Thames Valley Police speed cops have been targeting Adderbury for some time now. Sadly, they have discovered an easy target, provided by the Couny Council highways team who have designated Aynho Road and Banbury Road as 30 mph limits when both roads look and drive like country de-restricted roads.
I have come to expect and to look for speed cops sitting comfortably in their camera van outside the Primary School in Adderbury at least once per week but we seem to have a new and more subversive strategy emerging. A few weeks ago there was a team of speed cops lurking in Summers Close in dark and unmarked uniforms, ready to spring out and zap motorists exceeding the absurd 30 mph limit on this road. Seeing them in action brought to my mind the phrase “Thieves in the night”, based on the hidden and furtive manner in which they operated.
However, we now seem to have moved to “Daylight robbery” with Thames Valley Police Officers skulking in Griffin Close, lacking any distinctive warning garb and pouncing on unsuspecting motorists driving along this road out of Banbury and Bodicote with not the slightest idea that this wide road with open fields on one side and houses well laid back from the road on the other has a stupid 30 mph speed limit.
Ask them why they are not out catching real criminals and they will probably say they are traffic police. If this is true, why are they not catching criminals who have stolen cars or targeting drug dealers or others who threaten our social cohesion? I suspect because zapping unwitting motorists exceeding a stupid speed limit are much easier prey.
I am minded to make a Freedom of Information request to our Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner to discover the take in fines on these roads to date. I rather suspect he will not tell me …..
Its funny, I have exactly the opposite problem, Send them down to Ascott under Wychwood there are lots of speeding cars through the 30 mph limit of the village and the police don’t care. I managed to get them out once and they “caught” loads of people speeding past the school, didn’t give them tickets and won’t come out again as they said its worse in other areas of West Oxon. In the coppers defense, the stats for people surviving being hit by a car are shocking. 80% chance of surviving at 30 mph and 80% of fatality at 40 mph. If the speed limit on the road is incorrect, perhaps you should raise it with your county council, I hear they are really good at listening to the concerns of residents when formulating policy, which is great. You wouldn’t want a council where councillors get lobbied by local MP’s and push though any old ill-conceived rubbish.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/if-leaflet.pdf