Imagine the Daily Mail headline: "Burglars in uproar over new government tax on the underclass!" In reality of course there is a greater chance of a Daily Express editorial sounding off about the benefits (no, not those benefits) of asylum seekers and French cuisine than the Mail doing anything other than sticking to the script and trying to appear "tough" on crime. Or so you mistakenly thought, for not all crimes are equal, or, as those who deem speed cameras "Orwellian" might say: four wheels good, one leg bad.
Not only have the right-wing press, Top Gear, and the usual groups with the word "alliance" in their names, unleashed their righteous brand of invective upon speed cameras during the past decade, but now the coalition government have joined in the hostilities, with the road safety minister, Mike Penning, declaring: "In the coalition agreement the government made clear it would end central funding for fixed speed cameras...This is another example of this government delivering on its pledge to end the war on the motorist."
Many of you will probably have realised that we have entered the age of the deserving and undeserving poor, but what some of you were perhaps unprepared for was the age of the deserving and undeserving crime: a time when the penalty levied for a crime committed by the middle classes at least as much as other social groups becomes a "war" and a "persecution" rather than a justified punishment for something that accounts for around *1,200 deaths as well 20,000 serious injuries every year - the last time I checked, considerably more than caused by either Robert Thompson or "Khat".
As Julie Spence, outgoing head of Cambridgeshire police has said: “Speeding is middle-class anti-social behaviour...People think we should be able to get away with it. They wouldn’t tolerate lawbreaking by somebody else but they do it themselves without thinking...It all seems OK until something tragic happens, like their child dies because of a road traffic accident.”
The argument that speed cameras prevent accidents is a fairly convincing one: considering speed is the cause of around one third of all traffic accidents, and considering a person is less likely to speed at the site of a camera, logic would dictate that fewer accidents would occur the more speed cameras there are. The statistics appear to back this up: figures from the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership show that at the 212 fixed camera sites across the wider Thames Valley region - which also includes Buckinghamshire and Berkshire - there was a 38% drop in vehicle collisions when you compare the three years before each camera was put in place with the most recent three years. The argument trotted out by those opposed to cameras is that they cause erratic driving, which occurs when drivers slam on the brakes upon seeing a camera, potentially losing control of their vehicle in the process. What goes unmentioned of course is that cameras are highly visible and painted yellow precisely because of the lobbying of drivers organisations who wish to help their members avoid getting caught speeding. The problem then does not appear to be the existence of the cameras but their visibility.
Considering I have as yet to come across published Taxpayer's Alliance or Daily Mail figures for the "revenue generated" by fines levied upon convicted burglars or cannabis smokers - two far more victimless crimes if we wish to talk about actual fatalities, the most important indicator of all one would think, - I can only assume that the hostility to speed cameras is an attempt to eat one's cake as well as to have it: to call for "toughness" over the crimes that others commit while simultaneously risking lives and carping on about a "war on the motorist".
What a shame the coalition government has added its name to this populist rabble.
*Source JMW Solicitors
People seem to misunderstand the principle of being in control of a vehicle: the objective is to drive it safely within the laws relevant to that particular piece of road, NOT, as people seem to think, driving as fast as one thinks possible and judging the act of being in control as not having an accident as a consequence. It is a lot harder to drive within restraints and safely than it is recklessly and with luck.
ReplyDeleteI think the government is wrong to give any leeway on this. I do not though think it 'middle class hypocrisy' as numerous people from all classes seem to see it as their right to drive in a way they consider safe while deeming those who have accidents as careless. As such this transcends the matter of class and becomes an issue many across the board want to see changed, albeit for only selfish reasons. And in that respect, a democratic government must address such an issue the best they can. I feel the Tories may still be smarting from Poll Tax - simply because something is fair, it does not mean the majority of people will see it that way, or perhaps more to the point, if enough people protest one way and not enough the other, the government is obliged to a degree to take that into account, unless doing so will bring the country to its knees undemocratically, for failure to do so can result in loss of ability to govern effectively.
What is needed in this situation is a louder voice from those who want roads to be as safe as possible.
NN
One possible answer is to make your own speed camera at home. For an example, see the bottom of this page:
ReplyDeleteJUNE 2006
Created by Ed Pentz with help from Ted Dewan and Tom Lynham, GOTCHA is a sculpture in the form of a GATSO speed camera made from a tea chest and some yoghurt tops.
The camera is conspicuously bogus, but seen at a quick glance, it slows down traffic. White lines in gaffer's tape in the road complete the illusion.
The lamppost is privately owned and therefore should have been immune to tampering from the authorities. However, the police came by to register complaints from a couple of motorists.
Two weeks after that, the camera mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
More of that sort of thing at roadwitch.org.uk.
It is possible to manufacture any proof statistically to show that speed causes /does not cause accidents. Or that camera's reduce/increase speed or accidents. Just put camera's everywhere, and only use data from an area and a time where the numbers correspond to your own vision, and then manipulate the public. Make sure you discard the data from other area's or other times, you can even fabricate global warming that way; as an excuse to tax the sheeple even more.
ReplyDeleteYou do not even need statistics to show that speeding causes accidents (although there are lots). You are far more likely to loose control of a vehicle from going too fast in an area where doing so is inappropriate; and you are far more likely to kill someone if you hit them at 40mph as opposed to 30mph. To dispute such facts is to make excuses for utterly selfish behaviour that take many lives each year, with vile sophistry.
ReplyDeleteI notice you even put "fabricate global warming" in your comment. Says it all really. The world does exist outside of your consumerist bubble I'm afraid.
*lose
ReplyDelete