Don't Speed: Big Brother is Watching!
I fully accept that it is absolutely necessary to regulate the speed of the motoring public because there will always be those people who have shit where their brains were supposed to be, and they make it difficult and dangerous for everyone else. My question concerns the placing of speed cameras, and whether they are fair or foul?
The first thing you notice is that in spite of the signs that state that speed is being checked by radar, there are those people who plough on regardless at very high speeds. If the camera is doing its job they must be issuing speeding tickets by the millions. When I am on the road, I am such a slow poke that everybody passes me by anyway, but when I approach a radar warning sign I do check my speed and adjust accordingly. Usually the signs are placed where it is necessary to reduce from the maximum, but I have been noticing the following:
Radar machines placed along entry lanes onto the motorway that also serve as exit lanes. As such there will be a lower speed limit for exiting vehicles, but that will also govern entering vehicles.
Radar machines placed along stretches that allow 120 kph, but the machine is placed just before a sign that demands you slow down to 100. When you pass the machine you might be doing 120, but when you reach the 100kph sign you must be travelling at no more than 100. The distance between the two is too short to safely slow down. I think you are still within picture range.
Radar machines are faced to only be able to take a picture of the back end of the car, but who was driving? This can be a real problem when the family car is used by more than one driver, particularly because points can be lost from one's license. In France the camera faces the on-coming car.
Along stretches of road where there are several lanes, what if the speeding car is in the far left lane, or in the middle lane, but there are cars in every lane? Does the camera record the speed of the fastest car only?
You can record your own observations, and I am sure you will find a whole lot of situations that bring into question the integrity of whomever was responsible for placing the bloody things where they are.
Drive carefully, and at a reasonable speed.
Copyright (c) 2012 Eugene Carmichael
