Talk:Safety camera partnership

Unreferenced information in Criticism section

The following two paragraphs need naming of the critics. It is not sufficient to say "Critics" they should be named to give weight to their criticism, otherwise it is original research. Alternatively links to where this criticism is recorded, say in the media could be provided.

Critics allege out that accidents have not reduced since 2001 when the partnership scheme started up, although injuries and fatalities have fallen over this period. They argue that inappropriate speed for the conditions, which may well be at a speed lower than the actual speed limit, is a bigger problem than merely exceeding a posted speed limit, so the cameras do little good. Partnerships have been known to ignore statistical anomalies (such as regression to the mean) and thus exaggerate the claimed benefits of cameras. Allegations of "spin" have also been levelled against them. These criticisms are arguably an evasion: the obligation on drivers is to set a speed which is both safe and legal.

Camera Partnerships are also controversial because the way they are set up is claimed to be an abuse of process. The partnerships include local police, prosecutors, and the courts, so justice is seen by some to be undermined. Because the salaries of partnership workers are paid for by the fines from cameras, there is an alleged conflict of interest present not to reduce offences but to detect more. The sums returned in fines are, however, relatively trivial by Government standards.

Softgrow 23:39, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

More unreferenced information. Also the regression to the mean quote is repetitious of what is appearing in far too many articles.

The partnerships have been widely criticised for exaggerating the achieved and likely future benefits of speed cameras, particularly in relation to the reduction in the number of killed or seriously injured casualties (KSI). The four-year report contains the first official acknowledgement of the likely large contribution to the KSI figures of the statistical phenomenon regression to the mean.

Softgrow 21:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm worried that this page is starting to look a little "lunatic". Wikipedia is supposed to be an encylopedia. The "criticism" section here is becoming a hodge-podge of links to uninformed people's opinion. (E.g. "safety cameras a danger says coroner".) This makes the case against speed cameras look weak and crankish and makes this page look unencyclopedic (if that is a word). I wonder if we can't come up with some kind of guidelines for what should and should not be included -- this page could easily become a wash of non-expert opinion and it is very easy to find newspaper (particularly local newspaper) coverage of people speaking against things. I don't think a reference to a report in a local newspaper does anything but reduce credibility both of the page and the argument. --Richard Clegg 14:12, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

It's all verifiable, legitimate and fully attributed criticism of Partnerships and their work. It has a perfectly proper place here. If the local press report a Chief Constable's dissent why shouldn't their work be referenced. Parterships are in a very powerful and very priviledged position, and are the subject of much popular and professional criticism - if it's attributed and verifiable it is acceptable on wiki. -De Facto 14:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I never said it was unverifiable -- my point is that it looks crankish. It's a hallmark of "crank cases" that they sweep up any press coverage favourable to them no matter how irrelevant. I'm an advocate of safety cameras but to me that kind of reporting weakens the argument against them. I agree that the reports included are attributed and verifiable, I just think they look a bit silly. This article contains many quotes from tangential figures (a coroner for god's sake? Why not just ask a bloke in a pub and local councillors too) but does not, for example, list which areas have safety camera partnerships, give information about when the safety camera partnerships began, where they are etc etc. In other words, this piece is in danger of becoming a scrapbook of political rhetoric rather than an encyclopedia article about safety camera partnerships. I don't feel strongly enough to try to tidy this one up properly (unlike the article on safety cameras itself) because I'm interested in whether safety cameras work rather than the UK politics of it. I just think that if you want this article to be respected as a reasonable inclusion in wikipedia then this is going the wrong way about it. I hope you won't take these words as harsh because I believe that you do earnestly want to have a good article here while at the same time pushing your viewpoint. --Richard Clegg 14:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

