Shot by a Sniper? Camouflaged Cameras

[acmp]

[jazzyj]

In my opinion, all cameras of any type are just used to take more hard earned cash from the pockets of us.
we are more focus'd on the curbs than where we should be looking .
obviously , schools etc are a major no no for any sort of speeding thoe,
but as for motor ways , the 70 mph limit was set years ago, when cars etc could hardl'y reach them speeds.
with new breaking technology etc , i think its about time the laws were changed.

some rearly usefull sites:-

www.nationalsafetycameras.co.uk/

www.speedcheck.co.uk/installations.htm ( specs )


a few cameras from walthamstow to charlie browns roundabout have been changed to digital !!

theres a new camera in hackney i was told of,



j

[Johnny_D]

I personally think that using Databases like the one available
here have a twofold advantage.

1. It should stop the panic braking at the site of anything yellow
on a stick.

2. It should reduce accidents as you get the nice little plinky sound suggesting that there are safety cameras around!

My own personal points were from Scamera vans parked up in
places where i was not so aware as i should have been
(On holiday (1) and in london (2)).

Better signage showing the speed limits would also be helpfull.
As someone who drives around the SE of england (North Essex to Portsmouth and most places in between) I find my single biggest enemy is that of the unknown roads and unknown limits.

I know it's my responsibility to know the speed limits. But how many times have i been in a 40 doing 30 (not knowing the *actual* limit) and having Mr BMW so far up my back side that i feel like i'm having an enema? Countless

Rant over! Apologies.

JD
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Not much else!

[RobBrady]

[Ako]

Here's some extracts from an article from the Institute of Advanced Motorists magazine about speed cameras.

"Under new government road safety strategy, safety cameras will no longer be regarded as the easy option for reducing road casulaties."

"A new fund of £110 million will be available (compared with the £93 million currently spent by camera partnerships) for a range of collision reduction strategies. All local authorities will be required to review their A & B road speed limits by 2011. The rules for siting cameras are being revised to allow greater flexibility in positioning camreas. Under the new advice camera signs should be placed alongside speed limit signs wherever possible and the sign and the camera should be visible to the driver in the same view"

This is saying something different than the information being banded about that cameras are being painted to camoughflage and hide them.
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[Rodonn]

since its a big, Bright yellow box, why don't they Stencil the Limit on the back of the damned thing. Or rivet/epoxy a disc sign to the back of it?

[nej]

[Crad]

The argument for hiding speed cameras is simple: if you don’t know where they are then you will simply drive everywhere below the speed limit. The logic is so simple, how could it possibly fail? It’s not like there’s been police cars out on the roads, that people did not know the location of, and it didn’t slow traffic down.

You point is, like it or not you can’t legislate against human nature. Some people need excitement in their lives, while others are content to live hum-drum. The basic adrenaline junky will want to take risks. Hide the cameras and they will simply risk it until their points are up. If you put up big bright yellow signs where there is a REAL risk you will get even the hottest head to slow down.

If speed cameras are really about safety then the answer is clear.

[thenudehamster]

This is one of those wonderful 'I sort of agree, but I also sort of disgaree' situations. With increasing age, I have finally begun to actually grow up and realise that driving fast is not in itself a sign of great skill or macho maturity; if anything, it is a sign of immaturity when it's simply done because you can.

Speed limits are there for a reason; cameras are there in theory for similar reasons; both have examples of inappropriate applications but as is so often the case, the law is the law. If you don't agree with the law, then start a protest group or petition your MP to get it changed; just because you don't like the law doesn't give you the right to flout it because you're unhappy with it.

When I took Advanced Riding, and Defensive Driving courses many years ago, we used the police 'Roadcraft' manuals as the basis of instruction. On of the preambles which stuck in my mind is that 'the most effective method of traffic control is the easily distinguishable police patrol car...' (and apologies to HMSO if the quote isn't word for word, but the gist is there); if the government really believe that to be the case, why would they consider hiding cameras?
Much as in many US cities and states, a hidden patrol car just makes money, because nobody knows it's there. (I know the favourite hiding place of the local cruiser near my US home, but there's plenty who don't....) even though a prominent one will produce a more effective reduction in traffic speeds.
It's a similar situation with cameras - show them and people will take notice of them, hide them, and you have another simple moneymaker. If the government were really serious about the safety side of things, then EVERY sign warning of a camera would have a yellow backed box on a pole near it - even if the box had nothing in it! People slow down if they know there's a camera around and speed up when they've passed it. The A3 approaching Chessington and Hinchley Wood is a classic case in point; from the national (70mph) section which they've played in for about eight or nine miles from the M25, you see the sequential braking to 50 (after passing the 50 sign) for the camera, then they all accelerate back to 65mph 30 yards past it. Now if all the subsequent signs and markings had a yellow box near them, you'd actually bring the overall speed of traffic closer to the limit and achieve the stated aim. As it is, all it achieves is a rolling jam in the rush hour.

