Side Effects

Look, lurkers! No-one here has *ever* so much as attempted to rebut a
*single one* of the following list of side effects of speed cameras.
Is that how people who really thought that speed cameras didn't have
side effects would behave? Or is it more what you'd expect from
people who supported cameras for anti-motorist reasons, and didn't
give a monkey's how many side effects there were (as long as enough of
the public - like you - believed that cameras saved lives)?

Why the eagerness to support cameras and "speed kills" policy despite
not being able to counter the below? Why the crazed hatred of those
who propagate such information (which should surely be easy to counter
if it's as "barking" as suggested)? Are those things borne out of a
scientific belief that cameras save lives, or the deranged anger of a
group of people who are rapidly losing the battle to delude the public
into going along with their nasty, spiteful, dishonest campaign
against car drivers?

1. Road safety culture damage
Although it is not much talked about in road safety, cultural values
at very much at the heart of any safety
system. However, in industrial safety, developing and maintaining a
safety culture is considered central to
reducing risk. Unfortunately nothing in modern policy is helping to
build a sound road safety culture. The
side effects listed here are actually causing severe damage to our
once good road safety culture. Our pre-
vious good safety culture was a central component in achieving the
safest roads in the world.

Direct and indirect effects on driver quality

2. Drivers' general attitude to driving is worsened.
One of the key factors that identifies a low risk driver is having a
good attitude. A good attitude comes from
taking responsibilities seriously and goes towards allowing safe
margins for error. Drivers with a good atti-
tude learn from their mistakes and don't take safety for granted.
There's a significant risk that excessive
speed enforcement is having a general negative effect on drivers'
attitudes.

Systematic changes in priority

3. Reduced roads traffic policing
Road traffic policing has been in steady decline in the speed camera
era. It is sometimes argued that
speed cameras have nothing to do with the accepted decline. We blame
policy and point out that the same
policy makers have caused the rise in cameras and the decline in roads
traffic policing.

4. Speed management replaces road user quality management
The advent of speed cameras steadily taking the place of traffic
police has had the inevitable effect of
changing the balance refined over the years by competent police forces
to place greater emphasis on
speed limit compliance.

5. Speed enforcement replaces sound road safety engineering.
Slapping a camera up was almost the Pavlovian response to a couple of
accidents in the same stretch of
road. What used to happen pre-camera era – and what must happen again
as we recover – is that road
engineers examine the root cause of the accident or hazard and
orchestrate a means to reduce/eliminate
the hazard or make it much more visible.

Side effects of lower vehicle speeds

6. Risk Compensation 1 - motorists
Drivers may follow closer or drive more aggressively to preserve
personal subjective risk levels when
forced to travel at a speed significantly lower than their optimum
safe speed of progress for the conditions..

7. Risk Compensation 2 - motorists
Drivers may pay ‘just enough’ attention to preserve subjective risk
levels at any speed. If speeds are lower,
then attention is lower. This is very dangerous if it is punctuated by
periods of complete inattention.

8. Risk compensation 3 – motorists and pedestrians
Slower traffic may create an illusion of safety. This may result in
lower levels of care from drivers and espe-
cially from pedestrians.

9. Stimulation effect
Less stimulation for drivers (lower work rates / lower information
rates) leads to more sleepiness and poorer
concentration.

10. Longer exposure to accident risk due to longer journey times.
Some accident risk on the roads is time-based. Where journeys take
longer, the time exposed to danger is
increased. This effect must be quantified and allowed for. It is
especially relevant for "fell asleep at the
wheel" type accidents, which are likely to be more prevalent due to
reduced stimulation.

11. Reduced rate of driver skills acquisition
Higher driving speeds are a ‘stressor’ that promotes experience
learning. Without the stressor it is highly
likely that vital experience based skills are acquired more slowly or
not at all. Trained Police drivers are fre-
quently heard to say: “You never really learn to drive until you are
travelling well over the speed limit.” Of
course, that’s not to say that people should be encouraged to driver
well over the speed limit. However the
effect is certain to be present to a degree in less extreme
circumstances. Any reduction in the rate or extent
of experience learning reflects directly in reduced average driver
skills.

