However; in keeping with the "safety" angle, we should look at where motorhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifists have been suffering under the big brother state for some time now:
We drive along at what we judge to be a safe speed. Then we catch sight of one of those menacing yellow boxes on their grey stalks, take our eyes off the road and the rear-view mirror to check the speedometer, and slam on the anchors. Before we know it - wham! - the bonnet of the car behind has thumped us up the backside.
This hasn't happened to me yet, touch wood, but you have only to approach a speed camera on a free-flowing road to realise that it must happen fairly often. Suddenly, every driver in front applies the brakes, and slows to precisely 40mph, or whatever the limit may be...
That is what is so unjust about speed cameras. These lumps of metal and wire cannot distinguish between somebody driving safely at 80mph, on a clear dry road, and a maniac tail-gating at the same speed in a blizzard.
The penalty for both - the careful driver and the potential killer - is almost always the same: a fine and three penalty points on their licences. Four strikes and the offender is off the road for a year, which for many can mean losing their livelihood...
Yes, we all agreed that we hated speed cameras. We all agreed, too, that some of them caused accidents rather than simply failed to prevent them (the figures for the Thames Valley police area, where serious accidents had increased in very nearly half of the places where speed cameras had been installed, made that point powerfully).
There you go. Cameras don't do squat for safety but do much for taxes.. I mean revenue.
Yet day by day I see people yammering on their cell phones, texting on their cell phones and reading newspapers while driving. But at least they're observing the speed limit right?
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