Speed cameras coming down all over the UK, thanks to new law.

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Blind_Io

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...eras-county-Britain-soon-follow.html?ITO=1490

Britain?s network of 6,000 speed cameras could be dramatically reduced after a raft of councils looked set to follow Oxfordshire?s move and switch theirs off.
The county?s entire network of 72 cameras will be switched off at midnight tonight after the coalition Government pulled the plug on their funding.

The change of heart could usher in a different landscape for Britain?s 33million motorists two decades after the first network was installed.
Already, neighbouring Buckinghamshire said it is ?very likely? to switch off its cameras, while Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Derbyshire have launched reviews.
Northamptonshire has also switched off eight of their 42 cameras and Somerset is to axe nine of its 26 traps in coming weeks.

Other local authorities have announced there will be no new cameras, despite praising them in the past for helping to reduce road deaths to a record low.

The moves, however, could be just the tip of the iceberg as councils battle to deal with huge reductions in central government funding while expecting further cuts.
Under the terms of the new budget, the road safety grant for 2010-11 has been slashed by 40 per cent.

Crucially, the capital grant - a ?17.2million annual fund that typically pays for the cameras - has also been abolished.
With few other way of funding the cameras - as the fines from speeding go to the Treasury - councils would have to pay using revenue earmarked for schools and other projects.

In the case of Oxfordshire, the county council axed its ?600,000 grant to the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership in a bid to find ?1million in savings.

While some residents have voiced concern that the move will turn the county?s roads into a ?racetrack?, many more have welcomed the decision.

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, who lives in the county, told the Sunday Times: ?It will make no difference to the speed that anyone travels.?
Thames Valley Police pointed out that officers will still be on the look-out for speeders.
Traffic police in the county issued 3,396 tickets for the offence in the year ending June 30.
The first camera network was installed in 1992, although their initial take-up was slow with only 30 in place two years after their launch.

It was not until 1999 that the boom really got under way after Labour created safety camera partnerships that allied police forces with local authorities to operate the traps.

In 2000, the numbers of speed cameras exploded to 4,500.
But as time went by they increasingly generated hostility with opponents labelling them ?greed cameras? employed as a stealth tax on motorists.
Labour moved to dispel public anger by announcing in 2007 that revenue would no longer go directly to councils but to the Treasury.

So, in providing a road safety grant instead, the last government was unwittingly complicit in the speed camera?s downfall.

Gloucestershire county council, now facing massive budget cuts, made this point apparent in a recent statement.

A spokesman said: ?The Government has cut the funding to operate the speed camera network - and remember, the Government keeps the revenue from the fines - therefore, we are cancelling all plans for expanding the speed camera network and upgrading existing cameras.?


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...itain-soon-follow.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0vf3vcdrO
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YES! FUCK YOU NANNY STATE!
 
Fund the cameras with the fines they generate, move what's left into the treasury. If the UK government does anything other than that, I question their sense of finance.
 
Speed cameras are rarely operated with an eye towards actual motoring safety. They're usually operated solely for revenue generation.
 
As Jeremy Clarkson himself pointed out when Stephen Ladyman was STIARPC, Simon Cowell pays more in income tax than the government got from speed cameras. So it's a lot of fuzz for very little money, it's like finding a legal loophole that lets you steal small change from your neighbours. You'll make enough to buy a pack og fags a month, and your neighbours will fucking hate you.

What will be interesting, is to see wether or not this will affect deaths. I don't think the difference will be very obvious, and making assumptions after the first years will be inaccurate at best. But after five-ten years, I guess we might learn a little about what they actually do.
 
Nobody said that the people approving these things used their brains, or really looked past the glossy brochures and shiny booklets containing 'studies' funded by the manufacturers of speed cameras to find out that reality. Their brains short out at the "It's for the children!" BS type of line and they'll happily sign anything into law.

The reality is that they don't generate the revenue the manufacturers promise - but that doesn't stop health-and-safety-uber-alles/kid-proof-the-world type politicians from signing up for them and throwing them up in vast quantities. That's why the Texas legislature outright banned them, among other Constitutional reasons.

In addition, if they were really for safety reasons, why do jurisdictions using them think it's a good idea to hide them or move them around? If you really want to stop or reduce speeding, put one of these things up on every lamp post, paint it blaze orange, and post that speeding is strictly enforced. Problem solved - safety issues would be paramount in that case. Hiding it in a roadworks barrel? Disguising it as a bush? Painting it green to blend in against the scenery? I'm sorry, that's just a revenue generation attempt.
 
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I agree on those points, and while I agree there were a lot of assumptions made without proper research, I do think you're painting a picture that's too simple.
 
Interesting that Northamptonshire has also switched off eight of their 42 cameras, this is the county that spearheaded the whole 'safety camera team' thing initially, if they're going there then they'll be going everywhere.

Something else of possible interest:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/speedcam_numbers/

Although the headline reduction in KSI at speed cam locations reported in a 2005 study was 42 per cent, a review by academic experts in the field of transport statistics showed that more than half of this effect was not due to speed cams, but to other completely unrelated factors.
Despite this and the fact that the DfT?s own report included the academic critique, the figure almost always quoted in official publications was 42 per cent. When we first raised this issue two years ago, the official line was that this was the "correct" figure ? and the department would not budge from that assertion.
Last week, all that changed, as a spokeswoman told us: "This was basically an oversight and it will be corrected."
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:thumbsup:
 
When they say switch off, they mean they switched off right? This isn't just a ploy to tell the public that they're "switched off" and then catch them when people start speeding?
 
nomix said:
I agree on those points, and while I agree there were a lot of assumptions made without proper research, I do think you're painting a picture that's too simple.
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I wish that were so, but I've sat in on city council meetings in local towns where Redflex was trying to get their products in and that's exactly how it is sold - and how they get approved. "We can save the chirrun and make tons of money? Let's do it!"
 
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Bit like this?

 
Sadly, not too far from the mark. And from what I've seen, this appears to be the case in England and other countries as well.
 
Motorists 1 - Nanny State - 0

Hopefully within 5 years speed cameras will be consigned to the history books forever.
 
I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with Spectre, these were all about revenue generation and safety was a (comparatively) minor consideration. Note how fast councils were to drop them after the money went to Central Gvt (hell, Gordon had to pay the bills somehow).

(Although when I saw a sign the other day saying "17 killed on this road in the last 4 years", I must confess to thinking "only 17 in 4 years, come on, you aren't even trying. Perhaps try some pop-up manhole covers.")
 
My city of 30.000 inhabitants has...2 speed cameras. As of tomorrow, however, one will be put down for the ''lack of operation'' ( they haven't caught anyone on it for 1 month ). Oh and the one that will stay is mostly broken, so whatever they might earn from it, they put back into it for repairs.

:rofl:

Also, thank god the UK is gonna get rid of them..most probably..
 
In Soviet Slovenia, speed camera is caught speeding?
 
Most likely, the damn thing is always broken. =) I don't mind though.
 
So, the key to ending oppressive government programs is to simply make funding for those things unavailable.

So there IS an upside to global economic recession!
 
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