Speed camera cut down for second time in Cornwall

I don't understand why these people can't see the cameras are there to protect everyone - including drivers.

Maybe because cameras can't protect anyone. They gather evidence for incrimination, not prevention.

From 1992 to 2016, speed cameras reduced accidents by between 17 to 39 per cent and fatalities by between 58 to 68 per cent within 500 metres of the cameras.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2017/10-October-2017/Speed-cameras-reduce-road-accidents-and-traffic-deaths-according-to-new-study
- That's a report on a single study in the UK. We cannot necessarily assume that the outcome will be the same or even similar in all jurisdictions and social driving norms. The US, for instance, doesn't have speed cameras, but the use of red light cameras has no effect in the rate of accidents at best and an increase in the rate of accidents at worse and it's not clear what impact the introduction of such cameras to the US would have. Meanwhile the UAE does have speed cameras, but they do nothing to limit the speed of the Emirate citizens and only the threat of harsh fines, punishment, or deportation keeps the immigrant and working population in line.
  
  While this camera was in a location which already has cameras, the claim quoted was not that "UK cameras protect UK drivers," but one of "Cameras [in general] protect everyone" which is simply not true. Cameras have only the mechanisms necessary to record and report, they have no mechanism by which they can divert, slow, or stop a car or pedestrian and no mechanism they can use to stop an accident.
Speed cameras do prevent speeding, they are used to trap in some cases, but almost always they are sign posted, which causes people to slow down.
- That sounds like the signs have a correlated impact more than the cameras having a causal relationship.
How so? Isn't knowing the consequence a form of prevention?
- You’ll never get a real answer because the types of people that post these idiotic disingenuous complaints about speed cameras have nothing to say to the simple question:
  
  Why not just drive within the speed limit?
- Not really. Awareness of punishment does little to abate crime in general and while increasing the chances of getting caught (say by automatic cameras) does discourage crime in a meaningful way it does not prevent it.
  
  Even so, the camera itself is not offering protection. It has no mechanism to control traffic or stop an accident.
  
  I see this language far too often around cameras, but the fact remains they serve only to incriminate after the fact, not to prevent before the fact.
  
  If you want protection, reduce lane sizes, make drives less straight, install speed tables, incentive alternate arterial routes, make sure alternate forms of transportation are effective and available. Hell, install the cameras even, but don't be dissolutioned that they are what is actually doing anything.
That is a bad take.

TL;DR: If you do incriminating stuff, you should be incriminated.

There are rules that every driver has to adhere to. The rules are there for protection of the drivers and the people that rely on the drivers driving safely. But the thing is: without consequences, some people show bad behaviour, one being ignoring the rules which are made to keep people safe. In order to suppress such behaviour, fines and punishment are used.

I have been driving cars for around 10 years and have gotten a fine three times. The amount I paid for it in total was roughly 10 Euros per year, which is less than 1 Euro per month. And I could have avoided having to pay this by just being mindful and acting according to the rules, which I did not.

If people feel like they should drive 120 kmh in a 50 kmh zone or even worse, without any proper justification, they do not belong behind the wheel of a car.
- People would be less upset about the cameras if a) we weren’t already the most surveilled western country already. B) the fine for minor speeding was minor. as you mentioned you paid 100 euros for 3 fines. In the uk you can be fined for doing 33 in a 30, and the fine will be 100 euros per time, plus points that makes your insurance go up as well. And c) there weren’t so god slam many of them. I live in Europe now, but went back to the uk to visit friends and family and honestly there have to be about 40-50 times many cameras in the uk than in Germany!
- TL;DR: If you do incriminating stuff, you should be incriminated.
  
  Boot tasty.
Do you not feel discouraged from speeding or running red lights when there are traffic enforcement cameras watching?

Governments are clamping down on protests against climate change: * silence *

Some idiots cut down speed cameras the people living there specifically asked for: YEAH! Fuck the police!!!1! Rage against the machine!!!1! Fuck mass surveillance!!!1!

Priorities , I guess.

Its easy to cut down a camera... How the fuck would you even go about trying to fix the first one a petition or someshit? Booooring fires up chainsaw
- Not that I would ever seriously suggest this, but we could start crowdfunding the sabotage of polluting factories. Payout goes to whichever anonymous person correctly "guesses" the downtime. Just joking of course.
- Rocks are everywhere.
- Power poles seem pretty vulnerable.

If people are driving too fast on a road then the road is badly designed. Speed cameras are a bandage covering up the problem of shit infrastructure.