Do I speed? I try not to is as honest as I can get. As I've said elsewhere, I found many years ago that it doesn't save as much as it seems, and it can cause much more grief if it goes wrong.

Is it wrong to place cameras in true blackspots? Of course not; where people, whoever they may be, have caused serious and frequent accidents, then finding out who they are by any reasonable means is a laudable aim. However, finding that in doing so you can make a lot of money from people basically doing nothing much wrong, is reprehensible at least, and probably dishonest as well - but whoever expected honesty of politicians?
At least police officers can make reasoned decisions based on circumstances; doing 45 mph on the outskirts of an industrial area at 2am is a lot less unsafe than than 30 past a school gate at start time. The former might get you a ticking off from a copper although it's guaranteed to get you a ticket from a camera; the latter would probably get you a 'without due care' summons from the copper, but is ignored by the camera - where's the logic?

What it needs is for all cameras to be located in places where they are perceived by the public to be needed - although the case of the villager in Lincolnshire who made his own fake Gatso tends to belie that one. Publish the data and site the camera; if the local authority can't back up the siting with real, verifiable data, then they should be forced to remove the damn thing. Safety devices are NOT there to make money - many times it's been said that safety doesn't come cheap - but when they're using the veneer of safety to justify an iniquitous method of raising money, it's despicable.
If they want to make money out of cameras, let them tell us that's what they're doing: "Slagthorpe District Council will be placing a speed detection camera somewhere on the Mudbury Road within the next week in an effort to catch speeding motorists." - would you have a problem with that? - I wouldn't. However, tell me they placed it there to prevent accidents, then treat it as a revenue generator is dishonest and will make me untrustful of anything the Council tells me from there on in...
_________________
Barry H... thenudehamster - don't ask; it's not worth the effort
Any opinion stated above is warranted to be worth exactly what you paid for it.

[GrahamWager]

[xdoerksenx]

Having spent most of my life in Sweden where we don't even have cctv this whole thing seems really odd to me.
Shouldnt cameras be used for safety?? Not just as cash-cows for the government?

[dazpad]

Has anyone noticed? The most effective speed reduction cameras appear to be the SPECS cameras that you tend to find on motorway roadworks.
Knowing that your average speed is being recorded along the whole stretch of road seems to slow down even the most beligerent fastards; so why do our government still use fixed cameras? Money raising, pure and simple.
Incidently, in my home borough of Tameside, we have the Watchman system of cameras that are paired with a flashing speed warning sign. Are they effective? reasonably, but people still speed up after they have passed them.
Regarding hidden cameras, if I am driving along a road with my attention focused on my speedo instead of the road, i am more likely to have an accident negeting the very existence of the camera.. I don't care what anyone says, maintaining a speed within the speed limit is very difficult because many other road users want you to go faster, and demonstrate this by driving dangerously close in their attempt to move you out of their busy way! Why isn't there a camera that detects tailgaiters?
For road safety outside schools etc. Why isnt the road modified so that it is physically uncomfortable to travel faster than the speed limit? I don't mean roadhumps, they're not very effective, the local boy racers still race past my house at 30+ because it is fun for them to 'ramp' their uninsured heaps. Possibly some surface patterning or undulating surface that will shake your car so badly if you travel any faster than the 20 mph?
BTW, does anyone think that the advent of SatNav has contributed anything to road safety?

[apogee]

Terrible idea

The main focus of any drivers attention at a school should be school children, not speed limits.

Safespeed.org did a survey a little while ago and found most drivers take around 1 second to look at and register speed, on average they looked at the speedo 3 times (if memory serves me correctly) while passing a camera and also spend a lot of time looking at the camera and for a speed limit sign.

That's an awful lot of distance covered with NO attention paid to the road. I'd suggest suitable speed warning signs at each side and no parking areas around the entrance to allow good clear visibility, but that wouldn't raise any money would it?

I also believe the institute of advanced motorists confirmed they do not recommend cameras around schools.

[JulianH]

Has anyone else noticed that a large number of cameras have lines which suggest that the laws of physics don't apply. The lines very often follow the curve of the road and I always thought, and was taught, that light travels in straight lines! So how do people who have been caught at cameras with curved lines stand? The speed may, or may not, be right and the distance measurement could be affected by the curve. This says that the camera has been intalled for only one reason - MONEY! It also suggests that local council's don't know about the properties of light.

[999tommo]

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