As you say, coroners have no expertise or formal training in road safety. Ditto local councillors. It's just opinion, and repeating it lends undue weight to the counter argument. The entire issue of speed, speed limits and speed enforcement is subject to creeping POV from those opposed to restrictions on speed, WP:NPOV says we should reflect both sides of a debate but make it clear where the balance of informed opinion lies. In this case the balance of informed opinion is absolutely clear: reducing speeds reduces casualties. Just zis Guy you know? 11:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... it's a problem finding a way of phrasing things which satisfies everyone (as ever). At the moment this article has a section quoting from referenced research papers showing results from the data which agree that Speed Cameras save lives. It has a larger section showing quotes from various people who have no particular qualification giving their opinion. I'm half tempted to just delete all the "a local councillor says" nonsense but there may be a better way of handling it. Perhaps dividing the article up into evidenced research and opinion. --Richard Clegg 11:19, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

For the reasons given above I removed both coroners and local counillors. These are just lay opinons, after all. DeFacto reverted these changes, along with a sentence clarifying that most forces are partners in SCPs, with Durham being pretty much the lone dissenting voice. It would not do to misrepresent this as being widespread (or even significant minority) dissent. Just zis Guy you know? 13:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Partnerships are political organisations. The decisions and actions they take are political. They use, or, some may say spin or even abuse, statistics and research in an attempt to justify their political actions. Their use, or interpretation, of the data, even if the data is derived from valid research cannot be above question. Criticism, in the scope of this article, is of the partnerships, their actions, and their presentation and interpretation of the research and data, and not necessarily of the actual research or data itself. Collisions at lower speeds may well result in fewer casualties, however no collisions whatever the speed would be better. Capping of speed to a blanket limit isn't necessarily the panacea, the use of appropriate speed in all circumstances would be better - and cameras cannot help at all with that. Partnerships need to be held to account, and be honest and open with what they do and why they do it. If political criticisms of political organisations are reported then they become valid within the scope of this article - De Facto 14:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Political? Really? What party do they support? Who elects them? What is their political agenda? I would say they are much more akin to executive agencies than political bodies. As ever the arguments against enforcement ignore the fundamental and inescapable fact that both probability of crashing and severity of outcome rise with speed, for a given type of road. Of course no crashes at all woudl e safer. But we have no way of making that happen. So we have speed limits (and have had for most of a century) to limit the consequences of driver error. Drivers have been kicking back against this right from the outset. Comments by local councillors are not "political criticisms of political bodies", they are motorists elected to a local council complaining about enforcement of the law, most likely because they or their drinking buddy was nicked recently. According to PACTS those with multiple speeding convictions have around double the average collision rate, mileage adjusted. The special pleading of motorists in denial about the danger they pose to others does not impress me (speaking as a motorist myself, with 198bhp to play with). Just zis Guy you know? 14:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it they exist only because it is assumed that they, via their cameras, raise enough fine revenue, and save enough money from reduced collisions to fund themselves. They were, as far as I know, created based upon a Police cost benefit analysis report which assumed that all the observed reduction in KSI casualties at camera sites was due entirely to the existence of cameras, and thus ‘proved’ that they could pay for themselves and the bureaucracy (the partnerships) needed to support them. We now know, because, apparently, rather late in the day, the DfT decided that it ought to look into the RTM effects at camera sites, and dictated that the four-year report be delayed until at least some RTM research was available to be included into it, that most of the ‘benefit’ attributed to cameras in the justification for their existence would have occurred whether they were there or not. So, I guess, we are left without knowing whether the actual benefit they give is worth the cost, and with the partnerships needing to prove their worth - hardly an ideal foundation for the cornerstone of the government's road safety policy to be based on, and indeed cynics may suggest that the partnerships are hardly short of conflicting, and political interests. -De Facto 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The data and reports cited here do not come from the safety camera partnerships apart from the data about camera locations. The accident data is independently derived and the reports are by independent researchers. If you wish to assert otherwise you will need some pretty heavy duty proof.

