Lancashire's Speed Cameras - the "official" view

The Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety is responsible for Lancashire’s speed cameras.

As statements designed to rile the reader, this must rank fairly high. But, so say the Partnership, cameras, fines and tickets are used as a last resort for those who refuse to change their behaviour.

Launched in November 2001 the Partnership aims to improve safety on Lancashire’s roads through four main steps:

· The wearing of seatbelts and child restraints

· Non drinking and drug driving

· Driving at appropriate speeds, within the speed limits

· The non use of mobile phones while driving

I spoke to Linda Sanderson about the partnership and, following this report in the Lancashire Evening Post, and I asked her if fixed Gatso Cameras save lives and what average speed cameras would do for Lancashire’s roads.

Speed Cameras - The Good, The Bad and The Undecided

We’ve all heard the excuses, speed cameras are a stealth tax, they’re a money making “scam”, they distract your attention from the road.

But despite all the negative reports about Gatso speed cameras, the figures prove that they do save lives. In 2007 there were 139 fewer deaths on Lancashire’s roads than 2006.

This has come, however, with a 500% increase in mobile and static cameras in Lancashire, and the issuing of 502,000 speeding tickets, only 60,000 less than the total number of cars on Lancashire’s roads.

At a cost of between £20,000 and £40,000 per camera and over 4000 cameras on the roads, the cost to the UK Taxpayer is staggering.

Estimates by insurance company Swift Cover say that speed cameras cost the nations motorists £150million per year in increased insurance premiums, fines and tickets. There are also claims that speed cameras cause drivers to erratically “yo-yo” between speed cameras, only slowing down when a camera comes into view, and that when cameras are by the side of the road they distract the motorist.

Despite the proliferation of sites decrying speed cameras as either a stealth tax, a cash machine for the government or even a dangerous distraction, official figures support the fact that they save lives, and that the public recognise this.

Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety surveyed 401 Lancashire motorists and found that over half agree there are fewer accidents on roads where cameras are installed. Just over a third thought cameras were there to make money, but almost three quarters of respondents felt that primary aim of speed cameras was to save lives.


For a list of speed cameras in your area and a map of their locations, click here.

Picture credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8106654@N06/2127948641/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pikerslanefarm/2428232674/

Lights, camera, speeding

Do "fixed" speed cameras, like this Gatso one, make you feel safer on the roads?

After the LEP revelaed that Lancashire's fixed speed cameras could be replaced with average speed cameras (that divide how quickly you've gone over a certain distance to work out an average speed) I've decided to look at safety on Lancashire's roads.

I'll be posting again in the next few days with details on the good things that speed cameras do. I'll also be posting an AV slideshow of an interview I did with Linda Sanderson from the Lancashire Partnership for Road Saftey.

In the meantime, I'd like your thoughts. Do you think speed cameras make roads safer? Vote on my poll now. It's like democracy in action!

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The North West's own Olympic Villages

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Found this info in the LEP about Pacific Islands using the North West as their base for the 2012 olympics and mapped them out. Exciting times for the North West's sports and leisure facilities.

Just odd that Penwortham leisure centre isn't part of the plan!

My test map

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If I had...

5 minutes with Barack Obama....

I hit the streets of Preston to find out what would be the first thing people would ask Barack Obama to do, if they had 5 minutes in a room with him.

The most encouraging thing I found was that young people were willing to talk and very enthused about the President-Elect. I just hope that Obama-rama can encourage young people in this country, disillusioned with the state of Government, to take some interest in what goes on in the corridors of power.

Picture credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/1984561243/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/2037044895/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/libdems/2241332259/

An unseemly struggle

It was another crushing inevitability I suppose, but the unseemly struggle by the UK's leading politicians to align themselves with Mr Obama has already kicked off.

I just hope that Obama's positivity and belief can be felt over here as much as I'm sure it will in the US

The finest inevitability

As Tony Blair once said "this is not a day for sound bites.... but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder." Ba-dum-tish!

There's no point me telling you what the result was as you must already be aware, if you're not how on earth did you get here?!

It had seemed, especially since the Economic Crisis blew up that Obama was almost a shoe-in for the Presidency. That doesn't make it any less special. The TV pictures of huge queues outside the schools and halls that serve as polling stations have been inspiring. Particularly as the people who have come out to vote for Obama have been the hardest to get to the polls, as they are in this country. Young people and what we tend to term "ethnic minorities", although to call "the most poweful man in the free world" part of an ethnic minority sits a little uneasily, as does the term generally.

