Labour moots using speed cameras to reward law-abiding drivers The new shadow transport minister has suggested that the country's network of average speed cameras could be used to monitor and reward careful drivers with prizes, cheaper car tax, or by deducting penalty points from their licence. Conscious that her party was perceived as anti-motorist when in government, Angela Eagle …
Imagine your boss comes up to you and says: "You punch the clock on time everyday, and for that your get a pay raise."
Is see no difference here.
How much will the salary be for the person or persons to go through the "Data" and give the rewards? Nothing wrong at all with adding that to the fiscal budget.
New leader, same old stalinist control tendencies - and it's not just a one off. In Scotland they want to tag every bottle of booze sold in an offie so they can use it (in conjunction with CCTV) to trace back who bought it (on the off-chance that they're underage).
(see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12083695 )
We're doomed! What choice do we have? Evil Tories, Evil Labour or deluded LibDems? Could we please introduce some form of democracy in this country that actually allows the citizens to choose between a number of sane candidates with sensible, practical and workable policies?
If you're a pessimist, you might ever find more amazement about the badness, the illiteracy, and the general low-brow-ness of, well, the people. If you're an optimist, you might never fail to be amazed by how the people manage to get by anyway.
Paint me a cynic, sir, but I point you to the glaring fact that politicians are people too.
Worse yet, and I've run out of words, generally not of the kind that actually understands technology, or much of the impact of what they're on about anyway. A sociologist not stuck head-deep in the dark end of politics might do better. Possibly.
Speaking of sociology: For most of what we do, as in the people, there's a sort of established pattern that allows us to avoid the most eggregious of perviously made errors. Call it culture, if only for the sake of argument. For the cutting edge of technology, and for this discussion "recent developments" is measured in decades or even centuries, such simply does not exist yet. And therefore, neither bureaucrat nor politician actually has a clue what to do about it, which, thanks to the very nature of the critter, makes them want to do as much as possible about it. Sort of like a staunch, fearless, forward, vote-drawing intention to make every mistake possible in the name of whatever the buzzword du jour is, thereby possibly convincingly learning by doing as apparently learning by listening to the experts is, er, just the wrong way around in their book. As amply demonstrated recently.
There are lots of things inherent in the system, but don't expect sanity among them. It doesn't seem to survive very long at all in that environment. You may have to try and get yourself elected to try and change the system from within, but since you haven't, I presume you treasure your sanity.
Here, kids you have behaved well, have a candy. And beware nanny has eyes on her back and if you behave badly she will know.
This probably says it all.
There is a number of fundamental difference between adults and toddlers and the biggest one is probably that adults DO NOT NEED TO BE TOLD EVERY MINUTE TO BEHAVE PROPERLY AND BE REWARDED WITH A CANDY IF THEY DO. Becoming _RESPONSIBLE_ is an essential part of growing up and people who fail to understand this difference should not be allowed anywhere near running a country.
Every time speed camera come up, it generates more heat than light. I can only suppose that the angry folk disagree with the very idea of speed limits and that they should be allowed to whizz around as fast as they like. How come the Daily Mail never gets worked up about drug laws, for example, other than to say they're too lax?
It's not about having no limits and/or driving everywhere as fast as you like.
It's about having a **sensible** road safety policy where "speed in excess of some arbitrary limit" (which note is very much NOT the same as "inappropriate speed for the situation and conditions") is not elevated waay above the other more significant road safety factors. It's about having a road safety policy where drivers are positively encouraged to think about their driving and take responsibility for it, rather than constantly trying to dumb down driving and take away the very risk assessment and self responsibility that goes hand in hand with safe driving.
Speed cameras rigidly enforce an arbitrary limit on a minority factor. They detract from road safety overall by suppressing risk assessment and imposing a driving system where "driving to the rules" is considered more important than "driving safely not hitting anything" !
Governments are totally obsessed with the numerical value of speed regardless of safety and road conditions and with total blindness to other dangerous driving habits. With a few exceptions speed limits are fixed 24 x 7 x 52, whether it's a hot sunny day or a howling blizzard. They should be set so that to exceed them would be dangerous at any time and not used to tell idiots what speed to drive at. They give all the wrong messages. Saying that it is dangerous to exceed the speed limit implies that it is safe not to, though that may be untrue in either case.