Better infrastructure would be great, but there will always be places where you will need to drive slower than the designed speed, and drivers should be able to follow that if they're going to be allowed to pilot a large and dangerous vehicle.
I mean so what's to be done then. I agree on "redesign pretty much every street or road" but like, until then, it's just a great big free for all?
- If the road is dangerously designed, close the road.
Traffic calming and speed cameras are carrot and stick in lowering the speed of roads. Lowering the design speed of roads alone is never going to stop drivers in a hurry from driving dangerously fast. People aren't deterred from commiting crimes by heavy penalties, they are deterred by the chance of getting caught. Automatic traffic enforcement raises that chance to 100%.
- Lowering the design speed of roads alone is never going to stop drivers in a hurry from driving dangerously fast
  
  Why wouldn't it? If drivers feel unsafe speeding down a road then they simply won't speed, rendering speed cameras unnecessary. If you see a speed bump ahead of you aren't you going slow down?

Lmao cutting down speed cameras is praxis. Jog on. These things are just there to make local councils money.

When they actually want a slower road they put speed bumps or traffic islands on it.

Yes, let's stick speedbumps on the M4 clean air zone outside Newport, that'll solve things.
- Eh? This is nowhere near Newport and it's not a motorway either.
They wouldn't make money if people managed to, you know, just follow the speed limit. If you can't follow a basic rule of the road you shouldn't be driving.
- We live in material reality, not a fantasy in your head. Justifying bullshit that specifically fucks over the poor while not really affecting the rich (because fines are just fees you pay to break the law when you're rich enough for them to be minor inconveniences) with what amounts to Cartman screaming RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH is bullshit. You want people to actually slow down? Redesign the road.
  
  This praxis does two things, it prevents the poor being fucked over if these are just there to make council money, or it causes them to give up on the camera and properly redesign the road when it's actually about real safety concerns.
  
  Given this has happened before and they only replaced the camera I'm siding with "it's for council income not actual safety". If they do it again I feel doubley vindicated in that opinion. If it's actually about real safety concerns they'll give up on the camera and add in pedestrian refuge islands to slow traffic instead. Love these badboys

"Speed trap" cameras are an entirely apt name. The solution to speeding isn't cameras, or patrols, or administrative controls, it's traffic calming, and that reduces capacity, so it's not considered. The trap is driving on the road at speeds they seem to be designed for, with speed limits significantly lower.

Fuck cars, but fuck cops more. We don't need to live in a panopticon. These cameras are a step in the wrong direction, and while I don't think the person who cut them down is doing the right thing for the right reasons, they are doing the right thing.

and while I don’t think the person who cut them down is doing the right thing for the right reasons, they are doing the right thing.

So you think they are doing the right thing for... the wrong reasons?

Yeah, the omnipotentEntity seems to lack a bit of reasoning here.
Cameras are enforcement without the discrimination and potential for violence that cops bring.

Traffic calming is great but it's also more expensive. Maybe drivers should just try driving below the speed limit.
- Incorrect; they discriminate disproportionately on poor people
  
  Unless the fines are proportional to wealth, I don’t see how you can argue that they’re not disproportionally punishing the poorest who are caught.
- However it throws hundreds of people through the equally discriminatory criminal justice system, and allows car insurance companies to jack up rates. Functioning even more effectively as a tax on being different than regular cops do. It also creates a financial incentive for the government not to fix the underlying cause of the problem of speeding.
  
  Wishing and hoping for people to be better than they are isn't a solution. Just because traffic calming is more expensive, that's not a reason to not do it. It is something that needs to be done if you want to break car dependency.
- Theres an interesting argument by Chuck Mahron against speed cameras: https://podcast.strongtowns.org/e/the-arguments-for-speed-cameras…and-why-they-don-t-hold-up/
  
  The core of his argument is that it's bad to punish normal behavior, instead you should just do traffic calming, even cheap traffic calming
- You will unconsciously drive as fast as the road allows you unless you keep checking your speedometer. Some cars too can insulate you from the noise and sense of speed that you will drive faster than you’d typically do in another car.

Lol when I read the title I was happy for them

They should put up a new one for each one vandalised

Unlimited funding for speed camera's and kickbacks, zero funding for road redesign? That sounds really safe!
They need a vandalism camera on the speeding cameras!

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A speed camera that was only recently replaced was among two cut down overnight in Cornwall.In the latest attack on the county's speed traps, police said the speed camera at Perranarworthal had been cut down for a second time after it was first vandalised in October 2023 and replaced in November.Another camera was also attacked on Tregolls Road in Truro at about 03:10 GMT, officers said.Devon and Cornwall Police said those responsible had left the scene before officers arrived.

