SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
More than 1,000 motorists a week are being caught speeding on the UK's smart motorways, police figures suggest.
Last year, 52,516 fixed penalties were issued on 11 smart sections, including on stretches of the M1, M25 and M6.
This compared to 2,023 on the same stretches in 2010-11, before they were upgraded to smart motorways - which use the hard shoulder and variable speed limits to control traffic flow.
The government says they are used to improve capacity, not generate revenue.
Smart motorways are operated by Highways England, which uses overhead gantries - also containing speed cameras - to direct traffic into open lanes and change speed limits depending on the volume of traffic.
Ticket revenue has increased tenfold over 5 years. Have British drivers experienced the "improved capacity" that the government uses to justify the smart highways?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday November 08 2016, @12:47AM
But there are obvious problems with the application. Speed limits are *already* defined as max speed in ideal circumstances. You're *already* supposed to slow down below this or even in some cases speed above it if conditions require this. In practice the herd has a mind of its own, and that is another of the conditions you have to weigh. On one particular stretch of road I have driven many times the herd runs 10-15mph over the posted limit for several miles. Then the speed limit bumps up 20mph but the herd stays right about the same. Later it goes back down and again the herd ignores it - until a couple of miles past the signage, where the road itself becomes more complicated. There's a very grey area in there legally, because no matter how hard and objective those signs look the laws under which they are enforced implies they are quite mushy.
Here's an example, you can be charged with speeding while going less than the speed limit. How does that work you ask? Something like this:
Judge: It says here you charged him with going more than 15mph over safe speed. It also says your radar gun recorded his speed at 78. I drive the same stretch of highway myself and the posted speed limit there is 80mph. Officer Speedtrap, I'm looking at this and I'm wondering why I should not dismiss these charges immediately. Do you have something to say to this?
Officer Michael Speedtrap: Your honor, it's true that the posted speed limit there is 80mph, and I clocked the defendant at 78 with radar. However on the night in question, there was a furious rainstorm going on. In addition, there had been a large accident a half mile further up the road and there were flares out. At the point where I clocked the defendant doing 78 he had already flown by a deputy who was standing on the roadside waving flares, and was rapidly approaching what I would call a 'parking lot' of stopped cars as a result of the accident. Given those conditions, it was my judgement that his speed was more than 15mhp over what he should have been doing.
Judge: Fair enough, we shall proceed.
In theory at least, this can go the other direction as well. If you are in a dense pack of cars and all the other cars are going too fast, you can probably make a very good argument that slowing down would have been unsafe.
In practical terms the outcome of all this fuzziness is that, in many areas, police tend to give drivers a fairly wide margin of tolerance and only ticket people who are clearly in the wrong. You may disagree, but personally I think that's an ideal outcome. When you drive you have a very difficult job because you have to make decisions very quickly and own them and follow through on them; it's really not in anyone's interest to have rigid, formulaic enforcement of the traffic rules.
Now, I ramble, but this does go back to the topic. With the system we're talking about, instead of simply saying 'max speed is under ideal circumstances, slow down more when called for' there's a computer that's indicating when certain conditions are such that slowing down is called for. If it were informational, that would be very hard to disapprove of - more information about conditions down the road are something any good driver is eager to receive. But it's not informational. It doesn't say "Congestion next 5 miles, slow down and take it easy" it says something more like "speed limit has been reduced by 10mph. you are now speeding. we have deducted the fine from your account of record."
And at this point they've made it more cost-effective to simply let them take the money than to fight it. "Yes, your honor, I was going faster than the currently posted speed limit. However it had just changed a few seconds before and I had cars surrounding me on every side which were also exceeding it. It would not have been safe for me to have shed speed any more quickly than I did in that situation." I bet, technically, you could even still go to court and say that and escape the fine. But if you're a working man it would cost you more to show up in court and try, than the fine itself, so who is going to going so far out of their way to be a grain of sand in that evil machine?
Not designed to generate revenue my ass.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?