Speed camera information for drivers on M6, M56, M60 and M62

Thanks Neil.

I've been passed these several times. No letter yet!

So in theory, a high-miler (or indeed anyone) with an enthusiastic and heavy right foot could lose his or her licence in a day.

Would the law actually be applied to that degree ie "you have been caught speeding 6 times therefore you get 18 points and a ban" or would the powers that be show some commonsense and leniency?

On the other hand, it would be nice to be able to average 78mph on the M6 car park in my area.

Crap system. So anyone can drive for miles and miles, pissed out of their heads, and all they get is a speeding ticket!

Rasher - soz to disagree but not a crap system at all.
And while I'm at it if we paid for more cops on the motorways to look at all the other issues then perhaps people wouldn't speed. Its not as if they don't know they are doing it - look what happens when there is a cop on the motorway - miraculously (probably spelled wrong!lol) everone suddenly discovers how to do 70mph!
Rant over -I'll get me coat (as someone else on this forum often says)

Why shouldn't serial law breakers lose their license?
What is it with this country that a large minority of drivers think they should be able to break the law with impunity.?
Bob

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Why shouldn't serial law breakers lose their license?

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Get real Bob

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look what happens when there is a cop on the motorway - miraculously (probably spelled wrong!lol) everone suddenly discovers how to do 70mph!

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And when this happens the traffic all bunches up and the speed drops to around sixty. This is more dangerous than a free-flowing motorway with plenty of distance between each vehicle and the fastest vehicles in the outside lane doing about 85.

Have you ever wondered why the marked police vehicle usually parks up or exits the motorway when this happens?

As for the "camera information" at the start of this thread, it's a hoax.

It's all revealed here.

Speed accounts for just 7.3% of all road accidents. If we spent more time and resources on improving dangerous single-grade T junctions and less on cameras we might beging to rise above the plateau we've been stuck in regarding accident rates for he last five years (despite the massive increase in speeding convictions during that period.)

It is time we focused more on making roads safer and more efficient and less on politically correct and ineffective "phase shifting."

Anyone who thinks that lowered and rigidly enforced speed limits has anything to do with safety is a naive fool.

Regards,

Steve.

I know that you drive for a living and and such will have a good idea of how to make the roads safer. I also know that getting points on your licience is a big deterrent for you.

I know several policemen socially and they all say the same thing. Road accidents are lower in countries which impose lower speed limits.

Therefore by rigorously imposing the 70 mph limit, less people will suffer death or injury and that is the most important thing in my book.

Regards

Mick

Mick,

They've recently raised limits in the US. Guess what? The accident rate actually fell for the reasons I outlined above.

Facts count in these issues not politically fashionable opinions.



Regards,

Steve.

"And when this happens the traffic all bunches up and the speed drops to around sixty"

Which is of course causd by the speeding motorists approaching from the rear not the ones travelling at the appropriate speed.

"This is more dangerous than a free-flowing motorway with plenty of distance between each vehicle and the fastest vehicles in the outside lane doing about 85"

Which is is in turn more dangerous than a free flowing motorway travelling at 70.

Matthew

Matthew,

You don't even drive so you wouldn't know that at 70 in the outside lane a vehicle is only doing 14 mph more than the lorry two lanes to the left.

To keep traffic flowing there needs to be a speed differential between each lane of around 10mph. To achieve this you'd have to cut speed limits for lorries to 40 mph (then watch UK industy costs soar.)



Regards,

Steve.

I’m a reasonable bloke who is getting fed up with this speed speed speed message – its provable bollox and pissing me off. It’s got more to with PC councils and police fundraising than safety. About 6% of accidents are caused by speed ABSOLUTE FACT. Has a look at these to very good sites and stop believing this shite. Some bits of Italy’s limit is up and guess what – accidents down – same the world over. There is only one cause of the carnage on the roads – BAD DRIVING.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/
http://www.abd.org.uk
Regards Martin

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I know several policemen socially and they all say the same thing. Road accidents are lower in countries which impose lower speed limits.

Therefore by rigorously imposing the 70 mph limit, less people will suffer death or injury and that is the most important thing in my book.

Regards

Mick

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Mick, you're talking rubbish. Countries that have rigidly enforced speed limits - UK, Australia, Sweden have seen their fatal accident rates plateau over the past 10 years while their revenues from speeding fines have skyrocketed. In the meantime other countries that don't rigidly enforce speed limits (France, Germany etc) have seen the continuation of a long-term downward trend in fatalities.
The message from the UK & Australian governments at the moment - and it's been parroted on many threads by many people just on this site - is that you are perfectly safe if you stick to the speed limit (and you're going to die a horrible death if you don't). As an example, I saw a guy on the news, following a multicar pile-up in fog, saying "they didn't tell us that we should slow down". Little wonder that accident rates haven't fallen if we no longer train people to think for themselves.

