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Comment by Paul_S | Hacker News Reader

UK over the years has been destroying something immensely valuable that you can't get back quickly. For example, there are barely any speed cameras on local roads in the UK (compared to other European countries) and yet almost everyone drives under the limit. It's the same with police not needing guns. I think people just don't understand how valuable (and unusual) this is.

Edit: As has been pointed out to me, there are a lot of speed cameras in the UK, but half of them are in the London area where I don't drive (and the rest are mostly motorways) which is why I had that impression.

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What?! I experienced this vastly differently. I drove from Dover to Lands' End and back this year, and the route was absolutely riddled with speed cams, compared to the Netherlands.

I should clarify, there are cameras on motorways but hardly any on local roads where the 20 speed limit is used. Also, all cameras are signposted and there are obvious lines on the road so you can see exactly where the measurement is taken.

Ah right. Yeah we had a good laugh about that, why put up so many if you make it so easy to spot them?!

That's a "consent of the governed" thing; they're unpopular enough already, but making them sneaky, hiding them round corners, etc. was even more unpopular, so in a spirit of British fair play they are fully visible and if you get caught it's your own fault for not paying attention.

Politics basically.

When they were first being installed, drivers got all whiny and said it wasn't fair. They were being tricked and local authorities were using them to raise cash rather than enforce speed limits. Cameras were placed where speeding was very common, and councils were supposedly hiding them behind foliage to catch as many people as possible. If they were really about stopping speeding, shouldn't they be visible?

Basically, drivers didn't want to have to obey the speed limit all the time (God forbid!). But they could just about put up with being forced to obey the limit where it was particularly dangerous. So to mollify the car lobby a rule was introduced that the cameras had to be highly visible.

There are three speed cameras in 20mph limits near me in my area of London. Whenever I'm near them I see someone flashed by them about once every 5 minutes (one is opposite a bus stop that I often wait at).

It's surprising just how many people will continue to speed past these very visible cameras.

Cloned plates

Possibly, but it's a dangerous long game to play. You're at the mercy of pretty much every Police patrol car with ANPR once the cloned plates are tagged as such. Getting caught with cloned plates is far more serious.

Thats factually incorrect. The uk has the third largest number of speed cameras in europe, below only russia and italy. It’s quite annoying having cameras everywhere frankly.

> It’s quite annoying having cameras everywhere frankly.

Why?

I suspect they mean the number of CCTV cameras in the UK rather than road safety cameras specifically. If you are concerned about the erosion of privacy in public spaces then that would be a valid point.

> british society is in fact quite “uncivilised

Sadly there is a significant part that is.

Because drivers should be trusted to drive to the conditions. Those that speed stupidly will do so regardless of cameras (they will just slow down when they see one which actually makes things more dangerous) and those that drive to the conditions will speed when they believe it’s safe to do so and won’t speed when it’s not safe to do so, which means cameras are actually making driving less safe because they need to drop down for 400m and then speed up again.

Every speed limit purist reply to this argument is that without cameras everyone would be going mad at 120mph no matter what. This just isn’t true and our country roads being mostly 60 mph is proof of this. 60mph is too fast for many of those country roads, everyone knows this and so most will drive 50/40/30 etc depending on the conditions.

I’d say considering the state of many roads speeding wont be an issue anyway.

My issue is with the government being literarily _everywhere_ to the point where it’s creepy.

It really only shows that either the british society is in fact quite “uncivilised” and requires massive amounts of policing in order to “behave” or that the frog is getting boiled for something bigger.

Agree, the “see it, say it, sort it” tannoy announcements on the trains drives me mad - we are getting treated like children. I don’t buy in to “government control” conspiracies but clipboard warriors overly bothered about rules and everyone behaving just like them seem to have been able to push through a lot of this stuff.

I agree, for roads clearly separated from pedestrians and cyclists. You can barely see what's around the next corner on those fenced in country roads, you'd be insane to drive 60 mph even tho that's the speed limit.

In residential areas however I'm totally fine with low limits + many cameras. A collision with a pedestrian at 20 mph might be survivable, at 40 it's a death sentence. And in residential areas, on well-asphalted straight roads, people will speed like maniacs.

I agree that 40 is too fast for urban settings, but 30 isn’t and that’s the most common speed limit and what would be moved to 20.

I drove at 20 the other day for a bit assuming that this Wales rubbish would make it to England and it’s hard to stick to due to the drive train config (I drive a very boring Volvo as well), 25 is much easier.

