Higher taxes would mean more police on the streets, meaning less need to use cheap cameras indiscriminately filming everyone. But unfortunately we have become obsessed in this country with the cost of everything so we don't like paying out.

I would be more inclined to accept these cameras if I felt that all the thousands of uninsured drivers it caught would get a decent punishment. But unfortunately they'll all get a slap on the wrist and that's it.

The German courts decided last year that automatic cameras which read registration plates are illegal...

Maybe not, but I wonder how many choose to drive without it given the gamble it represents, and I bet those WITHOUT are the worse drivers. Why bring it up if you don't disagree with it but in an attempt to discredit my arguement bring up a relatively unrelated item of information? In new Zealand their equivalent of the MOT is performed every 6 months. What does that prove/mean? NOTHING

Well you won't have seen 10 mile stretches with average speed camera checks that are common on the M1, those are for the safety of the workers.

The speed limit is not a target, you should rarely achieve 70mph if people followed the law because of cars ahead of you, driving conditions etc. I agree speed is not in itself dangerous, it's the stopping in less than 1 second that kills you when you hit a car that pulls out into you or similar. Driving without due care and attention is far more dangerous than speed, however there has been a speed limit now for a very long time and it is arguably safer than letting people go at the speed they want.

I have a lot of problems with people speeding like that, because it is at that time when a lot of drink drivers are out, or very tired motorists, when I do my 700 mile trip I am often on the road from 6pm to 2am or so, and I can say that it would be damn near impossible to do 100mph around the m25 at 6pm given the gridlock but wouldn't never do anywhere near that that late at night as I have seen the way some people drive and it is scary.


An ID cards are not mandatory. This is not the topic of discussion either. I reckon Google probably has about the same if not MORE information about you than the government will, probably places like Tesco, your bank and maybe even your local corner shop also in way of spending habits, brand awareness etc.

No, but it would flag the car as stolen, something a policeman cannot tell instantly just by looking at it, what if that person driving it was in fact 17, and a premiership footballer. You couldn't tell with them going past you but a database could tell you the owner and their age/address just like the police can currently.


APNR is in police cars, it's very slow (takes 20-30 seconds per car if memory serves correct) at getting an image then reporting back, a static camera would be able to do multiple cars and does not require a police person there drivign a vehicle behind.


I don't think you comprehend that what this will do is exactly what the police currently do, however it will be performed on a larger number of cars as opposed to spot checks at the discretion of a few police officers on the road. The police have the ANPR in their car however these cameras can do more cars quicker (could also be used to track stolen cars), the police can check the DVLA to see if a car is stole/off the road etc. Again the cameras can.

If you rarely use a motorway I doubt you have much to worry about

Doesn't even have to be a suicide bomber. Spain has had ID cards for years, did it stop someone blowing the living daylights out on the main train station in Madrid at rush hour? Did it hell. How would having an ID card stop someone leaving a bag with a bomb in it somewhere or (as I was actually caught up in) leaving a transit van full of fertilizer in the middle of Manchester and demolishing the whole area?

ID cards will not stop terrorism. Full stop. They never have anywhere that's had them in the past. By definition if the people committing the terrorist acts are 'native' then they can't prevent them - they may possibly even make them easier, because a police force that comes to rely on ID cards ceases to work with other 'harder' means of identification that may actually present a better deterrent. The only function of an ID card is to allow the authorities to separate those people who have ID cards from those people who don't. All this guff about protecting the population from the various terrors which might assail us are an utter and simple lie.

Jon

I said having car insurance is an advantage, I never said making it mandatory was.



The speed limit on the motorway has only been around since the 1970s. Speed is not a problem, how people drive is. Again, this is something a policeman can enforce but a camera can not. I would also submit that if a driver is tired they should not be driving full stop. The same goes for people who have been drinking.



That's still preferable to rolling it out everywhere, plus you have the advantage of the Constable being in a position to instantly act on the information. Spying on the entire population is simply not acceptable.

I haven't read all the points of both sides but I have to say I'm with Finlay on this one.

If I'm on camera when someone comes and beats me over the head with a baseball bat and nicks my wallet there is a lot higher chance that he is going to get caught.

Equally, if someone smashes into my parked car and drives off but there is a CCTV camera watching the road then the driver will be caught.

I can see no disadvantage to myself by having the cameras there. As long as they don't put so many up that I can't walk down the street then I'm not that fussed.

I'm not going to do anything that I wouldn't want to be on camera anyway.

Well I'd like the option to do WHATEVER I want, without a camera watching. Whether it's "something to hide" or not. Fair enough CCTV helps certain situations, but it's not a replacement for proper policing and it certainly shouldn't be used to track every vehicle in the country, just because we have the technology now. That's just wrong.