It has variable speed limits. They use it to easy congestion.
Did they use it a few weeks ago when I was travelling down in the snow at 35-40 (in the middle lane, which was the only one that was really clear) and BMW drivers were still howling down the snowy outside lane?
Take a guess...
Im assuming they're controlled by the Highways Agency - the same one that told me if I was tailgated by a lorry when going through a speed-restricted roadworks I should 'take their number and report them'. They failed to explain who would be driving the car while I was doing this...
The idea to reward points as well as take them away has a certain appeal. In fact, this idea is something that we might explore for crime as well as holding positions of public trust. For the best redemption is the one you've worked long and hard for to earn. And the kudos you get for holding a position of public trust you ought to lose if you betray that trust, in addition to whatever you did to lose the trust again. But of course, there must be a way to earn them again. Iff we're being pedantic about keeping score, then we might as well go all the way.
But that doesn't mean that the ANPR cameras and the associated database are suddenly a good idea. They still must go, for the privacy implications alone. And as already mentioned, there are numerous issues like obvious gameability of this proposed scheme. In fact, even if the effect is positive, the use of this data is outside its original (already fantastically overly broad) scope and therefore feature creep, of which we have too much of already.
From someone who has mostly sky between her ears.
Read this for a review of what 10 years of Labour did to us....
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/10030/
It isn't a question of not wanting to vote for a Labour politician, more a question of wanting to beat them to death with a club. Not that the Condems are very much better and the Tories being so effing useless is one reason we had 10 years of Labour.
Labour Party solutions to everything involve authoritarian state-monitoring of the individual, and they don't even consider for a second that it might be a bad thing -- after all it has the added benefit of creating public sector non-jobs (e.g. Average Speed Camera monitor and arbitrator or awards to public, prolly with associated quango too).
They used to say Labour were red (socialist) in tooth and claw, but these days they seem to have the air of Terry Gillliam's Brasil's beaurocratic authoritarian nanny-state rather than red.
In the belief that a big enough database assisting in cradle-to-grave surveillance was *always* the right answer to a problem.
Almost as good as Ms Perry's "Age certify all internet sites"*
*Except Perry is part of the coalition and has the ear of a Minister where as this idea is for an effort to prove she is doing "something," whatever that something is.
Is *not* because I approve this idea.
It's my *amusement* at how soon the Blairite tendency would return to their *favorite* things (large intrusive databases to "solve" a problem they perceive).
The serious beating Labor took at the last election did not hit *some* of them hard enough with the clue stick to think that *maybe* they ought to review their policies.
What's odd is that they should be less exposed to the kind of senior civil servants who "advice" Ministers on what a *good* thing this sort of idea is. So *maybe* she is capable of independent thought. It's just she believes that this is a *good* idea on her own.
If they are to enforce speed limits then use them for that. If they are to collect data then use them for that. If they are for rewarding safe driving them use them for that.
Don't come round here and say 'We have this unpopular ineffective box that we need to justify the use of. Let's think of some wizzo bolloxs to try and convince that this wolf is actually a nice sheep that we should really love it and let it reward us for being good little subjects!"
It is this abuse of technology that gets technology - well or poorly applied - a bad name!
People understand speed cameras perfectly - its just that some people don't like them. What eagle wants is for people to understand her need to be a control freak and to agree with her when she insists that she knows what is best for you.
What is it about politicians that they don't understand how human beings work?
"Conscious that her party was perceived as anti-motorist when in government, Angela Eagle suggested such uses for the cameras"
---------------
But somehow she was *not* conscious of the fact that the last Labour government was perceived by many as the most pernicious, liberty-hating, privacy-invading, surveillance obsessed, Orwellian megalomaniacs that we've ever had the misfortune to have running this country.
They truly have no idea, do they? Stick all the names in a hat and there's a chance you could win a prize? This from a party who managed to create so many new crimes there's probably as much of a chance for you to get nicked for something as there would be to win a prize. So stupid it hurts to even think about it.
