Speed Limit Sign Errors

Seth Brundle

Read in a local paper how many people were being unfairly given penalty points 7 associated fines for speeding on the Lucan bypass. However, these people were driving within the limits stated on the displayed 50mph signs which, according to the article that quotes SDCC, are incorrect and should not be there as the limit is actually 40mph. Furthermore, the gardai are apparently "rigorously enforcing" the 40mph limit.
Apparently the 40 mph limit should continue all the way until the M4 starts near Leixlip. The signs, as the image below shows, display 50mph for 5 or 6 km. There are at least two 50mph signs on either side of the carriageway also.

This is a stretch of road that Seamus Brennan has said has crazy speed limits, but the council and the plod state that these limits are necessary as there have been a number of fatalities there over the last number of years (the only one I can recall is one caused by the gardai which was mysteriously kept quiet in the media!).
Has anyone here recieved points for driving between 40 & 50 here?

Sleipnir

that's nuts. There are two 50mph sign under the bridge just after the Foxhunter.
How can they enforce a 40 mph limit when the signs tell you it's 50.

This bloody country....

BrianD3

That's absolutely unbelievable. However it's possible that the newspaper has made a mistake with the story or not researched it properly.

If it is true then the whole system is a laughing stock. I know that if I was done for doing 45 mph on a road where the posted limit was 50 mph I would fight it tooth and nail in court and would almost certainly win.

BrianD3

Seth Brundle

The article did have an error in it (IIRC it stated that it was 60mph from the M50 to the foxhunter which is in fact 40mph) but it also said how many motorists were caught speeding (exceeding 40mph) despite thinking that they were within the stated limit (50mph).
FWIW (little!) it was a front page article.

Pataman

Would people please stop using abreviations. What the hell does IIRC and FWIW mean. There are lots of keys on the keyboard please use them.

Seth Brundle

IIRC = If I Remember Correctly
FWIW = For What Its Worth

BrianD3

Would people please stop using abreviations. What the hell does IIRC and FWIW mean. There are lots of keys on the keyboard please use them.

Can we get back on topic please and STFU moaning about abbreviations.....

BrianD3

Tommy Vercetti

Sounds like some poorly researched hype tbh..sorry...to be honest. I drive along there almost every day and it certainly isn't being rigorously enforced by the Gardai, although they are making a bigger effort than the plod on the M1 who pull over into the lay-bys to read the paper. I guarantee you that if you see a Garda car stopped there, the occupant will either be sleeping or reading the paper.

aodh_rua

Tommy Vercetti wrote:

Sounds like some poorly researched hype tbh..sorry...to be honest. I drive along there almost every day and it certainly isn't being rigorously enforced by the Gardai, although they are making a bigger effort than the plod on the M1 who pull over into the lay-bys to read the paper. I guarantee you that if you see a Garda car stopped there, the occupant will either be sleeping or reading the paper.

Two motor cycle cops were out under one of the bridges zapping inbound cars on the Lucan bypass the saturday before last. I was doing bang on 50 within what the signs said was the 50 zone. Hope I don't hear anything but if I do I'll not take it lying down.

Seth Brundle

They go through stints of doing checks. The places I referred to above are the usual spots. Some weeks they aren't there, other times they are there every day for a week. Last Halloween IIRC (sorry Pataman!) there was a van parked at woodies every morning for a week catching people on their way into work - in rush hour traffic! FFS, if I could reach the limit I'd be happy, never mind exceed it!

Pataman

BrianD3 wrote:

Can we get back on topic please and STFU moaning about abbreviations.....

