Community Road Watch 18th May (next on 1st June)

Continuing the discussion from Community Speed Checks 2017:

I took part in this today. The two lovely PCSOs accompanying me did all the hard work (note taking etc) whilst I got the glamour of using the speed gun

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We filled four pages, listing cars exceeding 24mph. As you might expect, there were no shortage of people exceeding the new 20mph limits. They’ll receive a warning letter (not a fine or points).

Catch of the day was a Bentley doing 44mph. Remarkably, the driver saw us but didn’t slow down.

Pleasantly surprised at the reception we got from pedestrians - very friendly and supportive of the efforts. And no aggro from car drivers either.

If @LewishamSTT organises another local session I’d recommend taking part. It’s only an hour and a half of your time, and you get to catch up with our excellent police and make local roads safer at key locations (we were near Dalmain school this morning).

When local drivers see patrols like this, the speed-calming effect lasts for six+ weeks.

44 mph! Ouch!
Did you catch any cyclists going too fast - i may have to try next time you/they are about.

No MAMILs out today, but I’m sure you or @anon64893700 could easily clock 35mph on these roads. The speed gun worked best on cars, and struggled on two-wheeled road users.

I might hit 35 mph if I fell off a cliff but other than that I am lucky to get much over 20!

Same here mate. 20-24 around town tops for me really. Average on commutes etc is about 14-16

Nice work on the speed checks.

What a great idea. It shows the intention to police the new speed limit, but in a meaningful way. Warning letters are a great way to show the Council is serious.

Out of interest, what %age would you guestimate of drivers going over 24 mph?

On Brockley Rise I’d guestimate about 20% of drivers passing me (at the junction of Lowther Hill) were going 24mph+. That seemed high to me, considering there were:

• a very prominent speed camera (albeit on the other side of the road)
• a team of flouro-clad people with a speed gun in plain sight
• a school (Dalmain)
• a bend in the road
• plenty of pedestrians and parked cars.

We filled four pages of A4, but we were limited by hand scribbling speed (we had to record time, speed, number-plate, vehicle make and model for each speeder). Often, a series of cars driving at 25-35mph would pass in a block. We could only record the first car.

Moral of the story - if you want to drive at 30mph, do it closely behind someone else that’s doing 30mph

There are 2 schools there - St William of York is up on Brockley Park. The lollipop guy at the zebra crossing has to deal with some pretty aggressive driving sometimes. He does a sterling job!

I think it’s a good initiative and really appreciate you taking the time both to do it and to write it up and share the experience here. While a warning letter might not be as effective a deterrent as a fine or the threat of losing a driving licence, it’s something.

Well done. I’d like to see some actual enforcement of speed limits. I visited Ontario a couple of years ago and they have actual traffic police and what appear to be effective deterrents for speeding - graded according to severity. Fines double in school zones, can be up to $10k and if you’re more than 50km/h over the speed limit the police can immediately seize your car - I imagine your 44mph man would be a lot more careful if he had that much to lose.

They also make use of drones that measure speed and take pictures of license plates.

I wonder, though, if speed is sometimes a bad proxy for measuring dangerous driving? If police energy is directed anywhere, I’d sooner see enforcement of actual safe driving. Drivers that overtake at speed / use their phone / pull out without looking / fail to observe lights or one-ways / mount kerbs etc - surely these are the real rogues of the road.

Having said all that, if Mr 44mph Bentley got his car seized I’d be delighted.

This is potentially a rabbit hole, but it’s worth exploring. To begin, I agree - it’s sometimes a bad proxy for measuring the quality of driving, but generally it’s a pretty good one. I grew up in Belfast and as a side effect of enthusiastic and well-resourced policing, driving and vehicle standards were much more rigorously enforced than I’ve ever seen in England.

Speed is a common factor in a lot of accidents and prima facie, if something goes wrong and you’re going fast, you have less time to react, correct and avoid a bigger problem. Speed can be easily measured against an objective limit and thus you can have a simple measure of compliance with the law. So you have something which is easier to measure and enforce. If someone is confident enough to think that they can safely drive faster than the speed limit, I’d argue they’re more likely to think that they can drive and text without a problem, or overtake others in dangerous circumstances.