John
France has the highest road fatality rates in Europe. I spend a lot of time in France and the view of the authorities and the public is that it is down to 2 factors; speeding and alcohol. There is currently a big crackdown nationally on speeding and speed cameras are being reintroduced.

Bob

Studies 1 & 2 are cited as having found a relationship between speed reduction and collision frequency (1mph / 5% fewer collisions per year). Study 3 found that cameras reduce casualties by 28%. Study 4 found that half of motorists involved in a fatal car accident involving a pedestrian or cyclist were found to have been speeding.

1. Finch D J, Kompfner P, Lockwood C R and Maycock G (1994). Speed, Speed Limits and Accidents. Project Report 58, Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Crowthorne.

2. Taylor M C, Lynam D A and Baruya A (2000). The effects of drivers' speed on the frequency of road accidents. Report 421, TRL, Crowthorne

3. Hooke A, Knox J and Portas D (1996). Cost Benefit Analysis of Traffic Light and Speed Cameras. Police Research Series paper 20, Police Research Group, Home Office, London

4. Jones, L. 1996. Putting Transport on the Social Policy Agenda. Social Policy Review 8: 247-264

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"This is more dangerous than a free-flowing motorway with plenty of distance between each vehicle and the fastest vehicles in the outside lane doing about 85"

Which is is in turn more dangerous than a free flowing motorway travelling at 70.

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Which is in turn more dangerous than a free flowing motorway travelling at 50mph ... etc. etc. Of course the safest motorway is when all the cars are stationary. But then the economy would grind to a halt and instead of spending more of our lives doing what we want to we'd spend more of them travelling.

My two pennies:

worst most myopic driving I've ever seen = Canada (100km, cruise contol on along arrow straight roads in the middle of nowhere, same speeds screeching round corners on the outskirts of towns - bizarre), most rigidly enforced speed limits I've ever seen .... Canada.

the road I'm most petrified about - right outside my front gate, 30mph is way too fast, loads of the houses have kiddies, there are two schools, busses regularly belt along at way more than 30 and just think how quickly one of those would be able to stop. Are there any speed cameras here, of course not. Where are the local speed cameras, on a 3 lane bit of nearly motorway standard dual carriageway with a 50mph limit, barriers at the side of the road, central reservation, etc.

The whole thing stinks
Phil

Martin D & John Sheridan

Here, here!

Steve

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Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
John
France has the highest road fatality rates in Europe. I spend a lot of time in France and the view of the authorities and the public is that it is down to 2 factors; speeding and alcohol. There is currently a big crackdown nationally on speeding and speed cameras are being reintroduced.

Bob

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Riiight. So no crackdown on driving pissed??

Steve
(Not knocking your observation BTW, Bob!)

Driving fast is fun and exciting but we all know it is dangerous.

Driving at 70 mph is fast enough and if you go faster, you increase your chances of being involved in an accident.

Before you accuse me of being a paragon of virtue, I have been pulled up seven times on a motorway for speeding (I used to run Jaguars) but fortunately I talked my way out of it each time.

Thats one advantage of being middle aged and wearing a suit.

The law protects us and others from ourselves.

Regards

Mick

Mick - you were lucky. You can't charm a camera these days no matter your age, status or choice of suit. And that's what most people object to. It's a bit like a trial without a jury - and nobody likes those!

Steve

I was photographed doing 36 mph, going through a red light last year.

It was a £30 fine and 3 points and I blame no one but myself. I don't drive through lights anymore.

Regards

Mick

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Originally posted by Mekon:
Studies 1 & 2 are cited as having found a relationship between speed reduction and collision frequency (1mph / 5% fewer collisions per year). Study 3 found that cameras reduce casualties by 28%. Study 4 found that half of motorists involved in a fatal car accident involving a pedestrian or cyclist were found to have been speeding.

1. Finch D J, Kompfner P, Lockwood C R and Maycock G (1994). Speed, Speed Limits and Accidents. Project Report 58, Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Crowthorne.

