[Pierre]

No doubt there are lies, damn lies and statistics

True, when you look at rules for the siting of cameras. "For a site to qualify for a fixed camera, it must have had at least four crashes that involve death or serious injury and/or at least eight crashes involving personal injuries in the past three years over a kilometre distance."

Note that the cause of the accident does not have be speed. However the figures you quote may appear impressive but they're not all that impressive when you dig deeper.

3 serious accidents and 8 bumps are all that is required. So if the camera has prevented a serious accident for 3 years it would be deemed to be 100% effective - yes?

So then why is the best score you can get 68%? that must mean that over the following 3 years of the camera being sited you've still had a serious accident at that spot, and the figures for other injuries are even less impressive.

Also if you want see the lengths that these "safety camera partnerships" will go to, to catch you check this out. Surely you can't defend some of these:

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/van.htm

but whatever, speeding remains a crime and gatsos an effective way of detecting that crime

Now, you know I can't argue against that. But it is the wider issues about Gatsos that is ****ing off the average motorist and actions like in that above link.

If people are unhappy with a speed limit on a particular road/area, then they should campaign to have it raised/lowered but to whine about cameras when they get caught is preposterous - they are not robbed, they get caught). We can't choose which laws we can and can't obey (well we can but if we get caught..)

Again a fair point that I can't really argue against. Apart from the fact the speed limits should be set correctly with out having to campaign for common sense.

but it is a populist cause which ceaselessly focuses not on the crime, but the methods of detecting and dealing with that crime

I don't think anyone, as I have always expressed, will argue against correctly sited cameras where there is an obvious safety concern.

People get piddled off by being restricted in their ability to travel at speed in locations where it is patently safe to do so but are restricted by badly sited cameras and or by practices shown in that link.