Simon Mason wrote:

"John" wrote in message
...
S Mason wrote:
A few weeks ago I was off the bike and had to endure the misery of
driving to work for a few days. The law breaking I saw shocked me
into writing this letter to our local newspaper:

http://www.swldxer.co.uk/zletter2.jpg

Did all the speeding that you witnessed result in the mass-carnage
that you would have expected to see if the speed limit zealots'
predictions are to be believed?

10 people dead every day? Is that mass carnage?

3,650 per year - where was that?

No, but a crying shame
for those families involved in such unnecessary deaths.

Absolutely. I'd be extremely surprised if anyone anywhere, let alone UK
motorists, who make up the thick-end of the casualty figures in the UK,
would disagree with that.

It appears to me that the debate over what the solution for this might
be is polarised, as is the bicycle helmet debate, with the
"establishment" and "road safety" lobbyists coming down on the side of
helmets and speed cameras, whilst those with the wherewithal to analyse
the data dispassionately, and resort to a bit of lateral thinking, can
see the weaknesses in the data, and in the arguments purporting to
"prove" that helmets or speed cameras are the panacea.

If our city has learned anything from having had 120 separate 20 mph
zones for the past decade it is that slowing traffic down has had a
dramatic effect on the deaths on our streets, especially deaths and
serious injuries among children.

Has independent scientific studies been carried out of before and after
data, and comparisons made with similar locations that haven't applied
20 mph speed limits, and current downward trends accommodated, which
proves that any drop in KSIs has definitely been *caused* by the
introduction of lower limits?

As far as cameras go, I don't care if they are on every street - the
more the merrier. I have a clean licence for one good reason, I don't
exceed the speed limit.

A clean licence is one thing, and an obsession with speed limits is
another, but are you therefore necessarily a "safe" driver? Do you ever
drive "too fast for the conditions"? It is implicitly speed within the
limit, and it is a larger factor in injury collisions than speeding
(speed above the limit). It is an increasingly dangerous phenomena
which may well be the result of the presence of speed cameras which
condone and practically encourage it.

I find that if I don't shoplift I don't get
caught by the shop's CCTV either.

Or is it just a coincidence? I don't speed, yet have been flashed by a
speed camera. Many dangerous drivers don't get caught by speed cameras
- simply because they are being dangerous, but within the speed limit.

I can't see why people have such a big
problem with cameras, I don't give them a second thought.

The problem is that they brain-wash drivers into believing that they are
safe and, more importantly, legal, no matter how dangerously they drive
- so long as they don't break the speed limit within range of a speed
camera.

--
John