Tom Riall, chief executive of Serco the company that has supplied more than 5,000 speed cameras to enforcement authorities in the UK has been handed out a 6 month driving ban after exceeding 100 mph in a 70 mph limit on a road in Suffolk.
As an observer for the Institute of Advanced Motorists who has a clean license, drives within the law and loathes speed cameras; I say it serves the bugger right.
10 good reasons to hate speed cameras:
1. They are part of the surveillance society.
2. Many speed limits they enforce are unrealistically restrictive for the character of the road.
3. Speeding and even non-speeding drivers over-react to the cameras braking hard often to well below the posted speed limit, at best obstructing traffic behind and at worse, causing a pile up (and yes that does happen. I’ve seen it for myself).
4. The hard braking and re-acceleration increases carbon dioxide emissions.
5. The cameras can’t enforce other road traffic law violations; often one’s far more dangerous.
6. Criminals who can’t be traced because their vehicles are untaxed, uninsured or being driven on foreign, false and cloned registration plates are immune from the fines and penalties resulting from being caught by a camera.
7. Speed camera enforcement takes away the common sense judgment of real police officers.
8. Removes the human element of law enforcement
9. They are an eye-sore.
10. Cameras catch the wrong people. Hard core speed limit violators will always be on the lookout for speed cameras – and they are easy enough to spot. It’s often law abiding drivers who inadvertently stray a few mph over the limit who get caught.
In Riall’s case it was a real police patrol, not one of his own scameras that has lead to his demise
Wednesday 6 May 2009
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