12. Dangerous overtaking of lorries due to ‘HGV40’ enforcement
Having different speed limits for different classes of vehicles on the
same stretch of roads, particularly sin-
gle carriageway roads, and rigorously enforcing the speed limit of the
slower vehicle types, leads to “trains”
of the slower vehicles and frustration of the faster ones. This can
lead to riskier overtakes than would oth-
erwise occur, exacerbated further by the overtaking vehicle also
having to be wary of blipping over the limit
in the act of passing in case of a camera.

Effects of messages in support of cameras / reduced speeds

13. Responsibility effect 1
Reduced individual driver responsibility in general and for choice of
speed in particular, leads to a reduced
tendency for drivers to reduce speed when necessary.

14. Priority Distortion 1
Drivers' priorities are distorted. (i.e. speeds are set to legal
limits rather than for safe driving reasons). We
believe that millions of drivers have come to regard the speedometer
as a barometer of safety; it is no such
thing.

15. Priority Distortion 2
Maintaining a legal speed may sometimes instantaneously be more
important to a driver than observing or
dealing with road hazards.

16. False safety beliefs
Messages that imply that exceeding the speed limit is dangerous come
with a misleading counterpart – the
implication that if exceeding the speed limit is dangerous, then
observing the speed limit must be safe. It
certainly isn’t true, but we believe that most of us are affected from
time to time and millions are affected
continuously.

17. Oversimplified messages
Modern road safety messages tend to focus on very simple ‘dos’ and
‘don’ts’, Stick to the speed limit. Wear
your seatbelt. Don’t use your mobile phone. But road safety needs
sophisticated messages such as. De-
velop your skills. Learn to better manage risk. Take responsibility
for your actions. To some extent speed
camera policy is responsible for this oversimplification of road
safety messages.

Practical side effects of camera enforcement

18. Driver distraction
Drivers pay less attention to the road ahead because they pay much
more attention to speed limit signs,
the speedometer, speed cameras and indeed anywhere where there might
be a speed camera. While this
effect is small in any individual driver, it probably amounts to
several percent of total national driver atten-
tion. This is a huge hidden danger and, given the size of the
population, it is certain that there will be cases
where this low level but widespread distraction coincides with
incident development.

19. Traffic displacement
Traffic diverts to less safe roads due to enforcement on busy routes.
Of particular concern here are danger-
ous ‘thrill seeking’ groups of road users. It’s known that such use of
the roads carries a high risk and it is
only reasonable to assume that anyone intending to use our roads in
their own vehicles in such a way will
actively seek out camera free routes to get their thrills. So the
traffic displaced by cameras includes highly
risky groups. This may contribute very strongly to an illusion of
speed camera benefit and a significant es-
calation of risk elsewhere.

20. ‘Race-away’ behaviour
It has been admitted at the highest level that crashes beyond speed
camera sites sometimes increase as
drivers or motorcyclists ‘race away’ from the speed camera site and
‘crash on the next bend’. It remains to
be determined if this effect results primarily from anger or
over-excitement.

Crashes caused by enforcement

21. The risk of accidents directly caused by enforcement.
It is well known that, irrespective of speed of free travel, some
drivers automatically brake or slow down sig-
nificantly for a camera. If a speedo check reveals a speed within the
limit, but is carried out at the same
time as panic braking by the vehicle in front, the gap between
vehicles can reduce to dangerous levels re-
quiring severe braking and can result in loss of control and
collisions.

22. Injuries caused by enforcement hardware – fixed cameras.
Any street furniture is vulnerable to collision with any road user.
Often we see bent traffic light support
poles and street lights. Keep left signs are more vulnerable. The
extra poles to support speed cameras
are not exempt from such incidents. Given the additional reinforcement
to avoid vibration and to render
them vandal-resistant they are actually particularly dangerous.

23. Average speed cameras promote speedo obsession
Average speed cameras were promoted to overcome the argument of the
blip overtaking being more risky
thanks to fixed “instantaneous” enforcement. The side effects are far
worse though. People are more ob-
sessed with their speedo in such zones, leading to dangerously low
attention spans to the real hazards.