No matter where the data or the reports come from, it is the interpretation of that information, and the subsequent claims and actions made by the partnerships based upon those interpretations which is the subject of legitimate criticism. Partnerships may make unjustified, grossly exaggerated claims for the efficacy of cameras, citing legitimate research to 'backup' their claims. It is not the research which should be criticised, it is the interpretation made by the partnerships, and the subsequent actions they take based upon those flaky foundations. We are begining to see some of this for the claims which have been made, and indeed upon which the whole of the partnership philosophy has been founded, that cameras have been responsible for anything from about 30% - 70% KSI reductions at camera sites, being blown out of the water by regression to the mean (RTTM) studies which have been commissioned recently, and mentioned in the four-year report, suggesting that the camera contribution is more likely about 10% with RTTM and trend giving the rest. - De Facto 15:44, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The reports cited in this article (including the four year report) are all made by bodies independent of the partnerships. None of the claims you are talking about are cited here. --Richard Clegg 16:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm illustrating how criticism can be of the partnerships' activities without being of the research or of the data. They could be criticised for the way they react to, or interpret that information. Putting up a distracting camera, which, as a coroner has suggested, may cause accidents, could be because they haven't properly considered all the available research, or because they haven't commissioned the appropriate research, and have developed policies based upon their prejudices and/or preconceptions rather than based upon science. -De Facto 16:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The article is about "Safety Camera Partnerships" not about whether or not "Capping of speed to a blanket limit isn't necessarily the panacea". It is easy for this type of article to become a pro/anti rant about the merits or otherwise of cameras. I realise there are political issues but this article is missing many important points about what SCPs are, who they are, when they were set up etc and concentrating on this argument. --Richard Clegg 14:26, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. That data is hard to find, mind - for example, it would be good to know how many road miles of what kinds of roads have eben covered over time, but individual partnerships publish data in different ways and there is no centralised figure (I sent a FoI request for it, it doesn't exist). Far too much (un)righteous indignation and far too little historical context :-) Just zis Guy you know? 16:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Safety camera location data Seems to be fairly comprehensive but England only though perhaps that is not the data you meant. That said I haven't examined it thoroughly and it just lists locations rather than miles of road. (How does one define "miles of road" for a fixed point camera anyway?) --Richard Clegg 16:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The article certainly needs more substance to do with the SCP's, what they are, who they are, and the like. That said, the criticism section is valid because they are, and have always been, controversial. -De Facto 16:50, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree it is valid -- but it should not overwhelm the article and it should be chosen as the most relevant criticism (relevant to the SCPs not just to the effectiveness of cameras in general) rather than a list of anyone who ever complained about speed cameras (that would be a long list). (I think that criticism we have now is perhaps picked as the best of what has been submitted so far). --Richard Clegg 16:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Debate in Criticism

The following section is original research and has been moved here. Criticism of critics does not belong in the criticism section and there should not be debates. The claims of critics should be reported honestly and without comment regardless of their content (unless recording other named critics responding to the said criticism). Wikipedia is not a forum for debate.

This claim has never been subjected to peer review, and is not backed by any peer-reviewed research. Safe Speed's claims go aainst the bulk of evidence in respect of speed on fatality, which shows that fatality rates rise sharply with increasing speed. They also ignore the parallel rise of mobile phone use in cars, and the fact that the only road user group experiencing an increase in fatalities appears to be motorcyclists, according to Road Casualties Great Britain (RCGB). RCGB also shows that KSI has fallen over this period.

Softgrow 23:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

• Fact: SafeSpeed's claim has never been subjected to peer-review. Unassailably true, stated in interview with George Monbiot and discussed onthe SS website, precisely the same authority as the SafeSpeed criticism itself.
• Fact: DfT's transport stats show that the "loss int rend" on which SafeSpeed base their claim is visible only in motorcyclists. It's in RCGB.
• Fact: there is no peer-reviewed evidential basis for SafeSpeed's claims.
• Fact: there is at leats one secondary source for these, aside form the cited proimary sources, the Which? article.

