No escape from New cameras

[253]

Article in today's Times, apparently the trial of Spec3 cameras has been a howling success. They are likely to go national early next year with the first penalties coming in the summer.
Working in a 'network' of up to 50 cameras at a time, costing £300,000.

Not sure how to put a link to this (or even if it is allowed) so will have to leave it to people to Google or maybe someone more techi than me can do it.

The comments at the bottom make an interesting read as well.
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[PaulB2005]

Article is here

URLs are allowed BTW however if they are very long please use something like TINYURL to shorten it.

[Tom59]

[Anita]

That's OK Tom, it's easily done. But it does make following any discussion easier if it's all in one thread - if there is any discussion!
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Anita
TomTom VIA 135 - App 12.075
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[freedy50]

Firstly I done a search but didnt seem to find a thread with this subject so started my own

Anyway, I thought there would have been a lot of discussion about this as it seems very definite going by the article unless theyve put this out just to get an idea of what people think.

If it doesnt get discussed theyll assume, wrongly, that everyone agrees with this & bring them in through the 'back door'

[Anita]

[nmmg2]

Isn't anybody else thinking this is a massive infringement of civil rights and liberties, the government knowing where every law abiding person (ie those of us who pay tax and insurance and don't use false number plates) is at all times?

Doesn't anyone else think we ought to try and do something about it before one person not seeing a speed limit sign means everyone following crawling at 20mph below the speed limit once they realise (as happens a bit in specs at the moment but now could be for 15 miles)?

All the righteous people who say they've never broken a limit will hopefully find out their mistake when these are installed anyway! Generally they're the sort of driver who would just not notice anyway.

If anyone is interested I started a Facebook group (search under specs 3 in groups)- if enough people do feel strongly enough about this to be involved I will take the petition to No 10 personally!! Looks like an uphill battle so far though..

[PaulB2005]

[nmmg2]

Quote:
a) They won't know who is driving at the time.

Specs cameras are forward facing, do they really not capture an image of the driver of the vehicle or even of the vehicle? If your car is cloned or another car uses false plates is it even possible to prove that it wasn't you the APNR (automatic number plate recognition camera) recorded without witnesses? If that is correct I find it incredible that no-one has highlighted this loophole before to me.

Quote:
b) b) It's only in some areas, not UK wide

Can't find the link but an article in Autocar a couple of months ago stated that this government is rushing through (within the next 18 months) country-wide networked APNR cameras for the purpose of country wide road pricing.. it doesn't require too much imagination to see the two being linked!

Quote:
c) If the government wanted to "know where every law abiding person (ie those of us who pay tax and insurance and don't use false number plates) is at all times?" they'd need a work force three times the UK population to monitor you 24/7.....

With APNR the location of the car, if not who's driving it, would require almost no manpower to track. Is the information of where vehicles are going being stored? I suspect so. Who is going to have access to the data?

I really do think this could be this bad! I hope I'm wrong but I am worried the only point of GPS software will be for navigation and to physically limit the vehicle you are travelling to the posted speed limit at all times! I feel maybe trying to get a clarification for what is going to happen from the government would be an excellent idea!

[PaulB2005]

nmmg2 today the UK is the country with the highest number of CCTV camera per person in the world. People often said civil liberties where at risk if CCTV was allowed to proliferate and the age old argument of the government tracking everyone everywhere they go was raised then. Again the arguments of who's got access to the data and what will they do with it where raised again and again. As far as i have ever seen very few injustices have been carried out with CCTV (compared to the number of hours recorded) and i suspect the same will apply to SPECs. If the government wanted to follow you or know what you are up to there are much cheaper and more effective ways.

[mikealder]

There is a simple way to avoid any problem with systems like this:

Don't break the law, if you are worried about speed limit issues get a car with a speed limitter, or retro fit one yourself, its not difficult

As for tracking individuals, unless someone has something to hide in which case I am glad of such a system, I see nothing wrong with it, the more SPECS / ANPR systems they deploy to track and more importantly catch illegal drivers the better. This is a small spin off from the overall deployment, although I think a better definition of the actual limit whereby an offence is committed should be made in true old fashioned black and white.
Get rid of the myth that the UK limit is XX MPH + 10% + 2MPH as it would be better and easier to understand if the limit were 80MPH on the motorway, with zero tollerance - this is something that SPECS will introduce if/ when deployed.

At the end of the day if you want to drive at 120 MPH try booking a few sessions out at the local race track when its open - Mike

[DennisN]

I'm with Mike on this, I'm all for the proliferation of Specs and ANPR cameras. And I'd have dedicated "Chase cars" to take them off the road there and then and crush the cars, no second chances.

Oddly, I learned only yesterday that my mate who was snapped by our local 30mph Gatso got a ticket saying he was doing 33mph. That myth of +10%, +2mph is ridiculous. Whatever the speed limit sign says should be the limit. We can all understand that.

