Road Angel Prof. Connected

Personally I believe in driving safely, and I don't feel that instituting speed cameras as a means of revenue generation is promoting safer driving.

I have never had a single point on my license or a speeding fine, and I was driving long before the introduction of speed cameras or detectors. However, as I wrote in my review, a friend's wife picked up three points and a fine for straying, literally a few mph over the limit while driving her daughter home from school, and she is in no way a speed demon, or menace to other motorists.

The point is, so called "safety cameras" are not there to create a safer environment, they are placed at locations that will generate the most revenue. Try driving around North Wales, where the roads can be very treacherous, especially if speeding and you won't find a camera anywhere in sight. But find a wide, flat, straight, multi-lane dual carriageway and they'll be everywhere.

I live in a small village where myself and the other residents have actually requested the installation of speed cameras, since drivers speed past schools and nurseries and through the village centre, but to no avail. So in a residential village, where children are playing in parks and on greens there are no cameras, but a few miles away on a motorway, there are dozens.

Add to that the fact that many cameras are positioned exactly at the point where the speed limit changes, and are often obscured or hidden (despite legislation saying that this should not be the case) and it's obvious that money making is the key here.

Interestingly, Swindon council recently decided to cease support of speed cameras, since it felt that they did not reduce accidents and instead just generated revenue for central government.

It's very easy to say that anyone who strays above a speed limit is breaking the law and should be prosecuted, but then being drunk and disorderly is also breaking the law, but you don't see the police locking up everyone who rolls out of a pub on a Saturday night. The difference being that motorists are easier targets, and with a camera triggering an automatic fine and points, the police don't have to lift a finger. Arresting and prosucuting people for drunkedness, vandalism and anti-social behavior on the other hand, involves actually doing something, which is why most Friday and Saturday nights, the last place you want to be is in a town centre.

I have had mine a couple of weeks. This is an excellent device and works exactly as described on the Road Angel site. It's very useful to see what speed you're doing. My own sports car overstates speed by around 10% but the speedometer in my wife's runabout is pretty accurate. Not cheap and doesn't do satnav, but I don't need or want that anyway. The automatic updates through the SIM card work fine so it's not neccesary to carry it indoors and connect it to a PC for updates.

Its not about whether its right to speed or not. Either through guilt or innocence once you have 6 or 9 points on your licence you are not intentionally speeding though fear of loosing your licence and job....and this device is excellent and helping to remind you to check you speed regularly and at dangerous road junctions or straights where cameras have been installed.