‘Cash cow’: Swindon Borough Council says speed cameras only generate money for the Government
Speed cameras face the axe from a Tory council which has condemned them as a ‘blatant tax on the motorist’.
They plan to scrap £400,000 a year funding for the speed-traps in a move which could have the effect of seeing them removed altogether from the roads.
Conservative councillors say the cash is better spent on alternative road safety strategies, such as .
Swindon Borough Council in Wiltshire has decided to make the first public stand against the ‘money-making’ project by threatening to pull out of the Government’s speed camera partnership scheme.
It is believed to be the first time that a council in the UK has publicly accused the Government of installing speed-cameras to make money rather than prevent accidents.
For way too long the motorist has been seen as the most wonderful Milch cow for avaricious government minions, we are taxed annually for the privilege of driving our cars on the road, we are taxed, at the bowser for the fuel we use in our cars and we are taxed when we exceed the often arbitrary speed limits by the evil devices known as “speed cameras”. I actually think that the suggestion that the ” vehicle activated speed warning signs” would do more to help avoid speeding than any number of speed cameras because when it comes down to it, most motorists do want to drive safely and within the speed limits and would even welcome such clear reminders made when it matters rather than weeks later when the notice finds its way into a letterbox.
Of course it is worth noting that it is the Conservatives who are doing this and striking a blow for the much put upon motorists .
Cue:- whining claims that any motorist finned for speeding has intentionally done so and that we should not have any sympathy for motorists thus taxed. 
Cheers Comrades
Filed under: Cars, Ethical questions, Justice, Law, Leftism, Mortorcycles, Petrol Head Heaven, Political Correctness, Scams | Tagged: Speed cameras, vehicle activated speed warning signs
You ‘forgot’ these paragraphs from the source article:
The safety partnership said speed cameras had led to a 70 per cent drop in the number of deaths and serious injuries on the county’s roads. This included a 50 per cent reduction on the M4.
The Department for Transport said: ‘Independent research has shown there are 1,745 fewer deaths and serious injuries at camera sites a year.’
You are probably just trolling for responses but even so, every time you go on with this nonsense it insults those of us who have had loved ones killed or seriously injured in motor accidents involving speed. Your claim that speed isn’t the main factor in road deaths is laughable. Your arguments that speed cameras don’t reduce road fatalities has been proven wrong by hard evidence, which you have failed to answer. Your claim that motorists who speed do so ‘accidentally’ is just a smokescreen for those who speed wilfully. And your suggestion that all motorists would slow down if they saw a speed-activated sign just insults our intelligence – many would but some wouldn’t.
Also, you’ve got this tagged under ‘Leftism’ which is both silly and wrong (the Liberal Party was in power in at least three states when speed cameras were introduced in each). It bewilders me why right-wingers who preach law and order, discipline or capital punishment on just about every criminal issue are so keen to forgive speeding drivers. Perhaps it’s because they’re all revheads who can’t distinguish their cars from their dicks.
Just pray one of your children never gets cleaned up by a speeding driver, Iain, or you may come to regret your apologia for them.
Mark you are an angry puppy this afternoon aren’t you?
Does this explain your bitterness so evident in your responses on this topic Mark? And does it explain why you won’t admit that you too have sinned when behind the wheel?
I make no such claim Mark but I do believe that the propaganda about enforcement of the speed limits is overblown, exaggerated and it ignores other more significant factors like driver skill (or lack there off) road conditions, drugs and alcohol ect ect.
My argument is that concealed speed cameras do not have much of a road safety impact,and as such they must function in the first instance as revenue raising. Look Mark on sections of the pacific Highway in NSW they have fixed speed cameras and lots of signs warning that the speed limit is going to be strictly enforced and You know what I’m good with that just engage the cruise control and enjoy the ride But my beef is with the mobile vans with their obscured signage ect.
So I’ll ask you again; have you never found that you have been exceeding the speed limit despite every intention not to? You know at the bottom of a hill or while keeping pace with the traffic flow and it is in just such circumstances that the government just love to set up speed traps. Show some gumption and admit it, you know you want to…
Nor am I suggesting that ALL motorists will slow down when reminded but many more will slow than would be the case with a hidden speed camera at the same location and isn’t slowing speeding drivers what you want?
How many times do I have to point out that for me leftism = totalitarianism and the nanny state so thing such a speed cameras are right up there with all of the other restraints upon personal liberty so beloved by the minions of the left.
As I have told you many times Mark I am a very cautious driver who as a rule respects the speed limits on our roads But my point remains not that the speed limits should be enforced but the manner of that enforcement and the difference between the spin so evident in the advertising and the reality on the roads.
Does this explain your bitterness so evident in your responses on this topic Mark? And oes it explain why you won’t admit that you too have sinned when behind the wheel?
Your gotchas are pathetic Iain and I’ve told you before – I’m not playing. And don’t accuse me of hypocrisy. (Remember when I asked if you’d be happy leaving your daughter in the care of the ambo with wandering hands who you were backing to the hilt? No response.)
I make no such claim Mark but I do believe that the propaganda about enforcement of the speed limits is overblown, exaggerated and it ignores other more significant factors like driver skill (or lack there off) road conditions ect ect.
