‘SPEED CAMERAS ARE HERE TO STAY’

Speed cameras are here to stay. We must resign ourselves to the fact, no matter how we argue, they will never disappear.

The simple reason: They generate income with relative ease. What is sad, is to see the demise of the traffic policemen – the only deterrent to bad and dangerous driving, which in my opinion is the cause of the majority of the ‘accidents’ on our roads.

If we have to have the cameras then let’s at least have them sited properly.

Why oh why do we have it regularly on the M180 eastbound. Will someone please explain what is dangerous about that stretch of road other than the drivers on it?

Apart from a sweeping left-hand curve, which could be negotiated at twice the speed limit, and successfully hides the camera van until the last minute, what else makes that piece of motorway more dangerous than anywhere else?

To prove the point, I had to travel to Doncaster a few Sundays ago. At 9.30am the camera van was already in position, filming what little traffic there was eastbound. What a pointless exercise, apart from raising money of course, because who’d expect there to be a camera on that stretch of road at that time of a Sunday morning?

To add insult to injury, when passing the point myself on the return journey, they had multiplied.

Yes, there were two camera vans on the M180 at 1pm on a Sunday. I’ll bet that prevented no end of dangerous accidents!

What the camera vans couldn’t deal with was the driver of the blue BMW, who my partner thought was trying to get us to race him.

He kept speeding past, and then slowing up so we had to overtake again. On the third time we realised what he was doing, replying to his text messages of course!

Neither could the camera vans show the error of their ways to the five or six cars who were all cruising down the middle lane nose to tail, leaving the inside lane empty.

Nor did they catch the motorist who knew the van was there and didn’t break the speed limit until past that section of road.

I wonder who he was?

John Usher

Well John, that might have been me! I travel the M180 often and see the van parked (not always legally), albeit it’s nice to know that the locals are noticing it too.

My hatred of scams comes from the same area, the same day and the same times. Pathetic use of government equipment!!!

If you ever manage to read this John please contact me, no details were left on the article you wrote to “This is Scun-thorpe”

(The hyphen is to stop the swear filter) []

Best Regards
Stuart XV16