Nuxx:26fd3063-cacf-43e0-8ef8-b36475ed4a5a@p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com

Path: number1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <26fd3063-cacf-43e0-8ef8-b36475ed4a5a@p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Vested Interests in Camera Operation Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:35:17 -0800 (PST) Lines: 379 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 86.151.152.140 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1231713317 15183 127.0.0.1 (11 Jan 2009 22:35:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:35:17 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: p2g2000prn.googlegroups.com; posting-host=86.151.152.140; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 17131 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:682737

Anyone who supports cameras for any reason other than safety has blood on their hands, plain and simple.

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Do we make enough of the (via the RAC and AA) covert insurance company interest and contribution to road safety advice and policy making? And no wonder ABD are attacked for talking road safety and speed sense. The RAC are Norwich Union and the AA make a lot of money from car insurance too, including crash recovery insurance. So the slower everything goes etc etc. or the more points people get etc etc.

Keith - Original Message - From: Idris Francis To: Keith Peat Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 7:01 PM Subject: Re: Re: AA's financial interest in speed cameras

thanks

Idris

At 10:38 10/01/2009, you wrote:

If you try to contact the RAC, who are also used on Road Safety panels and gave evidence to the Select Committee you will find that they are Norwich Union. Idris, if you make that connection with the AA too then it may well be worth a PR on it and complaints to MPs.

Keith

- Original Message -

From: Idris Francis

To: me@richard.org

Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 3:38 PM

Subject: Re: Re: AA's financial interest in speed cameras

good point, will check funding

Idris

At 15:37 09/01/2009, you wrote:

I'd wager it explains more than that. For instance, I would bet money the groups like Roadpeace and other so-called "charities" are bankrolled by insurance. In the US, Geico is the #3 insurance company and the #1 advertiser: $1 billion in ad spending per year. Can that possibly not have an influence on editorial content?

Richard

Jan 9, 2009 09:16:35 AM, irfrancis@onetel.com wrote: excellent - and obvious the moment you point it out. Could explain why King, who was anti camera at the RAC Foundation is pro-camera at the AA! Circulated widely

Idris

At 12:54 09/01/2009, you wrote: "Or does the AA have a vested interest? Do you receive any donations from the speed camera industry?"

This is something we figured out quite some time ago in the United States but strangely does not seem to have caught on in the UK. Yes, AA has a vested interest in speed cameras. The speed camera industry does not need to make donations because every AA customer who gets a ticket is the one making that donation.

It's quite simple. About 2 million get a scamera ticket each year in the UK. By 2006, a total of 5.4 million drivers had points applied to their license, allowing AA or whatever appliciable insurance company to raise the annual insurance premium for each victim by 5-7% for the first ticket, 20% for the second or even 40-50% for the third (point cost estimate taken from confused.com). The AA collects its share of this money, amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds annually, without providing any extra services. It is profit, free and clear -- the best kind. That is quite a vested interest. I think it adds up to half-a-billion, but other estimates put it lower.

In the US, we can trace the first installation of an automated ticketing machine directly to a public official who, one year later, went to work for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS which we belive stands for: the Insurance Institute for Higher Surcharges). That same individual at IIHS has produced all of the research claiming cameras work. AAA (our version of AA) and IIHS together have been the primary lobbyists for camera enforcement.

This connection really should be explored more thoroughly in the UK.

Richard Diamond Washington, DC         Jan 9, 2009 06:04:59 AM, irfrancis@onetel.com wrote: From: "Eric Bridgstock"  To:  Cc:  Subject: the non-effectiveness of speed cameras Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 21:23:00 -0000

Mr King (and Mr Howard) - I hope I have guessed your email addresses correctly I submitted a message via the AA website on 1 Jan, for the attention of Andrew Howard, following a quote I had seen from him concerning a Sussex speed camera case =C3,=C2"There have been many cases where people have been able to prove some cameras are inaccurate or have found problems with positioning such as cameras on bends but no one has been able to give the silver bullet to speed cameras and on the whole they continue to work very well.=C3,=C2".

