Hidden Ave Speed Camera's ?

[Proj London Health]

** Firstly, this is just marginally out of E' Dulwich'.

Is there any truth that there are hidden average speed cameras on Sydenham Hill? If you drive from the Crystal Palace end you pass the yellow boxed speed camera's, then as you are heading towards the Hornimans you pass the 'Dulwich Wood House pub'. c.400m after the pub there are cameras within the wooded section.

A cab driver's Sat Nav was pinging him of speed cameras but no sign of any. After many days he pulled up and found them covertly mounted. They may be generic CCTV, ANPR, or Ave Speed cameras, albeit the cab driver had learnt that speeding tickets have been given out from these cameras.

The starting point here is 'hearsay', can anyone put any specifics? This is a main artery entry / exit road for East Dulwich.

Best!

Freestyle-McCabe

[singalto]

If people drive at the correct speed, it doesn't matter whether or not there are speed cameras, surely?

[peckham_ryu]

Proj London Health Wrote:

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> A cab driver's Sat Nav was pinging him of speed

> cameras but no sign of any. After many days he

> pulled up and found them covertly mounted.

Some sat navs rely on data provided by users to identify where speed cameras are. You do get some false positives in that data, e.g. where a driver once saw a mobile speed trap. I'm just speculating that someone has seen the discreet camera your cabbie found, and tagged it in the database as a speed camera - when it may be some other camera.

As far as I know, speed cameras have to be sign-posted. And yellow. All the others round there are.

[rendelharris]

singalto Wrote:

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> If people drive at the correct speed, it doesn't

> matter whether or not there are speed cameras,

> surely?

Nail on the head with a solid bang there singalto - don't break the law, you won't have to worry about being caught breaking the law! Sydenham Hill is clearly marked out with the twenty limit...yet cycling along there at twenty I can guarantee being overtaken - fast and close! - by at least a dozen cars out of rush hour.

[sally buying]

Do you have an accurate speedometer on your bike or is it just guesswork from you?

[rendelharris]

sally buying Wrote:

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> Do you have an accurate speedometer on your bike

> or is it just guesswork from you?

Yep, GPS linked all bells and whistles etc.

[Chick]

But this road should be 30. It's big and wide and doing 20 feels like crawling along. I have no problems doing 20 any where else and Barry Road it feels quite normal but not this one.

I dont think they are average speed camera's they are normaly yellow.

[rendelharris]

Is it really that important though? From top to bottom Sydenham Hill is 1.26 miles, so if you had a perfect run through at 30MPH you'd save about one minute fifteen seconds compared to driving it at 20MPH. In the real world you've got zebra crossings, bus stops, the roundabout, all of which will eat into that tiny advantage. If you're cool with 20MPH anywhere else then there's not much point getting hetup about the forty seconds or so, is there? It's nothing out of your day, keeps to the law and lessens your chance of being in an accident - and if you are, dramatically lessens the chance of that accident having serious consequences. Why not?

Anecdote: when I was doing motorcycle training, my instructor made me stop and asked me why I'd slowed to 20MPH through a school zone. Because that's the limit I replied, somewhat puzzled. Exactly, she said, it's the limit, doesn't mean you have to do it. Why not slow to 10MPH, it'll cost you about ten seconds and make it almost certain you won't have an accident. Stuck with me, that did.

[Earl Aelfheah]

It is probably the one local road where I do genuinely feel that 30 mph wouldn't be unreasonable.

[sally buying]

Along with Herne HIll to Denmark Hill.

As most cars can now stop on a sixpence I dont see what the problem is with 30mph on roads as wide as these.

[rendelharris]

Cars may have massively improved, unfortunately drivers haven't - one could argue that given the massive increase in driver aids, brakes, handling etc it would be safe to increase the motorway speed limit to 120MPH, but would drivers have the skill to handle it? I can see an argument - though I don't agree with it - for not having a 20MPH limit. But if you have one, I can't really see why one would be so keen to exclude one road which, as above, might save about a minute on a journey. If all other roads are 20MPH it makes sense not to have exclusions I'd say, as in my experience people coming off a 30MPH road into a 20MPH zone don't immediately cut their speed, they tend to carry on as they were.

Anyway, at the moment it's a de facto 30MPH road anyway as only about 10% of vehicles, if that, are obeying the law.

[Seabag]

I live by that road, and I'm not a speed freak, but 20 there feels so bloody painful. You get maniacs coming by you going at 29mph, waving fists and foaming at the mouth.

Society is going to the nox-filled dogs I say.

[rendelharris]

I know just what you mean - I don't drive but Mrs.H is assiduous about sticking to the limit (most of the time) and it does feel like it'd be quicker to get out and walk. But that's only because we've grown up with an expectation of the speed we should be doing, if it'd always been twenty we'd just think it was normal...

People having a go at you for obeying the law are (expletive deleted)