Well... seems new speed cameras have gone up on the A446 - "London" or "Lichfield" Road, depending on what end you start at, connecting the M42 at Kingsbury to the A38 at Bassetts Pole (west mids - just out of sutton towards tamworth - where the Belfry golf course/hotel is). Oddly enough for a pair of new ones, one is a traditional Gatso (i guess it's not working yet - no extra white lines on the road) and the other a Truvelo. Both pointing in the same way on the road, i.e. actually "working" in opposite directions to each other and about 2 miles apart.
Now. One, the Gatso, is by the entry road to the Belfry, and slightly offset. Bizzarely it's offset so that it doesn't cover both sides of said junction - only the part "after" the junction (were you to be coming from the motorway). I'm not entirely sure on the reasoning for this, except that there is another well-used and generally tricky junction about 400 yards up and it might be used to get people who are going too fast to be safe past either that or the Belfry. Now, given that it's a national speed limit on a single carriageway road (60mph limit), and that the road can be quite busy and a nightmare to get across even when everyone's cruising, this is fair enough and a decent boon to safety, at least when people come to know the camera is there. It can be seen very obviously opposite the Belfry junction, but not so from the other (long sweeping curve) so the effectiveness is a bit limited... in this case I wonder whether it was originally meant to cover that one junction but was moved as a not very well planned afterthought. What with the range on a Gatso your average bloody minded speeder will slow just in that section then floor it again in time to hit anyone pulling out at the second at a good 70 or 80. Hmm.
Plus there's the slight problem that anytime you might be in danger of getting T-boned, the road is busy with trucks and dodderers doing 35-45 and the main danger is weight of traffic than speed (it only really lightens up when it starts to get dark, and because of the road layout you can actually see people coming from about twice the distance at night because of headlights and reflections on signs). Funny place to put a camera really. If the lines never appear then I'll know it's just a deterrent.
The other camera in the pair is a lot harder to justify in my mind. It's pointing uphill on a section where, unless I hit it at a good speed, I'm unlikely to get flashed in the 1-litre on the uphill. I've hammered it before from 50 in 3rd, and managed about 67... long after the camera. But the general layout of it suggests it's to catch people going downhill (it's on that side for one thing, and the sensors in the road are close enough to the camera that you could tell which way the driver had combed their hair that day on the pic - cars on the other side wouldn't even fit in the frame). Also, fair enough, there are many "hidden" side roads and the like and even I can kiss 90 down there (when late for work and on the rare occasion the road is clear)... but you can see if anyone is pulling out even before you see the camera and could stop safely from that speed let alone 65. The danger in my own experience is more from people pulling wierd maneuvers in front of you (when you've matched speeds) trying to turn right, and attempting to overtake the legion of 45mph'ers. It's one of the safest sections on the whole road - unless there's something that we're not being told. There sure ain't any "SLOW" or "Hidden Entrance" (etc) warning signs or road markings. It could theoretically be to protect a third dodgy well used junction, but it's so far round the bend from there that even I could hit 70 after pulling out from it and brake to a halt in front of the camera - and once again, it's at it's most dangerous when traffic is chocka and speeds are in the 40s (you can wait 4 or 5 minutes for a gap just large enough to burn your tyres into - and thats when you're turning left and are patient enough not to pull a stunt bad enough to make those already on the road brake - an impatient person turning right would be lethal). It seems more like a revenue machine. Fair enough, it too can be seen from a distance....
BUT there's somewhere far more dangerous in between these two that is long, long overdue for a camera (it's had a speed camera *sign* for a couple years already) but doesn't seem to have anything, probably because 1. it's an actual blackspot and woe betide any camera that has a genuine use or effect on accident figures, 2. it probably wouldn't pull in any money because far less 'sensible' people would be doing over 60 through there than might pass 70 in front of the other one. The placing is at the top of a hill (no... more like the blind *peak*), on a double apex corner, with a staggered junction (Holly Lane and some country road to Middleton) across it that is also well used and seems to attract more than it's fair share of moronic failures when it comes to the noble sport of Pulling Out At A Safe Time And Then F***ing Flooring It To 50 Just In Case. It also has a truck depot with it's entrace/exit right on the peak, and a very rough layby that artics often park in. From the steeper direction is a 3-lane section which has 2 uphill (crawler and passing) and 1 down (no-passing), where a *lot* of frantic high-speed overtaking goes on of trucks and dawdlers (its fairly short - i can regularly near the top at 75.. anyone in a sports car could lick the ton no problem) and ends just at the start of the curve maybe 50-100 yards before the peak. From the other is the end of a moderately steep winding slog where trucks will just be breaching 50, and many cars will be hitting the upper 60s. It's bloody dangerous, can take you by surprise, has rubbish surfacing and needs to be taken at 65 and no more - and anyway, if you've come up the shorter, steeper hill, you have to brake down to the 50s to take the winding section. It seriously needs a camera to remind people to take it easy, to enforce against those that don't, and protect against the inevitable in-limit accidents becoming over-limit pile ups (heck, a 50 limit for that short bit would be sensible, even at busy times). But the camera is elsewhere, on a straighter, slightly flatter, much clearer bit of road with a better (not great, but better) surface and less hazards, where average speed (where not limited by heavy loads and light minds) even amongst those who are driving safely will be much higher and profitable.