I don't have an opinion on 80mph for motorways - I simply don't drive that fast, not with my own fuel and tyres paying the price of saving 10 minutes! I get paid by the mile, not the hour and not by cutting time.
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[nmmg2]

Quote:-

Don't break the law, if you are worried about speed limit issues get a car with a speed limitter, or retro fit one yourself, its not difficult

Really? I thought a limiter that would stop you breaking ANY speed limit would be fiendishly difficult to make. Particularly if it has to be accurate- my tom tom gets the speed limit wrong about 30% of the time! But I await your system with interest!

I NEVER intentionally break a 20mph, 30mph or a 40mph limit in a town. I totally agree that this is where excess speed kills. Yes I am the annoying person who the majority of the general public gets stuck behind at the speed limit in towns. However I do get caught out with changing limits, signs hidden behind trees etc. Interested if I am the only one. I would point out 20mph limits are difficult to stick to without looking at your speedometer far too frequently- a limiter would be useful there. What also worries me is that we are going to have situations where one driver realises he or she has gone over the limit a bit and then slows down to 20mph causing severe congestion. People pulling over inappropriately will also cause hazards, as will those tailgating other vehicles to prevent the cameras reading their numbers. This already happens with the average speed cameras and would be horrendous on single carriage way roads.

Quote:
At the end of the day if you want to drive at 120 MPH try booking a few sessions out at the local race track when its open - Mike

I drive at 70-79mph on the motorway by GPS if the road is clear and the weather is good. Is that unreasonable? If I want to drive faster I will go to a country that has an appropriate speed limit or on a track day!

Quote:
Unless you can provide that AutoCar article about road pricing i can only say that as far as i was aware Road Pricing is still a long way off. Nothing is being "rushed through".

"Zero to road tolls in 24 months". Autocar 3.09.2008 page 21

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be online. Just managed to dig out the article after some searching, it does state vehicles will be located by some means other than registration. But whether this decision is reversed will wait to be seen.

So maybe the civil liberty thing isn't potentially so bad (that didn't bother me quite so much in any case- don't do anything interesting enough anyway!). If location data is to be stored it does invade privacy in my view, without inconveniencing the criminals who will presumably just use cloned vehicles or fake plates.

Actually limiting a car to the speed limit seems like a really good idea if this is the alternative! I drive 30,000 miles a year, have had 1 fault accident in the last 13 years (skidded on mud at 15mph and ended up in a ditch!) and have a clean licence so far, never been stopped. I strongly believe in town limits and limits on dangerous roads and I adhere to them as much as I can.

The major problem I have with this technology is that:

1/ "excessive" speed accounts for only a minority of accidents- approx %5 according to the DfT

And yet it is being pushed as the pariah, the major way to reduce road casualties. Note the use of the word "excessive"- these statistics include drivers driving within the limit but too fast for the conditions. Driving standards have decreased markedly since the reduction in police patrols instigated by the widespread use of speed cameras. In particular people tailgating in heavy rain. If a camera gets put into use (they were trialling one in Israel a few years ago) that can catch people tailgating I will applaud the designer! Poor anticipation, road rage and general poor driving seem to be the worst problems. Drivers of uninsured untaxed and unroadworthy cars are particularly high risk. I believe that spending the money on more motorway patrols (equipped with APNR..) would be the answer- look at N.Yorks accident statistics compared to it neighbours (lowest accident rate but lowest revenue).

Having discussed speed (at shows not having been stopped!) with many police officers over the years most of the responses are that they do not stop people going less than 90mph on a clear motorway in good weather, and that most cameras are set at 80mph on a motorway or dual carriageway. Dangerous driving is picked up on rigorously, however. Perhaps joined up thinking should be applied..

The other thing that limiting your speed is meant to achieve is lowering your CO2 output, again another laudable aim. But driving at 70mph or 80mph appears to make almost no difference to fuel economy in any of the cars I regularly drive. Accelerating smoothly does! Perhaps a device to reduce your cars ability to accelerate is next.

2/ (probably going to get lambasted for this as well) I actually believe most drivers who go a small way above the national limit but are always vigilant for speed cameras (and therefore alert for other hazards) are far less of a danger than those who sit at 60mph in the middle lane, completely oblivious of what is going on around them.

So maybe I am paranoid, but I just don't think that this scheme is the answer! It is just I can see this being introduced by the back door and making driving even more of a nightmare than it is today with a concurrent REDUCTION in roadsafety.

[nmmg2]

Off topic, but is it true Specs cameras rely totally on APNR with no photo of car or occupant? How precisely do they catch people who use cloned cars? If someone is willing to avoid paying tax and insurance surely changing the plate is the next step?

[mikealder]

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