Dan - “John you are right about the Police's preceived "obsession" with speed! They are not!” --- Err, did you mean to say that Dan? That Police AREN’T obsessed with speed. Hasn’t your whole argument been trying to say they’re over-obsessed with speed???
Dan - “Remember that there are no traffic cops in the tellivans, only camera operators with a driving license.” --- Right, so there you go. You can enforce the speed limit without the need for a Traffic Policeman, fantastic! They can go focus on something else. Surely you should be celebrating the tellivans?
Dan - “You want to see how fast everyone is driving through now! Almost as if everyone is trying to see how fast they can fly over the humps! Not a blind bit of difference.” --- Right, so you’re admitting that speed is the problem in this situation. All you’re complaining about here is the effectiveness of speed bumps, which is a whole different debate.
John - “I read a recent statistic that 25% of people DON't wear a seatbelt, and I see mobiles used without hands-free on a daily basis. When I don't see that I'll start to believe that police time is sensibly allocated.” --- Do you see more people driving with mobile phones on a daily basis or speeding on a daily basis. Go on, be honest. Police can’t stop all people driving with mobile phones, same as they can’t stop all people from speeding, but they’re doing their best. I know of a few people who have been caught by police for driving with mobile phone in hand, one of whom claimed they had only been on the phone for 30 seconds before the police pulled them over (whether you believe it was only 30 seconds is up to you). So they clearly aren’t ignoring it.
--- What I’m getting from this is that we need a way to enforce the speed limit (thus limiting the risk on the road to a ‘reasonable’ level due to reducing the force of impact) but take up none of the precious traffic-police time. Only then can this ‘Police time’ be spent focusing on other things, like mobile phones whilst driving, drink drivers etc. etc. All this needs to be done whilst not eating into the budget. So basically, the obvious solution to your problem is MORE SPEED CAMERAS. It requires unskilled staff, no traffic police, neutral in the budget (doesn’t make/lose any significant amounts). In fact, a speed camera seems to tick all the boxes for you.
This way, the 8% of accidents can be prevented, the severity of the other 92% of accidents can be reduced, and it needn’t trouble traffic police very much at all. Sorted!
Yet this solution doesn’t seem to do it for you, strange isn’t it.
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