speed cameras

On Jul 1, 6:53*pm, Dave Hughes wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:29:08 -0700, thefathippy wrote:
No, I lie. They do nothing.

They slow people at Valley Heights down to 78 for 100m.

--
Dave Hughes -
"Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results."
- Ben, ASR

But do they do anything to improve safety (other than reducing speeds
[1] on that particular corner)? And that was never 100m - the sensors
are only a couple of meters wide. Oh yeah, there are no sensors for
that camera if you're heading west

Tony F
[1] which doesn't necessarily improve safety. I don't recall many
accidents on that corner when it was single lane and 100 km/h. AFAICR
the fatal accidents that prompted the camera all occurred after double
lanes and an 80 km/h limit

On Jul 1, 12:48*pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:

It's even worse if you are a motorcyclist. *Because a bike can lose
traction because of road surface problems but will always assumed to
be speeding, especially if the rider isn't conscious to talk to the
copper and fits the profile (young, male...) they associate with
hoons.

Crashes that occur on bends can be fatigue or poor skill leading
to drifting across the line, or bad sightlines, or decreasing radius
bends leading to over centreline and headons and so on.

Having done many trips from Ceduna to Port Augusta in SA, where the
State puts up marker posts for deaths and major injuries (black and
red), it is my experience that most accidents occur on straight roads
well away from corners. It appears people concentrate on what they're
doing in corners but not on a straight.

Theo

On 2010-07-03, theo (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
On Jul 1, 12:48Â*pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
Crashes that occur on bends can be fatigue or poor skill leading
to drifting across the line, or bad sightlines, or decreasing radius
bends leading to over centreline and headons and so on.

Having done many trips from Ceduna to Port Augusta in SA, where the
State puts up marker posts for deaths and major injuries (black and
red), it is my experience that most accidents occur on straight roads
well away from corners. It appears people concentrate on what they're
doing in corners but not on a straight.

One presumes there's not any hiding spots for 'roos out there, and
indeed are there any 'roos that may explain the casualities?

--
TimC
You know, if there's one thing that science needs more of, it's
unlabelled graphs of random squiggles drawn by spastic chimps. -- Kibo

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 2 Jul 2010 18:26:29 -0700 (PDT)
theo wrote:

Having done many trips from Ceduna to Port Augusta in SA, where the
State puts up marker posts for deaths and major injuries (black and
red), it is my experience that most accidents occur on straight roads
well away from corners. It appears people concentrate on what they're
doing in corners but not on a straight.


It might just be that there aren't that many corners!

On long trips fatigue and highway hypnosis and moving about in the car
seem to be big causes of drift and drift is what's going to cause a
crash on straight roads.

There have been cases mentioned here of cyclists being hit by
vehicles on country roads where the default assumption by the
investigators seems to be "cyclist drifted into path of car". Why
"car drifted into cyclist" is not the default given the relative
investment in staying straight of the two participants was never
clear to me.

Zebee

On Jul 3, 2:51*pm, TimC -spam-accepted-
here.org wrote:
On 2010-07-03, theo (aka Bruce)
* was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

On Jul 1, 12:48*pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
Crashes that occur on bends can be fatigue or poor skill leading
to drifting across the line, or bad sightlines, or decreasing radius
bends leading to over centreline and headons and so on.

Having done many trips from Ceduna to Port Augusta in SA, where the
State puts up marker posts for deaths and major injuries (black and
red), it is my experience that most accidents occur on straight roads
well away from corners. It appears people concentrate on what they're
doing in corners but not on a straight.

One presumes there's not any hiding spots for 'roos out there, and
indeed are there any 'roos that may explain the casualities?

No, it's a fairly safe area in daytime for roos.

Theo

On Jul 3, 3:26*pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 2 Jul 2010 18:26:29 -0700 (PDT)

theo wrote:

Having done many trips from Ceduna to Port Augusta in SA, where the
State puts up marker posts for deaths and major injuries (black and
red), it is my experience that most accidents occur on straight roads
well away from corners. It appears people concentrate on what they're
doing in corners but not on a straight.

It might just be that there aren't that many corners!

On long trips fatigue and highway hypnosis and moving about in the car
seem to be big causes of drift and drift is what's going to cause a
crash on straight roads.

Most of the areas where the markers are the straight bits are no more
than a couple of klicks. I don't understand it either. WA has
something like more than 60% of road deaths on country roads, and some
70% of those are single vehicle accidents. Guess where all the speed
cameras are? You got it, in the city where the population and the
traffic volume is, not the fatalities.

Theo

theo wrote:
On Jul 3, 3:26 pm, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Fri, 2 Jul 2010 18:26:29 -0700 (PDT)

theo wrote:

Having done many trips from Ceduna to Port Augusta in SA, where the
State puts up marker posts for deaths and major injuries (black and
red), it is my experience that most accidents occur on straight roads
well away from corners. It appears people concentrate on what they're
doing in corners but not on a straight.

It might just be that there aren't that many corners!

On long trips fatigue and highway hypnosis and moving about in the car
seem to be big causes of drift and drift is what's going to cause a
crash on straight roads.

Most of the areas where the markers are the straight bits are no more
than a couple of klicks. I don't understand it either. WA has
something like more than 60% of road deaths on country roads, and some
70% of those are single vehicle accidents. Guess where all the speed
cameras are? You got it, in the city where the population and the
traffic volume is, not the fatalities.

See, the cameras work. Reduced accidents where the cameras are!!!

