Dartford Bridge SPECS cameras

[SteveMPS]

They'll have to put the signs back up if they become active so maybe that's the prompt. Film free Gatsos still have the camera signs.

If I spot them I'll waive any download rights for reporting them.

FWIW I suggest a year of non use with signs removed might be a decent time point. That'd be May 2010.

[DennisN]

[DennisN]

[SteveMPS]

Twisting my words won't change the facts Dennis

Facts:

1. I suggested several pages ago that someone make the issue a poll so we can better see what the true view is.

2. I also suggested that the database entry became one that still sounded a warning

3. It's not just the InfoRad K1 that sounds a prolonged warning.

4. It would be May 2010 and not September because they went up in May 2009 and the DofT reply to JaTe now makes it clear they have never been operational.

5. Even the duplicitious DofT wouldn't prosecute for cameras where there were adjacent cameras signs painted out.

6. As spooky pointed out: This previous thread suggests your policy is not to put a camera in the database until it becomes active. So what's so different about the QE2?

[MaFt]

[M8TJT]

Another take on the QE2 cams.
What confuses me about these cams is that three are at 50MPH and the last one is at 40MPH. As it is 'known' that specs do not take a snapshot, but do a distance/time calculation between successive cams, how does the 40MPH section work?

One of my problems is that I do not know where the last two cams are in relation to the reduction in speed limit from 50 to 40MPH. But from my rather aged and imprecise memory, the last 40MPH cam is located somewhere around the area that the speed limit reduces from 50 to 40MPH, but of course I am open to correction on this.

Is the third 50MPH cam actually the start of the 40MPH section (I suspect not)? Or is the fourth (in the db as 40MPH) cam positioned near the start of the 40MPH section (as I suspect)? If the former, its speed should surely be 40MPH not 50MPH. If the latter, where is the second 40MPH cam set?

If (as I suspect) the fourth cam is at the start of the 40MPH zone, then surely it is the end cam of the three previous cams in the 50MPH zone and should be set to 50MPH, not 40MPH in line with other specs zones. Or are we expecting another bunch of yellow 40MPH cams to be installed later closer to the toll booths?

Having said that, all this seems to be irrelevant because it appears that the cameras are not in use at present anyway, but what will they be set to when they are in use?

As another alternative MaFt could have set it to 40MPH to indicate the end of the 50MPH section. This is a suggestion that I made a while ago that the last cam in a sequence should be set to the prevailing 'normal' speed limit (even if it is not right at the end of any temporarily further restricted area) to indicate that it is the last cam in the section.

[SteveMPS]

Ta MaFt for the explanation

M8TJT my recall is the last cam is on the the same structure as the 40mph signs which makes a nonsense. It's the most important limit there as the 40mph one is there to to stop accidents between the more idiot drivers at the (also idiot) toll booths. As only a real grade 1 DofT idiot puts toll booths at the end of a bridge it's quite likely the same grade 1 DofT idiot has placed the last cam where it will have least safety effect.

This should show it as the shadow of the gantry is exactly where the database has the cam

[spook51]

I spotted that oddball 40mph Spec camera too - it's immediately prior to the split to individual lanes leading to the toll booths (shown by SteveMPS) so unless there was a second 40mph Specs on each and every toll, it would be impossible to capture any vehicle exceeding 40mph between the camera and the line of toll booths - which lane might a transgressor take?

It's more probable, I think, that the speed limit before that final camera will be reduced to 40mph and the preceding camera (the last of the three currently shown at 50mph on the database) will be the start of the 40mph zone.

I'm not due to go that way for a couple of weeks; what do regular Dartford crossers think?

[Skippy]

Why on earth don't they just get rid of the toll booths and use an electronic plate reading system to collect the toll? Oh, I know - they won't make any money from fines for people exceeding a speed limit imposed for a toll booth that need not be there!

It's a crazy mixed up world.
_________________
Gone fishing!

[SteveMPS]

[BigPerk]

[DennisN]

Isn't there a thingy that says a moving vehicle "hits" a bridge at greater than its actual weight? Or did I dream it?
_________________
Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[M8TJT]

[SteveMPS]

Actually pick your time of day and the traffic moves very freely over the QE2. Get it wrong or just be unlucky and you will be sitting 100s of feet above the Thames next to heavily loaded truck after truck nose to tail clearly lightening the loading and you get to think "if the bridge collapses will Stephen Ladyman turn up to the funeral to say sorry?"

AFAIK he's now an ex minister with a wafer thin majority so will be unemployed soon - good!

There has been a suggestion that they will double the toll for the tunnels and zero that for the bridge.

[spook51]

The Dartford Crossing is on the government's asset disposal list so who knows what will happen to the tolls should it become privately owned. They were supposed to be dispensed with once it had been paid for, weren't they?

I shall keeping my eyes peeled when I cross on Wednesday - what was the colour of those cameras again...?

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