, fined and found himself the owner of a criminal record.

Speed Camera information to be made public

Kable are reporting that:

'The Department for Transport is proposing that councils and police will have to publish data about speed cameras.

The data could include accident rates at speed camera sites, vehicle speeds and the numbers of drivers prosecuted or offered training after offences recorded on camera.'

The legislation is scheduled for implementation in April, when we should be able to see how many lives are really saved by speed cameras. I wonder if we will also be able to compare accident rates before and after camera installation?

Sunday catchup (part 2)

1. Guyism report the case of 'Joe Sugarman, a man who was kicked out of his United Airlines plane for asking “Are you serving any meals during our flight?” is beyond absurd.' Here's Joe's story in his own words from his site:

'I get to the airport, boarded my plane and I’m sitting in first class. The flight attendant was right in front of me and was curious if they were going to serve meals onboard. So I asked her, “Are you serving any meals during our flight?”

She looked at me kinda funny and said, “I can’t answer that for security reasons.”

A little puzzled, I wondered how it affected security but I let it pass as she went into the cockpit. About three minutes later, two armed Austin police officers boarded the plane, looked at me and said, “Sugarman, follow us.”'

Apparently 'Sugarman was informed afterwards that the reason he was deboarded as because the flight attendant thought he said “Are there any police on this flight?”' Hmmm seems like a over-reaction form a maybe tetchy air-stewardess to me.


2. The Mail reports the less than shocking news that : 'KGB did bug Profumo and Keeler pillow talk to steal nuclear secrets.'


3. The Telegraph reports the slightly more surprising news that:

'Lynn Barber, the journalist whose teenage relationship was turned into the film An Education, has admitted to sleeping with about 50 men during two terms at Oxford. '

50 in roughly 16 weeks is around 3 a week, pretty good going...


4. The Mail reports the case of

'Three teenagers have been found guilty of subjecting a young woman with learning difficulties to three days of sadistic physical and sexual torture.

Darren Hodgkinson, 18, and girls Chelsea Mills, 16, and Chelsea Williams, 14, bruised their victim so severely that people thought she was black.

Nail varnish and cream were rubbed into the woman's hair, which was then shaved off along with her eyebrows.

She was stripped and sexually humiliated before being imprisoned in a wardrobe, and Hodgkinson burned her hands and face with a lighter.'

Horrific crimes I think you will agree and the punishments handed down by the court? Pathetic - '

ringleader Hodgkinson was jailed at Southampton Crown Court for a minimum of four years. Mills was given a two-year detention and training order, and Williams was given an 18-month detention and training order.'

Why so light, were there extenuating circumstances, did the judge have good reasons? It seems not:

'Judge Peter Ralls said: 'This poor woman may never recover from the psychological damage. You picked on her because she was odd and for no motivation other than to satisfy some depraved wish to cause harm.''

If the crimes were that serious why the short sentences?



5. The Mail reports the possible ending of the tyranny of the speed camera - about bloody time too. But I will wait and see before I get too excited, there are too many lefty councils who love to milk and punish the motorist.

The war on the motorist continues

Two small articles re the war on the motorist caught my eye today.

1) Under the gusie of a positive headline "Speed bumps: the beginning of the end?" The telegraph is really reporting that:

"Councils will be allowed to introduce the (20mph) 'go-slow' zones without also having to install traffic calming measures such as the 'sleeping policeman'. "

You can read more about these 20mph zones here, awful & dangerous idea.

2) I read that:

"Motorists in some regions of Britain are twelve times more likely to be given speeding fines and points on their licence than in other areas, according to new research which highlights a "postcode lottery" of motoring prosecutions. "

Of course the truth is that

"The Government has been accused of "milking'' motorists to raise £88 million a year with little improvement in road safety.
...
Overall, drivers have been fined almost £1 billion for speeding offences in the past decade, and there has been a thirteen-fold increase in the number of tickets issued by some police forces. "

But hidden away is this lovely thought of what is to come:

"Meanwhile, the number of speed cameras across Britain is about to rise. At least six new models, which will take digital pictures and link to a control centre, are set to be approved by the Home Office."

And so motorists will continue to be treated as cash cows regardless of which party is in power.

A new menace on the roads of London

This Is London report a new menace on the roads of London.

It seems that a new generation of "intelligent" speed traps are being introduced as another way of raising money and making London's roads even more hazardous. These new average speed camera systems will be used to track cars over a wide area - such as a housing estate - instead of the old fashioned Gatso type that just flash at one place. Plenty of drivers will no doubt be receiving those £60 fines in the near future (I am not sure if they will also get 3 points).

