Safe Speed Forums

BECAUSE THEY INCREASED THE SPEED LIMIT

http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/39 ... _per_cent/

THE NUMBER of speeding tickets handed out on Marlow Hill has dropped by more than 80 per cent since the speed limit was raised.

Between November 2002 and December 2006 more than 21,000 tickets were handed out to drivers on the High Wycombe road - a mean average of 429 a month.

Since the uphill speed limit was increased to 40mph at the base of the hill that figure has dropped to an average of 80 a month.

Valerie Letheren, cabinet member for transportation at Buckinghamshire County Council took the decision to raise the limit in February 2007.

She said: “We now have got a speed limit that is respected by drivers and it shows that it was the correct decision to have made.

“There hasn't been an increase in accidents as far as I know.”

She added that the number of tickets is, “still too many but it does show that it's a speed that a majority of drivers will respect.”

Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership manages speed cameras in Buckinghamshire.

Spokesman Dan Campsall said: “Certainly the impact of increasing the speed limit by a factor of a third creates a lot more latitude for the drivers and the other thing is that if you increase the limit from 30 to 40 you increase the threshold for enforcement even further.”

Camera vans were spotted at the side of Marlow Hill yesterday and on Sunday.

In total there have been 1,199 tickets issued on that stretch of the road since the limit was altered in March 2007.

However, according to Dan Campsall, following a speed limit change there is usually a six month period in which tickets are not issued to allow motorists to get used to the new system.

Based on this, 1,199 tickets over 15 months works out at just under 80 a month.

According to Mr Campsall fines from speed cameras are paid to the Government.

The Government then pays the local authority – in this case Buckinghamshire County Council – which redistributes the money to fund camera programmes.

As such the roads partnership would not make a profit for fining more drivers.

What Campsall said in 2005:

http://www.saferroads.org/news/speed-en ... -hill.html

"The mobile camera site on Marlow Hill, a main road into the town centre, is a site for speed enforcement because it is a proven black spot. In the three years before that camera site was installed (24/03/1999 to 24/03/2002) there were 20 crashes, one quarter of which were caused by speed. In the three years after it was installed there were 12 crashes, and only 1 in 6 were caused by speeding traffic; a reduction of 40 per cent."

Having 6 points on my licence for 38mph and 39mph on Marlow hill, you can imagine my fury when they increased the limit.

I am not surprised that the limit increase has not resulted in more accidents. The old 30mph limit was not safety motivated - it was a pure revenue raiser. The road, which is on a very steep hill, has two lanes and a very pronounced dip half-way up, in which they used to hide a camera van. The nose of your car would come over the brow of the dip (and be snapped) before you could actually see the van. The number of vehicles temporarily exceeding 30mph while safely overtaking heavy vehicles in the inside lane (which often could not exceed 15-20mph due to the gradient) made Marlow Hill one of the most profitable speed camera spots in the UK.

The only reason the limit was increased was due to the number of complaints the Council received from local residents - not just those who had been fined for perfectly safe driving, but those who lived on the residential streets that large quantities of vehicles started using to bypass Marlow Hill.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Humm what a balancing act!

Raise the limit to re-increase traffic back to the main road and the cameras - to stop locals complaining.

Rise the limit but claim incorrect speed as an accident causation, when other factors are usually the true real world cause.
Select months to 'show' better figures, and never mention RTTM (Regression to the mean)
Hide the van in a dip! Hardly saying Honest Safety Policy is it ! Place in a good overtaking spot, making o/t harder and longer to overtake (esp with the lower limit), and so more frustrating and congested for everyone - so making danger exposure more !
Recognising that the limit was too low, - causing from their perspective a 'bad side effect' - cars using other roads, (so less exposed to the camera route), never mind all the real bad side effects ! (like looking at the speedo while overtaking instead of completing the o/t as safely as possible by concentrating on the task at hand.

Have funds returned (via Giv) to re-spend on the wrong road safety policies - cameras and nothing else !
They like most, partnerships, probably only employ a p/t member of staff to decide on the 'Road Safety decisions'!
Even the speed increase still see's many driver's being convicted
I wonder what the 85%ile was before the camera partnership arrived, for that road ?

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