They always knew that speed cameras were a con - and they lied and lied and lied again
I have spent thousands of hours studying speed camera data, claims and casualty trends, initially in connection with my ECHR "right to silence" application (Google my name and "ECHR" for more information). I have 400mb of data, analysis, correspondence - and that does not included tens of thousands of emails. Here are a few facts:
1/ In the speed camera era 10,000 more people have died than would have been expected because a 7% pa compound fall in deaths/traffic changed to less than 3% pa. That's more British deaths than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, several times over.
This is not guesswork of bias, but simple aritmetical fact. Of course in itself that the graph of extra deaths almost exactly matches the graph of speed camera fines does not prove that one cause the other, but the coroorating evidence - cuts in police patrols, all those adverse effects all over the county etc etc certainly make a damning case.
2/ The police STATS19 crash analysis data says that 5%, 6%, 8%, 9% and 114% of All, Slight, Serious, KSI and Fatal accidents respectively involve speeding. But if you read the STATS 20 instructions to police for completing STATS 19 you will find that officers are instructed to tick the "
Speeding" box if one or more vehicle WAS speeding - or MIGHT have been speeding. By definition therefore the figures are overstated.
But there's more - "involved" is one thing, "primary cause" is quite another. Almost all crashes involve several causal factors - eg drunk/ too fast / wet road etc - and even if cameras eliminated ALL speeding, the other factors would remain, so accidents would fall by much less than the above %s. As the DfT itself has pointed out.
But there's yet more - by common consent, any camera "benefit" is restricted to wthin 0.5km or so of the site - so cameras affect only 1% of rural road length and 3% of urban. So maximum reduction, even with all speeding eliminated, even for fatal, is not 14%, but 14% divided by (say) 3 to allow for other factors, divided by 2 (typical fall in speeding is 50%) and times 3% to allow for coverage = 0.06%,or 1 in 1,600, a proportion so small it would not show above the random variations of fataliies, or something like 2 per annum in Britain.
THAT ladies and gentlemen, is the order of magnitude of the benefit achieved for £120m year (plus all the costs of defendants of course, direct and indirect) Or it would be if the 40 or so adverse effects did not kill far higher numbers than that.
Let's have no more of the sanctimonious "if you don't like it, don't speed" claptrap - many safe drivers are penalised for simple mistakes that involve no danger whatever, often at inappropriately low speed limits, and other innocent drivers are penalised because of defective equipment, perjured and forged evidence etc etc - I have records of many such cases on file.
But all of that is trivial compared to the REAL problems (1) they do not cut accidents (2) they cause many more accidents than they could possibly cut. You may doubt it but I have the evidence. Don't argue unlessl you too have put in the effort to find out, because I find it pointless to debate any subject with anyone who has no idea what he is talking about.
3/ The DfT has refused to investigate adverse effects of cameras, telling me, in writing, that it is not possible for any to exist - although nearly 40 have been identified including sudden braking, slowing and accelerating, etc etc etc. (Well, if you were a Brain of Britain, would YOU work at the DfT? I suspect that they offer day release courses for 3 years for staff to study to become half-wits. Not all of them achieve it)
4/ The DfT have known all along that the 4th year report claims were bogus and misleading - that has been pointed out them repeatedly by many campaigners.
So, ladies and gentlemen - we have been conned big time. £1bn down the drain, and now redundancy money and pensions for 2,000 otherwise unemployable jobsworths - and God knows, I have corresponded with enough of these brain-dead people to be able to vouch for that description. Except for the cunning ones of course, who write the web sites giving seriously misleading information about your rights and responsibilities. Just two examples -
5/ they try to tell defendants that the NIP is valid if posted no later than the 14th day - UNTRUE - it has to be posted, by 1st class letter post, so that it would normally ARRIVE no later than the 14th day. To be valid it must also be recorded ON THE SAY IT IS SENT by the authorities as having been sent that day. Hampshire SCP recently had to quash 1000s of convictions because they didn't do this, but were caught out by a determined defendant as having filled in those details only months later, only for the cases that went to court. The head of the organisation conveniently went back to S Africa out of reach of the law, the official who carried out her illegal instructions was not even reprimanded.
6/ Another example - they try to tell you that you have an absolute duty to identify the driver - its a LIE. Parliament rightly recognised that people should not be penalised for failing to do something that they are are in fact unable to do, so the Para 4 S172 defence is that you do not know who was driving, and despite having tried your best cannot find out. That means you are innocent.
So by now you are starting to realise that we have indeed been fleeced, by conmen, by smooth tongued snakeoil salesmen, by politicians unwilling to admit that they made a very serious mistake - believe me, you ain't seen nothing yet.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
