Nuxx:C8812c6a-ac60-40a2-8f5f-fd968312c5a6@18g2000hsf.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!18g2000hsf.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID:  From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Paul Smith Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:33:10 -0800 (PST) References:      Lines: 69 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 85.211.163.51 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1197905590 13749 127.0.0.1 (17 Dec 2007 15:33:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:33:10 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 18g2000hsf.googlegroups.com; posting-host=85.211.163.51; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 4506 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:632976

On Dec 14, 4:07 pm, Dan Holdsworth  wrote: > On 13 Dec 2007 08:14:40 GMT, Ian Smith >  > was popularly supposed to have said: > > > > > On Wed, 12 Dec 2007, Dan Holdsworth  wrote: > > >> The other problem is that the road policing budget is fixed. You cannot > >> have traffic police AND lots of speed cameras; you have to have one or > >>  the other. > > > Of all the bollocks spouted by the apologists for his anti-social > > rubbish, this is the biggest. > > > In one breath we're told that speed cameras are so costly they've > > cut down the police numbers to pay for them. In the next, we're told > > speed cameras are nothing but revenue-raising boxes bleeding the poor > > cash-cow motorist dry. > > >> So, whilst I am not particularly fond of him, Paul Smith does have the > >> salient difference from most of the speed-related commentators that he > >>  has a certain amount of intelligence on his side, and he makes some > >> fairly well reasoned arguments in favour of his point of view. > > > Yeah, right. You'll have to point that out to me. Is it like the > > argument above? They are bad because they cost so much money and do > > nothing but raise revenue? > > No, they're bad because they don't catch the motorist who has bought a > 100 quid banger cash in hand and not troubled to register, tax or insure > it and is thus rather difficult to trace unless you happen onto him by > accident. > > They don't catch the utterly clueless, unskilled moron driver whose > three remaining neurons can recognise a yellow box on a stick and slow > him to 20 to get past it, but which provide no semblence of roadcraft, > manners or safety. > > They don't catch young kids hooning about in bangers, because they too > can spot a speed camera and restrain themselves for fifty yards or so > near it. > > They don't catch drunk drivers, or not often. Nor do they catch crap > drivers, insanely slow drivers or indeed anything but someone exceeding > an often arbitrary limit AT ONE POINT, who has also registered their car > registration with the authorities. > > As a road law enforcement policy, they are bloody rubbish by themselves. > > Problem is, that is how this government is using them; not as a specific > tool to combat specific stupidities in specific sets of circumstances, > but as a catch-all road safety policy, one size fits all. > > It ain't working as well as it should work. > > That's what I'm upset about; speed cameras are being used extremely > unintelligently and it is the unintelligence that I object to. > > -- > Dan Holdsworth PhD                  dan1701use...@ntlworld.com > By caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, By the beans of Java > do thoughts acquire speed, hands acquire shaking,  the shaking > becomes a warning, By caffeine alone do I set my mind in motion

Correct, as far as it goes anyway. Only a rabidly anti-car nutter or someone with a vested interest would still support cameras in light of all the FACTS out there.