| What is the Tayside Speed Camera Conspiracy? |
It is a Government-backed scheme, which aims to raise revenue by criminalising and then fining every motorist in Tayside. It will do this by educating
motorists to regard speeding as the only traffic offence, by erecting irrelevant and confusing speed limits, and then photographing drivers who exceed them - even momentarily. |
| Is the conspiracy concerned with making the roads safer? |
Absolutely, definitely, positively - well, kind-of - um, no. The fact is we've known for years exactly what are the causes of accidents. Drivers who
exceed the speed limit are a very small contributor indeed (less than 4% of accidents are caused by speeding), but since nearly everybody speeds at one time or another, that's a huge number of fines
to be levied, and a huge quantity of money to be made. |
| What about research showing links between accident rates and speed? |
A government report once estimated that an average speed reduction of only 1% will lead to a 5% reduction in casualties. Presumably, if everybody
slowed down 20mph, we'd reduce accidents 100%. How idiotic is that? Then there's the oft-quoted "At 40mph, 90% are killed, and 30mph half are killed, and at 20mph 10% are killed". Yet
accident statistics show that the typical accident speed is only 11mph - not anything that cameras can help with. The truth is, there has never been a single piece of research or report that shows
clearly that exceeding a speed limit leads to higher accident rates. Not a one!
In fact, statstics clearly show that most accidents happen under the speed limit. Many accidents are caused by motorists driving below the speed limit, but too fast for the
conditions. Of course, those accidents are encouraged by speed cameras. |
| So, how are the speed limits decided? |
Good question. Glad you asked. In former times, there were basic rules (30mph in built-up areas, etc.). If there was some special feature of the road
that made a lower or a higher limit more appropriate, councils could make an exceptional change. Today, of course, there's an ever more confusing forest of speed limits springing up, with the trend
inexorably towards lower speeds. The councils are, of course, members of the conspiracy. Draw your own conclusions! |
| If you know what really does cause accidents, why don't you address those? |
There are three over-riding causes of accidents: tailgating (which directly causes a third of all accidents), overshooting junctions, and bad road
engineering (which is implicated in over 75% of accidents!).
Here are the problems. It's very difficult to catch people tailgating (that needs policemen to go out and police, which costs money). Junction overshoots happen at random
(although they seem to happen mostly at junctions, strangely enough).
Most serious is the road engineering: in order to fix these blackspots, we'll not only need to spend money on improving the roads, but we'd also have to admit that the road
design was at fault rather than fast driving - and we could never admit any such thing! |
| So that's why the accident rate, and the fatality rate, has been rising steadily in Tayside since you took
office? |
Yes. It's because while we're relying on one road safety technique to treat the cause of just 4% of accidents, all the other causes are being left to
grow like weeds. Dangerous driving, drunk driving, tailgating, drive-by shootings: none of these are our concern. If we can't measure it in mph, we're not interested. |
| Who is involved in the Tayside Conspiracy? |
As you've seen above, the local councils are responsible for erecting and changing speed limits. The police are responsible for enforcing them, using
the fixed and mobile cameras. There are also, of course, armies of bureaucrats employed by the conspiracy itself. |
| Where will the cameras be situated? |
There are very strict rules about where we can site our cameras. There has to be a history of speeding, and a sudden increase in accident rate, within
1km of the camera site (though, of course, the speeding, the accidents, and the camera site don't necessarily have to be all on the same road). That means that we are encouraged to site our cameras
on roads which have high speeds, but no significant accident record, such as here. |
| Hang on! Are you saying you don't need to site the cameras at accident black spots? You only put the cameras on safe
roads? |
Absolutely! Research has conclusively shown that cameras force drivers to take their attention off the road, to look at their speedos - sometimes three
times on the approach to each camera. If drivers were to do that at a dangerous black spot or in the vicinity of a school, the accident rate would soar! That would do our publicity no good at
all! |
| So that's how you can claim that cameras reduce accidents? |
Oh no - we've discovered something much better than that! It's something called "regression to the mean". You know how you can wait ages for
a bus and then three come along at once? Well, that's absolutely true, and that works in reverse too - if you watch three busses go past, you know you're going to have a long wait for the next one.
It's just the same with accidents - we wait for three accidents to happen at once, then put up a camera. Of course there are no more accidents! But the camera gets the credit - and we get more
money! |
| How will motorists know where the cameras are? |
Details of fixed camera sites and locations where mobile cameras are to be used will be publicised on this website and in the local media. We would
like to encourage drivers to read the newspaper and operate mobile computers while driving - that way they probably won't notice the cameras as they drive past them. Naturally, tourists will not have
the benefit of such information, and will be flash-flashed to extinction. |
| Are they easy to see? |
Yes, both fixed and mobile cameras are easy to see. Fixed camera sites are clearly identifiable by their characteristic "flash-flash" as you
drive past them. Mobile cameras operate from highly visible white vans, with orange lights (just like contractor's vans) parked in dangerous locations. (Just like the one in the picture at
right) |
| So, the conspiracy is just concerned with rasing revenue, not improving road safety? |
That's not entirely true. The scheme is funded though a cost recovery arrangement. That means we're not allowed to keep the revenue we raise. We have
to spend every penny of it on buying more cameras, on publicity to convince people we're not highwaymen, and on armies of administrators, policy planners, research assistants, fact-finding missions,
conferences in Kwazulu Natal, and so on. The number of people employed by the Conspiracy is growing every day! You can rest assured that we abide by the rules that state, quite clearly, that we're
not allowed to keep the fines, but instead have to waste the lot.
It's not about the money. It's about the power. |
| I'm confused about your legal status and your accountability. Can you explain? |
Not convincingly, but we'll try. We weren't elected, nobody knows who we are, and we're not accountable to anybody. When somebody recently tried to
tackle us for dangerous behaviour, it wouldn't stick because - legally - we don't even exist! We can do what we like, we say what we like, we can fabricate any evidence we like, and - because we
don't exist - we can't be held accountable even by the courts. In any meaningful sense, we're completely above the law.
For a complete explanantion of who we are, please click here. |
