Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
New Speed Cameras To Blitz 20mph Zones
The war on speeding is moving up a gear with plans for new high-tech cameras to police 20mph zones in suburban streets.
Read the story a the Daily Express...........
Read the story a the Daily Express...........
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by stuart on
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20 mph has worked on the ladder , but if everywhere is 20 it will put emissions up. (catch 22 situation ) or is this a plan for dirty Labour to hike more money off us !!!!!!
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I don't see how this will put emissions up. Driving at 20mph in London would be far more efficient than driving wherever you can at 30mph because you will not need to accelerate up to that speed and you will lose less energy when you have to stop or slow down. Of course, I could be missing something, please correct my logic if you think it's flawed.
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Revenues from parking enforcement have dropped of logarithmically because at the end of the day people dont like paying parking fines and have, by and large stopped parking illegally. Council revenue has dropped off correspondingly and they are looking for new avenues of funding. Say hello to 20 mph zones
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My car met those criteria. I think Haringey LOVES drivers. Before we started parking our cars in the street children were able to play there. This abuse of the commons has gone on long enough, I hope to see them raising the CPZ charges as much as they can every year.
We will all learn very quickly how to drive at 20mph and forget what 30mph driving past people's houses (with their children stuck inside on their Xboxes) felt like.
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I stand corrected. We're dual-fuel and the lowest ones is electric only. Sorry, I've not registered or done the CPZ ticket for a while.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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I suspect, Michelle, not only are your comments spot-on, but that “environmentally friendly parking charges" were oversold in other ways.
You "like the idea of hammering those that have huge emissions". I'd guess a lot of people agree with you. And when the banded emissions scheme was proposed they felt it had 'green' credentials they wanted to support.
But the central claim made for the scheme was that it was a "powerful tool" . . . "in the fight against climate change". And would "make residents think twice before buying high emission vehicles".
During the debates about the scheme, Cllr Ray Dodds and I questioned this claim. Where was the solid evidence to support it? And if it was about hammering the gas guzzlers and SUVs, then it was really a "green tax"; as its opponents claimed.
The Council's publicity did indeed stress that the charging bands targeted "gas guzzlers" and "four-by-fours". But when it came time to pay the new charges, a lot of residents discovered that quite modest family cars were hit - with a jump from £25 per year to £60.
At the same time there was an increase in the cost of visitors' permits. Cllr Haley originally proposed raising it from 30p to £1 for two hours. (I'm pleased to say, we managed to get this modified.) It would have hit most those residents who don't own a car. Some choose to cycle, walk and use public transport. Many can't afford a car. Or are unable to drive because of poor health or disability. But they do have family and friends, and other people with cars who want to visit them. At the time I asked: What’s “Green” about penalising people who don’t drive cars? I never had a sensible answer.
But of course, the key question is this: has the profile of car ownership in Haringey been significantly changed by the "environmentally friendly" charges? Bearing in mind that car manufacturers have been introducing models with lower emissions ─ so the profile should have improved in any case.
I'd be glad to hear about any comparative research on the figures in councils which introduced emission banded charges and those which didn't. But I did get Haringey's figures over the first two years and saw little to show the scheme is working to get more people choosing low emission cars. I'll post them on my Flickr photoblog so you can judge for yourself.
I'm totally in favour a 20 mph speed limit for residential roads for one simple reason. The scientific evidence shows that deaths and serious injuries from road accidents fall dramatically,
But I understand only too well why a lot of people ─ like Milo above ─ may be deeply sceptical and see it as yet another money-making wheeze. A key problem with bureaucratic spin and obfuscation is that it’s corrosive of public trust. And if public bodies and elected politicians destroy trust then people eventually refuse to believe us even when we are telling the truth about trying to save lives.
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Permalink Reply by BBU on
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Just another dressed up tax.
"Councils which oversee the country’s 2,000 20mph zones believe the cameras will be an effective way of restoring calm to residential areas without using road humps and chicanes."
Does this mean they will remove all the humps?!? It would be great if they did, then our car's front wishbones would actually last more than a month!! We've had each side replaced 3 times now.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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No, because at the Haringey Transport Forum the council engineer and the police have consistently said that there can be no 20mph limits without enforcement and that means speed bumps or chicanes. They claim that they do not have money for borough-wide speed cameras or police speed gun traps.
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As you know, Michelle, the banded CPZ charges based on vehicle emission figures were introduced in Spring 2007.
Ray and I did get answers to many of our questions. But not, we thought, sufficiently firm answers to justify this policy. We strongly argued our viewpoint but virtually all our Labour colleagues (not a cabal) disagreed with us. We were outvoted; that's how things work.
Haringey was not alone. As I recall, other London boroughs introduced similar schemes - Richmond for example.
I'd guess that for most councillors - in Haringey and elsewhere - the motivation for introducing banded charges was a genuine view that they were the right thing for the environment. Intuitively, people thought that making permits far more expensive for higher emission cars, and households with multiple cars, would discourage these.
In a sense, local councils introducing these schemes were running an experiment ─ using pricing to change people's behaviour. Is the experiment working? From two years' Haringey data, I don't think so. I may be wrong. Which is why I asked if anyone knew about any comparative research. But you are a statistician ─ If you like, I'll send you the figures I was given.
By contrast, from what I've read about the 20 mph speed limit, it seems the evidence base is far far stronger. The experiments have succeeded; lives are saved and injuries avoided.
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About the "Environmentally friendly parking charges", I've now had three years' figures. (Set out in the table.) Apologies for the mistake in my previous post when I said the banded Controlled Parking Zone charges were introduced in Spring 2007. In fact the starting date was 1 July 2007.
Without more background data the raw figures need treating cautiously. Even so they don't support the view that banded charges have achieved their aim of increasing the proportion of lower emission vehicles ─ at least among the cars owned by residents in the CPZ streets. Overall, it appears that critics were probably right. Since the scheme began, these charges have not been "a powerful tool in the fight against climate change". Instead they are a 'green', environmental tax on residents living in CPZs who choose to own a car with a high CO2 emission rating.
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