So where in London is the first site? Mansfield Road, NW3; that's the road that links Camden Town/Haverstock Hill with Highgate Hill/Kentish Town Road. The whole of the 20mph zone on this road will be under the watchful gaze of the placed on hight new blue average speed cameras.

The usual suspects will no doubt say that if you obey the speed limit then you will have nothing to fear but the truth is somewhat at variance with this. From my experience of average speed cameras on stretches of motorway roadworks, drivers do indeed obey the speed limit unfortunately they achieve this by keeping one eye on their speedometer all the time. On a motorway with no traffic coming in the opposite direction, or coming from side-roads or cyclists weaving about or pedestrians crossing the road this is just about safe but on a London urban main road?

Of course nobody has explained why there is a 20mph speed limit on part of Mansfield Road, it's not a fast piece of road just a typical London road. What has happened over the last 15 years or so is that speed limits in London have bee reduced by around 10mph on main roads; the A40 dropped from 60mph to 50mph, the A406 from 50mph to 40mph and almost at the same time the speed cameras were introduced. Now we are to have many many more 20mph zones until 20mph is the standard speed for residential areas.

If this technology trial is successful then the plan is to roll these systems out across London and what a great revenue raiser they will be.


The line that is always used is that "Speed Kills" and that speed is a major factor in road accidents. This is of course rubbish as I pointed out 2 years ago

"A DfT strategy paper claimed speed was "a major contributory factor in about a third of all road accidents". The "excessive and inappropriate speed" that helped "to kill about 1,200 people" each year was "far more than any other single contributor to casualties on our roads". The source given for this claim, to be repeated as a mantra by ministers and officials for years to come, was a report from the government's Transport Research Laboratory, TRL Report 323: "A new system for recording contributory factors in road accidents". Not many people would have looked at this report, since it was only available for £45. But some who did were amazed. The evidence the report had cited to support its claim that speed was "a major contributory factor in about a third of all road accidents" simply wasn't there. Many other factors were named as contributing to road accidents, from driving without due care and attention to the influence of drink; from poor overtaking to nodding off at the wheel. But the figure given for accidents in which the main causative factor was "excessive speed" was way down the list, at only 7.3 per cent."

Do read the whole of that piece but this extract might also prove interesting:

"The statistics for Durham showed that, of 1,900 collisions each year, only three per cent involved cars that were exceeding the speed limit, just 60 accidents a year. Look more closely at the causes of these 60 accidents, the "actual cause of the accident invariably is drink-driving or drug-driving". Drug-taking was now involved in 40 per cent of Durham's fatal road accidents. Many accidents, he said, were caused by fatigue, although one of the most common causes was the failure of drivers to watch out for oncoming vehicles when turning right. To none of these could speed cameras offer any remedy. "The cause of accidents," Garvin (chief constable of Durham) concluded, "is clearly something different from exceeding the speed limit"."

Also

"In September 2006, the DfT finally conceded one of the central points that Safe Speed's Paul Smith had been arguing for five years: that only five per cent of road accidents were caused by drivers who were breaking the speed limit. In The Daily Telegraph, Smith was quoted as saying "the government's case for continuing to install cameras has been destroyed"."

So the truth is that speed cameras do not make the roads safer, are not needed and are being used to raise revenue - who would have thought it?

Spying on us everywhere (part 1)

I see that we can at least be told where Oxford's ANPR cameras are. There cameras are initially there to provide the data to calculate local journey times however I wonder how long it will be before mission-creep means that the same data will be used to issue speeding tickets.

What's the speed limit (update 2)

Back in October I blogged about the average speed camera enforced speed limit on the A40 between Gypsy Corner and Savoy Circus. In February I blogged again and again commented that:

"I note this weekend that the speed limit is still being advertised over the 400 or so yards of the average speed check as both 20mph and 30mph. A mixture of signs means that some motorists are sticking to 30mph, some to 20mph and some to somewhere in-between, with obvious resulting problems.

Is it too much to ask for some sense in the signing of speed limits, or is this another way of deliberately raising money through driver confusion? Either way the current situation is dangerous as drivers drive through the roadworks with one eye on their speedometer."

Today I took a look at London Safety Camera Partnership (sic) website and read this:

"A40 Acton
SPECS cameras are enforcing a limit of 30 mph on the A40 Western Avenue as works are carried out to replace railway bridges. Cameras are enforcing in both directions between Braid Avenue and Wales Farm Road. Enforcement at this location is scheduled to last until approximately January 2009. "

So can I safely assume the speed limit is 30mph on this stretch or is that figure as reliably stated as the scheduled speed enforcement deadline?

