Road safety 'made worse by speed cameras'

cyclopath2001

Deleted User wrote: »

Beware of what you wish for!
Big brother - 1984! A device that tracks and records your every movement, A police state's dream.

If people speed while evading speed-traps and put forward arguments that the cameras are unfair, I think this opens up the way for more effective technologies such as GPS. As it is, you're tracked on your cellphone.

IrishSpeedTraps wrote:

"a confirmed pro-speeder loobyist". I disagree. How did you confirm this?

A visit to this web page shows that a site that has the same name as yours, narrowly confines the speed argument to accident prevention and deliberately omits the many other valid reasons for speeding to be controlled.

I can think of no reason why any law-abiding motorist should need to use information from that web site.

cyclopath2001

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

As it is, you're tracked on your cellphone.

.

I switch off my phone while in the car.

As it is, the phone can only be tracked to the nearest cell, the route the user takes can only be guessed.

Black Swan

"A new research project based at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford has examined the detailed operation of regional speed camera partnerships, and makes a number of interesting observations, raising fundamental policy questions. Our research suggests that the speed camera system is more complex, messy and characterised by greater uncertainty than the current debate admits."

Source: http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/research/sci-tech/mundanegovernance/Speed+camera+research.htm

KevR

Deleted User wrote: »

The problem is not speeding as such, but inappropiate speed.

Very true!

Common sense is the most important thing when it comes to speed.

I usually drive at a speed which is appropriate to the quality of the road and which is in fitting with other traffic on the road. Some roads, for a fact, have speed limits which are too low (and that doesn't for one second mean I am pro-speeding). I sometimes find myself slightly over the limit on these roads.

Some roads have speed limits which are far too high. I could legally kill myself on roads such as these but I have always tended to use my common sense and drive at a safe speed, however much below the limit that may be.

I will admit I generally don't agree with speed cameras because, in my opinion, they are often used in what you could say are safer locations. Why not reduce speed limits of roads where it's too high and stick them there? Could it be because they wouldn't make much money there?

I am definitely pro-speed limit change on some roads (increase on some, decrease on others).

I think the phrase 'speeding' is used wrongly a lot also. In my opinion, speeding is driving at a dangerous speed. Breaking the speed limit is not necessarily dangerous and should be referred to as 'breaking the speed limit' in such cases, not as speeding.

thebman

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

A visit to this web page shows that a site that has the same name as yours, narrowly confines the speed argument to accident prevention and deliberately omits the many other valid reasons for speeding to be controlled.

I can think of no reason why any law-abiding motorist should need to use information from that web site.

You can argue the site helps people avoid getting caught for speeding which it probably does but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a point which is our rural roads aren't policed enough.

I think some of our better roads could easily have higher speed limits safely.

godtabh

KevR wrote: »

Common sense is the most important thing when it comes to speed.

Define an appropiate level of common sense that is applicable to all road users? Cant? I can

Speed limits

thebman

kearnsr wrote: »

Define an appropiate level of common sense that is applicable to all road users? Cant? I can

Speed limits

lol yeah I'll do 80KM/H than all back roads from now on.

Thanks for alerting me to what common sense is

kearnsr

kearnsr wrote: »

Define an appropiate level of common sense that is applicable to all road users? Cant? I can

Speed limits

:rolleyes:

SeanW

Well, leaving aside the fact that cyclopath is a known thinly veiled motorist hater, and has repeatedly been shown to be in favour of punishing drivers and motorcyclists at any available opportunity, there are reasons why your average motorist would want to know where the speed traps are.

Many speed limits don't make sense. Accompanying the rash of new speed cameras has been a rash of lowered speed limits, which from what I can see are totally illogical. Around Longford town for example, the areas of reduced speed limits (like 50km and 60km) on roads out of town have been increasing over the last few years, encompassing many high specification roads and out-of-town roads further out.

There is also a junction on a road I use frequently (and I understand that this kind of nonsenese is becoming the norm nationwide) where the main road goes around a 90 degree bend, in a kind of staggered crossroads arrangement.
In the last year or so, the whole area around the juncton had a 50kph limit slapped on it. Why? I don't know - the junction is properly signed, and if you're being very pedantic, a motorist should adhere to the reduced 50k limit not only on the approach to the junction, but for 200-300 metres after it. ALL motorist that use that junction return to crusing speed after clearing it - but cyclopath strikes me as the type that if the Guards set up a speed there and started nabbing motorists "speeding" away from the junction, he would be saying "you got what you deserved."

