I campaigned for a speed camera to be sited in my village due to it being on a route from an A road to a big factory a few miles away, it took 3 years but they finally fitted it this year it does slow vehicles down which was what we wanted.
But that's the key, if they only put them in built up areas where they are for safety that's fine but they put them in places that are pointless. I know the argument of x number of fatalities before a camera turns up, but there have been no deaths or serious injuries where I live and we've still got the camera. So I can only assume it's because they listened to the local people (yeah right!).
I break the speed limits regularly in my car and on my motorbike, but I do it in places where it is safe to do so, and I look for cameras rather drive with my eyes half shut. Before any of you get on your high horses I know all the local Police drivers and they use the roads to train on, so if the Police can do 100 mph plus safely why not others?
I've done many driving related courses and I think we should scrap all speed limits in the country, however you HAVE to make drivers responsible for their actions. If a driver thinks it's safe to drive past a school at 3 pm at 70 mph do so, but if you kill a child you'll get 15 years for manslaughter.
Similarly if a driver decides the M6 past the Lakes is safe to use at 150 mph at 4 am why not? It also puts the responsibility on the driver to make sure their vehicle is fit to be on the road, not rely on a test once a year catching a few faults.
Sadly people seem to believe the government advice of "speed kills", speed doesn't kill - badly driven cars kill (Do guns kill? No people using guns kill). So to back up that statement the government installs cameras because it's cheaper than police officers, and as most forces now don't have the funding to have a large number of properly trained police drivers - they need cheaper options - they prosecute for speeding rather than safety.
If the government had said "inappropriate speed kills" it would have confused the genuinely stupid and removed the black and white/right or wrong we need to prosecute bad drivers, which in my opinion isn't done anywhere near enough.
I train people to advanced driving standards and it never ceases to amase me how few think about what they are doing, what might be around the next corner or what information the road can tell them.
That said the government are responsible for the poor standards of drivers in this country, if we had a test that required drivers to think there would be a 75% drop in road users and a 90% drop in new passes.
Am I wrong? Did you get any training on driving on motorways? What about training for night time driving? Training fo driving in adverse weather conditions? Can you change a wheel on your car? Which are all things you should know how to do before you drive because it's not like any of these are things you as a driver won't do at some point.
If you think about the efforts the government have implimented to try and ensure motorcycle riders have experience before being allowed to ride powerful bike (33 BHP limit for 2 years) why did they give them an escape clause - if you can afford to pay for the training you can ride anything immeadiately after passing your test. Why does a similar regulation not apply to new drivers? A maximum of 1000 cc for 2 years before they can drive any car?
Don't be fooled by government statistics and there verbose repeating of safety claims around speed cameras, if drivers were trained properly you could do away with cameras: cameras replace police officers!