I've just received this from the old fuel protest team:

Dear Andrew,

Enough is enough. In 2003, 1 million speeding fines were paid totalling £73 m - the official target for 2004 is to issue 3 million fines. This is scandalous. It's time for drivers to fight back.

Many police authorities won't release statistics, but where they do there is no evidence to demonstrate that road fatalities drop with the introduction of cameras - quite the reverse in fact. Are they located near schools and other places of high risk? Occasionally, but mostly location appears to be driven by the number of potential offenders that may be caught.

Take the enterprising PC in Sheffield who recently bagged 329 motorists with a mobile camera in 5 hours. I wonder how many accidents he prevented whilst racking up £20,000.

Road traffic accidents happen mostly as a result of bad driving. The police focus on speed cameras not because it is the most important causal factor in accidents, but because it's easy to measure. What they should do is spend more time tackling bad driving, and spend less time as tax collectors, and alienating otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Then there are those who say, "Well if you don't speed, you won't get fined". Show me any policeman, MP or other smug, arm-folding expert who has driven regularly on a full licence, who has never exceeded the speed limit in any circumstances, and I will show you a liar and a hypocrite.

As with many things in life, an equitable approach requires a degree of tolerance, understanding and the application of common sense. The authorities are out of step on this one and they should take note of the resentment they are building up,

But what can you do?

Look at our new Internet site www.starvethecameras.org.uk and join us in the month of February in a concerted effort to starve the speed cameras of income from fines.

Everyone should approve of this initiative - the police, because 'rogue drivers' will stop breaking the law; road safety people will be happy because your speed will reduce, and finally you will benefit because you won't have to stump up the fine.

Only the government will feel the impact as they lose an income stream - but then, if they are not really doing this for the money, I don't suppose they will complain either!

Drive even more carefully in February and starve the cameras of income. I'm sure many 'experts' will be interested to measure the impact of this potentially unique change in behaviour. Take part, make the authorities take notice and let's review the outcome.

Thanks once again for your support.

Regards,

Neil
http://www.starvethecameras.org.uk

Not sure what to make of this plan!

Thought the whole idea was not to get "pinged" at all!

They would never admit that the loss of cash would hurt them, would they?

If we want to make a statement protest, why don't we gridlock a main road for a morning!

Or, as one guy said on another site:

"Why not drive sedately up to the scam. Stop the car, place Dick Ed's number plates and then welly past the scam"

or even use a talivan's plates......!!!***

Seems a good idea to me.

But then - after getting that invite for a coupla mph over on a downgraded road, I've turned into a right little rebel!

See what a scamera can do to a "sweet young thing" such as myself!!

You're quite right, Lucy. Since this crazy, lying 'government' of ours decided to crush us underfoot and feed us on bullsh!t, my driving has worsened. I used to be very considerate, giving way to pedestrians even if they were mis-behaving, waving cyclists through etc.
Not any more!
I crawl past cams, then boot it. I wind down my window and shout 'THERE'S A CROSSING THERE!' if a pedestrian decides to cross right in front of me instead of where he should.
If I see a cyclist approaching in my rear-view mirror, I will ease over to the left to block his path. Mind you, he just hops on the pavement.
This has all come about because BLAIR & Co embarked on a nasty-minded scheme of blocking our way, taxing and fining us and taking valuable road-space from us.
If they want NASTY, they've got it!

Know what you mean, Andy!

The pro-lobby do come out with some odd remarks though!

Before Xmas, a pro-scammer posted a lot of T2000/Brake/Scamship figures onto the "gripe" site, and claimed that anyone braking the speed limit were mowing down kids left, right and centre!

The Wacky Mob retorted with a "Read the Highway Code - the pedestrian/cyclist section!". You know - the bit that urges pedestrians to choose a safe place to cross - avoiding blind bends, parked cars, etc. The bit that says that parents and responsible carers are responsible for teaching children to cross a road safely, and reminds them not to let them cross roads unsupervised until they are ready!

The person came back with such gems as:

"A child with a wasp flying in her face will run across a road in a panic!"

"I know an adult who will bolt across a road in blind panic whenever she sees a dog"

"Children do not have any concept of speed"

She quoted an incident she claims to have witnessed whereby a 12 year old ran away from school bullies into the path of a "speeding" car and was killed.

She claimed that "even if the mother had met him and tied him to a lead, it would not have prevented him from running away from the bullies in a blind panic!"


The only one of the above comments which I can accept as having some real logic is the one stating that children have no concept of speed (which is why the Code urges parents, etc, to keep careful supervision and exercise careful judgement as to maturity and understanding of road safety!

