"Just zis Guy, you know?" <
[email protected]> wrote in
news:
[email protected]:
>>they're concentrating exclusively on whether you travel faster than
>>some abitrary datum *to the exclusion of real factors*. For example,
>>traffic police have been replaced by Gatsos and many constabularies
>>have now done away entirely with their traffic divisions
>
> Unrelated. The two policies - downgrading traffic in the police core
> duties, and automated speed enforcement - do not correlate as far as I
> can tell; I have asked for exact details of the date of the change but
> it appears to come between he legalisation of Gatso prosecutions and
> the sharp increase in cameras after 2000.
>
> Traffic police actually spend *less* of their time on speed
> enforcement now, as the cameras can do a lot of that for them.
Oh if that were true - and we still had traffic police patroling our
roads. It's very hard to have traffic police spending any time on
anything when you don't have traffic police. So, road safety enforcement
is now limited solely to whether or not you travel faster than some
arbitrary datum. In places like Staffordshire, there is now nobody to
take dangerous and careless drivers to task and they can tailgate, drive
across solid white lines, pull out right in front of you, etc. whenever
and wherever they like provided they don't go faster than that datum near
enforcement equipment.
You are correct that I have my own agenda (don't we all).
As a motorist, I want to drive in safety without needing to choose
between that and keeping my license. For over a year, I have obeyed the
speed limits, no matter how daft they seem; prior to that, I treated
speed limits as guides. My priorities have changed and I feel forced to
put preservation of my license ahead of road safety. Prior to this, I had
over two decades of accident-free motoring and a near-miss (i.e. one
where I had to take unplanned, evasive action) about once every four or
five weeks. In the last year, I've been rear-ended twice and my near-miss
rate has gone up to average about one every journey. The near misses are
nearly all due to other drivers' aggressive driving (and some will do
almost anything to get past me), or others misjudgement of my speed. For
example, as I approach a car waiting to join from a minor road, the other
driver will hesitate, realise that I'm not going as fast as is normal for
the road, and then pull out right in front of me forcing me to brake hard
or swerve.
Now, it's easy to blame the other drivers, but I suspect that it's no
coincidence that it's me who's getting the near misses while others who
don't rigidly obey speed limits are not. No, the problem is that over the
last year I have been driving at inappropriately slow speeds for the
conditions, and thus less safely.
As a cyclist, I want other road users to drive with due dilligence and to
make the necessary allowances. Two decades ago lorries, buses, and taxis
were the greatest menace but normal motorists seemed reasonably
courteous. Now, everyone seems to be driving on autopilot and cycling on
public roads is no longer safe. Drivers used to hold back until safe to
pass but that is rare these days. Thumb up bum, they bimble along at the
speed limit, even though that's too fast for the conditions, passing so
close that I could take off their near-side door mirrors with my knee
without taking my feet off the pedals!
I am convinced that the obsessive reliance on automated speed
enforcement, and the propaganda being distributed to allow that to
continue, has altered the mindset of the British driver. Just as with me,
priority has shifted from safety to preservation of one's license, and
that has reduced my safety both as a motorist and as a cyclist.
--
Geoff Lane
Cornwall, UK