Baloney. None of those other things are “more significant” than speed. It is speed that magnifies the impact of accidents and turns them from ‘bingles’ into ‘casualties’. Make an error at the wheel or lose it on a bend at 80 and you might walk away. Do it at 120 and you probably won’t. Hit a pedestrian at 40 and you’ll do some damage; him them at 70 and you’ll maim or kill them. Speed may not always contribute to the cause of accidents but it contributes significantly to the number of deaths and injuries in those accidents. (I’m sure you’re well aware of this anyway, you’re just being disingenuous).
But my beef is with the mobile vans with their obscured signage ect.
Without mobile devices, people would stay under the limit where there are fixed cameras (their positions are generally well known) and speed like hell where they aren’t. The prospect of being snapped by a mobile camera is what keeps many drivers under or around the limit.
Nor am I suggesting that ALL motorists will slow down when reminded but many more will slow than would be the case with a hidden speed camera at the same location and isn’t slowing speeding drivers what you want?
It’s the drivers who ignore toothless warnings and speed regardless who are kept in check by the possibility of being caught by a mobile camera.
How many times do I have to point out that for me leftism = totalitarianism and the nanny state so thing such a speed cameras are right up there with all of the other restraints upon personal liberty so beloved by the minions of the left.
Absolute bollocks. Elected governments passing laws that save lives is not totalitarianism and you are full of shit if you claim otherwise. If it rained cane toads at your house tomorrow, you’d be on here blaming Kevin Rudd because that’s how your mind works.
Not a gotcha Mark Just inviting you to prove that you are human like the rest of us rather but your insistence upon avoiding the question while trying to claim some moral high ground makes you a pathetic ,sanctimonious hypocrite Mark I don’t have to accuse you of that which is self evident.
Sure I understand the physics but it is not such gross excesses of velocity that I am talking about. I don’t have the stats but I am willing to bet that most of those who exceed the speed limit do it by a far smaller margin than you cite in any of your examples but you want to pretend that everyone who does speed has their foot flat to the floor with the engine at peak revs, your argument is akin to insisting that all shoplifters are as bad as bank robbers.
It obviously does not work because revenue from these devices continues to rise and to ensure that revenue continues to come in governments do things like lower the margin for error, the tipping point so to speak, at which you can be fined. .Like wise we get endless propaganda along the lines of your claim above but repeatedly claiming something is true does not make it so.
Nor am I suggesting that ALL motorists will slow down when reminded but many more will slow than would be the case with a hidden speed camera at the same location and isn’t slowing speeding drivers what you want?
Your own illogic trips you up Mark read you statement above again and you will realise that you don’t understand gambling at all. Because those who speed Dangerously (not just a small amount over the limit) do the calculations about the real risk of being caught and a copper flagging them down is far more of a deterrent than any number of speed cameras. Frankly I am happy to see the committed hoons booked and fined as often as they are caught, likewise those who speed in front of schools or in quiet suburban streets, when it comes to drunk drivers or those that text or use the phone while driving I have no tolerance and I am happy to see them charged and fined, but unlike you I do not think that automated devices are the answer, that lies in employing actual policemen who are very visible on our roads.
Mark my point about speed cameras is that their ability to save lives is vastly overrated by zealots like you. I do appreciate that you are arguing for what you think is a social good and I agree that road safety is important but I think that you are entirely off with the fairies if you think that any level of enforcement will stop all deaths on the roads.
Finally speaking as a Queenslander who knows about cane toads, I can assure you that I would not blame Kevin Rudd;. Cane toads are a state matter so I would blame Anna Bligh
“pathetic ,sanctimonious hypocrite.”
Pot, kettle, black Iain.
You banned me for this kind of language, when it was self evident that you were behaving in a hypocritical way, you even changed my posts.
MarkL is putting up a fair argument, your ad homonym seems way out of line by the standards YOU set.
Anyway I do agree that SOME cameras in Victoria do seem to be set up just to make money. The overall effect of them is to save lives, so I guess we take the good with the bad.
The worst offenders are the red light cameras in Melbourne’s CBD. If you get caught in un-expected traffic going round a corner, they snap you and it’s a $220.00 fine plus 3 demerit points, I have tried arguing with them and they won’t budge. Clearly un-fair and just revenue raising.
As for your assertion that those of us who aren’t conservative or rightist wingnuts are in favour of ‘nanny states’ or ‘totalitarianism’, this clearly shows how out of touch you are. You need to get out more Iain. People are not so black and white. Although I think you just enjoy winding reasonable people up, or trolling your own blog.
Craigy
Mark has been running the “holier than thou” line pretty hard on this issue(over several different posts) and my response has largely to avoid responding in kind.But I am only human and there comes a point where it is give as good as you get time. With Mark I have reached that point.
But the other things you raise point out precisely the sort of inequities that I am trying to look at with the topic on this and related posts. Unlike you I am unwilling to just say “if it saves lives then we should just accept the injustices inherent in the system” funnily enough you won’t accept the same argument when it comes to Gitmo so why are you so sanguine about it when it comes to speed cameras?