Or you could simply remove SafeSpeed's claims, since they are crank opinons lacking any measure of validity. Just zis Guy you know? 23:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

This article isn't about Safespeed. It is about SCPs. Safespeed and other groups should only be mentioned in passing as being critical of SCPs. It is for the user to click the link and read further, it shouldn't be in here. Parrot of Doom (talk) 16:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Safety Camera Partnership -- History

I've attempted to drag this article back to the point by including some information about Safety Camera Partnerships in it. It could probably be better fleshed out but I hope it will inspire someone else to add more along the same lines. This article really should be about the facts of SCPs, how they work, how they are set up, what they do. The effectiveness or otherwise of safety cameras should certainly be a minor part of the article rather than the major part (in my opinion at least). --Richard Clegg 17:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

obsolete ABD claim

I removed a link to this page:

http://www.abd.org.uk/rigging_the_evidence.htm

Because (A) it's silly -- the authorities chosen were chosen before the 1999 accident figures would have been collected. (B) it's obsolete -- there are lots more authorities using the camera sites now. I presume even the ABD can't make the claim they have all been selected like this. I think it does a case more harm than good to show claims which are so far out of date. --Richard Clegg 12:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The claim, silly or not, was made at the time, and it is in context with the history of SCPs. The fact that the results of the trial were, despite being controversial from the outset, used to justify the existence of, and the creation of further SCPs makes the ABD page historically important. The fact that that claim was made so long ago, and that RTM is only now being acknowledged as significant at camera sites by the DfT does itself make it a candidate for inclusion. We should not pretend that it never happened, or that science alone has mandated the use of speed cameras. We should not censor, and we definately cannot rewrite history, so I've put it back. -De Facto 13:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

But it just makes the ABD look silly. There must be better informed criticism out there? --Richard Clegg 13:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It's daft, what on earth is the point of it? It makes no sense. Just zis Guy you know? 13:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It was published about the subject of this article. We shouldn't be dealing in POV, just facts. -De Facto 14:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

We shouldn't be dealing with *any* facts, just the relevant ones. I tried to get more people to actually write things about Safety Camera Partnerships themselves but not many people seem interested in making this article actually about them rather than another pro-anti camera debate. Including ill-informed research since shown to be false (and, to be honest, not clever at the time -- the link shows fundamental misunderstanding of RTTM and is written by someone ignorant of even basic stats) does neither this article nor ABD any favours. I'm sure any mathematically inclined ABD members would wince to see it. --Richard Clegg 14:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not judging them, just documenting what they said at that time. If you know of a better source for critical views please tell us and/or include it. -De Facto 13:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

De Facto

De Facto, you editorialised your last contribution to a degree which is quite unlike you. Please do not try to turn this into a campaign against speed enforcement; orthodox opinion is that slower speeds are desirable and that the laws should be enforced, and that's what we should reflect. Just zis Guy you know? 15:14, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

JzG, I think you've been a bit heavy handed there.

1. Please elaborate as to which parts of the two edits you have undone you consider to be POV laden.
2. Please explain why you think that we should not write what we believe to be the true history of the way that partnerships have operated, and how that could be construed to suggest that we do not believe that, laws should be enforced, or that slower speeds can be desirable for road safety.

-De Facto 16:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

This article does get perilously close to "edit wars" at times. I hope we can find ways to work together to improve it. On the recent discussion of the three year versus four year reports you said:

"However, this report, unlike the previous annual evaluation reports, or indeed any other report published by the UK Department for Transport which concentrates upon the effectiveness of speed cameras, also includes discussion which acknowledges the likely significant contribution of regression toward the mean to the observed casualty reductions at camera sites."