We don't need ridiculous over-regulation. We have MAXIMUM speed limits for a reason - if someone is not, by common sense, able to select a safe speed (at or under a reasonable speed limit) - like for example if one doesn't know that you should slow down approaching a 90 degree bend - they shouldn't be on the road.

Edit: just saw donalbakers post - kinda demonstrates what's wrong with calling posted speed limits "common sense."

A Dub in Glasgo

The SPECS system on the A77 in Scotland has made road safety better. It is the only system where I have seen the majority of people abide by the speed limits.

A77 speed cameras cut deaths by 46%

cyclopath2001

SeanW wrote: »

Well, leaving aside the fact that cyclopath is a known thinly veiled motorist hater, and has repeatedly been shown to be in favour of punishing drivers and motorcyclists at any available opportunity,

I'm in favour of all road users driving safely, with consideration for others and within the law. Sorry if you consider that to be punishment. Others consider it to being decent citizens.

SeanW wrote: »

there are reasons why your average motorist would want to know where the speed traps are.

Such as?

SeanW wrote: »

Many speed limits don't make sense.

To some motorists.

Tell me: why do you think we have speed limits?

bk

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

The SPECS system on the A77 in Scotland has made road safety better.

Interesting read there, it seems that this system, in addition to safety improvements, leads to significant traffic flow improvements (more cars can use the road).

I've seen some interesting studies that show that if all cars were computer controlled, not only would it be much safer, but it would also allow for many more cars on the road and significantly faster average journey times.

jackofalltrades

cyclopath2001 wrote:

I agree. You break the speed limit: you get penalty points and a fine. That's just a rap on the knuckles. Do it too often, you lose your license. The cameras are ideal for these cut & dried incidents. You're either over the limit or you're not.

I think you might have misunderstood me there. I'm suggesting using speed cameras only to catch people that are travelling at a speed where they can't reasonably argue that they were driving with due consideration for the prevailing conditions. For example - Tearing around a housing estate/your done by speed camera, doing 65 in a 60 zone only at the discretion of police officer. As oppposed to using them for to catch eveyone doing even 1Km/h over the speed limit.

SeanW

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

I'm in favour of all road users driving safely, with consideration for others and within the law. Sorry if you consider that to be punishment. Others consider it to being decent citizens.

The last time I saw one of your posts, you were ranting about Motorcyclists using your bus lane - in a thread that had discussed a (rejected) change in the law to allow motorcyclists use the bus lane. Although you claimed that you just wanted other road users (motorcyclists in that thread) to obey the law, it was clear you favoured anti-motorcyclist legislation.

In this thread you have said that car drivers should accept Orwellian Big Brother GPS tracking devices, like something out of 1984. Given the way the Western world has been descending into a police state, you may get your wish.
You've also said that there's no such thing as an illogical speed limit, even though to anyone with any common sense, clearly there are.

To some motorists.

To anyone with a bit of common sense. Here are some examples:

1. A former N road that had a 100kph limit, was bypassed by a new Motorway. 5 minutes to midnight the day the before the new M is commissioned, the road is safe to drive on at 100Kph. 5 minutes after midnight, nothing over 80kph is safe for the same road. Please explain?
2. Other examples of roads that are clearly medium to high specification but have low speed limits. Just within 5 miles of where I live (if I felt like so doing) I could take a whole bunch of photos of poor spec local boreens with 80k speed limits, and medium-high spec National and Regional long distance roads with 50k limits.
3. We have some dual carriageways with an 80kph limit, such as the N4 in Dublin West, the same limit is also prevelant on single lane boreens with grass tracks in the centre.
4. Where a low, say 50kph speed limit, is placed for 300m in each direction of a hazard - such at the staggered crossroads above but this kind of thing is becoming the norm nationwide, I read about something similar around a skew bridge down in Cork - where a motorist is legally expected to stay at 50kph for up to half a kilometre despite having cleared the hazard.
   
   Please tell me how this makes more sense than an appropriate array of "Danger (hazard type) ahead" or "Dead Slow" markings and signs.

Tell me: why do you think we have speed limits?

The legal term is "Maximum speed limit" which means some classes of traffic (buses and trucks) must adhere to a lower speed limit.

It also implies that common sense should be used in determining whether to do the speed limit or not - for example if a Garda pulled someone for doing 80kph on a twisty single lane boreen on a rainy foggy night, I would have little sympathy for them.

cyclopath2001

SeanW wrote: »

it was clear you favoured anti-motorcyclist legislation.

