The way punishments are handed out is stupid. I was caught by a speed trap on a completely safe part of princess parkway, where it is not possible to have any pedestrians as it is almost the M56, but yet got a fine and 3 points on the license for my first offence. It should be either a fine or points, not both, and the points should not stay on for so long. I'm two years older and wiser, so why should this stain on my character still be there for another 3 years?

Yes. Speed cameras are "stupid". They measure and make important a road safety parameter that isn't really important at all. Clearly it's important that drivers don't travel dangerously fast. But speed cameras largely result in prosecutions where the speed was safe and appropriate for the conditions.

After 7,000 hours of effort, reasearch and analysis, I am convinced that speed cameras are making the roads more dangerous by distorting our safety priorities.

See:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk

money money money thats all this and any other governments want, i got fined fined B#60 and a 3 points penalty for going 4 mph over the speed limit, i have never been in trouble with the law and nearly always abide by the rules.
Then they had the audacity to offer me a i day awareness course for B#95, yet nearly everyday you see boy racers doing well over the limit and they get away scott free, call this justice its a joke!!!

This is this most sensible thing anyone has said about speed camera's!! There's nothing more dangerous than the sudden breaking that happens just as drivers notice a speed camera - and most of the time it's only to ensure that they are well under the limit. This is particualrly dangerous in the middle of roadworks on the motorway ... you only have to drive through the roadworks on the M60 once or twice to know that!!
More sensible means of enforcement or more sensible road speeds please!!

Let's face it everyone travels faster than the posted speed limit. In today's society with the traffic being so bad, any chance to make up lost time after being stuck on the motorway for hours, or in grid locked town centers at rush hour is inevitable. My journey to work (21 miles) used to take 30 mins a year ago, its now 90 mins. I have 6 points in total for speeding. The first 3 points I received from a mobile laser which was in the back of an unmarked van. The road in question used to be national speed limit, but was reduced to 30mph. It wasn't a residential area, and had fields on both sides. There was no reason for the reduction in speed limit, or for the police to be monitoring the road. The second was in Manchester, again the road was NOT accessible by pedestrians, and was a dual carriage way. I got caught at 46mph in a 40mph zone whilst overtaking a lorry which was traveling slow.

The government figures which support the use of cameras is misleading. According to http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/statistics.htm

3,431 people were killed in road accidents in 2002

35,976 were seriously injured

263,198 were slightly injured

But take off all the accidents were the vehicle was not properly maintained, the driver was drunk or drugged, the pedestrian was drunk or drugged , the driver didn't have a license etc, and that reduces by a considerable amount. In fact if you take into account all these other factors, speeding isn't really a problem.

At the end of the day speeding is relative. There's an advert on TV where a Nissan sunny knocks over a young boy. If this was a Porsche 911 with ABS, ESP, EBD and decent tires etc, then the car would have stopped and the young boy would have just said "cool car", and walked off.

Unfortunately we have speeding motorists who are the stupid ones and I am very happy for stupid speed cameras to hit these stupid drivers where it hurst - in their pockets. No one, including this ex-policeman, has yet explained why stupid drivers should not pay for their stupidity by increasing revenues.

don,t speed and you won,t pay

Even worse than that, road deaths have gone up since cameras were introduced.

VERY STUPID. we're getting conned out of our money by the government as usual. we need to speak up and unite against speed cameras.

It's the drivers who speed who are stupid. And deadly. As regards to Paul's comments about road deaths and serious injuries.......Bunkum! The vast majority of fatal and serious injuries are as a consequence of the speed the driver was travelling at (whether within a given speed limit or above it). And the faster the speed the more likely a collision will occur, and the more likely the injuries will be fatal or permanently cripple and/or brain damage. But I certainly agree on one point: There should be many many more mobile/hidden camera units.

Its about time we stopped listening to the nonsence coming from people alledgedly interested in improving road safety, when in fact all the evidence points to the fact that speed enforcement has actually reversed the downward trend in road fatalities.
They dont know what they are talking about, and people are dying because of it.