The three year report acknowledges the existence of rttm. I do not believe you have any evidence to back up your assertion that no DfT published research acknowledges rttm -- the DfT does commission a fair bit of research. At best you could say that none of the previous reports on the safety camera partnerships discussed it in depth. However, I don't know why rttm is getting such coverage here in any case -- some campaigners kicked up a fuss, the following DfT report measured it and found speed cameras still reduced casualties. --Richard Clegg 16:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

My assertion is not that no DfT report acknowledges RTTM, but that no other (prior to the 4-year evaluation) report is available on their public website, which is of a study into the effectiveness of speed cameras, acknowledges the likely dominant size (significant contribution) of the RTTM effect upon the observed effect of the cameras. I assume that if there was one that Google would be able to find it - it didn't. -De Facto 17:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you can't find it using google is proof of nothing. The DfT fund a lot of research, not all of which is published online (for example in peer reviewed academic journals, usually available only to subscribers, in conference proceedings and so on). Certainly colleagues of mine have DfT funded research papers which are not available online (not related to cameras at all). I have no idea whether or not such research exists, the topic was not thst notable in safety research until recently. --Richard Clegg 18:17, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I apologise for using the nuclear button (admin rollback is a blunt instrument). My problem was with yout statements that the whole thing is the result of the Government having to go and justify their policy - speed reduction and enforcement has been government policy for about a hundred years, and TRL and others have been producing reports to back that up for at least half a century; I have a microfiche of papers published in the early 50s on the subject. There is no demonstrable chronological link between reports on benefits of speed enforcement and the introduction of camera partnerships. And your comment that the 2005 report was the first time they'd acknowledged RTM is original research. RTM has been documented in respect of blackspot treatments for ever, and cameras have been placed in the categopry of blackspot treatrments by the government's craven reaction to tabloid posturing. It would be amazing if it were not the case. We have to document the balance of informed opinion, and the balance of informed opinion has it that reducing speeds on the road network reduces the incidence and severity of collisions. Just zis Guy you know? 18:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

So, some of one, or both, of the two edits is still valid NPOV, you think?

Not really, no. Sorry. Just zis Guy you know? 20:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

You prefer the term 'accident' to 'collision', even though 'RTA' has been replaced by 'RTC' in Police jargon? -De Facto 20:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

As for the RTTM issue, the government introduced speed cameras, fair enough. They got into deep controversy when they hypothecated the fines to pay for the partnerships, true. They then, politically, had the urgent need to justify the hypothecation and the partnerships. They chose to do this by commissioning reports into the effectiveness of the actual cameras, assuming that good results would rub off on the partnerships. The implausibly high results that these reports claimed triggered amateur statisticians (and perhaps some professional ones too) to go through the data. What emerged was that, even though RTTM was a well understood phenomena, that the effectiveness reports had failed to separate it out, and that the effectiveness claims therefore took credit for it too, but did not acknowledge it, or even hint at the potential size of it. This went on for a couple of years, with more and more people becoming suspicious of the integrity of the justifications, fuelled no doubt by certain ‘campaign/pressure groups’. By all accounts then, the DfT decided to bite the bullet and lay it to rest once and for all, and insisted that the RTTM should be properly studied. The four-year evaluation study was delayed whilst some research was prepared. The isolated RTTM section in the report hinted at hugely significant amounts of RTTM being absorbed in the headline claims for the cameras, yet the summaries and conclusions barely mentioned this, other than cursory ‘even allowing for’ type remarks. The press releases, and hence the press and news reports therefore reported the non-RTTM adjusted figures and the myth of the size of the camera effectiveness was perpetuated. Not to mention any of these important and serious facts in an article about camera partnerships amounts to a misrepresentation of history. To document these ‘errors of judgement’, and even to criticise the partnerships, isn’t refuting the importance of law enforcement, or condoning speeding, or denying the link between speed and injuries, it is documenting the history as it was, warts and all. RTTM has been recognised for decades, yes, but the first three effectiveness reports practically dismissed it because it was difficult to quantify. Do you disagree with any of that? -De Facto 19:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

That would not be my reading. Here's the story as I see it. But this is *story* as in personal opionionm, not fact.

I thought the hypothecation defused some of the political criticism since people could no longer claim "speed cameras are for revenue generation" (well, not informed people) but speed cameras were becoming more of a political issue even before the SCPs. Certainly I've heard little criticism of this means of reinvesting camera revenue compared to the previous system.