So you really don't mind if a camera can watch you leave your house, follow your movements to work, watch you at work or when your out, be able to tell what you ate for dinner, and watch you go home everyday - hell, if you don't mind all that why not let them install cameras in your house - just 'incase' someone breaks in.

Furthermore, this system isn't just being used to catch uninsured motorists and the like, if your movements are 'suspicious' you can be detained under the Terrorism Act for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG - (as in original article) - god knows what else they can do with this system.

Also, what stops 'proper' criminals/terrorists from easily using fake/copied numberplates from identical vehicles.



I totally agree.



They've got the right idea then...

TBH I really don't mind.

I know there are no cameras at work anyway, nor are there any cameras where I have lunch, nor are there very many cameras on my way to work.

But if there were, I really wouldn't care.

There isn't really anything I can do about it. As long as they don't go and broadcast my life "Truman Show" style to the rest of the world then the camera recordings will go onto some hard drive somewhere and probably not be seen by anything but a computer processor.

As for the suspicious behaviour thing. I don't tend to walk around in large groups trying to avoid looking at any cameras that might exist with big bags of fertiliser.

I'd prefer it if the terrorists didn't exist in the first place. That way we wouldn't have the need for the cameras watching for "suspicious behaviour".

I'd also prefer it if people didn't drink/drive or speed or drive without insurance or MOT etc... that way we wouldn't need speed cameras.

Until we live in a world where none of that exists then we are, unfortunately, going to have to be looked after by people with cameras.

I disagree Oli. We could be "protected" by actual people, with eyes and everything. Speed cameras are a revenue generator, that's all. Any other cameras could be viewed in the same way. They don't prevent crime, they simply assist in making people "pay" for their crimes. You might consider that the presence of actual people could deter people from committing crimes in the first place. If they help convictions, great. But honestly, shouldn't we be working to prevent crime, not punish it after the fact?

I think the problem isn't that the UK doesn't have enough surveillance. It is a social problem. The government needs to combat the symptoms that require so many cameras, not simply keep adding them.

When I was a child, we didn't have cameras and I could go out and play in the local park from dawn until dusk and my parents wouldn't worry.

When I had my first house, I could leave the back door wide open, when I went shopping. If I forgot to close the windows or lock the door on my car, a neighbour would remind me about it the next day.

Here, now, in Germany it is the same. If people have problems, people still help. If I forget to lock the front door on my flat, when I go to bed, it isn't a big problem.

I can walk the streets at night without any worries, my girlfriend's daughters ride their pushbikes to the next town or village to meet with friends in the evening and nobody worries.

My mother is scared to leave her flat and walk 300M to the local chippy!

Where I used to live, in England, cars which are left out overnight are vandalised, gardens are destroyed and people have added additional security locks to the doors. In the 4 years after I left, 3 people have been murdered since I left! In the 14 year I lived there, there was 1.

I am not saying England in the 70s through the 90s was perfect. I am not saying Germany is perfect - far from it, the social decay I noted from the 90s on in England is starting to happen here.

I think one reason Germany is still behind England in the increase in violent crime and the need for extra surveillance is the family structure. Germany is still very family oriented and children are brought up with a modicum of discipline and respect for the family structure - and through that, a respect for authority and other people.

A lot of the violent crime seems to come from families which have moved to Germany and failed to integrate - especially Muslim families, I am sorry to day. One of the most spectacular cases last year was the son of an Afgani family, who killed his sister, because she refused to wear a chadri or even a head scarf, wore make-up and went out and did her own thing. She integrated into western society, but the male side of her family just saw a total disrespect for her family and plotted to kill her!

Likewise, a lot of the "Russian Germans" seem to cause problems, although I haven't experienced any first hand. They are stereotyped as heavy drinkers, the idiots who put shiny wheels, loud stereos and c**p paint jobs on clapped out cars and racing through the neighbourhood with the stereo blasting. But they are mostly harmless, with the odd brawl when they have too much to drink.

It is funny, I live here and think how secure and peaceful it is, compared to what I left behind in England, yet the people here are alarmed at the decline in the family structure and how violent the youth are becoming. From what I see, the trends for decline seem to be about 10 years behind the UK here. American gangster culture seems to be the big thing among the youth now, which means that there is more violence and disrespect for girls / women and authority figures in the schools. At the moment, it isn't a major problem, but it does seem to be spreading.

I am not saying we need to go back to puritanical or tyrannical family structures, but parents need to take care of their own lives, set an example for their children and discipline their children, when they step out of line (and I don't mean a good hiding behind the wood shed either).