Oh, ho, here we go again. Gatsos are to go back to being hidden, it seems.
The prominent yellow boxes may be harder to identify from next year
MOTORISTS face the return of hidden speed cameras after rules governing their siting and visibility cease to be enforced from April 2007.
Camera partnerships, which include police and local authorities, will be able to repaint yellow cameras to make them blend into the background.
They will also be able to install cameras where there is a speeding problem but little history of crashes
Now, as I understood it, the idea of the yellow boxes was to encourage drivers to lose speed – that being the desired outcome rather than catching people out. Well, that would be the case if you believed all the “speed is the root of all evil” rhetoric, which I don’t. This has always been about revenue, not safer roads.
Many partnerships believe that the rules are too restrictive. Last autumn, Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales Police, said that many more lives would be saved if there were more flexibility in camera location.
Translation: revenues are being lost because speeding motorists see the yellow boxes and slow down, which is highly unsportsmanlike. You start to get the impression that this is not about reducing accidents but catching people. There’s a nasty underlying malicious streak at work here. Then, of course we get the “because of the children” argument:
He said: “Parents often write to us and ask us to put a camera outside a school because the traffic is so dangerous. It’s very difficult to write back and say, ‘Please let us know when your son is killed and then we can consider putting a camera there.’”
Oh, for crying out loud! What hyperbole designed for the hard of thinking. If you want to reduce the “dangerous traffic” outside schools when the kiddiewinks are coming and going, you might ask the parents to leave their Chelsea tractors at home and encourage their offspring to walk. Walking happens when the child puts one foot before the other and repeats this action until they reach their destination. It has a number of benefits; it’s free, it means less traffic on the roads and it’s good exercise.
Meanwhile, the RAC has this to say on the matter:
Kevin Delaney, the head of road safety at the RAC Foundation, said: “We are concerned that some partnerships will conceal cameras and risk losing the trust of motorists. It makes sense for cameras to be yellow because it slows people down at accident blackspots.”
You don’t say?