Seriously folks. The Panopticon Effect (aka, visible policing) has a lot
going for it when it comes to miscreant drivers who believe they have
superior driving ability. Speed cameras are extensions of the Panopticon.
Unfortunately some superior drivers who can drive safely above the posted
limits get snapped!

I know some really superior drivers, a cousin trains police drivers. She
rates the typical commuter at about 4/10, and the traveller (ie, outside
their familiar turf) at 2.5/10. Under 25 are not worse technical drivers,
the issue is that many push the risk by travelling a bit faster. Ie, they are
more times dead.

My preferred solution is to put police in Taxi Cabs vehicles. That would
make them ubiquitous, and also protect lots of cabbies from muggings.

T.

In aus.bicycle on Sat, 3 Jul 2010 18:22:11 +1000
Tomasso wrote:

Seriously folks. The Panopticon Effect (aka, visible policing) has a lot
going for it when it comes to miscreant drivers who believe they have
superior driving ability. Speed cameras are extensions of the Panopticon.
Unfortunately some superior drivers who can drive safely above the posted
limits get snapped!

I'ts only an extension if the effect is the same. A police car stops
other bad behaviours, and the effect is more widespread.


I know some really superior drivers, a cousin trains police drivers. She
rates the typical commuter at about 4/10, and the traveller (ie, outside
their familiar turf) at 2.5/10. Under 25 are not worse technical drivers,
the issue is that many push the risk by travelling a bit faster. Ie, they are
more times dead.

My understanding is that younger drivers don't have the traffic smarts
rather than the handling skills.

They aren't good at reading traffic, they can't see near and far at
the same time, they don't anticipate well, but they don't realise
that. See "incompetent and unaware of it".

This is one explanation for why younger motorcycle riders have urban
intersection crashes and older ones have rural corner crashes.

(The other explanation is purely exposure. Younger riders tending to
have more urban hours as they use the bike more for commuting, older
ones using cars for that and bikes for fun. Alas there's no way to
know whether this is so.)

Zebee

On Jul 4, 8:23*am, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Sat, 3 Jul 2010 18:22:11 +1000

Tomasso wrote:

Seriously folks. The Panopticon Effect (aka, visible policing) has a lot
going for it when it comes to miscreant drivers who believe they have
superior driving ability. Speed cameras are extensions of the Panopticon.

In aus.bicycle on Mon, 5 Jul 2010 15:03:13 -0700 (PDT)
Kerry Banana wrote:

Yes I agree with this. Younger drivers are less able than older
experienced drivers. But speed camaeras are an educational tool for
young drivers as well. Poor behaviour can be stopped, hopefully before
a serious accident occurs. Sending everyone to police driving school
is not viable.

The problem is that there hasn't been shown to be a link between
general crash rates and speed cameras.

Injury/fatality rates are down but that has levelled out, it appears
it was mainly due to better occupant protection, better brakes.

Vic has quite draconian speed camera regime and their numbers aren't
better than NSW's.

So given that, why do you think speed cameras are an educational tool?

Also, given there's up to 3 months between the offence and the fine,
how will that change behaviour?

You don't need to be to "police driving school", as it isn't about
handling skills. What it is, is about attitude and mindset when
driving.

TO most people, driving is a chore. It's an unavoidable not
particularly interesting interval between where they are and where
they want to be. It doesn't take much mental or physical effort and
doesn't provide much mental or physical stimulation.

So people get that sensory input in other ways. They focus on the
radio or the CD player. They sing, they talk to passengers, they
rehearse what they should have said to the boss, they pay attention to
roadside ads that have had a lot of money spent on them to ensure that
happens.

They also try to get where they are going that little bit faster. It
doesn't make more than a few seconds difference, but humans are very
bad at estimating time. Plus they aren't really doing it for time
saving but for the illusion of control. It not only feels like you'll
be there faster it feels like you can control the journey more.

This desire to be finished with the unpleasant chore of driving plus
the desire to control the space and be active leads to the driving you
see around you.

Speed cameras do bugger all to deal with the actual problem and very
little to deal with the symptoms.

The other difficulty on the roads is that crashes are rare. SOmeone
can do something risky every day and never crash. When they do they
think of it as "accident" because clearly what they did *wasn't* risky
as it always worked before.

Every driver needs to take a theory course talking about these things.
Distraction and boredom and risk and why crashes happen some time and
not others.

They need a simple practical test: they take their usual car and
have to accurately show the areas not visible in the inside and
outside (separately) mirrors. They need to be able to accurately
indicate the marker their car will stop at from 60 70 and 80 kmh
from a given braking point. They need to state the symptoms of
fatigue *start*, not when it's seriously impairing. They need to
state how many seconds are saved on a trip of a given length if
they do the given speed limit and 10kmh above it. They need to
state the laws pertaining to bicycles and pedestrians: passing, riding
2 abreast, giving way, crossings. (Should probably also have to state
laws about using indicators and foglights)

Note I said "state". Oral exam, no multiple choice. Stand up and say
it.

That's not police driving school. It would cost money because you
need examiners and somewhere to do the braking distance test, but any
straight road with things along it will do.

Every licenced driver should have to do this test every 5 years. And
pay for it. Driving is a privilege not a right, but we have designed
cities making it a necessity. The idea that it's a right has to
change.

(meaning there needs to be a lot more licence checking going on. When
I was young and living in Perth the cops would spring road blocks a
couple of times a year where every car on a major road was stopped and
the driver's licence checked, driver breathalysed, car rego checked.
They caught a lot of unlicenced and unregistered that way.)

Zebee


[1] they should probably have to do the same for a truck. Number of
people who pull in front of trucks at lights....