[Watsey]

Did you hear Radio 4 news this morning ? Bedfordshire Police Commissioner has suggested that M1 speed cameras may be switched on to rigidly enforce the 70mph limit in order to plug a budget shortfall. No mention of road safety, just money.

He also welcomed sponsorship of police cars by EasyJet. Maybe people will be able to book them as an airport express taxi service.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...herts-34719997

[rapid64k]

This is out of order to the highest degree.

[jusdorange]

this was and still is my point re speeding

it's not for our safety , just a way of indirect taxation

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by Watsey

Did you hear Radio 4 news this morning ? Bedfordshire Police Commissioner has suggested that M1 speed cameras may be switched on to rigidly enforce the 70mph limit in order to plug a budget shortfall. No mention of road safety, just money.

He also welcomed sponsorship of police cars by EasyJet. Maybe people will be able to book them as an airport express taxi service.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...herts-34719997

Highly dangerous.

Given that the police data recorded at accident scenes suggests only 5.3% of accidents are doe to exceeding the speed limit. And yet the single largest factor was inattention.
Forget the fu cking speed limit and concentrate on driving.
Job done!

Oh.

Wait.

Hold on.


There's no revenue in my argument.

Forget that.


Let's focus on taxing motorists, not road safety.

[JD6]

I heard R4 Today programme as well. This does sound pretty stupid.

If the police start enforcing inappropriate limits, then the limits will have to be raised to prevent them from doing it.

[Lorcan]

Probably just trying to make a point.

[FOAD]

The Bedfordshire PCC doesn't have the power legally to do this. Panic over.

[Watsey]

I'm sure there's a good degree of scaremongering in the proposal, but still interesting to hear the camera conversation move from road safety to one based entirely on revenue generation.

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by Watsey

I'm sure there's a good degree of scaremongering in the proposal, but still interesting to hear the camera conversation move from road safety to one based entirely on revenue generation.

Bollocks.

It's never been about road safety.

It's always been about raising revenue.

Cameras were introduced by communists

[TouringPleb]

Ok, a little background information on this.

Bedfordshire Police basically have no money. Due to government spending cutbacks, they are struggling financially.

A few facts and figures. Bedfordshire police is the second smallest force in England. It is funded as being a rural force with rural crime rates. However there is a small problem called Luton. Luton has the population density and crime levels of a London Borough (and not one of the nice leafy ones!)

Throughout England there are an average of 232 police officers per 100,000 residents. In London this is 388 officers per 100,000 residents. In Bedfordshire it's 169 officers per 100,000. Each Bedfordshire officer, on average deals with double the levels of crime as the 'average' English police officer. Bedfordshire has the 4th highest levels of gun crime in the country (a couple of years ago Luton did have the highest gun crime in the country), the 5th highest rates of burglary, robbery and vehicle crime. Knife crime is the 7th highest in the country.

In May the PCC commissioner tried to increase funding through the council tax. He wanted to raise the police element of the tax by 16%. To do this he needed to go to a referendum. However the government rules on this meant he could not actually campaign for this or promote it properly, and not surprisingly it was defeated. Because of the wording of the question (set by government) people thought they were being asked to pay 16% on the whole council tax, not just the police part. This increase would have paid for 100 officers.

A few quotes from the HMIC (her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies)

"HMIC has concerns about the forces ability to maintain its service to the public when faced with further budget reductions in 2015/16"

"The force is fast approaching the position where it has exhausted the options it has for reducing costs"

And finally "by March 2015 there will be just 1020 police officers keeping the people of Bedfordshire safe. This is a very thin 'blue line'."

Basically even the government's own inspectors have said there is nothing left to cut. And when the next budget is announced there will be further cut backs. This is not a bloated public body where people are sitting around getting fat counting down the days until they collect their 'gold plated' pensions (Windsor has seen to that). Police stations have been closed, civilian staff made redundant, the Control Room is closing and being merged with Herts and Cambs. Training departments are being closed. PCSOs are going.


I think the PCC making this announcement is more about getting attention, but if the cameras are switched on, all you have to do is put the cruise control on 70mph or whatever the displayed speed is and no-one will get caught.

[GEP77]

It could end up with some interesting scenarios.

The first would be if everyone challenged every ticket. This would likely clog up the courts.

The next is that the police force only get the money if the driver takes a driver awareness course. People could simply choose to do the course outside of Bedfordshire - this denying them the income.

The increased need for awareness courses would result in the need for more officers to be diverted away from general policing to provide the courses. This in effect would cancel out the financial benefit for general policing.

The next is that customers might start legal proceedings against car manufacturers for providing cars with misreading speedos. There is a good reason for a small tolerance before being charged for speeding.

'Speedo Watching' is likely to increase the accident rate on the road.

The next aspect would be to decriminalise minor speeding infringement on Motorways. This would then have the effect of making it an optional tax to drive a bit faster without the risk of license loss / insurance premium increase.

[NickR85]

I'm not being funny but at the end of the day if you make the choice to speed you should be big enough to take the consequences of getting caught.

By no means am I saying I'm an angel but at the end of the day if I get caught I've nobody to blame but myself.

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by TouringPleb

Ok, a little background information on this.

Bedfordshire Police basically have no money. Due to government spending cutbacks, they are struggling financially.