In the transport research community the widely held view seemed (to me, not a safety researcher) that speed cameras did save lives and that speed cameras did reduce driver speeds. In view of this the DfT rolled out the speed camera programs. It was certainly always the intention that before and after monitoring would take place but in view of the politicisation of the issue this was more widely reported than expected. In essence, my guess is that the DfT view was "we know that these things save a significant number of lives isn't that enough"? The safety camera roll outs were not set up to be a controlled experiment on whether speed cameras saved lives because the informed commentators agreed they did. Because the camera roll outs were set to save lives (positioned at accident black spots) rather than to prove the effectiveness of cameras then it required some statistical analysis to pull out what was going on. In the mean time, the people who wanted to believe that speed cameras did not work had championed RTTM as "explaining" the whole thing. (There had got to be an attitude that cameras did not save lives and it was all RTTM which was a magic wand to explain it all).

By this point there were a number of people, not generally qualified and not usually competent statisicians who had taken to "fiddling with the numbers" and seeing if they could catch the DfT out in anyhting (fair enough, there's no harm in that though much misleading is said by such people). The RTTM thing became a bit of a flag cause for those campaigners. When the three year report showed that the safety cameras were effective the lack of RTTM modelling was a weak point rightly criticised -- but remember this was a report done by independent researchers not the DfT (incidentally, the three year report also shows drops in accidents county wide in the areas where cameras were deployed and does statistical models of this, it is in an appendix of the three year report so RTTM at individual sites is already an unlikely explanation). Reading between the lines, in the professional judgement of those researchers the RTTM effect would not be sufficient to account for the reduction seen.

The fuss about RTTM and other things is still relatively minor (even in the four year report the major discussion of RTTM is relegated to an appendix). Various anti-camera groups (notably safe speed) had raised the RTTM thing quite heavily and made claims it was the major effect and the cameras were worthless. The four year report shows this was not the case and that cameras still saved lives in significant numbers. Of course as a statistician I would still say that more research would tell us hwo many lives and a better designed experiment and more data would get us a better handle on how effective these cameras are. But it's important that the cameras were put in not as an experiment to whether cameras were a safety measure but as a safety measure that was believed to work. To my mind it has now been convincingly shown that this was the right approach.

It could be perhaps claimed that there was an anxiety in the DfT to show that their initial assumption that the speed cameras were saving lives was correct all along. They would certainly have looked silly had it been shown that the much publicised campaign was ineffective. However, the reports commissioned were done by academic bodies, I don't know PA consulting but the UCL team are widely respected independent academic researchers.

It should be stressed, however, that this is all "personal opinion" based on knowing a little about transport research and a little about statistics and a very little about some of how the DfT works. I'm not a safety researcher and have never done any statistics on road safety. --Richard Clegg 19:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I pretty much agree. I am no fan of the Government, or of post-hoc rationalisations for particular actions, but the research showing that danger increases with speed - especially danger posed to others - comes from so many sources that it is impossible to discount. All that remains to debate is the extent of the relationship, which appears to vary between approximately a square-law and the fourth power, depending on the circumstances, road types, traffic types and collisions types. I have a major problem with attempts by the anti-enforcement brigade to pretend that there was ever some "golden age" when drivers chose their speed responsibly and police and offenders entertained mutual respect; this usually takes the form of calling for "real life stripy Volvos" or some other reference to flesh-and-blood police, but in reality the great advantage of real-life police for the offenders is that there were never anywhere near enough of them to generate anything like a meaningful risk of being caught. What they are objecting to in fact is that now there is no practical limit to the number of road miles which can have eagle eyes open on them. The idea that real police get respect when enforcing traffic law is absurd - I have a copy of a newspaper ad from 1906 for the Dunhill "Bobby-Finder" Glasses which promise to "spot a policeman from a reaosnable man at half a mile distance". From Mr. Toad on up, enforcement has always been seen as an imposition on the hapless motorist, who just happens to be one of the most dangerous criminals around. Remember all the fuss about evidential breath testing? There was massive political outrage that drivers who could self-evidently hold their drink better than others were being subject to arbitrary limits. And it's no different with speeding. The vast majority of drivers overestimate their own skill, and that is why governments around the world have been restricting drivers through licensing, speed limits, traffic restrictions and any number of other means ever since the dawn of the car, certainly long before it became a mass mode of transport. There was no "golden age". Governments have always tried to slow drivers down, and drivers have always resented it. Just zis Guy you know? 20:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

