Why speed cameras suck

[sobrique]

I dislike speed cameras.
Leaving aside the obvious 'that I got tagged by one', the reasons are these:

* They perpetuate the myth that there's some mystical threshold, at which going faster you suddenly become 'dangerous'. Speed appropriate to conditions. Repeat after me. Speed appropriate to conditions.

* Watching your speedometer because there's a camera coming up means you're not paying attention to the road.

* A few miles an hour over the limit is less dangerous than stamping on the brakes to avoid getting a ticket.

* Automatic tickets transfer the burden of proof onto the hapless motorist. It's an automatic process that on numerous occasions seems to lack basic sanity checking. Guilting until proven innocent is not one of the tenets of our legal system.

* In March, I was assaulted, had a leg broken, and a ligament torn. I'm still not walking especially well. Made a statement, but they 'exhausted their avenues of enquiry'. Is it hard to see how I'm bitter that now some one is making my life complicated by issuing a ticket for doing 48 miles an hour, along a road that until a couple of months ago had a 60 mile an hour limit?

I appreciate that the skills required to investigate an assault case are not the same as the skills require to stick a notice of intended prosecution in an envelope, but somehow it offends me that more effort seems to have gone in to extorting £60 from me than in doing anything at all about the fact that I've had to put up with 6 weeks in a cast, and am still not entirely mobile.

Comments

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

By the letter of the law, 31mph in a 30 zone is an offence. Cameras may have fudge factors built into them, but surely that's just letting lawbreakers get away with it?

Should 'yes, I was over the limit, but I didn't do it deliberately' be a legitimate defense?

There's a notable difference between 'a bit over the limit' especially when the road is otherwise empty, and 60 mph through a residential area, past a school at kicking out time. But a speed camera draws no such distinction, if you're past the threshold, then clicky click.

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

True. Valid points.

However until we are all prepared to pay triple the current council tax so that there are enough traffic cops available to monitor the roads, speed cameras are the only option.

I live in a village, which is a 30 mph or 40 mph limit throughout. Clearly signposted. At each end of the village the road becomes national speed limit - single carriageway, ergo, 60 mph. How many muppets do you think overtake us each morning on the way to work doing 60 in the 30 zone stretch, because its 7.15 a.m. and the road is quiet, and 'well its only a few hundred yards til the speed limit changes anyway'? Revenge is coming -the local police will be arming residents on that stretch of road with mobile digital speed cameras very soon.

Personally, I'd shoot the fuckers.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think the easy solution would be 'self drive cars'. Set an autopilot, it takes you to work, and you can sit back and read a book, whilst having a pint. (no drunk in charge, because you're not in charge ;p). I rather like travelling by train, simply because you can just relax whilst doing so. Unfortunately, travelling by train is somewhat more pain than car with my route to work.