BrianD3

If I dont know what something means I ask!

highdef

Although slightly off-topic but one the same lines. I normally use the coast road or the Howth Road when driving to the gym in Clontarf. However, in the evening and on Sundays, I have started using the Malahide Road, joining it at the N32 junction. The point I want to make is that there is 40 mph limit sign when you join the Malahide Rd here. I think there are another couple at the Darndale roundabout and again at the Tonlegee Jctn but I'm not positive on this.
However, as you approach the Artane roundabout there is actually a 30mph sign on the left side of the road before the pedestrian traffic lights. This is well hidden and if you are in the bus lane (as I always am when using this road; remember I only use it Sundays and evenings), it is virtually impossible to see unless you are actually looking for it. There is no sign on the other side of the road. I have been using this route for about a month now and only spotted the sign about a week ago. This means that I have been happily trundling down this road all the way to the gym at around 40mph. Well usually a little under as in my opinion 40mph appeared to be a bit too fast for some stretches especially around the Donnycarney Church area.
I have actually driven all the way into work in Inchicore on this road the past 2 Sundays. Following this invisible sign, the next 30mph sign I have come across (after driving down the quays) is a pair of 30mph signs at St John's Road West opposite Heuston Station.
Number 1, by law, does there have to be two speed limit signs present on the road (ie: 1 on each side of the road) for the limit to be law? There is only 1 sign on the Malahide Rd and this is virtually covered by a tree anyway.
Number 2, if a guard stopped me, say on Amiens street for driving @ 38mph, would I have a case in saying that the last speed limit sign I had seen was a 40mph sign at the Malahide/Tonlegee/Oscar Traynor Roads? There are absolutely no 30mph signs all the way from Artane and right through the city to Hueston. Sorry for the ramble. Oh, and I have slowed back down to around about 30mph on the Malahide Rd now. I just want to know if I had been stopped whilst I was unaware of the limit, could I've got out of a fine/points?

highdef

Forgot to say that I drive from Baldoyle.

jayok

Could you have gotten points? Well don't know about the points, but apparently all drivers are "obliged" to know the speed limit of an area even if it's not posted!! I know this sounds mad, but I got stopped by a cop in a similar situation and explained to him there's been no (at the time) 40 mph sign around, I was doing 48.

He said "You are obliged as a driver to know" !!!!! :eek:

Either way he just told me to slow down and off I went.

Don't know if this obligation holds water in law though.

Seth Brundle

as jayok says, you are supposed to know the limit of the road you are on.
On a similar note, the limits from the N4 to Leixlip village was recently changed. Now they are all 30mph but before the council got the finger out, there were 3 different limits at the same time - from Leixlip to N4 was 60mph, from Celbridge it was 30mph and from the N4/M4 it was 50mph!
Only in this poxy country!

highdef

Well unfortunately I can't be aware of the speed limits of every road in the country as I am not psychic. I can only guess what i feel the speed limit should be. If we are already to know what the limits, why waste money putting up signs???? That already knowing the speed limit thing is bullsh*it! That would never stand up in court.

mudflapgirl

Heh, same kinda thing on a back road from Firhouse accross Old Bawn (Tallaght) to Bohernabreena to Britas. The speed limit was posted at 40mph after the road was reopened - dropped to 30mph when they put in a ped crossing - fair enough.
At Old Bawn it gets hazy: It used to go to 40mph and then 60mph around where Bohernabreena Pitch and Putt is. About 2 months ago it got changed so it goes 40mph to 30mph (instead of the 60mph) - which didn't make sense to me dropping it so much, 50 or 40 even would be better - toddle along at 30 for ages no signs so naturally you kinda speed up a bit - then you spot them, the tiny little 30mph signs along every 1/2mile or so - most of them obscured with trees or whatnot - all the way to Britas. It's a faily open road for more than half of it so the 30mph makes no sense anyway.

What's the deal with the tiny signs now? - much smaller than usual - it is cause you're supposed to know the speed limits now? If you pulled out of one of the side roads (all 60mph I might add) you might not know the speed limit is 30 for a 1/2 mile or so, what is your defense if you get stopped before you see a 30mph sign? - quite possible really.

Also different speed limits on different sides of a dual carriageway? Tallaght by-pass (N81) has 40mph for ages then a 50mph then back to a 40mph and so on into town. Going out there's a 40mph at the M50 then a 50mph - then nothing for ages - most people slow to about 40mph others don't - then a 40mph before going into a 60mph around Citywest.
And as for the Naas Rd coming/going from Newland's Cross, Ha, just another joke in this country.

