The Speed Camera Lottery

niceonetom

Jawgap wrote: »

A study reported on in New Scientist a few years ago looked at how the impact of road fatalities is assessed. Buried in the text was a suggestion that enforcement rather than education etc is the key to reducing fatalities and the general adverse effect road traffic incidents have on society:-

"Clearly, safety alone is not incentive enough to drive well. Although people see accidents happen to others, they use their own track records to tell them if they are safe and even when accidents are common, the odds are that they will take many risks before they come a cropper. In the developing world, just as in the developed one, people need to know that if they break the law of the road there is a reasonable chance they will be caught. But effective enforcement requires money and political will, both of which may be in short supply in the developing countries."

In the case of these poor lads, the real question may not be so much to do with driver behaviour on Italian roads as to do with the efficiency and efficacy of Italian road traffic enforcement - what's that like?

tomasrojo wrote: »

I don't know about Italy, but it does seem that feeling that you are likely to be caught and punished for drink- or drug-driving, speeding, dangerous driving, etc. does lead to better driver behaviour. Stands to reason.

I remember when they brought in the penalty points and it looked as if the Gardai were going to come down hard on speeding. For about a week, there was a lot of very careful driving. Then it became clear that enforcement was negligible, and everything went back to normal.

Horror adverts, on the other hand, don't seem to work. They just result in desensitisation of viewers. And maybe freaked-out children. But they don't seem to affect driver behaviour in any great way.

This caught my attention in the thread about the recent horrible incident in Italy. I didn't really want to get into a discussion about driver behaviour and law enforcement there, hence the new thread.

It's taken for granted that law enforcement changes driver behaviour - that there is a relationship between how likely we are to get caught and how often we break the law. Ok. Secondly, education is generally raised as a way of changing driver behaviour. "Education" in this context rarely rises above the level of just scaring the shit out of people. We've all seen the ads.

I came across this video that, for the first time I've ever seen, takes a totally different tack in changing the way people drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iynzHWwJXaA

"The winning idea of the fun theory award, submitted by Kevin Richardson, USA. Can we get more people to obey the speed limit by making it fun to do? Kevin Richardson’s was so good that already been tested, together with The Swedish National Society for Road Safety in in Stockholm.
"Instead of only photographing drivers who are caught speeding, this camera also photographs those driving within the speed limit and automatically enters them in a lottery that’s funded by the money generated by the speeding tickets."

Now, obviously there's the issue of people driving along looking at their speedometers not the road. And can we take the "speed doesn't kill, poor road design kills" argument as read? Please?

There's a lot to like about this idea - it rewards good driving rather than just punishing bad. It turns speed camera, which have consistently shown results in reducing speed and associated risk (at least for a while), into something that people see as an opportunity to win instead of just an cynical attempt by local authorities/plod to fill the coffers. It still a stick, but now there's a carrot too.

Jawgap

Nice one niceonetom!:)

I've deleted my last post there - it didn't really belong in that thread - replicated it here:-

A few years a go the local Guards visited my kids' school and did a road safety thing with them. At the end of it they were all sworn in as "Buckle-Up Deputies"!! For weeks all I got from the back seat was "Dad, this is an 80km/hr road - you're going faster than 80......" etc, etc, etc....

Bloody Guards........


As for the Lottery Idea - genius, but wait how are the "safety" cameras supposed to raise revenue if you give it all away??:)

Lumen

Speed doesn't kill, inappropriate speed kills. You cannot measure safety with a speed camera.

Also, I dispute the statement "[speed cameras] have consistently shown results in reducing speed and associated risk". Regression to the mean and analysis by vested interest are major problems in these "results".

There are better solutions.

niceonetom

Lumen wrote: »

Blah blah blah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U7_iNIgGjc

Timmyboy

niceonetom wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U7_iNIgGjc

I don't think the Blah Blah Blah get's your point anywhere niceonetom.

For one thing I agree with Lumen generally on his point about speed and speed cameras.
For antoher we really need drivers to behave appropriately to the conditions on the road. To drive approrpriately for the road surface, topography, weather conditions, other environmental affects etc. That's real driving.

You don't see guards standing at roundabouts or junctions hading out penalty points or on the spot finds for non use of indicators do you. Yet these are locations where may serious accidents happen between cars, let alone bicycles.

Finally I don't like your Blah, blah, blah response. Gettting your points nowhere not that I think anything to do with speed cameras is good anyhow just another example of bad goverment taxing the people with more nanny state clap trap.

tomasrojo

Thanks niceonetom for that. I'd read before about using positive reinforcement, but hadn't heard about lotteries. The version I'd heard was making people feel competitive about safety; getting ranked for being a good driver or something like that, with rewards for people higher up. Can't remember details now though.

As for speed cameras, perhaps some speed limits need to be revised upwards (and some downwards as well), but I think some kind of restrictions on speed in most areas are necessary and ultimately you have to let the central authorities decide on these, rather than let individual drivers decide. Given that, I really don't see the problem with speed cameras acting as a deterrent, including hidden speed cameras.

Of course, I don't drive much, and when I do hire a car, I drive at off-peak times, so perhaps I'm unduly unsympathetic to people who are actually in a hurry.

tomasrojo

There's an iPhone app that helps you keep to the speed limit. But, of course.

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/slow-down-app-for-speeding-motorists.html

tomasrojo

One thing that strikes me about speed limits as currently imposed is that they're the same night and day and when foggy or clear. Surely the same speed limit can't be appropriate to all occasions?

Lumen

tomasrojo wrote: »

One thing that strikes me about speed limits as currently imposed is that they're the same night and day and when foggy or clear. Surely the same speed limit can't be appropriate to all occasions?

Meh, they're a blunt instrument. The problems are more the unintended consequences, such as (a) authorities feel relieved of the responsibility to take more effective measures (b) drivers treat limits as targets.

I'd be in favour of black boxes instead. Webcam + 3G SIM + "w@nker button".

You see someone driving dangerously, you press the w@nker button, 60 seconds of video gets uploaded for review by qualified authorities. Most dangerous drivers would get pulled before they ever caused an accident, since near misses are much more common than crashes.

It possibly wouldn't help with the hooning SVAs, but those don't harm uninvolved third parties.

thebouldwhacker

I could have sworn this was the cycling forum............... no offence Lumen but I liked the blah clip and well placed;)

Lumen

thebouldwhacker wrote: »

I could have sworn this was the cycling forum............... no offence Lumen but I liked the blah clip and well placed;)

Oi! I didn't start this thread.

Jawgap

Lumen wrote: »

Oi! I didn't start this thread.

yeah, but you encouraged him.......


......btw, speed doesn't kill, people kill - speeding just makes it easier for them.

.....and if speed kills, I'll live forever, given the way I cycle.

Victor

Nice idea, but llike anything, it will be gamed - people will simply alter / remove the local speed limit signage to get other people to speed.