You appear to have difficulty in separating the issue of speed and speed enforcement from the subject of this article - "Safety Camera Partnership". To document the controversial history of the SCPs isn't the same as denying the benefit of controlling traffic speed in given situations. To point out that DfT reports do not adequately cover RTTM isn't to say that dangerous drivers should be left unchallenged. This article is about SCPs, not necessarily speed policy. -De Facto 20:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think we don't need to get too far into the whole speed versus safety issue here -- it's clear there's a broad spread of opinion here. For me, the bottom line is that RTTM does not explain the benefits of the SCP program (do we have any disagreement on that at least?). The DfT (a separate body from the SCPs) commissioned independent research from people not part of the SCPs or the DfT which, some would argue, did not give sufficient time to discussion of RTTM. The place of discussion of RTTM in *this article* should (at best) be very minor, not because it should be swept under the rug but because it's simply not very important to the story ofthe SCPs themselves. The weaknesses of this article are in coverage of where the SCPs are, how they operate etc. For example, we're missing the scottish side of the story I think. --Richard Clegg 20:50, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, speed and safety are outside the scope of this article. SCPs were setup to reduce road casualties, using cameras, and funded by fine revenue, based on a cost benefit analysis which didn't allow for RTTM. RTTM has subsequently been found to be hugely significant, and had it been factored into the CBA, they may never have come into existence. They are the facts. The politics and controversies are subject to interpretation. I agree, RTTM does not explain the entire observed casualty reduction at camera sites. What is apparent though is that the SCPs and the DfT have overstated (deliberately or otherwise) the contribution made to this benefit by cameras. This, and the fact that they defied criticism and persisted in their attempts to justify their inflated early claims are a reflection of their competence levels, and/or their arrogance, and should not be left out. For these reasons I believe that RTTM is a significant part of their story, and needs to be discussed in full. I also agree that we need to cover more of their work, and what they are up to now, and how their role is being modified in the light of the RTTM revelations (sorry, but I believe this to be the case) -De Facto 21:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

"RTTM has subsequently been found to be hugely significant, and had it been factored into the CBA, they may never have come into existence." I am not sure that history suports this interpretation of events. I think the SCPs were put in place before any CBA was done with the assumption that "they will save lives and pay for themselves" and that this was justification enough. To be honest, I haven't looked closely at the CBA in the reports -- I know of none done before the SCPs were set up (though this does not mean there wasn't any). --Richard Clegg 22:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

A CBA was done in 1996 by, or for, the Home Office "Police Research Group". In the three-year report's 'background' section it is referenced for the following statement: "One research study concluded that, whilst cameras were effective at reducing casualties, the full benefits were not being realised due to budgetary constraints. The same study noted that these constraints could be removed by allowing local road safety partnerships to recover their enforcement costs from fines incurred by offenders. At that time, all fines were accrued to the Treasury Consolidated Fund." -De Facto 08:53, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

That's not really a CBA judgement, that's a judgement that more budget is needed (I hope that doesn't sound too pedantic but it is an important point). Still, if you could dig out the reference for the earlier research study that would be useful perhaps? --Richard Clegg 14:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The 1996 CBA. -De Facto 16:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, in your History: "One novelty in the partnerships was ..." sentence, is there a terminology error? Should the word "funding" be replaced with the phrase "hypothecation of fine revenue", or similar? I thought that was the (quite valid) point you were attempting to make, so modified it, but JzG took exception and reverted it - please clarify. Thanks. -De Facto 21:46, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to rephrase it. I avoided the word hypothecation because the wikipedia article on the subject is not the meaning in this case and might make non-UK readers think that some kind of debt is involved. Feel free to edit for further clarity. --Richard Clegg 22:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Changes in safety on England’s roads: analysis of hospital statistics

I snipped the reference to this paper because, while it is an interesting (and indeed worrying) paper it is not relevant to an article about Safety Cameras. The article (for those without bmj access) suggests that the police under-report serious injuries and hence reduce KSI accidents using evidence from hospital admissions. However, it does not mention Safety Cameras and does not suggest that under-reporting is larger in safety camera areas so is not relevant to the topic of this article. I include the reference here fore interest.

