Nuxx:7341b3ee-17df-4e85-9da8-459bfe2f7f2c@y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <7341b3ee-17df-4e85-9da8-459bfe2f7f2c@y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: OT: Safespeed perceptions Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:36:18 -0700 (PDT) References:  Lines: 41 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.105.145.93 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1217288179 24712 127.0.0.1 (28 Jul 2008 23:36:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:36:19 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com; posting-host=88.105.145.93; 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: 3386 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:659426

On Jul 28, 1:57=A0pm, Tony Raven  wrote: > From today's Metro, an insight into Safespeed perceptions fo the law: > > "Traffic bosses are to set up a second roadside speed camera to keep > watch on one that keeps getting vandalised. =A0The =A324,000 Gatso on the > B5246 near Preston has been set on fire twice and was pushed over last > week. =A0Now Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety wants to put up > another camera to monitor it" > > Then, the bit worth waiting for.... > > "But Claire Armstrong of pressure group Safespeed said the culprits were > probably law-abiding citizens taking direct action against speed > cameras" > > Explains a lot that does.

What Claire means is that they're not your typical scumbag vandals who think it's somehow funny to go round wrecking public property which actually does us a service. They are people (mostly family men with good jobs) who wouldn't normally dream of vandalism, but they are of the (correct) opinion that cameras do not do us a service...quite the opposite. Cameras are killing people, the evidence is there in abundance, but the authorities won't get rid of them. So these people are protecting road users' lives, and also the licences and livelihoods of countless safe drivers, by removing the hated, dangerous devices. I certainly wouldn't encourage such activity, but I can completely understand why it's done. Even in Britain, you can only push people so far.

Anyway, what do you think would happen if cyclists were made to carry registration plates, and cameras were set up to automatically fine them for things such as jumping red lights, cycling on pavements, etc? We all know that the militants would vandalise such cameras at a far greater rate than the speed camera vandalism, and that the reason would be nothing to do with saving lives, and everything to do with the militants not wanting conveyer belt enforcement to be used against cyclists, despite them being quite happy with it being used against motorists. The vicious militants would also go one step further and attack operators of mobile camera vans. They really don't like it when the boot's on the other foot.