24. Average speed cameras promote close proximity driving
It is highly visible in motorway road works sections overseen by SPECS
average speed cameras that vehi-
cle drive in close proximity to one another, both close following and
long periods of side-by-side driving are
extremely commonplace as vehicles match their speeds to the exact
speed limit. Side-by-side driving in-
creases risk because in the event of an incident there’s no escape
space.

Legal and societal effects

25. Poorer public / police relationship.
Road traffic policing has already had a clear effect on the public's
perception of the police. Many law-abid-
ing people only come into contact with the police over road traffic
issues. The blunt nature of the law, with
eroded presumptions of innocence, eroded right to silence and absolute
offences frequently leads to the
Police being seen in a bad light. This degrades the Police’s ability
to deal with all crime, and especially
means that Police road safety messages are regarded with less respect.
One particular strong contributor are the frequent cases reported in
press where it is perfectly clear that the
Police cannot obey the speed limit laws either (when off duty, or
otherwise unable to avail themselves of
their speed limit exemption).

26. Reduced respect for law.
The vast majority of UK drivers regularly exceed the speed limit, and
this includes the legislators, Police
(without an emergency need) and court officials. When a citizen faces
conviction for a speeding offence he
knows full well that those responsible for convicting him are
regularly guilty of the same offence. The hypo-
critical application of the law brings it into serious disrepute and
the ultimate consequences can only be
guessed at. There are many ways that reduced respect for the law can
bring new dangers to our roads.

27. Reduced confidence in official road safety messages
The false safety messages surrounding the Department for Transport’s
speed camera campaign result in
substantial public disbelief and loss of confidence. The opportunity
to communicate valuable road safety
messages is being eroded.

28. Road user groups are set against one another
Some cyclists and pedestrians are noticeably angry with car drivers
because they have been persuaded
that ‘exceeding the speed limit is dangerous’ and they know that
exceeding the speed limit is common-
place. This growing animosity is very bad for road safety which
depends on co-operation and considera-
tion.

29. Reduced interest in road safety and safe driving
Modern road safety is onerous even to responsible drivers. They are
being pushed away from an interest in
the subjects, rather than invited in. People who are disinterested are
less likely to acquire skills, less likely
to investigate the subject and less likely ultimately to perform well.
While it will certainly be very difficult to
determine the road safety consequences of such effects, it should be
obvious that they are real and that
they are negative.

30. Journeys take longer and cost more.
Most speed limits and speed limit enforcement has little effect on
journey times, but there are important ex-
ceptions. One such exception is unnecessary enforcement of the HGV
40mph speed limit on single car-
riageway trunk routes, which can add as much as 35% to journey times
for both HGVs and other road
users. This loss of economic efficiency ultimately means less money in
the economy to invest in schools
and hospitals.

31. Reduced incentive to train drivers better.
The more we characterise drivers as “incompetents who must be
regulated” the further we move away from
the previous “individual responsibility” system of road safety that
served us so well, providing excellent re-
ductions in road casualties until about 1993. The present course of
speed reduction tends to lead us to ne-
glect the basic sound idea of obtaining improved safety standards by
training to improve drivers’ attitudes
and road safety culture.

32. More lawless drivers - false number plates, improper registration,
no insurance, car cloning etc.
It's obvious that we already have drivers who neglect or evade
registration and other legal requirements in
order to evade modern dumb speed enforcement. Once they have decided
to behave outside the law we
suggest that they may well behave in a more dangerous manner, and for
example, might be much less
likely to stop and render assistance after an accident. They are hit
and run drivers in the making.

33. More safe drivers convicted with possible loss of job / home etc.
Whatever way you look at figures, it is clear that the vast majority
of modern speeding offences are carried
out by drivers who will never be involved in an excessive speed
accident. One might reasonably infer that
many cases of exceeding a speed limit take place in safe circumstances
where no actual danger is caused.
The Law has to be subservient to Justice. Applying the weight of law
in these cases has serious conse-
quences and sometimes results in loss of job. There probably already
have been suicides triggered by the
consequences of speeding convictions.