The Telegraph reports that:

"Ministers are drawing up plans to cut the speed limit on single-carriageway roads in the countryside from 60mph to 50mph. "

This Labour government and its fellow travellers in the enviromentalist sector as well as the health and safety Nazis have done their best to make driving as unpleasant, uncomfortable and expensive as possible. Drivers are corralled into less and less of the road, monitored by CCTV, GATOSs, average speed cameras, speed traps, ANPRS etc. etc. etc. and fined for the smallest infractions of the law with no defence allowed.

What's the speed limit? (update)

Back in October I blogged about the ridiculous speed controls on the A40 between Gypsy Corner and Savoy Circus. I note this weekend that the speed limit is still being advertised over the 400 or so yards of the average speed check as both 20mph and 30mph. A mixture of signs means that some motorists are sticking to 30mph, some to 20mph and some to somewhere in-between, with obvious resulting problems.

Is it too much to ask for some sense in the signing of speed limits, or is this another way of deliberately raising money through driver confusion? Either way the current situation is dangerous as drivers drive through the roadworks with one eye on their speedometer.

More State control

What a surprise, the Commission for Integrated Transport and the Motorists' Forum, which both advise the government, are calling on ministers to promote a wide introduction of a system whereby speed-limiting devices should be fitted to cars on a voluntary basis to help save lives and cut carbon emissions. The device would automatically slow a car down to within the limit for the road on which it is being driven.

Don't let yourselves be fooled, this is not about cutting road accidents, injuries in road accidents or even the Holy Grail of reducing climate change, this is about controlling the public.

What's the speed limit?

It is one thing setting up an average speed limit over the length of some long-term roadworks and policing this speed limit with average speed cameras, it is quite another to not clearly state what the speed limit is.

Take a trip through the roadworks on the A40 leaving London at Gypsy Corner where the new road bridges over the railway has been being built for some time now and will be for quite a while to come. Currently the speed limit is advertised over the 400 or so yards of the average speed check as both 20mph and 30mph. A mixture of signs means that some motorists are sticking to 30mph and some to 20mph with obvious problems resulting.

Is it too much to ask for some sense in the signing of speed limits, or is this another way of deliberately raising money through driver confusion? Either way the current situation is dangerous as drivers drive through the roadworks with one eye on their speedometer.

15mph speed limit for eco-towns

Is anyone surprised by this news?

Speed cameras - The lies revealed

I have blogged about the lies told about speed cameras by this government and its associated "policy think tanks" but yesterday's Daily Telegraph had a very interesting article that brings a lot of the FACTS together. Please take a read of the whole of this article it is worth it. Here are some key quotes:
"A DfT strategy paper claimed speed was "a major contributory factor in about a third of all road accidents". The "excessive and inappropriate speed" that helped "to kill about 1,200 people" each year was "far more than any other single contributor to casualties on our roads". The source given for this claim, to be repeated as a mantra by ministers and officials for years to come, was a report from the government's Transport Research Laboratory, TRL Report 323: "A new system for recording contributory factors in road accidents". Not many people would have looked at this report, since it was only available for £45. But some who did were amazed. The evidence the report had cited to support its claim that speed was "a major contributory factor in about a third of all road accidents" simply wasn't there. Many other factors were named as contributing to road accidents, from driving without due care and attention to the influence of drink; from poor overtaking to nodding off at the wheel. But the figure given for accidents in which the main causative factor was "excessive speed" was way down the list, at only 7.3 per cent."

"TRL's own report. Not only did it cite excessive speed as the "definite"' cause in only 4.5 per cent of accidents, but it found that speed was a "probable" or "possible contributory factor" in only 8.2 per cent more. Not only was the government thus bending the truth; it had brought pressure on the TRL to give a wholly misleading picture of its own findings. The more the government's case was examined, the more statistically dubious it became. So determined was it to claim that speed was the chief cause of accidents, it would stop at nothing in misrepresenting the evidence."

"Even more simplistically, the government also seemed to be defining "excessive speed" much too narrowly, only in terms of exceeding a speed limit. In fact its own figures showed that only 30 per cent of accidents attributed to "excessive speed" actually involved breaking a speed limit. The vast majority, 70 per cent, involved vehicles travelling within the limit."