For example, not permitting them to drive in bicycle lanes.

SeanW wrote: »

In this thread you have said that car drivers should accept Orwellian Big Brother GPS tracking devices,

It won't be necessary if drivers comply with the law.

SeanW wrote: »

You've also said that there's no such thing as an illogical speed limit, even though to anyone with any common sense, clearly there are.

That would depend on your understanding of the reasons for having speed limits, a question which you have not properly answered.

SeanW wrote: »

The legal term is "Maximum speed limit" which means some classes of traffic (buses and trucks) must adhere to a lower speed limit.

It also implies that common sense should be used in determining whether to do the speed limit or not - for example if a Garda pulled someone for doing 80kph on a twisty single lane boreen on a rainy foggy night, I would have little sympathy for them.

The question was 'why do we have speed limits?

Do you propose that where a motorist disagrees with a speed limit, they should break the law?

KevR

kearnsr wrote: »

Define an appropiate level of common sense that is applicable to all road users? Cant? I can

Speed limits

Strongly disagree.

As I said in my other post, you can legally kill yourself on some roads. The roads are bad (sometimes country lanes like in dolanbaker's picture) and have far too high speed limits. I wouldn't say that speed limits on these roads are an example of common sense at all.

Luckily, the vast majority of people have enough common sense to drive at an appropriate speed on these dangerous roads and not kill themselves.

It does concern me that the RSA are more interested in having speed cameras put up on motorways and the like instead of having appropriate/safe speed limits put in place and then enforced on poorer roads. I just can't understand it.

I.S.T.

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

A visit to this web page shows that a site that has the same name as yours, narrowly confines the speed argument to accident prevention and deliberately omits the many other valid reasons for speeding to be controlled.

I can think of no reason why any law-abiding motorist should need to use information from that web site.

I am not a "confirmed pro-speed lobbist" as you suggest and there is nothing on that web page to back up your claim.

Ham'nd'egger

IrishSpeedTraps wrote: »

I am not a "confirmed pro-speed lobbist" as you suggest and there is nothing on that web page to back up your claim.

So what exactly is the point of a site telling people about where speed traps are? What noble function do you provide to the Irish motorist ?

I.S.T.

Hamndegger wrote: »

So what exactly is the point of a site telling people about where speed traps are? What noble function do you provide to the Irish motorist ?

All questions answered here http://www.irishspeedtraps.com/aboutus.aspx

Ham'nd'egger

IrishSpeedTraps wrote: »

All questions answered here http://www.irishspeedtraps.com/aboutus.aspx

That link doesn't really tell us the purpose for which your site exists and the benefits of it, though. It also doesn't tell us who you are; ie what group you represent. It just says that you disagree with the implementation of speed cameras and that you (plural) feel it is a crime detection fiddle.

I.S.T.

Hamndegger wrote: »

That link doesn't really tell us the purpose for which your site exists and the benefits of it, though. It also doesn't tell us who you are; ie what group you represent. It just says that you disagree with the implementation of speed cameras and that you (plural) feel it is a crime detection fiddle.

The site has two purposes, first one is to draw attention to how so many of the speed traps are located on our safest roads. The second it to imform drivers of the locations of the speed traps so they can slow down at these locations. The assumption is that all speed cameras should be located at sites where there is a high accident rate due to speeding. The purpose of the speed traps at these locations is to get drivers to slow down thus reducing the accident rate. Irishspeedtraps.com don't represent any formal group, we just speak for motorists who feel the main motivation for the selection of locations of speed cameras in this country has very little to do with improving road safety.

Black Swan

When I drive I tend to have a heavy foot. All the fixed cam speed traps are noted on the web in So Cal, defeating their purpose to some degree, only catching noobs? In the more expensive cars, you can programme-in their GPS location for a warning upon approach, or to avoid them entirely. Pffffft! I just know where they are, slow down for them, before punching it after.

The only way it would really work is if they got like London, where they are almost wall-to-wall cams, or parts of Glasgow (**shiver**).

John_C

SeanW wrote: »

A former N road that had a 100kph limit, was bypassed by a new Motorway. 5 minutes to midnight the day the before the new M is commissioned, the road is safe to drive on at 100Kph. 5 minutes after midnight, nothing over 80kph is safe for the same road. Please explain?

That road will now have a different category of traffic on it. A 100kph road would likely not have been safe for cyclists and pedestrians. Certainly crossing the road would be very difficult. With the bulk of the motor traffic removed, the remainder has to slow down to allow more people to make use of the road. That's a perfectly sensible piece of policy.

