Gatso Protest

[ENSMR2]

Sorry I won't be. Nothing against anyone and I'm not saying I agree with all the gatso's etc. Just not my cup of tea.

[Shmed]

Don't really fancy filling the coffers of the taxman from the petrol duty, sorry. All for the cause, but can't afford to argue!

[GT4 Nick 966]

Is it worth starting a list of people that are going to join in,

Well I'm going to

1. euphonium_john
2. GT4 Nick 966

[blueorb]

I think a number of people have hit the nail on the head, in mentioning the word discretion.

If we had more police, using more dicretion (Instead of doing a robots job) More education and training for the motorist etc....We would hopefully see better road safety.

I was once as a young lad pulled over for having an unroadworthy car. Tyres very low tread, exaust hanging off etc....(My first car) and to top it all off, I had been drinking. I was breathalised, and the orange light illuminated. (OH xxxx!) Anyway, this copper gave me a serious telling off, told me that he was a young lad once, told me to go home, not drive for the rest of the day, and sort my car out. End of the matter as far as he was concerned. That copper had more of an influence on my future driving behavior than anything else could have done at the time. I never drink drove again, and still regularly check the tread of my tyres! His discretion made me a safer motorist. He could have thrown the book at me!

Anyway, just thought I would mention that there are some human coppers around, just that a few robots give 'em a bad name!

[Hurstie1981]

Yeah i dont like bald tyres. Its not that i specifically look for it, i mean my pet hates are mobile phone drivers, and FLT's, but.,....people skimp and save on tyres, and think that with them going low on treat its nothing, but just think, at around £20 a tyre for normal run of the mill cars, thats £80 of rubber keeping a £7000 car on the road, and you alive! Just something to think about!

[mr2daz]

I'll be there. Only thing is i'm already in the south so can we go from here to the north please?

[mr2daz]

I was once as a young lad pulled over for having an unroadworthy car. Tyres very low tread, exaust hanging off etc....(My first car) and to top it all off, I had been drinking. I was breathalised, and the orange light illuminated. (OH xxxx!) Anyway, this copper gave me a serious telling off, told me that he was a young lad once, told me to go home, not drive for the rest of the day, and sort my car out. End of the matter as far as he was concerned. That copper had more of an influence on my future driving behavior than anything else could have done at the time. I never drink drove again, and still regularly check the tread of my tyres! His discretion made me a safer motorist. He could have thrown the book at me!

Sorry to say I had nearly the exact same experience as you but I didn't actually drive anywhere. I was awoke in the early hours of the morning sat in my car outside a pub, p****d out of my head with the engine running to keep warm. Ooops!
The nice copper that woke me took my keys, locked my car up and sent me on a long walk home to my house. Only condition was that I had to collect my keys from the station from him the next evening. Wonderful!! He taught me not to be a complete ar$e in one short lesson and i've never been that stupid again since.

That's a whole two weeks now!

(I'm kidding!)

[blueorb]

We all do stupid things sometimes, usually as a result of inexperience, or not knowing any better. There are good coppers who at their discretion prefer to educate motorists. This I believe is the better option than using the heavy hand of the law.

Anyway, thanks to all those good coppers out there, and to the robots, come on..........Lets work together for the greater good not against each other!

Speed cameras need looking at seriously. What the answer is who knows, and due to such massive differences in opinions about cameras, makes action all the more difficult impliment. More research is needed and more driver education. If laws are made, let us at least be involved in their development and implimentation. We are after all supposed to be a democratic country.

[Sidewinder]

A guy at work yesterday showed me details of a fine he'd just been given (including photos) for riding in a bus lane. He was furious about it, but the simple answer is: Don't drive/ride in bus lanes! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out FFS.

It's the same with Gatso cameras. If you don't want to get fined/lose your licence/get points - don't break the speed limit.
I love driving too much to risk having my licence taken away from me, not to mention endangering myself, my passengers, my cars, or other people on the road.

[Raf]

I think its more of the unfair use of speed cameras that is the real issue. Whether you are a bobby or not you must admit that there are places where certain officers (maybe civilians as well, now that they are invloved) who target areas where it is easy to exceed the limit (down hills etc). If it wasn't such an issue then why would the AA & RAC amongst other motoring organisation complain on the the number of cameras being used and the way they are being used.

It is a tough debate as no doubt they are percieved to be helpful/save lives but the overall stats say otherwise. How many people slow down for a fixed speed camera and then speed up again? they are more like speed bumps!

In my surrounding area we have 3 primary schools and not one has a speed camera near them although they are off the main roads, yet you travel towards the motorways on link roads and they become prime spots for mobile camera's even though you have passed a few fixed ones.

If the point of the speed camera is to catch speeders (not necessarily excessive speed) then the Police (Lancashire) are doing a great job but if it's to save lives then they need to re-think their guidelines.

However, just to show I'm not totally against the Police (which I'm not ) I think the ANPR's are great, as the people who are most likely to take the p!ss with speed and kill people are the ones with unregistered cars and no insurance etc. Why cant we replace some Gatso's with ANPR's ?

[Hurstie1981]

Because there are many ways around it!