Don’t get too upset when I use the broad brush about my definition of Leftism I do appreciate that it is a spectrum disorder that varies in intensity from one sufferer to another
Finally I don’t deny sometimes trying to wind people up for fun but don’t pretend that those thus wound are always reasonable.
With an approach like this, it’s no wonder that you’re widely despised Iain. I’ve provided evidence to back up my arguments, you have provided nothing except baseless I-know-better homilies and supposition. And then, some kind of desperate gotcha routine where you start querying whether I’ve ever driven over the speed limit in a car. The simple fact is that I’m not telling you because you don’t need to know – but I can promise you this: if I was ever fined then I would have copped it on the chin – not pissed and moaned about the “nanny state” and “revenue raising” like you’re doing here.
Speed cameras are there to save lives first and foremost, and from my perspective any other reason comes a distant second. I don’t care if a thousand people are fined by hidden cameras if they save just ONE LIFE. If pensioners can’t afford speeding fines incurred while out in their Mazdas, then tough. If you slip up and are snapped and fined while out driving in that lawnmower-on-wheels of yours, then bad luck. That ONE LIFE saved is worth it all. And as I have shown with evidence that you have yet to refute, speed cameras save a hell of a lot more than one life – over the past decade they’ve probably saved thousands nationwide.
The best part is this ‘debate’, though, is that for all your pissing and moaning, nothing will change – speed cameras will continue to operate and reduce road fatalities, because (thankfully) government is comprised of smarter people than you.
Mark, Have I ever complained anywhere about any fines that I may have incurred for breaching the traffic act? You are welcome to search my archive, but you will come up empty. You have been a total prig in your comments here of late and as I said in a previous comment to Craigy there is a limit to how long I ignore your belligerence. You demand “evidence” all of the time as if we are in a court of law or on the floor of parliament,we are not at either sort of venue. But lets have a few links just for fun
From your ABC
an example in WA of a camera located to raise revenue
From the BBC about the location of cameras
Police don’t all like speed cameras
an industry insider admits it
How accurate are they?
Cameras banned in Texas
That should Be enough secondary sources you for now Mark
The evidence is that you are in the minority when it comes to this belief Mark you can insult me by dissing my car all you like because you won’t convince the majority of people that speed cameras are not first and foremost a Milch cow for state governments.
I’ll remind you of the point I made to Craigy in a previous comment, namely that your “if it saves one life” argument is readily dismissed when it comes to terrorist suspects so why should we accept it when it comes to this form of taxation?
Mark I write my opinions honestly and dare I say it rather calmly. When it comes to road safety I am as much an advocate fore it as I am for motherhood, but unlike you I don’t just buy the bullshit propaganda that everything done in the name of road safety is primarily about protecting the public.Only a fool would buy that line as you have.
The last time I got nabbed by a speed camera I was doing 6 Kph over the limit and I was at that time dead set against speed cameras. However I may have changed my view since that time.
Government have to raise their revenue from some source, and my feeling is that it is far better to raise money from those who break the law rather than from those who don’t break the law. Let us face the facts, if you are breaking the speed limit you are breaking the law, wear the penalty.
Iain is right: there should be no speed limits on any roads anywhere.
I am tired of having to slow down arounds school, shopping strips, and towns: pedestrians are not meant to be on the road and if they are then hello bull bar.
Faster. Sooner. Now.
Iain, I thought you said you had a thick skin, it doesn’t seem so here.
I didn’t intend to give the impression that I like badly placed cameras, it is just that the mobile ones, and the fixed cameras in black spots, DO work to save lives, so they should be outside this argument.
If we look at the cameras that are placed in positions with no real safety issues, like the camera I mentioned in my last post, then I agree that they are just creating a bad vibe about the whole speed camera thing.
To think that all cameras are placed for raising revenue, and that they have no effect, is flying in the face of the evidence.
Iain, you must by now know (as we have all been telling you for long enough) that your mythical leftist is a very rare beast. Of all those that lean to the left, I am yet to find more than a handful who would fit your description above. The people at ‘Grods’ or at Jeremy’s site aren’t leftist in the way you like to paint them (other than THR and maybe one or two others).
Just like you’re not a rabid, violent wingnut like some of the people who post here (KG MK and JR come to mind). So don’t you think it is time to stop the baiting or does it give you a stiffy to think you’re upsetting your mythical lefties?
Oh my skin is pretty thick but that does not mean that I am eternally patient with those who try to poke me with a sharp stick
Agreed as I said in a previous comment here
Which is one of the reasons that I have been so harsh to Mark on this issue He is running an “ends justifies the means” argument which is usually very soundly denounced by most minions of the left when it comes to the war on terror but when it comes to speed cameras…
I don’t think all camera are placed for revenue raising Craigy and I concede that they can have a positive effect on road safety but I think that it is foolish to deny that revenue raising is not a big part of the love of these devices by government and they play on the same “make sinners pay” attitude that used to protect governments from criticism for taxing beer and ciggies.
Craigy
while I do enjoy stirring the possum I am not so naive that I think that my mythical leftist is anything more than a caricature and a damn useful rhetorical device