34. Honesty and accuracy in official road safety messages suffers
‘Speed’ has been deliberately demonised in support of speed camera
policy. Huge claims are regularly
made for crash reductions at speed camera sites, while the very
important regression to the mean bias is
never accounted for. Department for Transport insists on adding
contributory factors for ‘inappropriate
speed’ (a driver quality issue) to ‘speeding’ (a legal compliance
issue) in order to exaggerate the impor-
tance of legal speed controls, and to justify their flawed speed
camera programme.

35. Heavy load on Courts and CPS
Some solicitors have become notorious for clearing the name of certain
celebrities who have been accused
of speeding. This, along with websites such as Pepipoo encourages
aggrieved motorists to become recal-
citrant, raking over all details and having their day in court. The
system is becoming overloaded.

36. Camera overuse is leading to legal challenges to laws. Useful laws
may be lost as a consequence.
Sophisticated members of society are mounting challenges to the law
surrounding speed cameras. A par-
ticular current example is the ongoing challenge to the requirement
for a vehicle owner to identify the driver
at the time of an alleged offence. At the time of writing we’re
awaiting a verdict from the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR) in the famous ‘right to silence’ case. If Section
172 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act
1988 is lost due to this case the Police’s ability to act in serious
cases of hit and run crashes will be re-
duced.

37. Public danger, expense and resources consumed by speed camera
vandalism
Speed camera vandalism is common. It’s possible that cases of
vandalism will directly endanger the public.
It’s certain that such vandalism will take funds from the wider
economy with a small effect on funding avail-
able for public services including schools and hospitals.

38. A boom in number plate theft, car cloning and neglect of vehicle
registration requirements
One of the fastest growing motoring crimes is number plate cloning. A
number plate from a car of the same
type and colour as the target car is made up and fixed to the target
car. Any camera flashes it collects go
to the registered keeper of the original car to deal with. Camera
based enforcement positively promotes this
sort of activity as people come to realise that they might be better
off working outside of the system. This in
turn consumes significant Police resources which are then unavailable
for road safety work.

Evaluation side effects

39. Joy riders, drunks, reckless and lawless drivers unaffected.
If we get to a point where we have figures to extrapolate road safety
improvements from speed reductions,
it must be remembered that not all road users will be affected by
enforcement schemes. Joy riders are in
an innocent motorist’s car – camera paperwork goes to an entirely
innocent person. Drunks are far less
likely to be stopped as a result of the substantially reduced police
presence. Reckless drivers who operate
outside the law – cloned plates and throwaway cars – will not be
touched by the cameras.

40. Authorities are reluctant to risk ‘proving themselves wrong’.
You would think that the side effects listed here would have been
considered and evaluated by the authori-
ties. But they have not been. We believe that this can only be because
they consider that the results may
prove that flagship road safety policies are ill founded and have
failed.

Conclusions

1. The best estimate of the life saving benefit of speed cameras
stands at about 25 lives per year. If more
than 25 lives per year are being lost due to side effects, then speed
cameras are increasing the death
toll on British roads.

2. None of the side effects have been officially studied. This is
almost unbelievable because we have had
speed cameras on British roads since 1992 and it is perfectly clear
that there is a wide range of side
effects.

3. Drivers gain experience particularly over the first decade after
passing a driving test. During this time
their average crash risk falls by at least a factor of ten as they
gain experience. This subtle process of
skills development is potentially extremely vulnerable to false
beliefs and distorted safety priorities.

4. The ‘smoking gun’ evidence that the side effects have damaged road
safety is that neither road deaths
nor road crash hospitalisations have fallen as expected. In fact, if
policy had done nothing and earlier
trends had continued we’d have about 1,200 fewer road deaths each year
by now.

5. Several recent studies propose that the only possible explanation
for the failure of road deaths to re-
duce as expected can only be ‘because drivers are getting worse’. The
question of why drivers are get-
ting worse has not been officially addressed. We are certain that ‘bad
policy’ is responsible for making
drivers worse through side effects.

6. It is known that single vehicle crashes are on the increase,
including typical ‘failed to negotiate bend’
crashes. These are very much the sorts of crashes that we would expect
to increase if driver quality
was falling.

