Mobile speed cameras?

I was in North Wales (UK) yesterday (Saturday), driving down a 70MPH dual Carriageway. I was amazed to see 2 cop cars in layby's with speed cameras and an "arrive alive" mobile speed camera van - this was all within 10 miles of each other. Coming back down the coast along major/minor roads and residential areas, I didn't see one police car doing the rounds.





Am I the only one that thinks considering it is a weekend and kids are out playing, these police and their speed cameras should be located on minor and major roads with pedestrian access, rather than on high speed motorways where there are no pedestrians, and it is easy to drift a few MPH over the speed limit. It seems they are more interested in catching high volumes of people to make money, than keeping the important roads safe where the kids are.


What do you think?





BTW - In case you are wondering - I wasn't speeding!





Please note this is not a question about weather or not it is wrong to speed - so please don't preach

Mobile speed cameras?
It's all about revenue, not safety. Do the math. If cops catch criminals it costs a fortune to prosecute them and then to keep them locked up.


On the other hand if you nick a motorist for speeding, most of them don't even show up in court, they just pay the fine, so the boost to the revenue is literally millions of pounds, or dollars, or euros a year.


Cops, basically, take the easy way out, so they can get their quota and then sit around drinking coffee and eating doughnuts and chatting up the birds, so they go to a place where there is a ton of traffic and all of it is speeding. Bingo - in a very short time they've "Done their duty" and can get back to skiving on the public purse.


Cops everywhere are being misused this way. The days when they were your friend are long gone.
Reply:I hate speed cameras with a passion, they sure as hell have nothing to do with road safety and everything to do with raking in revenue for the police force, motorways are actually one of the safest places to drive, they are usually straight, you can see quite far ahead usually and if its busy, you wouldn't be speeding anyway, most incidents which happen on motorways are rarely to do with excessive speed and usually down to driver incompetance or judgemental error. I think the latest move to hide mobile cameras in horse boxes is just totally below the belt and I think you could have them for entrapment and human rights laws (why not make it work for honest people!!???) although it would need to be a brave soul who would attempt to challenge the police in this way. In order to combat bad driving, cameras are not the answer, stiffer driving tests and more patrols by the traffic cops are whats required, especially in urban areas where people seem to take more risks in a less suitable environment. I know you said no preaching but I want to just say this, some people aren't intelligent about speeding, including the government, speeding in some circumstances is OK, on a dry, clear motorway it is perfectly acceptable to do 90-100 MPH, but when it's busy or wet then 60-70 is all you should be doing, the same in urban areas, where there is a high volume of people and other traffic, keep the speed down to around 25-30, but later on when theres little traffic and hardly any people around then I don't see what harm 40-45 MPH would do, you can't just tar everybody with the same brush like the law unfortunately does, speeding is not necessarily speeding, you match your speed to the road and environment you happen to be in.
Reply:Could they have been out of your sight at an accident where one of those children had been hit by a speeding car?
Reply:it's probably one of the more dangerious parts of the moterway that a lot of people misjudge and drive to fast and crash.
Reply:I think they should be disbanded imediately.


To think that is all people think of when they think of the police.


Speed camera vans.


Everybody on here should agree with you.


Iv'e known three people that i went to school with that are now coppers.


I even went out with a girl copper.


They agree with you, they hate traffic cops as well.


Its the goverments fault.


They should stop this stupidity right now before eveyone in the country hates the police or thinks they are tax collectors.


They remind me of the sherrif of nottingham henchmen.


Taking money from people who can't defend themselfs, i mean you get a letter that can scare an old person if its from court.


All for what, a slight infringement of a law nobody obeys to the letter bacause you can't drive and watch the speedo at the same time.


That dude who goes out and burns down gatso cameras shound be knighted and put in charge of traffic cops.


And as for the police cheif of the welsh.


He should shot DEAD.
Reply:Your concern is accepted but I think it has more to do with people driving at dangerously high speeds on unrestricted, i.e. 70 mph, roads. I have taken to the motorway this week and while cruising at 70mph in the inside lane, I was overtaken, as a matter of routine, by cars that left me standing. They must have been at speeds around 90 mph. The police have to catch all people speeding dangerously, i.e. those doing say above 80mph, as these speeds do lead to massive motorway fatalities. There is good reason to limit motorways and dual carriageways to 70 mph .. people will abuse that by an unacceptable margin and that is what that was all about.
Reply:Well I have noticed that in Nottingham they are getting the mobile speed camera more often and they are putting them out on major roads (where there are pedestrians).





I do try to stay with in the speed limit, especially when I am in populated areas but find that on certain roads I will be going at the max speed limit but still get people tail gating me trying to push me to go faster, which really does annoy me.