Because of the perverse incentive. The UK, much like the US, is a neo-liberal hell-hole where market solutions and “public-private partnerships” are considered the only possible solution to anything. Speed camera’s while they can potentially improve public safety, also create an incentive for local governments to design roads that encourage speeding with artificially lower speed limits to improve revenue while ensuring that well-connected individuals are never subject to those fines. As soon as a neo-liberal government finds a funding mechanism outside of progressive taxation, they will preserve that funding source at the cost of the general public every time.
This means more and more dangerous roads because they produce more and more funding.
An individual driver speeding will normally receive a £100 fine and 3 points on their license.
You lose your license after 12 over 3 years. Even if you can avoid the points with a course once, you can’t do that repeatedly.
So the practical effect is that people who get caught are more careful.
Which is a win for everyone.
As far as road design goes, while there are discussions to be had around that, there are good arguments for reducing the speed limit to 20mph. Roads are not designed for that. But we can enforce it anyway, cheaply.
@PowerCrazy Also, while some local councils are intentionally neoliberal, most are just trying to survive.
Central government does of course force them to take the neoliberal solutions you describe. Because all other options are prohibited, impractical, or cannot be funded, due to the rules set down by central government.
Local government can be corrupt (so can central government), it can be incompetent (ditto).
But the villain here is the tories. It’s always the tories. And while they tend to control rural councils, they don’t control most of the cities.
Because of the perverse incentive. The UK, much like the US, is a neo-liberal hell-hole where market solutions and “public-private partnerships” are considered the only possible solution to anything. Speed camera’s while they can potentially improve public safety, also create an incentive for local governments to design roads that encourage speeding with artificially lower speed limits to improve revenue while ensuring that well-connected individuals are never subject to those fines. As soon as a neo-liberal government finds a funding mechanism outside of progressive taxation, they will preserve that funding source at the cost of the general public every time.
This means more and more dangerous roads because they produce more and more funding.
@PowerCrazy IMHO this is not true.
An individual driver speeding will normally receive a £100 fine and 3 points on their license.
You lose your license after 12 over 3 years. Even if you can avoid the points with a course once, you can’t do that repeatedly.
So the practical effect is that people who get caught are more careful.
Which is a win for everyone.
As far as road design goes, while there are discussions to be had around that, there are good arguments for reducing the speed limit to 20mph. Roads are not designed for that. But we can enforce it anyway, cheaply.
@PowerCrazy Also, while some local councils are intentionally neoliberal, most are just trying to survive.
Central government does of course force them to take the neoliberal solutions you describe. Because all other options are prohibited, impractical, or cannot be funded, due to the rules set down by central government.
Local government can be corrupt (so can central government), it can be incompetent (ditto).
But the villain here is the tories. It’s always the tories. And while they tend to control rural councils, they don’t control most of the cities.