Sorry, just rambling really.

Alun

Coming over Windgates Hill from Greystones to Bray, the limit is 40 until you get just over the brow of the hill when it changes to 60 (signposted). Of course, nobody ever even speeds up at all and just ambles along at 40 still, but I digress. Once upon a time there used to be a 40 sign just before the roundabout at the bottom of the hill with the Souther Cross Road, but it got knocked over by some eejit along with a section of stone wall and never replaced. This was about 2 years ago or more.

Coming in the opposite direction from Bray there's no sign either after the roundabout, until you meet the corresponding 40 sign just before the brow of Windgates Hill, so, of course, everyone ambles up the hill at 40 totally unaware of the fact that the real limit is 60.

highdef

Mudflapgirl. I have to agree with you about the tiny speed limit signs. What the feck is the story with them? You are more likely to have an accident as you squint and stare at these signs trying to make out what they say. There are flippin' miniscule.

mudflapgirl

ntl Technical wrote:

Mudflapgirl. I have to agree with you about the tiny speed limit signs. What the feck is the story with them? You are more likely to have an accident as you squint and stare at these signs trying to make out what they say. There are flippin' miniscule.

Really. I feel I should glasses just to see them sometimes - it's worse if the hedges or trees are over-grown - all you know is it's there but you've no idea what it says.

Blitzkrieger

Wouldn't it be great if we could just trust people to drive at a sensible speed? It'd never happen though. People have an varying levels of risk that they find acceptable, so some will always drive too fast. People with big **** off urban assault vehicles (aka twat in a 4x4) will drive faster than most because they feel safe, even though they have greater stopping distance and would do more damage in an accident. I could rant all day about places where speed limits are too low and places where it would be crazy to drive at the speed limit. The bottom line is, the safety Nazis are going to win out every time, until we're all drving around at 5mph.

Studies by every police force in the world have shown that speed is not the main cause of accidents, or even a major one. A figure in a recent British study stated it was a contributory factor in less than 13% of accidents. Most accidents are caused by inattention and general poor driving, but the goverment sees speed as a quick fix. It's something they can go out and measure, report back on, claim success and look great.

Twit of a minister : We had a thousand million speeding convictions in the last year. I'm great. I think ye should all vote for me again.
Press : But accidents and road deaths didn't actually go down, did they?
Twit of a minister : I know - I'll announce a bigger crackdown on speeding while completly ignoring the real issues. I'll look like I'm really trying hard then.

Ditto with drink driving. Every now and again they announce a crack down and report a higher number of convictions. Fair play, but it never seems to make any difference to the amount of road deaths or the amount of people actually drink driving. The street outside my house is still lined with cars at 11pm at night when the pubs are packed, and empty at 7am when I leave for work.

The goverment don't want to solve the problem because that's too much like work. They just want to villify someone or something (preferably something easy), announce a crackdown on it and try to reap a few votes.

CelicaIE

There’s only two thing to remember with speed signs.

1. The only obligation RE knowing the speed limit of a particular road is to pay attention to any and all road signs.
2. If there is no speed limit sign visible you may drive up to the national speed limit (60) except in built up areas.

Drink driving??? Should there be a zero tolerance policy. IE one pint puts you over the limit? I believe that’s the way it should be but as a nation of drinkers it's not likely to happen.

silverside

Blitzkrieger, your attitude annoys me.

Were the roads not vastly safer immediately after penalty points were introduced?
If everyone stuck to the speed limit all the time, do you not think that road deaths and injuries would be dramatically lower?

You are right, trusting people to drive at a safe speed will never work. Personally I would feel a lot safer and happier if there were speed cameras everywhere. It wont eliminate the idiots but at least it will mean they won't be moving as fast if they hit me.

There are other real issues, but speed, reckless driving and drink account for a huge proportion of accidents. The other issues (bad roads, tiredness, and stupidity) are harder to crack down on.

Sorry if this is turning the thread into a Pro/Anti speed limit thread but I had to reply.

