20 March 2006
When hidden speed cameras would be all right
We live in dangerous times. It will soon be possible for scamera teams to conceal speed cameras from motorists or disguise them as penguins.
To its credit, the Norfolk partnership has said it will remain open with its cameras, but of course we have had the usual rash of comment from non-drivers and bad drivers who think concealment, mass fining, imprisonment and probably beheading is an excellent idea if drivers won’t keep to speed limits.
Here’s something you weren’t expecting: I don’t see any reason why cameras shouldn’t be concealed from drivers – on three conditions.
The first is that speed limits are revised so that they make sense. In most cases this would involve increasing them by at least 10mph, and it would certainly involve stopping the Highways Agency and rogue councils from imposing frankly silly limits around road works, especially when the road works are abandoned – which seems to be most of the time.
The second is that there is some leeway, to prevent the dangerous practice of drivers constantly looking at their speedometers.
The third is that it is proved by independent assessors that speed is a major cause of road accidents or deaths. This would involve abandoning the present system, where police are encouraged to tick “inappropriate” speed as often as possible as one of a number of factors in accidents, and a string of other causes are treated as if they were speed-related for statistical purposes.
In other words, hiding speed cameras is OK if, and only if, simply exceeding speed limits really puts people at serious risk. I don’t believe it does. Many other things do, like putting on your make-up while driving, making mobile phone calls, changing compact discs, wearing muddy wellingtons, going to sleep, or reading maps, magazines and delivery lists at the wheel in the way that so many commercial drivers seem to do. Or just not paying attention.
A closet acceptance of these facts is the reason that even scamera partnerships have been reluctant to go for deception and entrapment.
So why not come clean completely?
English, but not as we know it
The main problem with foreign call centres is the difficulty in understanding people who speak English, but not as we know it.
A relative had a striking experience of this recently when she pulled her emergency alert cord in the middle of the night and was connected not, as she anticipated, with the warden of her sheltered home just outside Norwich, but with a voice she did not recognise.
Although she was ringing because of a medical emergency, the voice found difficulty in understanding what she was saying. She in turn had problems making out what was being said at the other end, but at last she realised the voice was asking her if she wanted some shopping done.
Not entirely helpful. In the end she gave up and turned to more traditional methods of solving her problem.
An explanation came the next day, when she discovered she had been speaking to someone from Sheffield. No doubt the middle-of-the-night shopping question arose because of the different time zones.
Inland herring fleet let out of the bag
I have to apologise to a correspondent who complained about my publicising the gravel pit near Reepham where Norfolk conglomerate Houseago Inc is hoping to extract helium-3.
He writes: “It is particularly galling, when we are trying to protect one of the last remaining herring fleets to be found inland, that you have highlighted the existence of this pond. “The processed kippers and bloaters (simply know as 'kick starters') have been firing up most of the UK's atomic reactors. In fact we have just sent our latest batch via Reepham Post Office to Iran, as a precaution in case Russia's kippers don’t turn up. “We want to remain as low profile as possible, so go and find another gravel pit somewhere else.”
It will be difficult to find another pit containing exactly the same features, but I will do my best.
Two good decisions by Norwich City Council
Say what you like about Norwich City Council, they have made two good decisions recently.
One was not to go along the road pioneered by Hinckley, in Leicestershire, where a man was fined for putting litter in a bin. Admittedly this is a lot easier to do than fining people for dropping it on the ground, but still you have to wonder about the council employee who tracked the “offender” down by examining used envelopes.
The second good decision by Norwich was to select John Drake, chief executive of YMCA Norfolk, as its next Sheriff.
For those of you who know him only for his appearance (loosely disguised as Patrick McGoohan) in the mid-60s cult TV series Danger Man, I should explain that John is wearing particularly well and has been at the hub of the huge amount of good work the YMCA has done in the city.
A glace at the Norfolk YMCA’s website at www.ymca-norfolk.co.uk reveals how much the belief that “everyone deserves the chance to fulfil their God-given potential” is central to everything he stands for.
It also reveals that Norwich is one of the hilliest cities in England. I have been saying this for a long time, but no-one believed me. Perhaps they will now.
Hitting the shops may be a gender thing
The foundations of 21st century existence may be crumbling. A correspondent points out that a recent news story revealed that “women are losing interest in hitting the shops as a leisure activity”.
So bad news for all those bright news shops in Norwich, not to mention Yarmouth and Pondhenge. But there is a ray of light. The same correspondent writes: “Personally, there's nothing I like more than giving the new Chapelfield centre a good bash every time I walk by.”
Maybe it’s just a gender thing.