Mobile cashpoints (From The Oxford Times)

Mobile cashpoints

8:40am Thursday 3rd May 2012 in Letters

Sir – Further to Timothy Oates’s letter of April 26, I have also witnessed on several occasions the placing of a camera car at the bottom of a gradient. However this only seems to be where there is a bend at the bottom, sufficient to hide a car.

It would appear that the road safety policy is based on two criteria.

The first is that 30mph, whatever the road and driving conditions, is good driving. Driving at or above 31mph is criminally bad and we are lucky that deportation to the colonies and the death penalty have been abolished.

This leads to the second part of the policy. This is based on the well-known and proven fact that it is infinitely safer to keep watching your speedometer to prevent drift and maintain your speed at 30, than it is to concentrate on the road ahead.

The distant a car will travel at 30mph, whilst looking down and then refocusing on the road is “only” about 20 metres, and this added to the standard braking distance at 30mph, gives an overall braking distance of about 43 metres. How much safer than the attentive criminal driver who, at 35mph, can achieve that stop in a horrendous 30 metres.

This is also very noticeable in wet/slippery conditions. The above driver, driving at 30mph and thus a safe driver will have a stopping distance in the region of 65 metres. This is far greater than a car being driven by an attentive, but wicked driver, in the dry. (53 metres). “Dick Turpin” in the back of his van, will have witnessed this reckless driving.

He would let it continue and even hand out a safe driving award. Would he take any responsibility for an ensuing accident?

Whatever gave Mr Oates the idea that speed cameras were for any other purpose than road safety and from where did he get such thoughts that they were mobile cashpoints for revenue collection? What an absurd idea!

Brian Wallis, Middle Barton