Alun

silverside wrote:

Were the roads not vastly safer immediately after penalty points were introduced?

Take a good long hard look at http://tinyurl.com/5gvu6 and see if you can spot any significant trend, upwards, downwards or even sideways in those figures over the last 5 1/2 years, let alone since penalty points were introduced.

Our man in Havana

In response to NTL man, there must be a sign on both sides of the road where a limit starts or changes. One sign on its own is unenforceable.

John R

there must be a sign on both sides of the road where a limit starts or changes. One sign on its own is unenforceable.

Would it be too much to ask for people to provide some source or verification of these "facts", in one thread there are at least three different "facts" stated about when and why limits are valid?
If it is an opinion say that. If it is a fact give a reference.
I am pretty sure "some bloke on an internet message board told me so" is not a great response to the Guard that has just pulled me over for speeding and is threatening to take away my licence.

silverside

Alun:
I can indeed spot a short-term benefit of penalty points.

From the page you quoted
Deaths Nov 2002-Feb 2003 (just after penalty points were introduced): 85
Same period 1 year earlier: 145
Same period 2 years earlier: 136

A dramatic reduction that agrees with my experience on the roads those first few months.

Also from Department of Transport - http://www.business2000.ie/cases/cases_7th/case11.htm
"A study at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, where the National Spinal Injuries Unit is based, found the numbers admitted with spinal injuries halved in the first six months after the introduction of the system for speeding offences. Between November 2002 and April 2003 there were 17 road traffic-related admissions to the unit compared to 34 over the same period a year earlier."

The figures have crept back up as people have realised the Gardai are not putting so much effort into enforcement now as at first.

Alun

Silverside,

If you look at the big picture though you will see that there have been huge variations, both up and down, when comparing corresponding periods over several years. Ok, there was a glitch in Jan and Feb 2003, where the figures were much lower than other years, but take a look, for example at the month of May. 2001 - 40, 2002 - 20, 2003 - 38, 2004 - 27, up and down like a yoyo.

In other words, the drop in fatal accidents over the period you quoted cannot be attributed solely to Penalty Points. Also, note that the figures quote fatalaties, not accidents, so they are dependant also on a totally random factor, i.e. the number of people in the vehicle(s) at the time.

silverside

You might argue it was just a blip. I would strongly disagree.

I think that 4 month period is enough to even out any blips.
(I am a trained mathematician so could give chapter&verse on this, but the strongest argument is anecdotal. Do you remember doing any long journeys just after penalty points were introduced? I do, and there was definitely less speeding and less reckless overtaking).

Alun

silverside wrote:

You might argue it was just a blip. I would strongly disagree.

I think that 4 month period is enough to even out any blips.
(I am a trained mathematician so could give chapter&verse on this, but the strongest argument is anecdotal. Do you remember doing any long journeys just after penalty points were introduced? I do, and there was definitely less speeding and less reckless overtaking).

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then. I can't remember noticing any real reduction in speeds except for the kind of people who slow down to below the speed limit to overtake Gardai on the motorways were slowing down even more than before rather than actually looking at their speedo's to see how fast they were going.

BTW, I'm not sure what exactly constitutes a "trained mathematician", but I studied probability and statistics at University too, so fire away, I'm all ears

Bri

Alun wrote:

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then. I can't remember noticing any real reduction in speeds except for the kind of people who slow down to below the speed limit to overtake Gardai on the motorways were slowing down even more than before rather than actually looking at their speedo's to see how fast they were going.

I disagree. I noticed immeadiatley when points came in and I do alot of driving in and outside of Dublin. Huge amount of change in how people drive. Less impatience at those doing the speed limit - i.e. it clicks with people and then don't start beeping as much. Of course I'm sure this is just my experience and plenty will disagree but I feel it needs to be noted. Found it MUCH easier myself to slow down cos loads, especially on the big roads that beg to be driven faster - just because the majority of traffic seemed to be trying harder too. Mightn'd be shown in stats but there ya go.

Blitzkrieger

silverside wrote:

Were the roads not vastly safer immediately after penalty points were introduced?