I thought not indicating was the latest fashion? It certainly is in these parts - sitting on your footbrake for long periods and dazzling the poor sod behind you, that's now standard practice. Going around with headlights out or not on, and one foglight - yeah that's about right too.
Not bothering to indicate and wondering why cars or pedestrians are in your way.. yeah I'll give it 6 months before that's standard practice.
Make periodic driving retests compulsory, or even make insurance discounts for an up-to-date advanced driving certificate more substantial than they are now.. oh hang on, common sense spotted. Move along, there's nothing to see here...
A couple own and share a car. Mr A drives it very carefully and Mrs A has a lot of points and generally speeds and drives fast.
How does Mr A win the lottery?
Oh, that would need a tag per person, oh, and that would also conveniently mean that all that monitoring could be linked to road charges per mile, and reduced tax for those who only drive 4000 miles a year, screwing anybody who can't afford to live in a big city near their work anymore because of stupid house prices that were allowed to get beyond a joke, meaning moving to the sticks was the only answer to actually affording a home big enough to accomodate their family needs.
Looks like new new labour may be old new labour with a refreshed spin doctor who has had his thinking cap on during his period of being out of work.
Right load of bollocks, and I'll only [help] vote those bastards back in once all tories / lib dems / greens / monster raving party have all died and its them or the BNP. i.e. Never.
Rant over, I'll get my coat.
It's taken them a few months, but credit to New Labour for coming up with another incredibly intrusive scheme for obtaining information from perfectly innocent people.
Next - CCTV camera records to be analysed to reward people who don't walk on the cracks in the pavement.
Which fucked up muppet comes up with these stupid ideas. Another ridiculous notion to try and buy back votes.
The only reward people should be getting for driving carefully is having less chance of causing a fatal accident and no penalty points. Adults are not children... they should not be getting rewarded for good behaviour, it should simply be expected of them.
Probably the best way to do this would be to get insurers to base their risk assessment of a driver on his/her behaviour. Drive more safely, get cheaper insurance. Turns out the insurance companies think so too:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Auto-Insurers-Vehicle-Electronic-Tracking-Device-Can-Discount-Your-Car-Insurance-Premiums&id=344980
There has also been recent discussion about such a device in the uk. A chap I knew a few years ago was trialling one too.
Frankly the whole big brother thing sounds like a multi million IT fail waiting to happen.
From the the crowd that made "cockholster" a lucrative career path and gave prisoners X boxen in return for not stabbing each other too often.
So having introduced so many laws that everyone is guilty of something, the idea is to arbitrarily reward a token number of random people who didn't get caught breaking one law at one specific point in time? Presumably irrespective of their past or future behaviour.
You know, I think even Orwell would have a hard time satirising that, but I'd love to see him try.
They still don't get it, if they want to be less hated then just LEAVE US ALONE! Enough of this bullshit, turn road policing back into an attempt to stop genuinely dangerous drivers rather than persecute anyone who drifts a couple of miles over the limit. Inappropriate speed is the danger, someone travelling at 80 on a deserted dual carriageway at 11pm isn't going to hurt anyone, most of the downright terrifying driving I see happens well within the limits, and in fact may even be made worse by artificially low ones.
I'd like to see them look at tailgating - I'd estimate I get tailgated at least once every journey I make, especially when I'm sticking to the limit for fear of points in areas that are obviously rated lower than they should be.
It's usually Audi drivers.
I am so happy that these people are not in power any more.
The Tories wont go for this purely on the basis that it involves giving money away as opposed to taking it.
What strikes me most is that Labour still dont seem to acknowledge that we have a problem with their data gathering idea's. The public trust in government is simply not high enough for us to accept that they hold that kind of data on us, which as Ally J points out above;
"This from a party who managed to create so many new crimes there's probably as much of a chance for you to get nicked for something as there would be to win a prize"
It seems that Labour (and many other motoring organisations) have overlooked the fact good driving is not all about speed. If they honestly believe that they can determine a good driver based purely on the speed they travel through a known monitoring point then they're wrong. Driving is a complex skill and any reward for good driving should take all elements of that into account.