As for the tragic incident with the 12 year old boy - the outcome may have been the same had the driver been travelling at 15-20 mph. In fact - there was only her say so that he was speeding in her post. But, could a camera have saved the boy under that circumstance?

Of the other two, the adult with the phobia of dogs is a danger not only to herself but to other road users, and the possible death of a child running out into the road to escape an insect would be 100% tragic, but not a speed related accident! There is of course no guarantee that the child or the adult would bolt into the roadway under either circumstance! Any tragedy would surely be an accident. Certainly, I have never treated any such case in over 20 years in A&E! Nor can any one of my colleagues recall any such incident!

But assuming these scenarios are for real - would they being added to these statistics as part of the massaging effect? None of them would be necessarily due to speeding (though if you were 1mph over - you would be accused of causing death by speeding), nor even undue care as a sudden bolt into the path of a car could not be avoided by anybody!

But in any case, assuming that these incidents occurred, would a speed camera have made any difference to the outcome?

What do you guys think?

Is the woman passing comments like this a Toynbee clone?

Does her argument hold water?

Was it just emotive mush, as she really knew that applying the Green Cross Code is just as important to the pedestrian as the rest of the Highway Code is to the driver?

Emotional twaddle because she was on "thin ground" and knew it?

As an US citizen curently living in a non-democratic country and I am confused. I understand that you have democracy in the UK. So if you think the speed limit is too low, you have to power to convince the majority to raise it, and vote for those changes, can you not?

Perhaps you think you are practicing civil disobedience. But in that case, you must put yourself on public display, openly break the law, and accept without complaint any penalty imposed by Government - and even encourage the most severe penalty to be applied to you - on principle.

Breaking an unjust law in public and willingly accepting the consequenses shows committment.

Breaking the law privately and trying to avoid the penalty is simply behaving like a spoiled child.

Hi Lisa

So you think the UK is a democracy? Try living here! Our "Tone" (aka B/liar) has megolamanic tendencies! See our "What the Papers Say" post on the "Typical Backroomer Solves Society's Problems" thread on this forum!

However, there is a very small crack starting to appear as we all get more and more het up over the scam issue:

BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3421867.stm

In this article Blunkett has allegedly told the "Times" (which we have yet to read!) that a "sophisticated" appraoch to speeding was required!

Blunkett is responding to Tory plans to fines without points and disqualifications under totting up procedures, and our concerns over the scams! (At least this acknowledges the "revenue raising" aspect!)

Blunkett is alleged to have said:

"If people are not convinced that the camera system is not working as it should, we either have to persuade them or find an adjustment that does that!"

The "Times" quotes officials as saying that whilst someone travels at 90 in a 70 will get 3 points on the licence, a driver travelling at 35 in a 30 (or similar in 46 in a 40) might get 2 points, plus the £60. (Er - an extra £120 overall before the ban!) Well, at least it is a step in the right direction, but we would still argue that a refresher course would be more beneficial for the first offence at the 10%+2 setting (and not below as per current practice amongst the 10 offering the course!!). We would even dare suggest that a periodic refresher course every 5 years would be of more benefit.

The government must at last be acknowledging that there is a problem, and that the over-reliance on cameras does NOT save lives! The incident involving the teacher on the zebra crossing was tragic, but no camera would have slowed down the yob in the stolen car! The uninsured, untaxed, the drunks, the car thieves are mostly responsible for the KSIs in this country, and the lack of trafpol and over reliance on cams on the roads mean that fewer are caught!

In the meantime, "Daily Post" reported story in North Wales in which "Arrive Alive" refuse (YES, REFUSE) to instal a camera on the A5 running through the village of Pentrefoelas between Betws y Coed and Cerrigydrudion. The A5 is a 40 mph there and villagers claim that lorries are zooming trhough at 80 mph AT NIGHT!

Our "Scam Shy" lives in that area and says that NO lorry or any other car travels at those speeds, but does acknowedge that traffic does welly up to 50mph on each side of the village on the rare occasion when it is NOT BUSY. This very busy stretch of the A5 has not suffered any KSIs over the past 5 years, but the stretches on each side of the village has seen minor crunches with bikers during the holiday season. Arrive Alive do target the stretch with the mobile cams during the season! The crunches are due to human error and not necessarily excess speed!

Nice to see some common sense for a change from Arrive Alive!

Cheers

The Wacky Gangsters (who are really quite good drivers!)

The times article is here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,588-974571,00.html

 

And a selection of further comment here:

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/story.html?story=8&r=1074893223450626

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2445002

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/publish/article_11489.shtml

http://www.expressandstar.com/artman/publish/article_51904.php

http://www.express.co.uk/story.html?story=8&r=107489871050173332

 

The "Times" Leader column was also quite witty!