The cameras in Perranarworthal were installed in March 2023 after campaigning from residents.Cornwall Councillor Peter Williams, who represents Perranarworthal, said: "It is absolutely horrendous why people go and do these things under the noses of where people live.

The speed camera on Tregolls Road in Truro had more than 17,000 activations the year after it was installed, according to police.Loic Rich, Truro City Councillor for the Tregolls Ward, said parents had complained about the dangers of speeding in the area.He said: "Where the speed camera is, or was, it's used by parents taking their children to two primary schools ... it's one of the busiest crossings in Truro and there's been a number of quite bad accidents.

"For hundreds of people in that area, the speed cameras actually had a really positive effect on their quality of life.

"Whoever's cut down the speed camera, and I don't know why they've done that or what they're trying to achieve, I think it's a real shame.

Cornwall Council and Devon and Cornwall Police, both members of the Vision Zero Road Safety partnership, said in a joint statement that they were disappointed to see "yet more mindless vandalism targeted at safety cameras".They said: "These devices were installed at the wishes of the community to improve road safety in areas, which had previously experienced high speeds and several serious and fatal collisions.“While these cameras are inactive, these communities no longer have the protection they were once afforded, which is really saddening.“The cost of replacing these cameras is also a burden which has to be footed by the taxpayer, making these attacks all the more bizarre."

The original article contains 434 words, the summary contains 350 words. Saved 19%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Meh, fuck the cameras. They don't stop the actual dangerous drivers and just end up tagging folks going 8mph (13kph) over. Fix the street and infrastructure.

From 1992 to 2016, speed cameras reduced accidents by between 17 to 39 per cent and fatalities by between 58 to 68 per cent within 500 metres of the cameras.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2017/10-October-2017/Speed-cameras-reduce-road-accidents-and-traffic-deaths-according-to-new-study

Fixing the infra would be great but local councils often just don't have the money to.
- Sounds like they need to increase road taxes then which will have the helpful knock-on affect of reducing the number of cars on the road.
So why do folks go 13 kph over? And why is that okay?
- Because god forbid we have a small variance for error and using common sense. God forbid I go faster when traffic is minimal or use any judgement while driving. Fuck me for thinking a ticket for going 5 over isn't worth a beating.

Good. Speed cameras are an abominable hypocrisy. The claim that they're there because safety is important is undermined by the total lack of action Devon and Cornwall police take against actual unsafe drivers.

I drove past a police officer standing with a speed camera recently at 20mph with another car driving less than two feet from my bumper.

Had I been speeding I'd have gotten a ticket, meanwhile the police watch this actually dangerous driver sail past them without taking any action.

Half a mile later I have to drive onto the wrong side of the road around a lorry parked on a corner, with almost no visibility of oncoming traffic.

Their moral authority is destroyed and their pretence shattered by their own inaction and ineffectiveness.

So tear down the speed cameras if it highlights their fiction. Devon and Cornwall police are great at many things. Traffic is not one of them.

A place where I lived they installed eur 600k worth of cameras. I mean every little corner was covered.

Well one day I got beaten up and the police didn't care when I tried to report it. And another day I found a backpack so I brought it to the police and this woman was incredibly rude to me.

I mean for 600k they could have a full time patrol there!
I don't really get your argument.

Speed cameras are designed to do one thing -- issue citations for speeding.

The job of the police officer is to identify a wide array of crimes and issue citations for them, when they observe them.

The incident where a car was tailgating you and the incident where a lorry was creating an unsafe driving situation have absolutely nothing to do with the speeding camera. Both of those situations are the responsibility of a policy officer, if they are alerted to the crime or observe it themselves. You have a valid complaint about the complacency of your local law enforcement, but what does your argument have to do with the speed camera?
- The basis for the rationale for putting up speed cameras depends on the police to act with an unquestionable moral authority.
  
  By acting with inconsistent moral principles they demonstrate their stated and genuine motives differ which undermines the moral authority they need to police by consent.

Speed cameras are known to decrease safety. There have been many studies on this.

"There have been many studies"

Then cites no studies
I had a look earlier and only saw the opposite (see https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2017/10-October-2017/Speed-cameras-reduce-road-accidents-and-traffic-deaths-according-to-new-study), do you have any links?

Alright, I gotta ask. What’s the speed limit, and what’s the threshold that you get mailed a ticket?

I’m asking because in the state where I live in the US, speed cameras were outlawed unless a police officer was stationed to sit there and watch it all day. The reason being is that people were getting mailed $200 tickets for going 1 mph over the speed limit. This was problematic because no car’s speedometer is perfectly calibrated, and people who tried to do the right thing were getting a dozen tickets in the mail before they even realized they’d done something wrong.

