Revenue driven, Target driven or Road Safety?

[Smiler]

You have a familiar debating strategy.

[simon]

I take it that this is the question to which you refer ?

Quite so but do you believe that speed is the dominant cause of these deaths? The governments own statistics suggest that in only 6 - 7% of fatal accidents is excessive speed the primary cause.

Still irrelevant in light of the rather astounding statement you made, that there is a conspricy to get us off the roads.
I am interested to know where the statistics you quote come from in terms of source, and period.
Perhaps you could post up that information.

[Maver-Nick]

Still irrelevant in light of the rather astounding statement you made, that there is a conspricy to get us off the roads.
I am interested to know where the statistics you quote come from in terms of source, and period.
Perhaps you could post up that information.

You have a familiar debating strategy.

Very Familiar... 'Go on tell me where you / I said that' ... Here we go again

[freeze]

This format of posting seems to be very familiar!!!

[Mike Rowley]

I take it that this is the question to which you refer ?

Quite so but do you believe that speed is the dominant cause of these deaths? The governments own statistics suggest that in only 6 - 7% of fatal accidents is excessive speed the primary cause.

Still irrelevant in light of the rather astounding statement you made, that there is a conspricy to get us off the roads.
I am interested to know where the statistics you quote come from in terms of source, and period.
Perhaps you could post up that information.

I have highlighted the salient points of my argument in bold and underlined since you are clearly having difficulty mustering the intelectual capacity to discern them. Perhaps you could deal with them in detail before we progress to secondary or tertiary items.

If you consider modern society is committed to revenue from fossil fuel taxation you need to explain why politicians are currently pushing hard to develop wind and tide generation as well as replacement of nuclear power stations. Why also are the current vehicle exise duty rates set to heavily favour electric and hybrid vehicles? A person who is less naive would realise that HM Treasury will very quickly find alternative means to levy the revenue they loose from fuel oil sales and find ways of presenting that taxation as socially desireable. Incidently, what makes you think that vehicles fueled by so called sustainable fuels will not be able to exceed speed limits?
I note you haven't addressed any of the specific points I made, you merely confine yourself to stating a pro police/government opinion. Maybe you might address yourself to the points I made referring to regression, abdigation of policy to prevent accidents in favour of the easier, more revenue friendly policy of reducing the consequenses of RTAs by reducing mechanical impact (speed) and the fact that approximately 6% - 7% of all RTA have excessive speed as the primary cause. The inescapable logic of the current policy is to continue to progressively reduce speed limits until a point is reached whereby no injury or fatal RTAs occur. Such speeds are going to be very slow indeed.

Contrary to your earlier post, the evidence is overwhelmingly that of reducing speed limits. The proliferation of 50mph limits on A roads, 40mph sections of non- built up roads and 20mph being substituted for 30mph in built up areas within Devon and Cornwall is undisputable. The present proposal is to extend this to make rural A roads 50mph. It is a fact that D & C Police raise the second highest revenue from motoring offences in the UK.

There is a proposal to develop a system based on GPS technology combined with a database to allow all vehicle speeds to be controlled in accordance with the speed restriction of the road they are travelling on. The technology is already available to achieve this it merely needs the political will to enforce its fitting to all vehicles. Such a national sytem would negate the revenue gathering charge.[/b] However, when speeds have been reduced significantly and injury, fatal accidents still occur then the authorities are going to have to address the real causes of RTAs. The emperor will indeed have been seen to have no clothes.

[billinom8s]

mike

do you not know that the flow of information on a foot bridge is one way, you can try to cross, u may get eaten, you may get past, but you will never get back until the great big billy goat gruff comes along to help you

[Mike Rowley]

mike

do you not know that the flow of information on a foot bridge is one way, you can try to cross, u may get eaten, you may get past, but you will never get back until the great big billy goat gruff comes along to help you

Ah so! I begin to see the light.