It suggested that, instead of issuing any penalty points for speeding, the government should issue at least three penalty points for the following as these people are the real numpties on the road:

1. Furry Dice dangling from the rear-view mirror!

2. Scenty false pine "whatevers" hanging from rear-view mirror!

3. "Baby on Board" notices which obstruct view from rear window and suggest you ram the car in front if no such sign is on view!

4. Nodding dogs on the dash!

5. Nodding dogs on the rear parcel shelf!

6. Furry animals fixed to windows!

7. Disney/cartoon sun blinds on rear door windows! (How anyone can see through them and be traffic aware in the blind spot is beyond me!)

8. Cattle bars on the 4 by 4 used on nothing more rugged than the school run!

The Editor then got plain carried away as he then suggested that nice careful drivers such as our good selves should get tax rebates for being good drivers!

He then got even sillier (especially since the Wacky Gang belong to the ever decreasing circle of drivers with CLEAN licences) by suggesting that points be removed for the following:

1. Being nice to the cyclist - even George!

2. Not getting annoyed with the cyclist with the flashing (and ILLEGAL under the 1989 Traffic Act) lighting!

3. Not getting annoyed with the twazak without any lights at all on his bike!

4. Not getting cross with the death wish pedestrian at all! (Which apparently includes not waving the Highway Code - page 6ff at them!)

5. Being nice and polite to the numpty who cuts into your two-second gap!

6. Making allowances for the Mum who cannot park her car on that school run - but being a perfectionist takes several attempts and still lands herself with a £100 fine from the warden (who pops up suddenly and from nowhere) for being 50 cm out from the kerb! (He also issues a ticket before she can get to the meter!)

But quite entertaining on the whole!

Cheers

Beagle

A Wacky Gangster!

Another thick yank said:

"I'm confused about breaking the law."

WHY?

"As an US citizen curently living in a non-democratic country and I am confused. I understand that you have democracy in the UK."

You understand wrongly so.

"So if you think the speed limit is too low, you have to power to convince the majority to raise it, and vote for those changes, can you not?"

Nope! Its geared towards cash generation and we all know that money talks. Truth is a clear loser here.

"Perhaps you think you are practicing civil disobedience."

Absolutely! There are many ways of doing it, the best ones are always in full view of the oppressor, but behind his back.

"But in that case, you must put yourself on public display, openly break the law, and accept without complaint any penalty imposed by Government - and even encourage the most severe penalty to be applied to you - on principle."

Now thats just about the most stoopid thing ive EVER heard!
How can someone convince anyone, when theyre doing "hard time"? If the death penalty applied to speeding and we all "openly" and willingly accepted the governments imposition of the sentence, then pretty soon thered be no one around to bloody well contest the law that we'd broken. Result is that the government wins....or is that too hard for you comprehend?

"Breaking an unjust law in public and willingly accepting the consequenses shows committment."

Thats one possible interpretation, but another is that its better to fight and run away, cos you get to fight another day. Accepting the consequences, as you suggest, denies us a further opportunity to raise two digits to those who would oppress us.

"Breaking the law privately and trying to avoid the penalty is simply behaving like a spoiled child."

Oh really? How so? The whole idea of breaking the law "privately" as you put it, is to demonstrate that we WILL break the law. And they WONT STOP us from breaking it, no matter what they do or threaten to do to us.
Theres really nothing quite so intoxicating as a forward rush at speed towards a speed camera that subsequently flashes you but takes no photo.
The reason being that the "scammers" see the speed of the offence, but cant put a picture to that offence(as none are taken going towards them, but depends on scamera types). It shows them that they are LOSING, that they CANT win. Its a very visible "UP YOURS DELORS".

Now do us all a favour and ferk off and wait around or whatever it is you do best. We dont need your "help" or "advice". We're the ones fighting this thing, youre just yapping on the sidelines offering "advice"....(as ever).


A very angry LAST STRAW.

I think Lisa fails to understand that we have already tried - many times - to argue with the government and present our evidence that the 'speed kills' approach is wrong.
Lisa - they just will not listen! They close their ears and wheel out their spurious statistics and false claims, in the belief that we will believe them. And it works!
Or rather it works for a lot of dumb, brain-dead people who want to believe it because they think the world would be better if we ditched the car and went back to ox-carts and wattle and daub.
However, there are signs of a mass revolt. A growing number of newspapers are beginning to question the half-truths and bullsh1t. We WILL win in the end, but I think we need to get rid of this lying bunch of twisters we call a government first.