Today, I have seen your quote at the end of the Daily Mail report on the Katie Price case

Edmund King, of the AA, said: 'The situation is getting somewhat embarrassing when it appears that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor. 'If one can afford an expensive barrister then they can see these legal loopholes, and get people off. 'Not only is it unfair as ordinary people don't have access to costly legal representation but the police and CPS need to get their act together.' He added: 'On the one hand these loopholes shouldn't exist but the speed limits are there for a reason. Just under 3,000 people a year die on our roads every year, mainly as a result of people driving too fast.'

Those last clauses are the sort of nonsense I have come to expect of organisations with a vested interest in speed cameras (Camera Partnerships, DfT, PACTS (see below for a shocking revelation)), but not from a respected organisation like the AA. Or does the AA have a vested interest? Do you receive any donations from the speed camera industry?

Have you looked into the claims for cameras for yourself, or have you accepted the lies and propaganda from those with vested interests?

I have been researching speed cameras (mobile and fixed) for over a year and have become deeply disturbed by the false claims made for their success. I believe I bring a fresh view to the subject. I am an advanced driver (former Chairman of RoSPA Advanced Drivers for London and Herts) and work in system safety engineering - assembling, reviewing and approving safety cases for navigation systems, air traffic control, weapon systems, etc. Much of my team's work involves putting together accident sequences - identifying a hazard, and accidents it could cause, then the accident sequences, and the mitigations (safety features, probabilities, etc) that could reduce the risk of that accident (likelihood and/or severity) to a tolerable or acceptable level. In order to assess the effectiveness of cameras, I have found it helpful to understand what actually causes accidents. There are many reports about contributory factors (most of which show that speed in excess of the limit is a cause of a very small percentage (2%?)) but I have used the discipline of my work to look at the "anatomy" of a collision in a new way.

In most cases, an accident is the result of a hazardous condition combined with an initiating event. To use a driving example, let=C3,=C2's say the hazardous condition is an overtaking manoeuvre (a car on the wrong side of the road is always potentially hazardous) and the initiating event is the misjudged speed of an oncoming vehicle. The possible mitigations against a collision would be quick reactions of one or both drivers (and/or the driver of the vehicle being overtaken). In the event of a collision, the mitigations against death or injury include the vehicles=C3,=C2' safety features such as crumple-zones, seat-belts, air bags etc.

Another hazardous condition could be a driver using their mobile phone and the initiating event could be their failure to observe a traffic sign or a signal or another road user. The mitigations are, again, generally down to the drivers and road users involved, or possibly, say, a crash barrier.

A bald tyre is also a hazardous condition that may be perfectly safe until it contacts wet road, is subject to heavy braking or sharp steering, or bursts. Most road safety devices have a clear link to preventing collisions or preventing injury - seat-belts, traction control, anti-lock brakes and crash barriers, for example, all can easily be explained and many people will testify that their lives have been saved, or a crash has been prevented, by them. As far as I can see, such a linkage does not exist for cameras. Cameras are always installed where there has been an unusually high spate of incidents. Statistically, the incidents in the following years will nearly always be lower at that camera site (I'm sure you are familiar with regression to the mean (RTTM)). There seems to be an acceptance among all parties that RTTM is responsible for most of the fall in the statistics at a camera site, but it is often asserted that the camera "gets the credit" for the rest. That is a leap of faith for which I see no evidence. I have asked various bodies (camera partnerships, BRAKE, PACTS, Dr Linda Mountain, DfT, etc) if they could describe an instance of an actual collision where it could be claimed, that a speed camera would have prevented it. They have been unable to identify one. I also asked them to describe an imaginary scenario where a camera would prevent a collision and/or save a life, bearing in mind my description above of how an accident usually develops - i.e. it is not valid to say that "camera slows car down therefore the driver does not hit something"; the scenario needs to describe how the camera removes the hazardous condition, or the initiating event, or mitigates the sequence to avoid a collision. Again, I have received no credible scenarios. Without the logical, credible link between the camera and a road safety benefit (in terms of a collision prevented), the statistical claims for reductions in crashes at camera sites have little or no credibility - they must be due to statistics or other factors (recognised or not). Paradoxically, I have more evidence of cameras contributing to crashes (such as the ones supplied by the Norfolk Camera Partnership shown by the BBC earlier this year) and the coroner's comments into the death of Mrs Myra Nevett in 2004. I see instances every week of people braking for cameras even when they are within the speed limit - such driving is clearly not good for road safety and it is inconceivable that other accidents have not resulted from such actions near cameras.