A few facts and figures. Bedfordshire police is the second smallest force in England. It is funded as being a rural force with rural crime rates. However there is a small problem called Luton. Luton has the population density and crime levels of a London Borough (and not one of the nice leafy ones!)

Throughout England there are an average of 232 police officers per 100,000 residents. In London this is 388 officers per 100,000 residents. In Bedfordshire it's 169 officers per 100,000. Each Bedfordshire officer, on average deals with double the levels of crime as the 'average' English police officer. Bedfordshire has the 4th highest levels of gun crime in the country (a couple of years ago Luton did have the highest gun crime in the country), the 5th highest rates of burglary, robbery and vehicle crime. Knife crime is the 7th highest in the country.

In May the PCC commissioner tried to increase funding through the council tax. He wanted to raise the police element of the tax by 16%. To do this he needed to go to a referendum. However the government rules on this meant he could not actually campaign for this or promote it properly, and not surprisingly it was defeated. Because of the wording of the question (set by government) people thought they were being asked to pay 16% on the whole council tax, not just the police part. This increase would have paid for 100 officers.

A few quotes from the HMIC (her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies)

"HMIC has concerns about the forces ability to maintain its service to the public when faced with further budget reductions in 2015/16"

"The force is fast approaching the position where it has exhausted the options it has for reducing costs"

And finally "by March 2015 there will be just 1020 police officers keeping the people of Bedfordshire safe. This is a very thin 'blue line'."

Basically even the government's own inspectors have said there is nothing left to cut. And when the next budget is announced there will be further cut backs. This is not a bloated public body where people are sitting around getting fat counting down the days until they collect their 'gold plated' pensions (Windsor has seen to that). Police stations have been closed, civilian staff made redundant, the Control Room is closing and being merged with Herts and Cambs. Training departments are being closed. PCSOs are going.


I think the PCC making this announcement is more about getting attention, but if the cameras are switched on, all you have to do is put the cruise control on 70mph or whatever the displayed speed is and no-one will get caught.

Nothing to do with any reduction in budget.

Everything to do with the Chief Constables failure to run his force efficiently.

Answer is to sack the CC and employ someone who can do the job.

This is the world the private sector operates in, which I appreciate is difficult for those employed by nanny state to understand.

[NISFAN]

I live in Bedfordshire and voted in favour of the increased council tax to fund the police. But outvoted by a long margin.

I suspect in desperation the BP have to resort to stirring things up?

[NISFAN]

Originally Posted by Nick the Greek

Nothing to do with any reduction in budget.

Everything to do with the Chief Constables failure to run his force efficiently.

Answer is to sack the CC and employ someone who can do the job.

This is the world the private sector operates in, which I appreciate is difficult for those employed by nanny state to understand.

Perhaps you should have the job......oh but wait, you'd switch all cars to gas guzzling petrols which would mean the Police are limited walking after the first week in the month.

[jr2408]

Originally Posted by NISFAN

Perhaps you should have the job......oh but wait, you'd switch all cars to gas guzzling petrols which would mean the Police are limited walking after the first week in the month.

Perhaps they should just tax diesels driving through Bedford.

What do you think Nick?

[JD6]

Originally Posted by TouringPleb

Basically even the government's own inspectors have said there is nothing left to cut. And when the next budget is announced there will be further cut backs. This is not a bloated public body where people are sitting around getting fat counting down the days until they collect their 'gold plated' pensions (Windsor has seen to that). Police stations have been closed, civilian staff made redundant, the Control Room is closing and being merged with Herts and Cambs. Training departments are being closed. PCSOs are going.

While that all sounds quite credible, the police have been putting out dire warnings of the risk of cutting their numbers for decades, and crime has continued to fall at the same time as police numbers reduce. Clearly there will be a point at which it becomes true - if you had no police at all, I think almost everyone can see that this would cause a rise in crime.

However, having cried wolf for decades, it is hard to take these suggestions of rising crime due to falling police numbers seriously.

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by NISFAN

Perhaps you should have the job......oh but wait, you'd switch all cars to gas guzzling petrols which would mean the Police are limited walking after the first week in the month.

What.

And become one of 'them'.

I'm merely noting the mindset of the public sector. It's all down to £££.

Having spent all my working career delivering more with less spend, this is the reality of the private sector. What we need is a paradigm shift from the public sector.

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by jr2408

Perhaps they should just tax diesels driving through Bedford.

What do you think Nick?

Only is they are limited to 65 bhp. ....

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by NISFAN

I live in Bedfordshire and voted in favour of the increased council tax to fund the police. But outvoted by a long margin.

I suspect in desperation the BP have to resort to stirring things up?

Your paradigm is limiting your ability to see the central issue. More money is not the answer. It is an excuse, by those trapped in the same paradigm.

[jusdorange]

Originally Posted by Nick the Greek

Only is they are limited to 65 bhp. ....

Mr Malawi has a point

public services have a huge waste of resources

huge amount of paperwork and so forth for settling the most minor of issues

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by jusdorange

Mr Malawi has a point

public services have a huge waste of resources

huge amount of paperwork and so forth for settling the most minor of issues

Indeed.

The public sector grew dramatically under the last Labour government as a source of 'captive' voters....

And I have to pay for the fuckers.