In message
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:

Graeme wrote:

In message
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:

Graeme wrote:

In message
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:

Graeme wrote:

In message
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:

Graeme wrote:

In message
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:

Graeme wrote:

In message
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:

[snip]
The reliance on speed cameras to police our road system has distorted
the perception of what is safe. As far as the cameras are concerned
an idiot driving 1 metre behind the car in front at 70mph and weaving
all over the road is perfectly safe, someone driving at a steady
60mph on a road designed for 70+ but somebody has decided to
designated as a 50 limit for no logical reason is defined as driving
dangerously.

Cameras do not pass judgments about what is safe. They are not
intelligent entities.

I never said they were.

You may like to read the first clause of your second sentence, which
looks like a well-constructed set of words that is arguing for the
cameras passing a judgment; if one substituted the word "Johnson" for
the word "camera" it would certainly read as a comment about Johnson's
judgment.


Speed cameras, like many other automated processes, make decisions based on a
previously defined sets of circumstances. In this case IF vx THEN take
picture. Making such decisions does not infer that the machinery involved is
intelligent. As the cameras are, alledgedly, to enforce safe behaviour then
the decision process programmed into them can be presumed to be intended to
choose between safe/not safe. Therefore, as far as the camera's programmed
instructions are concerned, IF vx THEN the vehicle is being driven safely.

No, the cameras are there to enforce the speed limit. That is all they
do. Someone could be driving their car sideways, but within the limit.
It's your assumption or the assertion of others that cameras monitor
safety. And it's a flawed way of looking at it.

That is what they are marketed as.


The point I was labouriously trying to make is that reliance on detection
and punishment of a single factor by automated means because it is an
easy and cheap, or even profitable, way of policing the roads is not the
best option available. Especially when the factor being detected is
responsible for a very small percentage of accidents overall.

[snip]

You may be perfectly right in saying that those who perceive the cameras
as enforcing safety are being lulled into a false sense of security, but
that's a problem of their perception (and yours, it seems) but not
everyone sees things in the same way.

Why should it be mine? I don't believe the cameras have more than a
peripheral effect on road safety.


Further the system is manifestly weighted against the private motorist as
against other road users. A speed camera on a 70mph dual carriageway
will detect a motorist exceding the speed limit by 8mph but will not
detect a white van exceding the speed limit by 15mph or an HGV exceding
the speed limit by 20mph. (assuming the camera is set for the 10% allowed
error of the speedometers)

That's undeniable. It's not that much different from the general law
enforcement case, though, is it. Some people are caught. Others go
unpunished.


It is a lot different in that the chance of getting caught is weighted in
favour(?) of one group of potential offenders.

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net/