As i have seen twice now on the way to work. there is a green scooby wrx, id say around 95-96 model, and it has a DM51 plate. Now it doesnt take a rocket scientist to work out that it is highly unlikely that plate is not for his car, or it was registered exceptionally late (very unlikely).

All you need is your local thief to pinch a couple of number plates off a car, and drive around with those on. All ANPR does is link up with PNC and flag up any suspicious plates. ANPR is good, but very very expensive to run.

It is on the increase though, and is now being linked up to town centre CCTV cameras.

[blueorb]

Linked up to cctv cameras....WTF!

I feel that my human rights are being infringed upon! We are slowly becoming a control state.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING !

NO THANKYOU!!!!!

[Raf]

Linked up to cctv cameras....WTF!

I feel that my human rights are being infringed upon! We are slowly becoming a control state.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING !

NO THANKYOU!!!!!

Its not that bad considering mobile phone companies track our movements and by law have to keep those records for a x amount of time! Then its the ID cards with rumours of trackers on them (which i dont believe but you never know!!!). I'm sure theres lots of other things in the pipeline or systems we're not aware of! If its to fight crime its okay but can you imagine in the (distant) future if you can't skive off work because you're trackable!.... ... 1984!

sorry its a bit off subject.....

[Sidewinder]

I couldn't give a monkeys who's watching me or tracking my movements. If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.

[blueorb]

Who decides whats right and wrong?

Where is my input into the law making. The law isnt my law. We are told we live in a democracy, more like an elected dictatorship.

Ever read David Ike?

[Vindezal]

I may join in!

[Waldo Dobbs]

I couldn't give a monkeys who's watching me or tracking my movements. If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.

This (well.. something similar) came up somewhere else the other day. The discussion was about RFID tags in products but there're a lot of parrallels...

Let's say I buy several items of clothing, they're tagged. And my money/credit card is tagged. And my PDA/Mobile, etc. etc. All very well, means my washing machine can be intelligent, or whatever.

Here's the problem: Gap know I bought these jeans in their shop, so when I return, they're following my every move, and know I'm buying more stuff with them, which isn't a huge problem. But they also know that I'm wearing undies bought from Marks and Spencer. I don't really want them to know that.

When I leave the shop, and pass a sensor on High Street about 20 feet from a billboard, it knows what I'm wearing and carrying, and could change the advert accordingly. Think "banner ads" for RL. Shops could sell advert space in their windows, branding, plasma-screen space with instant targetted ads.

Now, this is all anonymous, but as you know, human nature is to leverage any advantage it gets. So let's talk about racial profiling for a moment. Governments, law enforcement, security guards, bouncers etc. have a tendency to target "the usual suspects" - if you're not wearing the right trainers, or the right jewellery, or are black/coloured/asian/arabic, you might get unfair treatment. Imagine that multiplied many-fold - not only can these agencies and people see the colour of your skin, they can also see where you shop, what brands you wear, what money and credit cards you're carrying, what electronic goodies you have, etc.

Let's go further - imagine one of these individuals or agencies has it in for you. This is getting closer to conspiracy theories, so I won't rant ...but if e.g you have an acquaintance working in the Body Shop, and they have an RFID tag reader, and you know she doesn't like you very much, and would love something to b1tch about, so she could theoretically read info about your clothes, goodies, what you bought so far that day, how old your shoes are, and what model mobile you carry. Do you want her (or anyone) to be able to do that?

Fast forward a bit - have you seen Gattaca? Where people are profiled on their DNA? The more information people have about you, the easier it is to pigeonhole you. RFID allows readers to effectively pigeonhole those who publish information about themselves and their belongings.

If you don't think this kind of pigeonholing and targetted ads happens already, read into loyalty cards, or how companies like Doubleclick use cookies. RFID brings that into the open air, and means privacy is no longer an opt-out option.

I didn't write that, but it raises some interesting points...

[blueorb]

Good point Waldo dobs,


Things are getting scary out there. We are being watched, and I dont like it one bit!

[Sidewinder]

Ok, so we're going a bit off-topic here, but who cares if a poxy computer system knows what underwear they've got on?

Taking from the example above, if Miss Body Shop wants to know how old my shoes are, she only has to ask! I really couldn't care less who knows what about what I buy/eat/smoke/drink/drive, and if it gives someone pleasure to find out - good luck to them for being so sad.

There are more important things in life to worry about than daft conspiricy theories and Big Brother-esq ideas. To take the Big Brother point to it's origins, those who have read 1984 will know that Winston wasn't at threat of being in trouble until he'd actually done something wrong...

Which takes me back to my original point about Gatso cameras.

[sadako]

those who have read 1984 will know that Winston wasn't at threat of being in trouble until he'd actually done something wrong...

Which takes me back to my original point about Gatso cameras.

Those who have read it also know that Winston was at threat of being in trouble from the moment he was born, All it would take was one of the neighborhood kids not liking him and reporting him, as they were taught at school, for saying something bad about big brother. Winston was being driven mad by always being watched, knowing that if he didnt conform to what the party considered the ideal (the people described as beetle-like in their mannerisms), he would dissappear with no trace just like all the other people that used to work with him.

Hope lies in the proles, problem is labour know this and they appeal to them with tax credits and practical immunity from the law