Some people that DO know what they are talking about though, (with real statistics) can be found here

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/

Of course they're stupid. Any thinking person knows that.
Even the DfT, scraping for excuses, can only claim that
12% of all accidents have 'excess speed' as ONE of many
contributory factors to all accidents.

In urban settings, IIRC, it's only about 9% of all accidents
that have 'excess speed' as one of the contributory factors.
And urban settings is where most of the speed cameras are sited.
So 'speeding' is a relatively minor factor. Trouble is,
it's the only thing you can attack by robot, so it becomes
compelling. All other forms of bad driving are undetectable
by robot, so they must be made to be unimportant.

Ergo, 'Speed Kills' is the mantra we must all believe.
Even if it is a load of rubbish. It's not the result
that counts, after all, it's the illusion. And the few
hundred million quid revenue each year is a happy bonus
for our benevolent govt.

Funny as soon as senior police officers retire, they do not seem so fond of automated speed detection? I suppose once they retire they become just as vunerable as the rest of us. To tell the truth while still a serving officer would be seen as some sort of "mental breakdown" and they would not get that nice fat pension at the end of it.

The only way drivers can 'not speed' as Tom Murphy of Canada advocates, is to keep their eyes glued on their speedometers. This of course prevents them from looking where they are going. So what idealistic fools like Tom are actually advocating is the wanton mowing down of pedestrians, albeit at slightly below the speed limit.

Funny thing, I manage to drive within the speed limits without keeping my eyes glued to the speedo. Just as I manage to get about the country without keeping my eyes glued to the road signs. Or obey traffic signals without keeping my eyes glued to the lights. A split-second movement of the eyes is sufficient to take in the road and surrounding conditions, and identify possible hazards. But no matter how good the driver, the faster one's speed, the less time one has to react to the unexpected. That's what the airhead 'safe speeders' will never accept, and why speed cameras are necessary to make sure they stay within the law.

Well put Ray. You exposed the spurious arguments of the rebellious souls, as I call them (R Souls for short), in one fell swoop. I wonder how many of them have been flashed/booked for speeding. I wonder how many of them know the family and friends of someone who has been killed in a car crash. Speed kills, but first and foremost, stupid, ignorant, arrogant, callous, bloody-minded R Souls kill. And maim. And devastate. By the tens of thousands. Each and every year.

Speed cameras (scameras) are good earners, yes people get caught exceeding a limit, a limit that someone has imposed, sometimes because thats the right thing, and sometimes to increase earnings (reductions without cause on duals is a growing method). More traffic police/less scameras? not an option, traffic isn't a core area now, so drive like a loon without speeding and your likely to kill someone, but very unlikely to get caught....

Can I ask the anti-camera lads below a couple of questions. Have any of you ever been flashed by a camera for speeding? And do you think it's OK for the boy racers to brmm brmm around everywhere they go in towns and cities? I won't bother asking you my third question; I'll just tell you the answer. During the past hundred years approximately half-a-million people have been killed on the roads in the UK, and well over one million have been permanently crippled and/or braindamaged. In other words, well over one and a half million families have lost a family member (and sometimes more than one). A mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister............ In other words, millions upon millions of people have been devastated and caused unbearable pain. And that pain and devastation, and deep shock of course, doesn't just go away after a week, or a month, or a year. They have lost someone they love forever, and it will deeply effect them for many many years. I know a couple who lost their mother (mother-in-law in his case) sixteen years ago - hit by a speeding driver whilst standing on an island in the middle of the road whilst out shopping in the local town centre one afternoon - and they are still deeply affected by it. The shock dissapated after a year or two, but they have never been the same since. In that moment their lives were changed forever. The point is this: If we had safe speed limits that were strictly enforced with deterrents - ie hefty fines and driving bans - that really did deter, then the vast majority of the millions who have been killed and crippled or suffered unbearable pain and devastation as a consequence would not have been killed and crippled or suffered.

