I have been in the market for a good chess set recently. It seems that unlike many other products there are not many household brand names that one can rely on. Instead it seems that almost every website selling chess markets their very own products and lots of them! With a vast array of fairly dimsmal product shots to choose from it’s hard to tell if you are getting a better price on an identical product, or buying something inferior. It’s going to be a tough choice. Lets hope I get landed with a chess set that steps up to the mark in terms of quality! Wish me luck!

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To update you all on an earlier post about the speed camera poll on the Lothian and Borders safety camera partnership website we can confirm that the no vote came through with a huge majority. Unlike Labour in the Glasgow East By election we wont be demanding a recount. It therefore comes as no surprise what so ever that the poll and all evidence of it has totally vanished from the Lothian and Borders SCP website.

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Today it was announced that the government will be scrapping their October rise in fuel duty. Already delayed from March this has come as a welcome concession from the government who have driven the knife into the motorists wallet solidly over the last decade.

Record oil prices have caused a 20% hike in fuel prices since the beginning of 2008. Much of the current economic gloom has been caused by the soaring cost. The Bank of England blame the high inflation on the fuel costs, businesses are suffering as a result, families are struggling to find the extra cash to pay for it.

Indeed while inflation remains high the Bank of England seem intent on using interest rates to keep it under control. At a time when mortgage payments are crippling many working households and repossessions are set to double to over 50,000, rising interest rates certainly wont be a welcome strategy.

In Prime Ministers Question time today Gordon Brown confirmed that he did think petrol and Diesel prices were indeed too high. Quite amazing coming from a man who has stuck by a policy of increasing them year on year since his party came into office. He rattled off a number of initiatives he had set in motion that would lower the cost. Many of these involved long term solutions to drill for oil in untapped areas, nothing that will help the short term problems facing the struggling people of Britain.

Critics of the plans to scrap the 2 pence rise have pointed out the £1 billion shortfall the treasury will suffer as a result. It seems this short sighted economic approach is where the government are getting things wrong. While fuel costs remain high businesses suffer, the economy falters and growth goes into reverse. The treasury have already benefited from an extra £2 billion in revenue raised from the current oil price. This comes from the VAT on fuel and taxes of the oil companies larger profits.

As the economy nose dives in recession the loss to the treasury in unearned and therefore unpaid taxes will be worse than anything they can remember. It’s worth remembering that 97% of everything we buy, eat and wear is brought to us on the back of a haulage truck. An industry who are being squeezed out of business as foreign drivers from Europe fill up with cheap fuel then drive onto UK shores to compete with an unfair advantage.

Yet again it seems the answer is starring Gordon and Alistair in the face: Slash the duty on fuel. Yet for some reason they just can’t grasp the concept. The benefits would include lower inflation, a stimulation of the economy and massive relief for families who are feeling the pain that Gordon still refuses to acknowledge. Of course the green eco lobby would be furious at a lowering of duty. The choice is simple it seems, we use fuel and go bust, or we use fuel and don’t go bust. It seems Labour expect us to believe that if we pay vast sums of cash to emit carbon it’s then it’s all OK and planet earth will live to see another day. Do they know something we don’t? Is taxed carbon output actually better for the environment?

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North Somerset Council the local authority who govern the town of Swindon have decided to pull their funding out of the local safety camera partnership. At present they contribute £400,000 to the scheme which operates a number of fixed and mobile speed traps in the city. They have decided that the money would be better spent on more effective road safety measures.

The Conservative council have upset members of the Labour party at Westminster by announcing that the cameras are nothing more than a revenue raising tool for the Government. Since coming to power Labour have developed something of an obsession with the speed of vehicles and Britains roads have been revolutionized by 1000s of cameras all over the place. Well, not quite all over the place. As yet most people are yet to actually see one outside a school or on a narrow dangerous road.

Critics of the council have set up a little group called ‘hands off our speed cameras’ in an attempt to drum up support for the speed cameras. Some going as far to suggest that the council will have blood on their hands if they remove the cameras. At a time when labour have instructed judges to hand down longer prison terms for drivers who kill and injure on our roads this does seem a little odd. Why sentence the drivers at all when we should be bringing councils into court for not putting up a speed camera?

