SPECS cameras on A2

If you were an obedient, compliant and unquestioning citizen these warnings would be unnecessary.

For the rest of us......

Are there any roadworks on this section or is it a permanent cash machine?

quote:

Are there any roadworks on this section or is it a permanent cash machine?

or is it a collision hotspot?

balance, my dear steve, balance...

Or is it rich pickings?

Counterbalance.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:
If you were an obedient, compliant and unquestioning law-abiding citizen these warnings would be unnecessary.

A misquote.

If everybody obeyed speed limits they would have to be reduced in order to restore the requisite revenue threshold.

Steve

be honest...you want speed limits to be lowered or unenforced so as you do not lose your private hire licience.

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe two convictions within six months and you risk losing the licience.

Regards

Mick

quote:

be honest...you want speed limits to be lowered or unenforced so as you do not lose your private hire licience.

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe two convictions within six months and you risk losing the licience.

The penalties vary depending on the local authority issuing the licenses. In my District we are required to notify the council of any driving convictions. A driver with six or more points may be called to appear before the licensing comittee but I've known of nobody having their licence revoked unless they actually lose their DVLA driving licence.

If you get done for driving without due care you do have to pass an extended driving test with the County Council at a cost of £80 though.

I'd like speed limits to be raised on many stretches of road. If speed limits are appropriately set drivers (including me) tend to obey them. The problem with that is it doesn't bring in much revenue. I've no issue with appropriate limits being enforced where safety is an issue subject to due discretion being afforded.

The lower a speed limit is set below what could be considered by most to be appropriate the more enforcement measures are likely to be used. The government is now adopting average speeds (as opposed to the scientifically-proven-to-be-safest 85th percentile speeds) as the basis for limits. That means drive a little faster than average (even if perfectly safe) and you are a criminal. It would seem that the government would prefer everyone to drive at the same speed - a kind of communism on the highway.

A colleague of mine who's been driving taxis for over forty years obeys all speed limits to the extent hat he's refered to affectionately as "Captain Chaos." The Bassetts Pole Roundabout (near the Belfry Golf Course) has just been upgraded and a 30 mph limit (normally 70mph) was imposed on the A38 dual carriageway for two miles in both directions while the work on the roundabout was underway. There were no roadworks on the road itself, just the roundabout. Captain's incredulity at such a rediculously inappropriate speed limit well away from the actual roadworks has recently cost him 3 points and 60 quid, for doing 39mph.

Being the cynical bastard that I am, I obeyed this speed limit under sufferance and my licence remains clean.

I have a Hackney Carriage Plate and driver's licence.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:
If you were an obedient, compliant and unquestioning citizen these warnings would be unnecessary.

For the rest of us......

Are there any roadworks on this section or is it a permanent cash machine?

Delayed reply - haven't had time to browse the internet at work

There is an enforced 50mph whilst work is being done rebuilding the A2/M25 sliproads. The London side SPECS cameras start midway betweeen the Dartford junction and the M25, on the coastal side, they start on the West side of the Bean/Bluewater junction.

Cameras will be there until 2008 though I suspect when the restrictions are removed after building work is complete, they will be a permanent fixture.

Steve.

quote:

Or is it rich pickings?

Counterbalance.

I have to day, factually, that your continued revenue implication re use of said items is not nationwide IMV...

But i do see your point...

quote:

Cameras will be there until 2008 though I suspect when the restrictions are removed after building work is complete, they will be a permanent fixture.

I suspect not. SPECS have been installed on sections of the M6 in West Midlands and Cheshire during roadworks that were subsequently removed upon completion.

Fortunately for us, the SPECS system is very expensive - £200k per pair

I think a 50 mph limit on an all-purpose dual carriageway through roadworks, as opposed to a motorway, is fair, unlike Staffordshire County Council's insistance upon a 30 mph limit under such circumstances. If the A2 were in Staffordshire with roadworks, the limit would be 30 and that would be taking the piss.

I tend to adhere to 50 limits in roadworks much to the annoyance of truck drivers behind me driving to their speed limiters...

quote:

I have to day, factually, that your continued revenue implication re use of said items is not nationwide IMV...

But i do see your point...

In light of further info from Ancipital I would consider an enforced 50 mph limit through roadworks to be fair and appropriate.

Appropriate limits reinforce appropriate driving in terms of speed.

I dive on that stretch of A2, and thank you for the warning.

Rockingdoc, No problem.

Further information - one set of the SPECS cameras have already been removed from both sides of the carriageway from the Dartford junction on the A2 up to where the actual roadworks start just before the M25 junction although the additional normal CCTV cameras that have appeared remain.

This just leaves SPECS covering from the start of the roadsworks on the west side of the M25 up to the Bean/Bluewater junction.

50mph along there is fair - being that they should be active, I saw several people this morning which would have been caught by the average speed. To be honest, during a normal weekday, certainly during AM or PM rushhour, average speed getting above 20mph would be a feat!

Steve.

Would you agree that 30 mph on the A38 between Bassetts Pole and just before the A5 interchange in July and on the A449 between the A5 and M54 earlier in the year, both normally 70mph limit dual carriageways in Staffordshire, is fair?

If not, what can we do to make Staffordshire County Council play fair?

They should be public on why they have reduced said limits. There is criteria, set by the govmt, in relation to this, but I'd be looking for what crashes have happened on that stretch over, say, a 3 year period etc...

They put a speed camera either way on the 303 just by Amesbury.

In all my years on Earth using that daily and listening to local radio I have never known an accident there, certainly not a hot spot, why would it be, its a clear stretch of road for miles.

Now the cameras are there I constantly see people anchoring on (yes yes they should be doing the speed limit) but the amount of crashes this has nearly caused is scary.

Cash cow, and nothing more.

quote:

They should be public on why they have reduced said limits. There is criteria, set by the govmt, in relation to this, but I'd be looking for what crashes have happened on that stretch over, say, a 3 year period etc...

Andy,

They were temporary speed limits that invite incredulous and therefore lucrative disobedience. Presumably this is how, in part, Staffordshire County Council funds the roadworks.

When the next island North on the A38 towards Lichfield (and ultimately your patch) was upgraded a couple of years ago there was a 40 mph limit because it involved the carriageway itself being upgraded. There was no two mile "buffer zone," something the County Council has become very fond of recently, though.

There has been a change in policy regarding temporary limits in the county. Given that it occurs on Trunk Roads I should blame the Highways Agency, except that it only seems to happen here.

Buffer zones are completely unjustifiable from a safety POV and are, if anything, counterproductive.