RCGB also shows that KSI has fallen over this period, although research by M. Gill et al. (2006) suggests that these results may be due to a fall in the completeness of reporting of these injuries.

--Richard Clegg 15:43, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Any references to RCGB, particularly in casualty trend discussions, need to be qualified, given that hospital statistics apparently contradict the trends that RCGB portrays. -- de Facto (talk). 16:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that's an extremely over-the-top reaction. This is one paper -- I don't think this one paper makes RCGB claims "contraversial" or "suspect" -- there are several other interpretations to the data than the one the authors came up with. However, the RCGB reference in the safe speed section adds little of use about SCP so I removed that. --Richard Clegg 07:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of that piece from the article. -- de Facto (talk). 09:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

References

Contributory factors

Unless I am misreading the "contributory factors" report the "exceeding speed limit" or "going too fast for conditions" are both judged by police officers rather than objective. However, the figures are in line with other figures about the connection between speeding and fatality. However, we may wish to omit the report here or move the section to speed limit where it would be arguably more appropriate. I think we do not want to replicate a discussion on whether or not "speed kills" in this article when it is best placed elsewhere. On the other hand, we need to provide some context for the debate. --Richard Clegg 12:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Here we are concerned with the role of SCPs and the judgement to use speed cameras to reduce road casualties. To put that judgement in context we need to understand what proportion of road casualties can be targeted by speed cameras. Given that speed cameras can detect exceeding the speed limit but cannot detect going too fast for the conditions it seems reasonable to refer to the statistics for the former in this article and not to confuse the issue by also referring to other contributory factors. Equally the 'too fast' statistic probably doesn't belong in speed limit either, but the 'exceeding the limit' one most certainly does. The report 'in general' may well belong in another article about road safety in general. -- de Facto (talk). 12:59, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I was talking in specific about the report under discussion "Contributory factors to road accidents". In this the contributing factor "exceeding the speed limit" was NOT judged by speed cameras but was judged by the attending officer. While the report is not wholly clear on the subject it makes it clear that this is a subjective not an objective judgement (see page 3 of the report). --Richard Clegg 13:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand all that. The point I'm making is that the only data that we should be interested in here is that which is actually relevant to the speeding problem ("exceeding the speed limit"). The reason I say that is because cameras can target speeding. The "going too fast for the conditions" data is nothing to do with speeding, indeed, as I understand it, everthing recorded in this category happened within the speed limit, otherwise the other category would have been used. The "too fast" data is, I think, a red herring in a speed limit enforcement context. -- de Facto (talk). 14:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

General description (first section)

I feel that the following text is not neutral in its point of view.

"A Safety Camera Partnership (also Casualty Reduction Partnership, Safer Roads Partnership) is a local multi-agency partnership between British Local Government, police authorities, HMCS, Highways Agency and the National Health Service within the United Kingdom. Their aim is to enforce speed limits and red traffic lights by the use of cameras, along with persecuting motorists to increase the income of the authorities especially the police.[1]"

The reason I feel this way is the text "along with persecuting motorists to increase the income of the authorities". This seems to have been written by someone who has been caught who feels that their fine was unfair. The counter argument is that, had they not jumped a red light, or not been speeding, then they wouldn't have had the fine. I personally think that removing the part after the comma (especially as I believe the fines now go to central government instead of the police or local authority) would be the correct thing to do. Cjmillsnun (talk) 11:20, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I will remove it. Parrot of Doom 11:51, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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