Besides I get the awful aching feeling that whole road will soon be slapped with a 50. Again not bad if it applies to the part covered by the Belfry camera, or past Holly lane.. but having to do 50 past that Truvelo on that patch of road even without a 216 in front would be highly annoying. (look... if it's that dangerous... why no extra warnings? all that cash on an up-to-the-year camera and no signs?)
So much for the Brum council's committment to reviewing the location of all cameras and removing/resiting those which are not offering a genuine safety bonus and are just cash cows. There's still ones being built in dodgy places.
(mind you, I don't know if that part is covered by birmingham council, or somewhere else, or whether it's open country and subject to nothing more than the whim of the highways agency. It would explain the supreme hash that has been made of the otherwise pretty slick M6T in that area.. but unfortunately wouldnt absolve the Cannock M6/M6T interchange.. jeez)
But... (and here's the close escape.. more of a story now).. I don't know who I am to talk on this subject. I think I very narrowly escaped a wrist slapping, a "who's a naughty boy", 3 points and a 7 day summons coming home this evening. Just trucking along, not even going all that fast (wasted enough time checking out those cameras, going back and forth a few times, wasn't in a hurry to get home). Notice that a hill I can usually pull a slight acceleration up in 3rd is giving car cause for concern even in the maintaining-speed department, and engine *had* been a little rough/missing cylinder on starting. Decide to wait for the almost trunk-road like section a little further up to do a brief speed test. If they're within a second or two of usual/official it's fine and just wind/me being fat. If far off, it needs help.
Very wide lanes, almost a mile arrow-straight, 4am, no bugger about. Very slight uphill, surface a little suspect and a set of lights in the way, and that 40 limit (set as an average, i swear*) but what the hell, it'll be fine.
* night time, good for 55. Daytime, good for about 25.
Should have noticed the lights were sticking on green a bit too long... almost like cheese in a trap
. Line up right on the exit of the final curve before this, switch watch to timer, zero it, gun the motor and let fly. Bip the lap timer at 50 as a reference and to compare with 0-80k figure in manual, then the stop button a hair after 60 (to compensate for speedo being all of 1 terrible mph out). Just as the lights go past. Bosh the brakes relatively hard and pull over to check the result. 0-50 in 13.8s and 0-60 in 21.5s. Slightly tardy, but it was uphill a bit and I didn't get the most stunning takeoff, what with wanting to not nuke the clutch. Decide the engines fine and i need to lay off the pies , then notice the lights have gone red. Very odd... they stay green for far longer than usual (22 seconds, plus the time I could see them while approaching the launchpad, stopping, and revving up - 15-20 is more usual) then change the moment I'm through?Pull off and resume the cruise, notice a white car with an unusual design of roof rack - more like a dark blob - has just rounded the corner behind, and another one - a plain white 4-door Nissan is just hoving into view, parked on pavement by the roundabout at the end of the mile strip, lights on, two occupants, two aerials but otherwise unremarkable. Ooooh globbits. That was a copper with an electronic light key, and that's his unmarked mate. Play it cool, I stopped immediately after the lights, neither of them probably saw that and will probably think I'm some random bloke off to work and the dark shape that flashed past is long gone. Take the long way round home. Get stopped also at some similarly long-staying lights (this time on red), and the fully marked car pulls onto the pavement ahead and to my left, back in a monitoring position. Sit there waiting long enough that I give myself up for nicked and kill the engine. However, until the lights go to green about a minute later (had they been talking over whether it was me, did they have evidence to prove I did it, should they just hit the "light change" key to throw me back and look for bigger fish in Type Rs?*), they don't even give me a look, only the WPC driving glances over in slight surprise when I key the starter to move off. No further pursuit takes place....
* which is who they're really looking for, the racers/ricers have been moving in. them and the marauding graffiti clowns.
and I get home to find that the masking tape from the final spray-down earlier was still attached, I had totally forgotten - though the newspaper was long gone. What a sight *that* must have been...
"Naw.. he couldn't have been going that quick.. the car's held together with tape, he killed the engine at the lights, and didn't go past 37 even before we closed right in.."
Or is it becuz I is white? The local law have a bad rep for that sort of behaviour! Will find out in a couple weeks, if they decide to send a summons instead...
Just take it as a precautionary tale - no matter how good you think you are, at spotting cameras or etc.. there's always room for learning and improvement, and a well hidden bobby who may nick you. As well as room for a complete fluke of chance (good job I didn't decide to test the 1000m or 0-70 time too) to save your arse.
:p
OK now, how many lines is that?
. It looks from darker marks on the tarmac that the sensors are set just "outside" of each triple line. So basically the line zone is where you have to be doing 68 or less, just before a layby that has no space to accelerate out of or brake into (but *plenty* of visibility 
). As one set of sensors is actually on the camera's blind side, my best guess is that, unless there's "real" ones further up, it takes pictures of EVERYONE (infra-red digital instead of flash and film?) but only stores them if you then go past it too quickly (acting pre-emptively in the other direction - you may even have braked to 50 by the time it can get a good shot of you, but you'd still be nicked). Sneaky.