Speed Camera on the Barton Highway - Revenue Raising... Proof Positive

The fact is, speed cameras do not stop people from speeding unless they are in speed camera zone

But Thumper says that speed cameras catch heaps of people speeding. Which is it? Do speed cameras make people slow down near speed cameras, or don’t they? You can’t have it both ways – or maybe you can if you’re as thick as a whale omelette. Did Orange have to hire a new village idiot when you moved?

Because they still catch heaps of people speeding.

How many more would speed if the camera wasn’t there?

….if we really want to reduce the number of crashes we need to put a red light camera at every intersection….

I think that the red light/speed combination cameras are a significantly better option from a road safety point of view.

Being “inobservant” while driving is a safety problem in and of itself, and if the speed cameras discourage this too then that’s great.

This is quite true I guess (and I claim typo for the inobservant thing, the “i” and “u” are right next to each other.

“The most frequent accident-type is the ’rear end collision’…

the closest I have come to a rear-ender in a long time was from another motorist pulling in front of me just before a speed camera, then slowing suddenly from the 10km/h over the limit he had been happily doing to 10km/h under the limit.

I would be prepared to lay a substantial portion of my next month’s salary that a far greater reduction in road accidents and casualties would result from an effective campaign to punish motorists who leave less than a two second gap between them and the vehicle in front combined with ways to check the alertness of drivers.

An alert driver on a stretch of road with ample distance to the next vehicle at 10-20km/hr abovethe limit is a hell of a lot less risk to the community than a half awake stereo fiddling bored driver who thinks that 20-30m gap at 100km/hr is ample…

But the lowly intellects who inhabit the various Road Safety offices around the country are incapable of thinking outside the easy mantra of “all speed is bad”. Still, this is the country that voluntarily elected the Workchoices team so with that kind of dumbkopfs at the top, we should expect little better further down the food chain.

The ACT Gov tells us that the cameras are an integral part of both the ACT Road Safety Strategy and the National Road Safety Strategy.
Try these facts from ACT Crash data and see if they seem to match with the installation of fixed speed cameras on clear straight sections of road:
“The most frequent accident-type is the ’rear end collision’ (46% of all crashes). In terms of severity, the ‘right-angle collision’ type is the most frequent, (28% of all casualty crashes)”
“The sharp peaks (of accidents) from 8 am to 9 am and 5 pm to 6 pm coincide with the relatively short and confined traffic volume peaks in the ACT.”

Looking at this logically if we really want to reduce the number of crashes we need to put a red light camera at every intersection and somehow get people to back off from the car in front and pay attention.

Putting speed cameras on busy arterial roads WILL NOT reduce accidents in these locations as the average speed during this time is mostly below the speed limit anyway. People will continue to run up the arse of the car in front and no amount of speed cameras will stop that.

Being “inobservant” while driving is a safety problem in and of itself, and if the speed cameras discourage this too then that’s great.

So what exactly is the issue here? That governments are not doing enough for safety, or that they should not raise revenue?

The issue is that they should claim to be dealing with a safety issue, when in fact they are revenue raising. If they were to simply admit that speed cameras are a tax on stupid/inobservant people (in the same way that pokies are a tax on people with poor math skills) then that would be fine. But then they would have to actually DO something about road safety (and that would take money, without turning a profit).

“Maybe they can introduce Rape-detecting cameras….”

And attach one to each Canty Bulldog player.

So what exactly is the issue here? That governments are not doing enough for safety, or that they should not raise revenue?

If it is true what you speed camera fanatics are saying, that if they can create a machine to stop people speeding, then why don’t they just replace human’s with these cameras? Maybe they can introduce Rape-detecting cameras or granny-basher cameras. What a wonderful age we live in.

The fact is, speed cameras do not stop people from speeding unless they are in speed camera zones. Take a look at the drivers around you and its pretty fucking obvious.

“The simple fact of the matter is that speed cameras DO NOT stop speeding.”

People are still human, and humans tend to make mistakes. Not to say everyone that speeds is doing it by accident, but still..

Furthermore, imagine the case that every metre of road had a speed camera on it. Every where you went, your speed was monitored. Right? Okay, I’d wager you’d see a very sharp increase in the number of speeding infringement notices – not because more people are speeding, but because more people are getting caught daydreaming.

But yes, there’s still the issue of people that speed because they’re morons. Well, what can we do? Stop breeding? There’s always gonna be morons with or without speed cameras.

The only thing I really don’t like about speed cameras is the fact that Canberrans drop to 10km/h below the limit to go past the freaking things. (Well, that’s a generalisation – but it only takes one person to slow everyone else down. Argh!)

Pro tip: don’t speed past cameras, stop whinging. The end.

The simple fact of the matter is that speed cameras DO NOT stop speeding.

How do you know? For example, how do you know they don’t reduce speeding? Police don’t stop all crime, but the presence of rule of law enforced by a government militia is a pretty strong deterrent to me, say, shooting you in the back of the head when you pull out in front me. I doubt you’d support getting rid of police because they’ve failed to stamp out crime, though.

You’re also forgetting the other important function of speed cameras – to punish people who speed. Pretty hard to fault them on that front. To use the police analogy again, they spend a lot more time chasing down and arresting criminals than preventing crime, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable.

they were serious about the issue of speeding, there would be roadside patrols pulling speeders over then and there.

Yes – it’s much better that the government use expensive police officers and patrol cars to chase individual speeders than to use a cheap and effective electronic device to punish all of them, all the time.

Skidbladnir – you either don’t have flash installed or you have javascript disabled. The embedded object is a flash video from YouTube, not a picture.

I also noticed this ACT Government money tree was turned around. I drive past it every day. If you are caught by the camera, you are pretty much an idiot because there is plenty of warning. That doesn’t take away the fact that these camera’s don’t stop people from speeding in general.

Therefore logical conclusion is that they fail to stop people speeding

No, the logical conclusion is that some people have more money than sense.

In making this statement however, I acknowledge that the latter is likely to be low in number, and therefore that the former is at an unfair advantage of success.

If we’re talking purely in terms of mathematical logic, then all that is needed to disprove a proposition is to find one example that contradicts the proposition.

In that case, I agree with Thumper.

For some reason I can’t see or refresh the picture embedded in the ‘news item’ above…
Is it my problem or RiotAct’s?

Do they stop you speeding everywhere Joe C or just near the speed camera zone ?

they bloody well stop me speeding. I don’t know about you but I can’t afford a fine every day I drive past one on my way to work.

ergo, they should no longer be called speed cameras.