BEWARE NEW HIDDEN SPEED CAMERAS

To All Drivers : With Police Forces throughout the country having to cut their cloth, (just like the rest of us) one would have assumed that the purchasing of top of the range patrol cars like high-powered Range Rovers, Audis, BMWs, Mercedes or Volvos, would have been one of the first places they’d look, in order to trim their budgets.

To give you some idea as to why police budgets need to be cut, one only needs to consider that currently, police forces spend around £83m each year buying some 5600 vehicles across Great Britain and the British Transport Police.

Now in order to screw us, save more money, the powers that be have come with yet another ‘cunning plan’

SPOT THE CAMERA?

Pay great attention to these new speed cameras, which a regular reader alerted me to. Two are already in operation on the A52 dual carriageway into Nottingham, with a further six operating on the A1 between Great Gonerby, Lincolnshire and Oakham, Rutland.

Based on the ‘success’ of these new cameras, it is envisaged that more will be rolled out nationally throughout the year.

A couple of years ago, it was reported by ‘Big Brother Watch’ that during a one month spurge on speeding, North Yorkshire police, using mobile speed cameras captured 1,805 drivers exceeding the speed limit.  Of those drivers, 37 were caught excessively speeding and faced heavy fines and driving bans.  However, out of the 1,805 drivers caught, it was found that 1,387 were first-time offenders and consequently were offered the choice of a ban or offered a speed-awareness course costing £93.00 each! – You don’t need to be ‘Brain of Britain’ to guess which the majority chose.

So, aside from the profit of nearly £130,000, the obvious issue here is that speed cameras per se, do not stop people from speeding.  The failure is not in catching offenders but in stopping them from speeding in the first place.

Now, if speed cameras solved the problem with speeding, this wouldn’t be so much a problem.  But this new generation of ‘speed camera’ are purely intended to be a clandestine money-making scheme, rather than preventing drivers from violating the law and compromising safety.

Pass this on to every driver you know.....and drive carefully.

PS Before some bright spark emails me, pointing out that speeding fines do not go directly to the police budget; all monies from tax, fines and other spurious fees, return to the Treasury from where all budgets are allocated.  But bear in mind that the Government does not have or earn any money of its own, the only money that they can distribute comes from us, the taxpayer. Therefore if budgets need to be increased, more money has to be taken off us!