Vastly safer is an overstatement. Accidents went down but have since gone up again.

silverside wrote:

If everyone stuck to the speed limit all the time, do you not think that road deaths and injuries would be dramatically lower?

No.

silverside wrote:

There are other real issues, but speed, <snip> and drink account for a huge proportion of accidents.

And no. Ask any police force in the world and the official line is that speed and drink driving cause very little accidents. The <snip> is where you mentioned reckless driving. Like, well duh

silverside wrote:

The other issues (bad roads, tiredness, and stupidity) are harder to crack down on.

But this is where the real gains in road safety would be made. It's hard, so the goverment won't do it. What's more dangerous - a guy doing 70mph in a 60mph zone on a quarter mile straight stretch of dual carraigeway, or some sleepy muppet in a huge blue van trying to hurry to work cutting corners? Guess which guy I was this morning and guess which guy almost hit me. You always see gardai doing speed checks on that straight but do you think they would have bothered to stop your man for dangerous driving even if they saw him?

[aside]I think we all did statistics and probability[/aside]

unkel

Blitzkrieger wrote:

What's more dangerous - a guy doing 70mph in a 60mph zone on a quarter mile straight stretch of dual carraigeway, or some sleepy muppet in a huge blue van trying to hurry to work cutting corners?

Agree with you there, Blitzkrieger. Speed checks should only be carried out with improving safety in mind and never with collecting cash / distributing penalty points as the main motivator

silverside wrote:

I am a trained mathematician so could give chapter&verse on this

Alun wrote:

I'm not sure what exactly constitutes a "trained mathematician", but I studied probability and statistics at University too, so fire away, I'm all ears

Let's have it on then

Seriously, I'd be very interested to see some views on this. When quoting data, please provide source (link if possible)

silverside

Ok, briefly:
assuming road deaths follow a Poisson distribution (happen as one-offs, road death in Dublin doesn't affect the chance of a road death in Donegal). Now assume the 'normal level' of road deaths per month is given by X. Then the standard deviation of the number of deaths per month is given by root X. Similarly if we look at a longer period such as a year, or shorter like a day.

My hypothesis is that the introduction of penalty points caused a shift in peoples behaviour so that the level of road deaths in the 4 months following was significantly lower than it would otherwise have been. Alun's position is that there is no discernible difference (forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth).

I will consider a six-month period (4 months would show an even stronger effect), i.e. November through April, for each of the 5 winters where we have data (from http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=1854719#post1854719 - Garda data).

The death counts are
192 189 211 141(*) 175
with a mean of 182. This would give a standard deviation of 13.

We see that the 2002-2003 period is 3 standard deviations below the mean. Using a one-sided T test with 4 degrees of freedom, this gives a P-value of <0.05. This means that, in less than 5% of random fluctuations from the mean, would there be a value this low.

One can never rule out chance, but I think a better explanation is that people drove more carefully for those months. I don't think I can be accused of picking figures to suit my argument. I'd like to hear your reply.

Seth Brundle

silverside wrote:

Ok, briefly:
assuming road deaths follow a Poisson distribution (happen as one-offs, road death in Dublin doesn't affect the chance of a road death in Donegal). Now assume the 'normal level' of road deaths per month is given by X. Then the standard deviation of the number of deaths per month is given by root X. Similarly if we look at a longer period such as a year, or shorter like a day.

My hypothesis is that the introduction of penalty points caused a shift in peoples behaviour so that the level of road deaths in the 4 months following was significantly lower than it would otherwise have been. Alun's position is that there is no discernible difference (forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth).

I will consider a six-month period (4 months would show an even stronger effect), i.e. November through April, for each of the 5 winters where we have data (from http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=1854719#post1854719 - Garda data).

The death counts are
192 189 211 141(*) 175
with a mean of 182. This would give a standard deviation of 13.

We see that the 2002-2003 period is 3 standard deviations below the mean. Using a one-sided T test with 4 degrees of freedom, this gives a P-value of <0.05. This means that, in less than 5% of random fluctuations from the mean, would there be a value this low.