Also, cameras were disproportionately being installed in poor neighborhoods, punishing more people without the means to pay the tickets. Which is obviously not a safety measure, but a punitive measure.

The tolerance is usually 10% + 2 mph in the UK.
- So going 39mph in a 35mph zone gets you a ticket? I’d probably cut down the camera too, in that case. You’d spend more time watching the speedo than the road, which would make the road less safe.

I think speeding is fun actually

Damn right op, going at 30 rather than 20 is a terrible thing to do. Driving at 20 is the moral choice. Yes it means your commute will be 50% longer than if you'd driven at 30, but that's a sacrifice we should all be willing to make, said no-one with a 2 hour daily commute.

You use twice as mich fuel to accelerate from 0 to 30mph as 0 to 20mph, and if you hit a pedestrian at 30mph there's a 20% chance it will be fatal Vs 2.5% at 20mph.

You are never going to average the speed limits throughout your drive, unless you're speeding. In an urban environment, where 20mph speed limits are used, you will lose seconds on your journey.

But anyway, where is this coming from? The post is about speed cameras, not what the limits are set to. Why are you even bringing that up?
- Quite simple really, every speed camera you put up usually ties in with a lowered speed limit.
Except it won't be 50% longer, not unless you're going cross country. If you're driving anything less than 100+ MI =,10 mph isn't going to make pretty much any difference in your commute time at all. Not to mention your just going to hit a light and someone traveling the actual speed limit will then pull up right along side you while you wait
- 30mph - 30 miles in 1 hour 20mph - 20 miles in 1 hour, or 30 miles in 1.5 hours
  
  However, you do have a point about the hell that is stop-start traffic.
As someone who commuted an hour each way for a year, I both calculated to the best of my ability and then tested. I could shave 5 minutes off by going 65 instead of 55 on the 55 mph highways, and fuel consumption was significantly higher. Going 30 in a 20 zone will do jack shit for someone commuting on surface streets

I'm a car driver and enthusiast and I'll be the first one to ask... Why the fuck can my car reach 250kph if the highest speed limit in my country is 110kph???

Edit: If you think I'm complaining that I can't go faster then you understood the message wrong

Driving fast in the right circumstances is a blast, no one is denying that. E.g., doing a track day, or even road racing on a closed course. But it’s not the same as driving in public day-to-day. Here in the US southwest, in order to drive a road race in the 150 mph/250 kph class, you need a 5 point harness, fire suppression system, helmet and HANS device.

You simply don’t need to go that fast on a daily basis. It’s not safe for you, without all the above precautions, and it’s not safe for others around you.

Auto manufacturers use the top speeds/acceleration/torque stats for marketing. Drivers imagine they will have fun going that fast (see above, they can!), they perceive value in having “better stats”, so the market rewards manufacturers to keep selling daily-driver cars that have unrealistic top speeds. Combine that with the fact that most people can’t afford to have a separate “fun” car, or access to safe locations for motor sports, and we end up seeing people trying to have the fun they imagined on our shared public roadways, which is downright dangerous for everyone.

Get your kicks on the track. Your car’s top speed does not belong on public roads.
- Exactly! I think discussions have started to have speed limiters on new cars sold in Canada and it's perfectly logical. Why let manufacturers sell cars that can reach speeds that will make people face criminal charges if they get caught? It's ridiculous enough that we're switching to electric cars with 0-100kph under 7 seconds and no one bats an eye... The next few decades will be interesting, imagine all the new drivers accidently launching from stop signs in a fairly basic car that does 0-100 in 6 seconds...
Maybe... because it is dangerous to drive that fast when other people are around? Why don't you just buy a car that can only go as fast as the highest speed limit?
- Huh? What part of my message made you think I drive over the speed limit? I'm clearly saying that it's ridiculous that cars are sold without speed limiters!
Because a person from the USA invented the car, why else?
- Eh... In Germany, not the USA 🤔

The speed camera in question had 17,000 activations per year. Cut that fucker down or increase the speed limit. That's ~ two speeding tickets per hour. Every hour, day and night for an entire year.

Assuming most end with a reasonable fine, that single camera probably brings in over 700k per year.

The best thing to do would be to redesign the road, but the local council probably doesn't have money to do that. But drivers should be able to follow a speed limit, it's pretty basic.
The problem is not the speed limit or the camera, the problem are the drivers and their mindsets.
increase the speed limit

🤡💀