Nuxx:979ff286-12ac-4e1d-9516-b18ca0133114@79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <979ff286-12ac-4e1d-9516-b18ca0133114@79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Speeding Fines Up By 400 Per Cent Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 13:02:11 -0700 (PDT) Lines: 127 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.105.129.172 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1217966532 31485 127.0.0.1 (5 Aug 2008 20:02:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 20:02:12 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 79g2000hsk.googlegroups.com; posting-host=88.105.129.172; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 7119 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:660978

DfT being dishonest about cameras as ever:

1. As usual, we get the "at camera sites" FRAUD which deliberately fails to take account of RTTM. And as usual, the car-haters will refuse to condemn DfT for this, as they don't care whether cameras are saving lives, they just want them there because they randomly fine, ban and threaten the >99.9% of motorists who exceed the speed limit at times.

(If I genuinely thought that cameras saved lives, I'd be openly furious with DfT for their distortion of the figures, as I'd think "They don't need to do that to show that cameras save lives, and by doing so they're just needlessly giving ammunition to the anti-camera brigade". The car-haters here aren't furious with DfT at all though, because they don't genuinely think that cameras save lives.)

2. "The Government is clear that the best safety camera is one which takes no fines at all" - yeah, I'm sure DfT would love it if all the cameras were that "good" and made them no money whatsoever. Such patronising deception really gets the public's backs up.

3. "Safety cameras are there to save lives, not make money" - just a straight lie.

So everything that DfT say in the story is dishonest in some way. I suppose it's no surprise, considering that it's impossible to defend cameras without being in some way dishonest (or ignorant/stupid). Oh yes, and I wonder why camera fines fell after the funding arrangements changed? Could it be that the partnerships became notably less enthusiastic about enforcement once they were no longer keeping the cash? Surely not.

Honestly car-haters, if you're serious about maintaining the charade that you don't hate cars, you're going to have to stop saying that you support cameras. They've turned into such a joke, and it's so obvious to everyone who knows anything that they're not saving lives, that you're just embarrassing yourselves by stubbornly refusing to give up on them.

They may have potentially been the "ultimate anti-motorist machine" while there was a prospect of successfully conning the public into thinking that they saved lives, but now that the cat's out of the bag, the public are no more going to accept them than they are cameras that randomly fine and ban >99.9% of the driving population for no reason whatsoever. You may have had high hopes of the cameras eliminating the motorist scum, but unfortunately the effort has failed, and the sick, murderous game is up. You'd be better off admitting defeat, openly admitting that cameras don't work, and devoting your time exclusively to coming up with the next great anti-motorist con.

(Any ideas what that's going to be yet? Go on, you can give me a hint at least, can't you?  Or perhaps you're just going to pin your hopes on "climate change".  The trouble is, people are seeing through that as well now.  Damn those people and their independent thought, and damn those bastards who propagate the truth to them through the media and the Internet.  Damn free speech.  We need a nice, Communist state where no cars are allowed and the only television and Internet traffic allowed is created or authorised by the government.  How about "Chapmaningrad", or "Spindriftistan"?  No doubt you've thought of a name already actually.  Well good luck anyway, Communists, and I hope it all goes well, not.)

http://tinyurl.com/greedcameras

Speeding fines up by 400 per cent

By David Millward, Transport Editor Last Updated: 12:01am BST 05/08/2008

Motorists are paying four times more in speeding fines than when Labour came to power, according to figures obtained by the Tories.

They show that drivers are now paying =A3200 a minute to the public purse, prompting the Tories to accuse the Government of treating them as " cash cows."

In 1997, when Labour came to power, there were 712,753 speeding tickets issued as a result of motorists being caught by camera and police patrols.

By 2006, according to figures released by the Home Office in a Commons written reply, this had soared to 1,773,412.

With the cost of a Fixed Penalty Notice having risen from =A340 to =A360 in 2000, this has meant that the cash raised increased from =A328.5 million to =A3106.4 million.

David Ruffley, the shadow police reform minister said: "Coupled with an increase in the basic speeding fine, this means speeding tickets are now raising over =A3100 million a year for the Government.

''Ministers need to tell us what they are doing with this =A3100 million a year taken from motorists.

"How much is actually put back into practical road safety that does not involve speed cameras?

"Ministers' failure to answer that question confirms the view that for this Government the British motorist is "a nice little earner".

"Is Labour using speeding tickets just to raise revenue rather than making our roads safer?

"Using speed cameras as a cash cow undermines public confidence. The Government needs to rethink ways of improving road safety, including cracking down on uninsured drivers."

This figure would have continued rising further had the Government not reformed the policing of speeding in April last year, scrapping the arrangements under which safety camera partnerships kept all the cash.

Since then all fines are paid to the Treasury with the cash then being distributed to partnerships as grants for a variety of road safety initiatives and not just cameras.

As a result, according to the Department for Transport's latest figures, speed camera fines fell from =A3114.6 million in 2005-6 to =A3104.4 million in 2006-7.

The DfT defended the use of cameras: "Safety cameras are there to save lives, not make money.

"Independent research has shown that there are 1,745 fewer deaths and serious injuries at camera sites each year. The Government is clear that the best safety camera is one which takes no fines at all, but succeeds in deterring drivers from speeding."