One can never rule out chance, but I think a better explanation is that people drove more carefully for those months. I don't think I can be accused of picking figures to suit my argument. I'd like to hear your reply.

zzzzzzzzzzz

silverside

kbannon wrote:

zzzzzzzzzzz

I know, but unkel and alun asked me to.

Seth Brundle

...and if they asked you to jump off a cliff...

silverside

I don't usually walk away from arguments. It has got me into trouble in the past.

I should have known better than to hop onto the motors board though

Blitzkrieger

We're not disputing that it made a difference with you, Silverside It's how much of a difference can be attributed to the penalty points and it's long term effects that we doubt.

BrianD3

I drove along that stretch of road today and counted eight 50 mph signs on the inbound carriageway between the end of the M4 motorway and Woodies DIY. There's a similar number of signs on the outbound carriageway. So it's crystal clear. The limit is 50 mph. A 40 mph limit is unenforcable on this stretch. Nobody will have gotten penalty points for doing <50 mph on this stretch. The Gardai are not "rigorously enforcng" a 40 mph limit.

Basically the newspaper that kbannon mentioned has f*cked up with the story and someone should receive a good bollocking for this scaremongering. You'd think the incompetent ****wits would reserach their story before splashing it all over their front page :mad:

BrianD3

Alun

silverside wrote:

Ok, briefly:
assuming road deaths follow a Poisson distribution (happen as one-offs, road death in Dublin doesn't affect the chance of a road death in Donegal). Now assume the 'normal level' of road deaths per month is given by X. Then the standard deviation of the number of deaths per month is given by root X. Similarly if we look at a longer period such as a year, or shorter like a day.

My hypothesis is that the introduction of penalty points caused a shift in peoples behaviour so that the level of road deaths in the 4 months following was significantly lower than it would otherwise have been. Alun's position is that there is no discernible difference (forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth).

I will consider a six-month period (4 months would show an even stronger effect), i.e. November through April, for each of the 5 winters where we have data (from http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=1854719#post1854719 - Garda data).

The death counts are
192 189 211 141(*) 175
with a mean of 182. This would give a standard deviation of 13.

We see that the 2002-2003 period is 3 standard deviations below the mean. Using a one-sided T test with 4 degrees of freedom, this gives a P-value of <0.05. This means that, in less than 5% of random fluctuations from the mean, would there be a value this low.

One can never rule out chance, but I think a better explanation is that people drove more carefully for those months. I don't think I can be accused of picking figures to suit my argument. I'd like to hear your reply.

Repeat after me :

Demonstrating correlation does not prove causality.

Alun

Blitzkrieger wrote:

We're not disputing that it made a difference with you, Silverside It's how much of a difference can be attributed to the penalty points and it's long term effects that we doubt.

Exactly my point. You can demonstrate all you like that there was a significant drop in accident (or more accurately, fatality) figures during that period, but he failed to demonstrate any causality between the introduction of penalty points and that decrease. In fact, short of performing a series of controlled experiments, there is no way of proving causality ... any volunteers?

Seth Brundle

BrianD3 wrote:

I drove along that stretch of road today and counted eight 50 mph signs on the inbound carriageway between the end of the M4 motorway and Woodies DIY. There's a similar number of signs on the outbound carriageway. So it's crystal clear. The limit is 50 mph. A 40 mph limit is unenforcable on this stretch. Nobody will have gotten penalty points for doing <50 mph on this stretch. The Gardai are not "rigorously enforcng" a 40 mph limit.