A safety management system (and that is what we are dealing with here) must be robust enough to deal with counter-evidence - it cannot be built solely on a selection of reports that appear to favour one view. Yet all camera supporters are selective about the evidence they use and ignore counter-evidence. I urge you to continue with your review of the effectiveness armed with the analysis and insight I have provided above. There is usually an element of fraud in the operational case for speed cameras. The claim is made, for example, that a number of lives will be saved (through predicted collisions prevented) and that each life saved saves the county =C3,=C2=A31.5m (or very similar figure). Highways Economics Note #1 (HEN1) is often quoted as the source of that "cost per life" figure. Quite apart from the fact that I dispute the claim that a camera can prevent a collision, a saving is a reduction in expected expenditure. Most of the =C3,=C2=A31.5m is made up of allowances for pain, grief, lost earnings, etc. It is a hypothetical sum that some would, in theory be willing to pay in order not to lose a loved one. It is not a reduction in expected expenditure at all, and any claims that use terms such as cost savings or cost benefits or return on investment are bogus and misleading. The only true costs saved are the emergency services, hospital treatment and infrastructure repairs - for a fatality that is reckoned to be around =C3,=C2=A320,000 and it can be up to =C3,=C2=A3100,000 for a serious injury (due to extended hospital treatment). HEN1 is quite clear, in its first few paragraphs, about the difference between the Value of Preventing a Fatality and the costs incurred in dealing with a fatality. But it is common practice to mix the two to suggest that cameras are cost effective - they are not (unless you include the fines, which are never mentioned). I attach a letter recent sent to Shropshire Council concerning this (I have rejected the Board's initial assessment that "there was nothing wrong", and they met again this week to re-consider my arguments.             So the safety case for ANY speed camera is non-existent and the business case is based on incorrect/fraudulent use of Government figures.              Finally, for now, much credence is often attached to the guidance and advice emanating from the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), a supposedly independent body founded on research and evidence.  You need to be aware that PACTS receives funding from three speed camera manufacturers, two companies delivering speed awareness courses and the Norfolk Speed Camera Partnership - they are not as independent or impartial as they claim, and it is hardly surprising that they are vehement supporters of speed cameras.              I have also spent the last few months in extensive ongoing correspondence with the DfT, having explained why their "4-Year Evaluation Report" actually proves nothing about the overall effectiveness of speed cameras. I will send you that argument separately. Finally, you may have seen the recent reports that all cameras are illegal because the prescribing process using Parliamentary Orders has not been properly executed. If that is true, there will be an almighty rumpus. I've generally avoided that element of the picture as I am not a legal eagle. But I am a safety expert and know enough about money to spot an obvious false claim of cost effectiveness. =C3,=C2=A3100m a year spent, thousands of motorists penalised for driving safely (rules for camera placement specify that the speed limit must be much lower than the speed that 85% of drivers would not exceed given no restrictions(known as the 85th percentile) and no detectable improvement in the deaths and injuries on the roads.  Speed cameras are nothing short of a national scandal.  I will be submitting a dossier to the Serious Fraud Office before the end of January using some of the information presented here and much more besides.  There is incompetence and deceit across the "business" and in very high places.              I sent a similar message to this one to Cllr Peter Greenhalgh and Cllr Derique Montaut in Swindon before they made their historic decision.              If you wish to know more about anything I have said, please ask.              Please feel free to use and circulate this information as you think fit.              Above all - please challenge the tosh that is put out by the establishment - it is fraudulent, dangerous and it is killing road users. I look forward to hearing from you. kind regards Eric Bridgstock (currently an AA member, but for how much longer?)