Plus you’d be constantly looking a the speedometer and not the road.

Well they don't put cameras where you can't exceed 60. That would be stupid. Where they do put them, people get caught at over 60. So I still don't see the problem.

To be clear, you totally could exceed 60 on these roads, you would just be insane to do so.

Country roads also have a) considerably less traffic and pedestrians b) often have obvious blind spots which drivers cannot speed around without very obviously rolling the dice. Its why you see traffic calming measures in Belgium and the Netherlands which are in the form of straight avenues having lots of bends[0] in to ensure drivers have to pay much closer attention to the road.

Further to that, putting signage on a lot of these rural areas isnt economically viable for a road that has very little thoroughfare and associated accidents. That said, having 60 everywhere and trusting drivers sound insane

[0] https://www.youthforroadsafety.org/news-blog/news-blog-item/...

Which brings us to the point another commented made: design the roads as such lower speed is the only sensible way to drive. No straight 4 lanes through town, but... is "chicanes" the correct word? Tree islands, roundabouts, curves, parking spots, crossings, yes even bumps, many things can be added to force lower speeds and sometimes even make the neighborhood look nicer.

Wow, do I feel silly now but in my defence I'm talking from experience, not having checked the stats. Maybe all those cameras are in London because wherever I drive I only see speed cameras on motorways.

> there are barely any speed cameras in the UK (compared to other European countries) and yet almost everyone drives under the limit

As a UK resident who spends a lot of time in France and Italy this statement really surprised me, and really isn't my experience. I had to read it twice as I assumed you meant the opposite

I recently drove from Brighton to Glasgow vis Nottingham. I'd easily passed through 10 before I reached the M25 south of London, including one on the street I lived on. The M25 itself easily had 10 possibly way more. The M1 must have had another 10 or so. I passed through about 5 or so driving through Nottingham. Similarly there about 5 before I hit the A1 which now has dozens. There were 3 or 4 on the A66 and even the M74 and M8 have cameras now. I keep Apple Maps on the whole journey even though I don't need it, specifically to beep and warn me when I'm approaching one.

I can't recall seeing cameras in France, but I'm sure they are there somewhere, plus I rarely drive through the large cities. I've never seen one in Italy, but maybe I don't know what they look like and I tend to drive the same routes. I have seen the police at the side of the road with a handheld radar.

Are we maybe driving different parts of Europe?

A quick check (after writing most of this) gave me this graph which, as a non-member, I can't see the sources for, but looks believable.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201490/speed-cameras-pe...

Which, ignoring Russia, has Italy #1 and the UK #2. So, clearly, I'm not driving the parts of Italy with lots of cameras, but the UK has more cameras than most European countries.

> yet almost everyone drives under the limit

Is also something I haven't observed. We have 'boy racers' shooting up and down our street, the M25 has giant expensive cars aggressively pulling up behind you and flashing their lights and driving through speed camera without a care (or weaving through traffic by undertaking). The right-hand lane of most motorways is people driving 90-100 mph when they can. My experience is that it's congestion, not British good manners that keep people under the speed limit. On the M11 which, last I checked, was still camera free, the fast lane was people driving at 100mph. The 6 lanes on the A1(M) between Huntington and Peterborough was even faster. I recently got an early-morning Taxi from Brighton to Heathrow, and the taxi driver drove at 125mph between cameras.

Yes, plenty of cameras on motorways. I set my cruise control on motorways and ignore them so maybe that's why it didn't spring to mind. But the article is about local roads and at least where I drive I never see any. I drive in Europe occasionally and I think they have more cameras on local roads but again, it's my experience and not stats. I don't drive around London so maybe my experience is not representative.

I have only seen a mobile speed camera van once in my life. Even that was signposted. If you want to avoid tickets and keep speeding it's super easy. I don't see people speeding. Again, I imagine it might be different around London but isn't everything different over there?

The UK has tons of speed cameras and people certainly don't drive under the limit due to free will. Most GPS units display where the speed cameras are located so UK drivers know where to speed and where not to.

Can you elaborate how this is being destroyed? Not sure if you mean Brexit, other law changes, or this one in particular.

Policing by consensus. People respected the rules because they agreed with the rules and trusted the rulemakers. Now the trust in rulemakers is gone and some people disagree with some rules.

I wonder what the impact of this policing by consensus was. Did the UK spend a lower percentage of GDP on policing than peer nations ? I don't think they have lower crime numbers. Surely not in London.

That's exactly what I meant. If people agree to the rules you don't need to waste resources policing them.

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