Basically the newspaper that kbannon mentioned has f*cked up with the story and someone should receive a good bollocking for this scaremongering. You'd think the incompetent ****wits would reserach their story before splashing it all over their front page :mad:

BrianD3

From the Lucan Gazette (no online presence) 14/8/2004

"rigorously enforced by the Gardai as a 40mph zone"
"The speed camera at the location [opposite Spa Hotel] is the biggest revenue earner of all the speed cameras in Ireland, according to Lucan Gardai"
"SDCC stressed this week that the correct speed limit for the Ballydowd junction [Woodies] to the Spa Hotel is 40mph."
Now the paper maybe telling large porkies but I have my doubts so I rang the gardai in Lucan who said that they think(!) it is 50mph - article seems to be incorrect
K.

silverside

We could look at what happened in other countries when enforcement was stepped up. We could look at the state of Victoria, Australia, which reduced accident rates significantly by stepping up enforcement. We could look at Durham county, UK, which has higher accident rates than surrounding counties, in part due to it not having any speed cameras. Short of doing repeated experiments I don't think you will be satisfied. Alun, are you still arguing that the reduction in deaths after penalty points was introduced was a 'blip'?

Seth Brundle

was enforcement of road traffic offences actually stepped up (and maintained at at least that level) after the introduction of penalty points?
It is possible that the reduction in accident rates was purely down to the fear that you may be caught but people slowly realised that they are unlikely to be caught so offences returned to pre-points levels

silverside

I think that is what happened. The gardai made a show of enforcement, and I did notice a lot of speed checks the first few months, but I think people and the Gardai have gone back to their old ways.

I think bringing in a dedicated traffic corps would do wonders, along with a lot of speed cameras, but that is another argument.

Alun

silverside wrote:

We could look at Durham county, UK, which has higher accident rates than surrounding counties, in part due to it not having any speed cameras.

Wherer did you get that gem of (mis)-information from?! A look at any speed camera database for the UK will reveal that there are indeed speed cameras, both stationary and mobile, in Co. Durham. And in any case, there could be many more factors that could influence these figures, such as road densities, types of roads (Motorways vs. single lane roads etc. ). There is no reason on earth why every county in the UK should have identical accident figures, speed cameras or not.

Alun

kbannon wrote:

was enforcement of road traffic offences actually stepped up (and maintained at at least that level) after the introduction of penalty points?
It is possible that the reduction in accident rates was purely down to the fear that you may be caught but people slowly realised that they are unlikely to be caught so offences returned to pre-points levels

I agree. Although I didn't notice people driving any more safely after the introduction of penalty points, I did notice an increased level of "nervousness" if they even caught sight of a Garda car in the distance, or stopped by the roadside dealing with another car. By this I mean cars in the outside line of a dual carriage way or motorway, who previous to spotting the Garda were cruising along quite legally at 60 or 70 mph suddenly slamming on the brakes to coast past at 45 or 50 and then speed up again afterwards.

silverside

Alun, have a look at the following link

It claims that the UK government has shown an average reduction of 40% in accidents where it has introduced speed cameras.

http://www.paconsulting.com/news/about_pa/2004/About_PA_Speed_Cameras.htm

What do you think?

and OK, maybe Durham isn't the best example. But their Chief Constable *has* refused to bring in more speed cameras.

Alun

I've seen that report before, and what bothers me about it is that there's (as far as I can see) no analysis of what the trend in collisions and casualties is at non-camera sites, i.e. is what we're seeing a general downward trend unrelated to the presence of cameras at a particular site. Also some of the "headline figures" are a little unbelievable ... A1, Ellesley, Notts / 13.7 / 0.7 for example, or was there a coach crash there one year, and virtually nothing the next, and the "massive" reductions in speed of an average of 2.4 mph resulting in a 71% reduction in accidents ... pull the other one!

Mind you I've worked on a project together with PA Consulting in the past, so I'm not entirely surprised at their impartiality (not!).

unkel

silverside wrote:

the UK government has shown an average reduction of 40% in accidents where it has introduced speed cameras

From the sultans of spin :rolleyes:

I consider myself to be a safe driver, but I know for a fact that I'd be safer on a motorway without speed checks than on one with speed checks without knowing if / where they are. I'm afraid of penalty points alright and the extra attention my speedo gets now and then, albeit only for a fraction of a second, is not good

One thing that has to be said for the UK though is that fines / points are not distributed on the motorway unless you do over 85mph (where the limit is 70mph). That sure is a reasonable margin. I've been told the margin here is only a few miles...