Hear! Hear! BRAVO! To both Andy and the Last Straw!
Agree with you 100%!

One of our gals penned the far too nice previous post from this gang!

We have far too much government intrusion - the latest being, would you believe, a change to the SCHOOL DAY again.

Yup, we are all lousy parents and do not send our kids off to school full of "Cornflakes". So - we may not have to worry about that any more! The latest waffle from the nanny brigade is:

Kids to arrive at school BEFORE 8.00 a.m. On arrival they tuck into a hearty breakfast of muesli or porridge. They then do their lessons with one short 20 min break until 1.45 p.m., when they are let lose to be run over by us "speedophiles!" They did suggest that the kids stay at school to do language classes, violin lessons or learn chess... but somehow we cannot see that catching on when crossing roads without looking is "so much more fun!"

Whose children are they? Ours or Tony's?

Add this to all the stuff we posted the "Backroom Boys" thread!

Then Lisa - explain to us the meaning of democracy! It does not exist in this country at present.

We have learned of a recent case in which the authorities FAKED the evidence regarding the date on a parking ticket. This is "perverting the course of justice" and carries a JAIL TERM in itself! This is the calibre of the persons employed by this government to enforce law and order! Two members of this team spent brief spells (late 1980's) in STASI run Germany (former GDR). They see the authorities behaving in exactly the same way as in Leipzig and East Berlin!

Given NIPS sent out stating speeds on 480 mph and 406 mph, not to mention the false scam readings high-lighted on this and other forums, can we be really sure that the ticket is making a true accusation?

The Cabinet do not even speak to each other. Last week, the "News of the World" reported that Bliar and Darling were livid with Blunkett over the victims' levy charge. No other paper has carried the story. In fact, the rest of the media are under the impression that these plans are still "live"! The "Times" and BBC Radio 4 on Friday carried the penalty points revision story - with Blunkett! The Saturday "Daily Express" had one short paragraph stating the the Department of Transport have no knowledge of this and are not considering any changes to the reduction of points for just-over infringements!

Of course political contradictions are par for the course. They do not want us to know the truth anyway.
But the only things that the UK can be 100% certain of are:

This Government cannot be trusted as it has lied to us on the state of the economy, the Health Service, The Education Service, Law and Order, Iraq, Dr. Kelly, Euro, EU, Agricultural policies, politician's expenses, and we have a road safety policy which appears to be in total chaos, with the only thing it is achieving being revenue raising!
===================================

Contrast the above Lisa, the Kewpie Doll's post with one other Yank on another fave forum of ours!

The poster from Arlington, Texas, posted that the town tried cameras in the 1970's, but the people there would "not stand for that cr4p" and since there are "too many good shots in Texas" they ..um... did not last long!!! Oh if only they could come over here and help out the good Captain!!!!

(Ooops - we'll get shot now for inciting rebellion!)

The Yank on the "other channel" then passed a very familiar comment:

"If the purpose of speed limits is road safety, they are a failure!"

We would have to insert "speed cameras" in that sentence!

He (or she) based this logic on an unofficial study made by the Federal Highways Agency in the 90's which appeared to reveal that 85% of all RTAs in the States occurred at intersections on the LOWER speed roads, 9% on 45-55 limit roads and 6% on their higher speed roads! The Fed survey also revealed that the majority do not observe speed limits and drive at the speeds they feel most comfortable and most appropriate to the road conditions! The report concluded that most limits were set too low!!! The Yank referred us to

www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irre0.html

for an abbreviated version of this study!

This Yank also reiterated previous Wacky postings

amongst these forums:

that it is hardly surprising that the loudest proponents of low speed limits are the Government, the insurance companies and, in our case, the Scamships who alll make profits out of the Just Over drifts for a few metres!

Still sure we have a democracy? Not a dicatorship?

But remember Lisa, the people have made WALLS come down before. We are seeing cracks start to appear, and by continuing to chip away as we are at present, we could possibly see a more reasonable policy on road safety - and one which delivers the goods on safe driving and casualty reductions as requested by all the "scam protesters" on all the main reputable sites such as this one, Pistonheads, ABD,safespeed et al!

Cheers

The Wacky Gangsters!

"Kids to arrive at school BEFORE 8.00 a.m. On arrival they tuck into a hearty breakfast of muesli or porridge"

What's the betting that the loony-lefty government-supporting teachers will use the opportunity to play a few 'global warming is all the fault of the car' videos, or perhaps a nice 'revised' story about Anglo-French relations?

I hate this government. They cannot keep their socialist fingers off anything. 'Don't do that, do this, and do it this way!'
'Don't say this word, it may upset someone!'

Lies down