The announcement by the council has come as something of a welcome shock to genuine road safety campaigners who have been discredited in the past for pointing out the lack of effectiveness of speed cameras. The Government have been known to suggest outlandish figures on the lowering of death rates by cameras. It’s important to note that their figures relate to ‘camera sites’ and not all stretches of road. If there are two accidents on a 50 meter stretch of road in 2003, a camera goes up in 2004 and just one person is killed in 2005 they boast a massive 50% reduction in deaths for that location.

Experts are aware that road death statistics on a stretch of road can be very random indeed, sometimes a year that ends in three deaths can be followed by 4 years of no deaths. It’s therefore easy to see how the figures can be spun to suggest that cameras do work.

The council plans to make a final decision by September of this year, lets hope they are the first of many councils to abandon this unnecessary stealth tax on the motorist.

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At a time when the government are at their lowest ebb, the economy is on it’s knees, inflation is up and consumers are feeling the most financial pain in over a decade it would seem mad to raise road tax by a vast margin. But that’s what Labour plan to do. It’s been labeled as yet another green tax by the government despite green peace saying the new plans gave green taxes a bad name and would not improve the environment.

After the ten pence tax band removal earlier this year you would think Gordon and Alistair would have learned their lesson. Not so it seems, not only are they prepared to drive a knife into the personal finances of many working class people they are also happy to lie to Parliament about how many people will be affected by the tax increases.

The current figure seems to stand at around nine million drivers who will be worse of under the plans. Gordon Brown had previously said that over half of motorists would be better off. He later had to back track and re define the phrase ‘better off’ to mean ‘better or no worse off’.

Despite massive opposition to the plans only a minor concession has been made which is to delay them a year. Instead of being rolled out over 2009 and 2010 they will be rolled out over a longer period. This it seems was enough to persuade many Labour MPs to vote for the increases. It’s most likely that when the full force of the changes do come into effect labour will be sat on the opposite side of the house of commons and be laughing as the tax goes up just as the Tories landslide back to power.

What will the higher road taxes mean for you?

The new tax changes will mean cars that people have already bought will be subject to massive hikes in road tax. Only the least polluting vehicles will see a reduction. A new top band of tax ‘Band M’ will be introduced for cars that emit more than 255g CO2 per km. A years tax will cost £425 for a band M vehicle and £900 in it’s first year on the road, this includes a ’showroom tax’.

One of the biggest problems people will face will be the value of the car they already own. If a working family bought a large people carrier or estate car a few years ago they will most likely see the value of the vehicle plummet. For those that still owe outstanding finance on the cars they will be be sent into a state of negative equity on their vehicle that will become impossible to sell. The tax disc and the fuel in the tank will be the two most valuable parts of the car!

The higher tax rates will raise an extra £430 million for the Treasury next year and £700 million the year after so it’s not difficult to see why Gordon and Alistair are so keen to get the increases through. Increases in tax for gas guzzlers are huge, decreases for eco cars are modest or non existent.

The recent hikes in petrol prices have seen the treasury net around £2 billion in extra revenue and VAT, this it seems is not enough pain for the motorist and more beating of their finances is required. It’s clear that the net result of these changes will not be a reduction in polluting cars on the roads, only an increase in the amount of money working people pay to the government.

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A German company by the name of Pro Contour have won a design award for their laser triangulating system that can read the tread depth of a tyre on a car while it’s moving. When on show in Germany the road enforcement authorities were showing a lot of interest in the device.

The device can be securely hidden inside a manhole cover and used to measure the tyre tread depth of cars as they pass by. At present only two types of driving offence can be enforced by a camera, speeding and driving through red lights. This device would mean another type of automated enforcement is added to the armory used by road traffic enforcement.

Extensive research has shown that having worn our tyres does affect the safety of the car significantly. As the tread depth gets less and less the stopping distance becomes more and more. Often with a 30% difference between a set of new tyres and a set of worn ones. A car running on bald tyres does pose a safety risk. It will be interesting to see what the reacion would be if this kind of enforcement came onto UK roads.

Lets finish with the thought of an inventor in his shed trying hard to come up with an automated drink drive enforcement system…. now how would that work?