"In 2003, to justify its "safety camera" policy, the government produced a report purporting to show that, where cameras had been installed, the accident rate had been reduced by "35 per cent". But again it was manipulating the figures. Several significant confounding factors had been left out of the calculations; not least the fact that, on many sites, cameras had been installed following an atypical blip in the accident rate. When the rate had fallen back to its previous average level (regression to the mean) this allowed the government to ascribe the reduction to a camera. So great now was the pressure on ministers, officials and the police to keep on repeating the two key official mantras - "a third of accidents are caused by speed" and "speed cameras reduce accidents by 35 per cent" - that few were prepared to challenge them. One exception was Paul Garvin, chief constable of Durham, who refused to install speed cameras, In an interview, Garvin explained why. He insisted that, while he believed strongly in "casualty reduction and trying to make the roads safer", he could not agree that curbing speed was the central answer. The statistics for Durham showed that, of 1,900 collisions each year, only three per cent involved cars that were exceeding the speed limit, just 60 accidents a year. Look more closely at the causes of these 60 accidents, the "actual cause of the accident invariably is drink-driving or drug-driving". Drug-taking was now involved in 40 per cent of Durham's fatal road accidents. Many accidents, he said, were caused by fatigue, although one of the most common causes was the failure of drivers to watch out for oncoming vehicles when turning right. To none of these could speed cameras offer any remedy. "The cause of accidents," Garvin concluded, "is clearly something different from exceeding the speed limit"."

The TRL had found that, where fixed cameras were installed at road works, the risk of accidents giving rise to injury was increased by 55 per cent. Where fixed cameras were installed on open motorways the risk was increased by 31 per cent. In general, fatal and serious crashes were 32 per cent more likely where cameras were being operated. But conventional police patrols reduced the risk of crashes by 27 per cent at road works, and 10 per cent elsewhere. The report bore out precisely the case Smith had been making. But the DfT had ruled that it was not to be published. If a copy had not been passed to Smith, to be reported on the Safe Speed website, it might never have seen the light of day."

"In the summer of 2006, the DfT itself published a paper noting the curious discrepancy between the road-accident figures as reported by the police and those shown by the records of NHS hospitals. While the police were claiming that the yearly number of people killed or seriously injured had dropped since the mid-1990s by 33 per cent, the hospitals gave a very different picture. According to the police, the total number of emergency hospital admissions following traffic accidents in 1994/95 was 38,641, which by 2002/03 had dropped to 31,010. According to the NHS, however, the respective figures were 32,285 and 36,611."

"In September 2006, the DfT finally conceded one of the central points that Safe Speed's Paul Smith had been arguing for five years: that only five per cent of road accidents were caused by drivers who were breaking the speed limit. In The Daily Telegraph, Smith was quoted as saying "the government's case for continuing to install cameras has been destroyed"."

The most serious crime in the UK today

No, it's not smoking although that comes a close second. The most serious crime is of course speeding. Almost any other "crime" will involve a team of social workers and/or psychologists explaining to the Court how the accused was abused as a child, comes from a broken home, has self-esteem issues, is dreadfully sorry and won't do it again; however if you speed you are guilty as charged and will be fined and given penalty points even if this means you might lose your job. Here are the current penalties for speeding and quite severe they are too. You should be aware that a drive down a dual carriageway road with a metal fence and barriers down the middle at a steady 46 miles an hour (less than the speed limit 10 years ago) on a pretty empty road early in the morning could result in you passing a speed camera every mile or so and so losing your licence in 15 minutes.

The "speed kills" mantra is simplistic and wrong, but it is catchy and fits well with the anti-car views of many of our elected and un-elected "superiors".

Today I read that this delightful government is thinking of increasing the penalty for the worst offenders so they would get six points on their driving licence for each offence. So what are the levels of speeding that are deemed so serious? Apparently those driving at 45mph or above in a 30mph limit could receive a fixed penalty of six points and a £100 fine as could those exceeding 31mph in a 20mph zone.

Beware the last "crime" as I blogged only last month that the Department of Transport is looking to introduce 20mph zones in all urban areas as soon as practicable and Ken Livingstone has plans to introduce this across London next year.

Speed Cameras

Back in 2002 the Government, amid great publicity, issued guidance that required all fixed speed cameras in safety camera partnership areas to be painted yellow and sited conspicuously, this was to try and pretend that the cameras weren't there to trap motorists but to prevent speeding. However it now appears that the Government have changed this legislation recently, with no discernible publicity, and now the partnerships can disguise them and even hide them. What a lovely bunch of duplicitous bastards rule us.

20mph

The speed limit in urban areas is set to be reduced from 30mph to 20mph, the Department of Transport have decreed that this would be a good thing. The car hating Ken Livingstone plans to introduce this to London next year and of course it will need enforcing by more speed cameras. Take a read of Christopher Booker for the fact that reducing the speed increases accidents.