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Comment by beardyw | Hacker News Reader

> It’s quite annoying having cameras everywhere frankly.

Why?

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.

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.

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