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Lothian and Borders safety camera partnership have followed their Yorkshire colleagues in an attempt to poll viewers of their web site on the effectiveness of speed cameras. In fact, we chose to write this article today while the poll was still live because much like the Yorkshire poll there is a huge majority No vote. The question on everyones mind at present is “when will they pull this one off?”

It’s clear that the general public still have a complete lack of affection for speed cameras and draconian speed enforcement. Yet the partnerships will insist on continuing to add these polls to their websites in some sort of attempt to gauge public feeling about what they do. Drive blogger will continue to monitor the progress of this poll and we hope to be able to publish a final result instead of another headline about poll pulling. Watch THIS space…

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A civilian speed camera operative who was working for Lancashire constabulary has been sacked for failing to operate speed cameras in accordance with their instructions. He then lied on court papers stating that he had in fact conducted the speed checks correctly. As a result of his actions over 500 cases have had to be reversed and £35,000 worth of fines repaid.

The man, who is yet to be named, was working as a civilian speed trap operator for Lancashire constabulary. He was in fact the highest performing member of his team in terms of the number of tickets issued. The IPCC (independent police complaints commission) said that “…he was proud of his position as the top performing camera technician” & “it would appear he pursued quantity at the expense of quality – and at the expense of hundreds of motorists”

The IPCC report suggests that the operative failed to conduct basic calibration tests before carrying out speed checks. Presumably by failing to do this he managed to spend the extra time catching additional motorists. The checks should be in place to ensure accurate readings are taken by the operative. To make matters worse the operative signed court papers stating that he had carried out the checks which was in fact not true.

Recent cases of speeding drivers lying on court papers have involved criminal charges for perverting the course of justice. Indeed in the last two years the courts have handed down custodial sentences to people who have deliberately lied on speeding court papers. Although a case file was passed to the CPS in relation to this operative they have decided not to raise any charges against him. The BBC also reported that two other staff members are facing disciplinary hearings as a result of the investigation.

It is hoped that this case will send a clear message to the safety camera partnerships in Britain who have long been accused of taking inaccurate speed readings in their attempts to prosecute drivers on mass for speeding offences. While the public feel they can generally rely on the honesty and integrity of real police officers when carrying out their duties the same can not be said for target driven civilian enforcement operatives that now run the vast majority of our speed cameras.

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The Yorkshire safety camera partnership, or casualty reduction partnership, as they like to be called, have pulled a poll off of their website because most of the votes on the poll were not in favor of speed cameras. The poll was initially put up on their website and asked for a yes, no or don’t know answer on the subject of speed cameras effectiveness at saving lives on Britains roads.

After a number of votes had been cast the number of ‘no’ votes outweighed the ‘yes’ votes with a staggering 94% of people stating that they didn’t think the speed cameras were effective. Shortly after this the partnership pulled the poll stating that spammers had voted many many times in order to artificially affect the results.

This action was met with a barrage of complaints against the partnership who responded by saying “The poll was 74% in favour one day and - literally - 94% against the next”. It’s not impossible for the results to change like this and still be genuine. After all, the partnership state that they only have 5,500 visitors to their site each month, hardly a high traffic website by anyones standards. On day one of the poll after the first person has voted we would expect to see a 100% result for one of the options. If by day two a further twenty people vote the results could change to a few percent short of the exact opposite. With such a low traffic website it’s quite feasible to see huge swings in the results caused by genuine votes.

On their comments page the partnership reveal a number of favorable statistics that suggest huge public support for their cameras. Yet if their polling systems are so open to spamming and abuse, as they suggest, how on earth can we be expected to take any of these figures seriously? Indeed if their online polling system is so open to spam and abuse why are they being allowed to conduct research in such a diabolical and unprofessional way? How many of their facts and figures have been drawn from similar polls in the past which could easily have been abused be people wishing to influence the results?

Like many of the ‘partnerships’ that run the speed cameras in Britain Yorkshire have changed their name to a ‘casualty reduction partnership’ presumably due to the negative sentiment now felt for the phrase ’safety camera’.

Despite the many dubious poll results seen on the ‘casualty reduction’ websites the department for transport figures from 2005 state that only 5% of road traffic accidents are caused by a driver exceeding the marked speed limit, with 12% attributed to “traveling too fast for the road conditions”

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