If they didn't exceed the limit Clair then they wouldn't have to "suddenly brake", as you put it. Is it the cameras fault that they speed and then have to suddenly brake or the fault and stupidity and recklessness of the driver! Get real willya!!

It's not speed cameras that are stupid, but the strict guidelines that require Safety Camera Partnerships to be paint them yellow, and restrict them to accident hot-spots, in order for them to keep a portion of fines raised.

Obviously, it would be nice if the police themselves were capable of catching speeding motorists, but with around 20 million motorists admitting they regularly break the speed limit, there are just not enough resources to manually police speed limits.

Any police officer will confirm that in order to enforce the law, you have to have a credible deterrent, either real or perceived, and grey speed cameras were proving to be an excellent deterrent, that was until the Government, scared by the hype from the National Press and motoring organisations that they would lose motorist's votes, painted them yellow with the aim of not catching speeding motorist.
Now motorists know exactly where cameras are located, and can happily speed along the majority of the roads where they know they have little chance of being caught.

And why are cameras only located at accident hot-spots, given that only a tiny 6% of road deaths occur at such locations. As any pedestrian, cyclist or parent will tell you, all roads are dangerous, that's why increasing numbers of victims of this crime have given up walking/cycling, with children in particular suffering a loss of freedom (the huge increase in the school run is a perfect example of this fear). It is therefore ridiculous that we have to wait for enough people to be killed before the safety camera partnership can do anything to protect us.

Most worrying was that the Government were well aware that all the available evidence showed hidden cameras saved many more lives than highly visible cameras. Even the House of Commons Transport Select Committee who grilled ministers on this strategy said these guidelines "were unreasonable", and stated "people will die as a result", yet without any trials or scientific research to support their decision, the Government continued with this strategy.

The result of this national experiment in yellow cameras is that whereas over 100 lives were saved at accident hot-spots, the number of deaths at non-camera (safe) locations increased by over 100, wiping out any gains from safety cameras.

Yet had the Government used hidden / mobile cameras, the evidence from other countries shows that road deaths could have been reduced by at least 11%, saving over 350 lives.

Its about time that Greater Manchester's Safety Camera Partnership start a full 'public' consultation, and do something that they have failed to do before, and provide some hard evidence that fixed / visible speed cameras will save more lives and make all our roads safer, compared to hidden / mobile cameras.
Failure to do so will result in claims that the Safety Camera Partnership are more interested in keeping the revenue from fines, than in saving lives and making all roads safer.

As I see it, if everyone drove at "appropriate" speeds then very few people would ever be killed or sustain permanently crippling injuries.

It seems very odd to me that a top former traffic cop should speak out publicly branding speed safety cameras as stupid. It's still not clear to me just why it is that he thinks they're stupid. Because 20 people got nicked, wrongly, or so it would appear? Surely it would have been far more positive to have just spoken in terms of hidden mobile cameras being much more effective than fixed cameras.

Having read Steve from Strefords comment I must come to the conclusion that he is barking mad. Casualty figures have been going up since 2002 when the camera partnerships were formed. This is because of the mistaken belief that safety is governed by a number. 29 is safe and 31 is a criminal offence. In reality a roads safe speed is governed by the conditions on that day and the ability of the driver on it. On one day 25 mph by a poor inexperienced driver could be suicidally fast, yet on another day 40 mph is acceptable for an alert capable driver in dry bright conditions. Ironically it is the latter groups that get caught by the cameras because all the government can see is pound signs

Well said mate! If I was in power I would get rid of them ALL and allow commonsense to prevail NOT moneymaking devices which punish people, more police on the streets for traffic offences is better than these pieces of hightech sentries whose function is to penalise anybody and everybody!

They catch criminals breaking the law, the only ones that object are the perpertrators.
Dont worry, there will no cameras in the near future, because every metre you drive will be monitored by satelite.
Those that object to speed cameras today,will be begging for their return.