7. Department for Transport claims that road safety is meeting their
targets, but this assessment depends
entirely on the recorded beneficial trend in recorded serious
injuries. Hospitalisation records do not
show this trend at all. Road deaths do not show this trend.

8. Speed cameras are blunt instruments (at best) which have changed
many things. They have changed
the things that drivers pay attention to and the things that they
regard as important. They have changed
the way that our roads are policed and damaged the relationship
between police and public. They have
brought the law itself into a degree of disrepute.

9. Speed camera policy has failed. The overall road safety results
show very disappointing trends with nei-
ther deaths nor hospitalisations falling significantly.

10. The only ‘control group’ study available of speed cameras on
British roads shows an increase in crash
risk associated with speed cameras at speed camera sites. (TRL595)

Yawn. Another nuxx bar forgery. Boooooriiiiiing.

In ,
some ****weasel ****puppet wrote:
Look, lurkers! No-one here has *ever* so much as attempted to rebut a
*single one* of the following list of side effects of speed cameras.

Here is how much we ca 0

--
Dave Larrington
http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk
Barley, barley, barley, world cruise. You never see a farmer on
a bike.

In article , Dave Larrington wrote:
In ,
some ****weasel ****puppet wrote:
Look, lurkers! No-one here has *ever* so much as attempted to rebut a
*single one* of the following list of side effects of speed cameras.

Here is how much we ca 0

What sort of lurker does he think is going to find "my drivel is so
obviously both bogus and off topic that no-one even bothers arguing"
convincing anyway?

Alan Braggins twisted the electrons to say:
What sort of lurker does he think is going to find "my drivel is so
obviously both bogus and off topic that no-one even bothers arguing"
convincing anyway?

Well isn't the next step to post claiming to have received "lots" of
emails from lurkers saying they agree? :-)
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

Alistair Gunn wrote:
Alan Braggins twisted the electrons to say:
What sort of lurker does he think is going to find "my drivel is so
obviously both bogus and off topic that no-one even bothers arguing"
convincing anyway?

Well isn't the next step to post claiming to have received "lots" of
emails from lurkers saying they agree? :-)

They'll all be from different people too... or at least different
published email addresses, and you don't get much closer than that!

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:16:08 -0700 (PDT), A little bird
wrote:

Yawn. Another nuxx bar forgery. Boooooriiiiiing.

No **** Sherlock - thanks for letting us all know.

You must have a fine analytical brain to have worked that out.

I think that you're here as an "agent provocateur" - has Chapman sent
you - are you helping the ****wit Taylor?

(Have you ever come across e-mail addresses of the form
. I think if you complain to the ISP of a user they
will immediately cancel the user's account........ho, ho, ho)



--
I encourage my children to wear helmets. (Guy Chapman)
Some evidence shows that helmeted cyclists are more likely to hit
their heads. (Guy Chapman)
I have never said that I encourage my children to wear helmets. (Guy
Chapman) - proven to be an outright lie.
He then quickly changed his web page - but "forgot" to change the date
of last amendment

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:49:13 +0100, "Dave Larrington"
wrote:

In ,
some ****weasel ****puppet wrote:
Look, lurkers! No-one here has *ever* so much as attempted to rebut a
*single one* of the following list of side effects of speed cameras.

Here is how much we ca 0

I couldn't possibly have put it better myself. The safety effects of
cameras are totally irrelevant to you as you only support cameras for
non-safety-related reasons. Lurkers, take note.

Dave Larrington makes it abundantly clear that he supports speed
cameras. Dave Larrington then says he "doesn't care" when someone
lists large numbers of deadly side effects that cameras come with.
What other explanation is there but "Dave Larrington supports cameras
solely for anti-motorist reasons"? If he and the others supported
cameras for safety-related reasons, they would have long since at
least attempted to rebut the list. If I supported cameras for
safety-related reasons, I certainly would have, and so would anyone
else. But *none of these posters ever have*.

Yet again the "We're not anti-motorist" lie is spectacularly blown
apart. You trolls are too easy.