When was the last time young British people were enthused about politics in this way? There hasn't, admittedly, been a politician with the charm, appeal, wit and skills of rhetoric as Mr Obama. Mr Blair must come the closest, but as his term in Number 10 drew to a close he became a parody of himself.

I've been finding Felicity Spector's blog for Channel 4 very good.

It will take a lot of time for the dust to settle after last night, but the Washington Post has, helpfully, provided Obama with a great big list of problems!

One suspects his aides and strategical team might already have thought about this!

As an after thought... I wonder how much sleep Obama and McCain got last night? Not what I'd call a good eight hours I guess.

Food bill fury

Well, one of the most "interesting" stories to come out over the weekend has to be this. You have to wonder what goes through the minds of what must be reasonably intelligent, sensible people when they decide to produce things like this.

Ms Fedele has also used the classic get out of "I once supported an African American" to defend herself and her actions. I'll let you make your own minds up about that.

The Daily Beast

I saw this on The Daily Show with John Stewart the other day and thought I'd link to it here. This from The Daily Beast,an American "aggregator" Blog run by Tina Brown out lines why famous "liberaatarion" and author Christopher Buckley is voting for Barack Obama.

The Daily Show is well worth watching, and looking for on Youtube.

Only a quick post this as I;ve got a law lecture... more later!

CNN and NBC and BBC and FOX and...

The US Election rumbles on as these things do. Making headline news every single day and having your every word analysed, pulled apart chewed up (by Rush Limbaugh probably) and spat all over the media can't be easy for the candidates.

Charlie Brooker continues to comment intelligently and amusingly on the media coverage of the election. His piece on watching CNN for Monday's Guardian was particularly good.

Despite the fact his name is at the top of the Republican ticket, John McCain is still being overshadowed by his running mate... who is now being overshadowed by Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey! Her impression of Palin has been big news on both sides of the Atlantic this week.

The breaking UK politics story of the day is George Osborne's ill advised comments after his alleged meeting with a Russian oligarch who, bizarrely, owns Leyland Daf Vans! The Times covers the story focussing on Gordon Brown's calls for an investigation into what's gone on.

Andrew Sparrow speculates exactly what there is to investigate in his Guardian politics blog.

Stay tuned for more regular posts on this blog!

From substance to smear

First of all, an apology. This is only the second post to this blog, as Blogger's Anti-Spam-Bots flagged up my first post as spam. I thought it was considered and thoughtful comment, but one man's meat is another man's etc and so on!

As such I seem to have ended up with quite a range of subjects that I felt I should have blogged on, but haven't had the chance. The banking crisis continues to claim more victims, with the whole of Iceland pulling out of global stock trading. Channel 4 managed to unearth a Londoner who'd invested with an Icelandic bank, which was paydirt for Jon Snow (and his tie).

The major political point related to this has been Angela Merkel's decision to assure her citizen's that the nation will guarantee their savings. Alastair Darling was very unhappy about this, as he was seemingly determined not to be forced to follow suit at this stage. The Guardian's Business section (even though this is a political blog) reports it here.

The US Presidential race rumbles on as interminably as it ever does. Were it not for the dire state of the World's finances (and the Olympics) this would've been the lead story on practically every edition of Channel 4 news this year.

The "debates" seemed to have turned to mud-slinging over the past few days, after Le Palin's comments abour Senator Obama's alleged links to Bill Ayers. You can find out more about Ayers right here. But beware of Wiki-ality!

It does seem that as the Republicans seem to sense this race slipping through their fingers, they've switched from policy debates to personal attacks. That doesn't mean the Democrats are above that sort of thing, however, and they've dragged up Sen McCain's involvment in a financial scandal 20 years ago. The BBC touches on it here.

Finally the BBC has a poll tracker that you feel certain Peter Snow must've had a hand in. It don't mean a thing if you aint got that swing-ometer.

Primary Politics Post

This is the first post of my JN2053 blog which is going to be centered around Politics. I picked this subject almost at random, it just seemed the most interesting.

As I type, however, it strikes me that it's also a very broad topic. Politics touches all the other available subjects: environment, health and business. I think I'm going to be careful and picky about what I read, link to and discuss or else I could end up with an unmanageable amount of info.

The Tory conference has been the major political point this week. The BBC's excellent online coverage can be found here.

David Cameron keeps using the word "together". At the time of crisis he seems to be making a concerted effort to pitch himself back amongst the people. We'll see how the people respond.