I assume they only plan to reward drivers who not only stay within the speed limits, but those who use the inside lane, and who ensure they indicate correctly when pulling out to overtake before returning to the inside, and observe a suitable gap between themselves and the car infront, and keep their car in good working order (will the camera's check for broken lights even if they're not switched on, or deduct points for using fog lights unnecessarily), and who haven't just slowed down to pass through the monitored area, need I continue?
So she's paid about 65k a year to come up with something like this - I'm definitely in the wrong job.
Just what is she on because I need something for tonight.
Besides telling us that we are being good boys and girls, just what "IS" the purpose of this system, how much will it cost and how much will it cost to maintain?
Does she have shares (or a directorship) in a "camera" company?
Went back to your source and - shame on El Reg - it's Maria Eagle who's to blame for this twaddle, not twin sister Angela.
I just needed to check the veracity of:
"I have seen lately this idea actually if you were to use the information you get from them to have a lottery, have a draw of those who drive under the speed limit,” she said.
Please tell us who's great idea this is, Maria... and then just stop listening to them. [Need to work on the grammar too.]
The most obvious fact is that this requires even more widespread and diligent surveillance. The virtuous won't get their rewards anyway as their details won't get logged or processed correctly/at all. The opposition with the stupid ideas stays in opposition.
It's a lose lose win situation.
Not that you asked, but I think average speed cameras work quite well, and if deployed selectively to protect roadside workers, improve safety in narrow lanes, maintain better/more consistent throughput on the M25 etc. then they have my (qualified) support.
Glad I don't have to share this country with tony trolle. Left the country because of speed cameras (and only just remembered)? Sounds like a right wanker.
Rewarding people for good driving is encouraging them to use cars, which isn't what we need in the twenty-first century. As has been mentioned, the scope for fraud is considerable. And as also has been mentioned, some good drivers don't have any road cameras near them.
Yet another stupid idea from the stupid idea party. If they wanted to show that speed cameras were for safety and not a nice little earner, just replace fining people with a ban varying from a few days to a few weeks depending on severity. Rewarding people for abiding by the law is ludicrous. What next? Cash incentives for not robbing a bank? M&S vouchers for not shoplifting?
And Lord Sugar? To tell her she's fired.
This is just another variation on Labour's Orwell habit. Orwell gave his characters the five minute hate, thereby technically allowing a massive release of a concoction of reward associated chemicals, Labour give us the reward points scheme, much like a supermarket loyalty scheme.
Last night I drove on a significant part of the M25 - much of which has been and will be modernised - and was horrified as I did a camera count. The state can now monitor the passing of a vehicle for long distances. Sure, Labour can say this might be useful for tracking terrorists but, in their naiveté they don't allow for the abuses that can take place - as did with RIPA, and councils spying on parents applying for school places - and assume that their (supposedly) honest intentions will not be usurped by some maleficent government.
Then there is the use of cameras disguised as discarded coke cans and the like, admittedly for what seem like the justified and reasonable purpose of monitoring fly tipping, which means that some hypothetical future Winston would not be able to clandestinely meet his Julia in the countryside for a loving tryst. If he did he truly would be 'the dead'.
Is not this what labour are all about wasting money, this would cost millions to run. Better off giving a bloke a job cutting them all down. The dangerous drivers will not get picked up either way. For example, a car is 10' off my rear end at 65 MPH. What gets that! Oh by the way its number plate was on the bonnet it read POL1CE.
Ditto I reported a car doing between 110 and 120 on a 60 road, again it was filth. The first car caught on the M4 speeding in fog some 35 years ago by a monitoring camera was a TVP police car, and in fact it was out of area, should not have been there and was only vehicle recorded driving faster than visible allowable speed.
Yes I know, set a crook to catch a crook. If speed limits were more sensible then people would not be tempted to go faster.
Oh latest, as more cars are electric, and new tyres quieter speeds will have to be reduced as people cannot hear them coming. I have approached Toyota as one manufacturer and suggested buzzers as they now have to fit in Japan, but the UK's continued response is just to reduce the speed limit. Is it not time we had a man walking in front with a red flag? Oh sorry weve done that.
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