More generally, and keeping it prima facie again, speed is also a common denominator in lots of different types of bad driving (dangerous overtaking, for example) and it’s easier to get a conviction with something which has an objective strict liability test (speeding) than something like dangerous or reckless driving. The problem with pulling out without looking (as an example) is that it’s a very difficult behaviour to capture.

Personally I think education should go hand-in-hand with enforcement to improve driving standards and make roads safer, for drivers and all other road users.

As a side note, I’m not bothered whether the 44mph man was in a Bentley or a banger - arguably he’d be more inconvenienced if he had an inexpensive car to lose because it might be all he can afford. The rich man could probably afford to replace his Bentley (though doubtless there would be a fit of righteous indignation).

I tend to agree with this as I see so much dangerous driving that isn’t at speed. Speed is easy to define and easy to police through automated methods so gets more attention and input while other dangerous driving is harder to police as it requires feet on the street (or wheels)…

I had a close call today coming down College Hill when a van turned sharp left without warning and yesterday I saw a guy on Brockley Rise eating his cereal while driving!

Still supportive of the initiative though and I think it’s a good idea - do you know what happens if say the same car is spotted multiple times by the Community check?

I think @LewishamSTT is best-placed to answer this question.

If a Community Road Watch finds a hot spot for speeding, a police officer will attend that area and enforce the limits. If an officer (as opposed to PCSO) is in attendance, speeders can be stopped and punished with fines / points / court judgements etc.

Swoon

It must be a thing, saw someone doing that a while back, an old Ford Estate.

I’m not overwhelmed by blanket 20mph speed limits, however I’m fully in favour around schools. I think in NZ or Australia they have temporary speed limits pre-primary opening schools and after school finishes, for 1-2 hours before and after - I’d quite like to have something like that here.

I also think some 'school \ children crossing signs might help.

Thanks Chris for participating yesterday. All the details of vehicles exceeding the speed limit have been passed on to TFL for letters to be sent out.

Hopefully we’ll be back in the SE23 area sometime soon. I will do my best to advertise the date in advance on this forum.

In the meantime if anyone is interested in volunteering or would like to request a specific location/time please let me know lewishamcommunityroadwatch@met.pnn.police.uk

When vehicles are identified as exceeding the speed limit by Community Roadwatch the following happens

The registered keepers of the offending vehicles are sent a first warning letter.

If caught a second time the second letter warns the keeper that if caught a THIRD time the vehicle will be added to ANPR and may be targeted for enforcement.

Third time + offenders will be added to ANPR and considered for targeted enforcement (a separate exercise to Community Roadwatch).

If we’re going to have vigourously enforced speed limits, then perhaps we should have limits appropriate for the roads rather than politically motivated arbitrary figures? Blanket 20mph has more to do with greenwashing and promoting cycling these days than it does with safety. No doubt I sound like some rapid libertarian petrolhead for suggesting such a thing, but even the DfT is starting to reduce speed limits on trunk roads for air quality reasons rather than safety ones. Ergo, vigoruously enforcing speed limits won’t be hugely effective in reducing fatalities.

Given the vast amount of people driving whilst texting I see these days, surely a focus on that rather than enforcing an arbitrary figure would be more appropriate?

Also, targetting otherwise law abiding citizens is lovely, but something more effective needs to be done with those people riding mopeds dangerously without number plates, or on stolen vehicles or in cloned vehicles none of whom can be touched by sending a letter to a registered keeper.

I have been to a pubic event given by the Mayor’s office and TfL where they have been quite clear on the matter. While safety is a primary concern, they area also keen to use policy to encourage driver’s off the road. I wish I could find my notes but I distinctly recall seeing slides that London roads were running in excess of capacity. So safety. And getting people who really don’t need to use a car not to. There was a health bit too.

We are running another community Roadwatch session tomorrow afternoon (01/06/2017) on Perry Rise at 1430. Please email lewishamcommunityroadwatch@met.pnn.police.uk if you are interested in participating. Thanks

I wasn’t able to go, but would be interested to see a write up of what happened yesterday from anyone who did? It’s quite a fast road, and I’d say 20mph is widely ignored by private and commercial vehicles alike.