Zombrex

IrishSpeedTraps wrote: »

The assumption is that all speed cameras should be located at sites where there is a high accident rate due to speeding.

That doesn't make much sense.

Speed cameras catch you after you have been speeding. They won't stop you doing 100km in a housing estate or around a black spot. They can catch you doing this though and punish you for doing this.

The purpose should be to catch speeders in an effort to deter them from future speeding. You can do that anywhere, and in fact you should be doing that anywhere. If a driver has no idea when or where they will be caught they should make more of an effort to stay with in the speed limit the entire time

They idea that they should only have to stay in the speed limit on certain bits of road is frankly ridiculous. Planting signposted speed cameras in certain places simply re-enforces this idea, that you only have to stay within the speed limit on this bit of road

The drivers that speed on "safe" roads are the same drivers that speed on unsafe roads.

More to the point a driver does not have the ability to assess on a rolling basis where it is ok to speed and where it isn't. That is exactly the attitude that speed cameras should be attempting to punish and deter, this "make it up as we go along" attitude a lot of Irish drivers have. In fact it is the whole point of speed limits in the first place.

Speeders should be fined and fined and fined again until they get out of the attitude that it is acceptable to speed if they want to. It should not be acceptable, baring extreme circumstances, to speed anywhere in Ireland.

cyclopath2001

IrishSpeedTraps wrote: »

The second it to imform drivers of the locations of the speed traps so they can slow down at these locations.

Why do they need your site? Don't the locations have speed limit signs?

godtabh

Speed limits arent targets.

People here were justifying going above the speed limit if comon sense applied. Not ever one has the same level of common sense clearly. I agree that alot of blanket speed limits are wrong but again its not a target

kearnsr

kearnsr wrote: »

Define an appropiate level of common sense that is applicable to all road users? Cant? I can

Speed limits

kearnsr wrote: »

Speed limits arent targets.

People here were justifying going above the speed limit if comon sense applied. Not ever one has the same level of common sense clearly. I agree that alot of blanket speed limits are wrong but again its not a target

Sometimes it's better to have no speed limits imposed, as in have national limits without signs.

It has been proven in the UK that imposing speed restrictions can sometimes increase the number of incidents (not accidents) on a section of road.

In the example given (can't find link, but it is in another thread on boards) the road used to have the NSL (60mph) then signs of 40mph were installed.

Before these signs were installed the average speed along that road were 35mph as drivers (the vast majority anyway) decided that that was a "common sense" speed to go at, after the signs were placed, motorists tended to drive at around 45mph (most driver drift slightly over any limit imposed anyway) as they trusted the limit signs also using "common sense" but also trusting the authorities to have installed realistic speed limit signs.

Speed limits and policing such limits is a bit of a black art, cameras show no destresion at all!

cyclopath2001

Deleted User wrote: »

Before these signs were installed the average speed along that road were 35mph as drivers (the vast majority anyway)

The problem there is not that all speed limits are bad, it's that an inappropriate limit was set at a particular location on one road in the UK.

This discussion goes nowhere until everyone agrees the reasons why do we have speed limits?.

Perhaps 'IrishSpeedTraps' could make a stab at such a definition and once a consensus is reached, it could be put on their site?

NedNew

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

The problem there is not that all speed limits are bad, it's that an inappropriate limit was set at a particular location on one road in the UK.

This discussion goes nowhere until everyone agrees the reasons why do we have speed limits?.

Perhaps 'IrishSpeedTraps' could make a stab at such a definition and once a consensus is reached, it could be put on their site?

Perhaps Cyclopath and IrishSpeedTraps could create their own thread and leave this to one discuss whether or not road safety is indeed made worse by speed cameras? This thread title is interesting but it's ruined by moral vomit.

I.S.T.

cyclopath2001 wrote:

Why do they need your site? Don't the locations have speed limit signs?

Wicknight wrote: »

That doesn't make much sense.

Speed cameras catch you after you have been speeding. They won't stop you doing 100km in a housing estate or around a black spot. They can catch you doing this though and punish you for doing this.

The purpose should be to catch speeders in an effort to deter them from future speeding.

Well then can you tell me why the police in countries such as the UK & France don't take that approach? They publish the locations of mobile cameras on their websites, they paint their fixed cameras in high visibility colours so motorists will see them and slow down. The RSA and Guards have said they will do the same here once the fixed cameras are installed.