[simon]

The subject of this thread is speed enforcement and the related penalties.
I'm not sure how we've suddenly ended up talking about alternative fuels, but since we have, it's worth making the point that the Government is only paying lip service to environmental issues because it suits them.
Indeed it suits all of the west because it serves to keep upstart economies like India and China from being a threat to western economic superiority, and it just so happens that a very convenient by product is very useful revenue generated from green taxes.
Cushty.
Lets be clear on one thing.
Hybrid cars may work in principle, but in reality are no more economical than a standard car of the same size.
The Prius for example, manages about 45mpg.
Brilliant as far as the Government are concerned, because the buyer has been duped into thinking that he is making a difference to the environment, but visits the pumps as regularly as the driver of any other similar sized car, so no loss of revenue for the Government.
Electric cars have no future.
Whatever benefit they may have to the environment is more than wiped out by the energy required to keep them charged up.
Can you imagine the amount of coal burning power stations that would need to be built to sustain millions of cars on overnight charge.
The Governments of the world know all this, but plod on with it because it at least justifies the revenue collected on the back of the global warming myth.
Back to the subject of the thread, which seems to be related to speeding fines.
Yes, doubtless these fines are a useful source of extra revenue for local authorities but unlike a tax, which has to be paid, we have a choice in this matter, which is to speed, or not to speed.
The fact is, that weather we like it or not, there are more accidents in built up areas, but yet far fewer fatalities than on faster roads. simply because the traffic is travelling at a slower speed.
If you have a collission at 40mph, you are far more likely to survive than if you have one at 70.
That's common sense.
I'm not saying that I like the idea of having speed limits reduced, but sadly, because there are a minority of people out there incapable of judging speed and distance, we all have to pay.
I need to say once again that despite the knee jerk reaction of people like Mr. Rowley, this is all pie in the sky.
He said earlier that changes are made every 10 years or so, which is just not true.
The last significant change was made over 30 years ago, when the national speed limit was introduced.
At the time everyone blamed the government for what they saw as draconian rules, but chose to ignore the minority of mindless idiots, including the press, who saw motorways as a good place to speed test fast cars.
We all paid the price for their idiocy, but yet they remained blameless.
Unfortunately, it's a case of, if you can't behave properly, we'll take away your toys.

[billinom8s]

from what i can remember, and this is a long time ago, when cameras were first brought in they were to be put at places where accidents happened. As a form of passive enforcement. Back then the country wasn't in as much debt and we had a government that weren't as stupid and could cover their criminal activity trail. This government however has royally [Censored] the country up and need to recover more and more money back from the population each year. What better way than to put up more cash machines on spots where there are no need for them. Police in swindon have said that the cameras don't work. When you hear about cameras on the news its not that they have saved ex amount of lives, its always the high levels of income they generate on a daily basis. Cameras are no longer put in accident black spots for a deterrant they are positioned along straight pieces of road like motorways and could in fact cause accidents with people stabbing on brakes when seeing them. The thing i want to know is where all the millions that are made from the 'safety' cameras go, it sure ain't on road upkeep. Maybe its to keep mp's in comfort for their 'early retirements' when they get busted.

[Mike Rowley]

If you poke a stick at an animal with limited intelligence you can always predict the way it will react! Great fun though.

[VTR]

You have a familiar debating strategy.

Very Familiar... 'Go on tell me where you / I said that' ... Here we go again

I was thinking along those very same lines

yawn......

[simon]

from what i can remember, and this is a long time ago, when cameras were first brought in they were to be put at places where accidents happened. As a form of passive enforcement. Back then the country wasn't in as much debt and we had a government that weren't as stupid and could cover their criminal activity trail. This government however has royally [Censored] the country up and need to recover more and more money back from the population each year. What better way than to put up more cash machines on spots where there are no need for them. Police in swindon have said that the cameras don't work. When you hear about cameras on the news its not that they have saved ex amount of lives, its always the high levels of income they generate on a daily basis. Cameras are no longer put in accident black spots for a deterrant they are positioned along straight pieces of road like motorways and could in fact cause accidents with people stabbing on brakes when seeing them. The thing i want to know is where all the millions that are made from the 'safety' cameras go, it sure ain't on road upkeep. Maybe its to keep mp's in comfort for their 'early retirements' when they get busted.

I quite agree, which is why, to suggest that it is the Governments interest to get us all off the roads and thus cut off such a vital source of revenue, is naive beyond belief.

[Mike Rowley]

I quite agree, which is why, to suggest that it is the Governments interest to get us all off the roads and thus cut off such a vital source of revenue, is naive beyond belief.[/quote]

Yada yada yada - blah blah blah - Yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[simon]

I quite agree, which is why, to suggest that it is the Governments interest to get us all off the roads and thus cut off such a vital source of revenue, is naive beyond belief.

Yada yada yada - blah blah blah - Yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz[/quote]

Sorry you feel that way.
Incidentally, could you address my request earlier and show this evidence that suggests only 6%-7% of road accidents are caused by excessive speeds.
You said it was the Governments own survey.
I'd like to see it.