2. Taylor M C, Lynam D A and Baruya A (2000). The effects of drivers' speed on the frequency of road accidents. Report 421, TRL, Crowthorne

3. Hooke A, Knox J and Portas D (1996). Cost Benefit Analysis of Traffic Light and Speed Cameras. Police Research Series paper 20, Police Research Group, Home Office, London

4. Jones, L. 1996. Putting Transport on the Social Policy Agenda. Social Policy Review 8: 247-264

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1 & 2) speed reduction NOT speed enforcement. Speed reduction is achieved by people driving to the conditions.
3) how surprising, the police claiming their revenue earners are saving lives. Pity the real facts don't support them. The flaw in the statistics? They looked at too small a sample. Just because you had x number of accidents at a spot in one year, put in a camera and then the next year have x/2 accidents doesn't mean that the camera has halved your accident rate. Try looking at the previous 10 years or more of data and you'll see that these claimed reductions aren't real but just normal fluctuations.
4) more likely it found that they were driving too fast for the conditions (excessive speed is what the government chooses to call speeding, not exceeding the speed limit, which is how they manage to achieve their 30% of accidents caused by 'speeding' claim rather than the official police figures of less than 10%). As a cyclist I have far, far, far more issues with cnuts who think they own the road, don't look where they are going, don't indicate, and so on. Speed is NOT the issue bad attitudes and bad driving ARE the issue. As I've said before, far too many people think the LIMIT is some sort of fixed speed at which you (a) must drive and (b) you're not going to die. Rain, hail, fog, snow, you name it they're driving at the posted speed limit because the government has convinced them it's safe.
Another example for you. On one of my drives from Sydney to Adelaide. Posted speed limit is 110km/h. Bright, sunny, early morning, almost no traffic. I was driving at 130km/h (they usually give you 20km/h leeway). Passed a few cars along the way who were sitting on the speed limit. Came to the southern highlands. Thick fog. Very low visibility. I slow to 50km/h due to the conditions. The cars I'd passed earlier come belting past me still stuck on the speed limit. Question: who were the police (and it would seem members of this forum) more likely to pull over and accuse of endangering the lives of innocents? Next question: who was far more likely to have a major accident?

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going through a red light last year.

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f*ck me, and you say speeding's dangerous... what can be more dangerous than running a red?

John, I don't want to waste my time supplying you with more info you are going to ignore. Perhaps you could point me to a study in a peer reviewed journal that evidences your dismissal of the relationship between speed and fatalities?

In the meantime, the evidence I've read would encourage me to ask for more cameras and stricter enforcement of speed limits.

Last time I asked, RTAs were the cause of the greatest number of lost years of life in the UK.

Mekon,

I don't dispute your facts and figures other than to say that the research was conducted entirely in urban areas where a 30mph speed limit is appropriate. The findings are not applicable to motorway driving.

I believe we should:-

* Rigidly enforce the 30 and 40 mph limits at accident blackspots with both fixed and/or mobile cameras that are plainly visible from at least 75 feet.

* Cut speed limits to 20mph outside schools between the hours of 8am-9am, 3pm-4pm. A flashing sign should serve as the prompt for this lowered limit.

* Replace many single grade T junctions with either multi-grade interchanges on busy dual carriageways (expensive I know) or (mini) roundabouts on other roads. This measure alone will have the biggest effect in reducing road accidents.

* Raise speed limits on rural motorways from 70 to 80 mph in the first instance. If this proves to be successful in improving journey times without increasing the accident rate then further increases should follow.

* Use SPECS cameras to enforce safe distances between vehicles travelling at speed in designated and well-publicised areas. (The SPECS devices would have to be placed several of them in rapid succession to allow for the two-second rule being broken by sudden braking.)

A car travelling at 85mph with at least two seconds between it and the vehicle in front is safer than one travelling at 70 maintaining a distance of only a few feet.

* Widen the M1 between junctions 25 to 21, and 7 to 12.

* Widen the M6 between J11 (M6 toll) and J20.

* Upgrade the A14 from the end of the M6 to motorway status and widen it as far as the M11 at Cambridge.

* Upgrade the A1 to motorway status with at least three lanes from London to Newcastle.

* Fill in the two-lane and non-motorway gap between the end of the M6 to the start of the M74/A74M between Carlisle and the Scottish border.

* Reinstate the Wolverhampton Western Bypass, creating an orbital motorway along with the M6 toll to the North, and the M42 to the East and South. Manchester and London have orbital motorways, so should Birmingham.

* Motorway driving should be taught in practice as part of the driving test, as a Part Two of the test.

* Traffic lights should be phased to aid the flow of traffic and not work against it. Congestion causes pollution. Exacerbating congestion to meet government targets for reduced traffic flow ( counterproductive lip-service to Kyoto?) was a scheme concocted by the biggest dickhead transport has ever known.

* Speed humps should be removed from all through routes. Emergency vehicles need to travel quickly in order to save lives.

* Remove all chicanes. They are killers in their own right - misjudge one and you hit either a cast iron post or the vehicle coming the other way.

* Bury the "Friends of the Earth [yeah right]" maxim once and for all:

"Speed limits should be set low and rigidly enforced to take the glamour out of motoring."

This only serves to make our lives more miserable. It does nothing to improve safety, or reduce pollution and congestion.
It also plays into the hands of socialist bigotry.



Regards,

Steve.

[This message was edited by Steven Toy on FRIDAY 05 December 2003 at 03:57.]