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Australia managed to automate most of the speed camera stuff so I don't see why, oh yeah we're in England, yeah, zzzz... ooh look plastic bank notes.
Hidden speed cameras, most cop cars have built in speed cameras, 0 tolerance policy and a government happy to have income from fines unlike the Tories who just get rid of police to save money.
hippy-
So is enforcement in Australia also done in the dense cores of older cities? That's obviously where it's most difficult.
I've never read up on enforcement in Australia, so don't know much about it.
As you know, there are speed cameras in the UK, too, e.g. on motorways etc., but they have come under fierce political attack in the past and form part of a very sorry saga.
Oliver Schick
As you might expect, that logic goes down like a bucket of cold sick with the general driving public. The problem with enforcement is always that it's usually accepted and supported if offending is seen as the exception to the rule rather than the norm. If, as in the case of 20mph, ignoring 20mph limits or zones is very widespread, and probably practised by a considerable majority of drivers, you immediately get the mechanism kicking in that most people see what they themselves do as 'normal', driving faster than 20mph in urban areas is 'normal', laws should be in accordance with what 'most' people (from a certain perspective, natch, e.g. all your friends) consider 'normal', therefore why are there these laws that criminalise or make liable for a penalty what is 'normal'? Why, it's obviously just a stealth tax, a way of extracting more money from hardworking taxpayers. And how do we prove that's the case? Obviously, because the authorities have an actual interest in people continuing to offend, because if they stop offending they won't collect so much money from fines. That's why they constantly invent new restrictions on people's lives, and if people grudgingly comply, the authorities will invent something else to fine people for.
Using slightly less defective logic, it is obviously not a good idea for an authority to base enforcement on the expectation of fines. They should always remain the rare exception. By the same token, rules and regulations should be close to people's actual behaviour, and if enforcement can help with bringing these two closer together, that's why it should be undertaken, ideally gradually reducing fines until they no longer occur very much. However, that's when all the above kicks in--different policing priorities--enforcement that is supported by the public, e.g. prosecution of murder, the difficulty of enforcing 20mph (what Clockwise said--setting up a traffic stop actually requires quite a few officers), etc.
Again, I think the priorities are wrong--but I really don't know much about policing, so my opinion isn't particularly well-informed. I just think that 'denying criminals the use of the road network' is a good idea, although I imagine some would find ways around that fairly quickly.
I think 20mph is a good policy in principle, but it suffers very much from being flouted. In side streets, the most important thing would be to modally filter all rat-runs and 'loops' along which speeding may occur, effectively (where that's possible) making travel distances so short that speeding doesn't work, which you can generally do without vertical deflection measures. Enforcement could then be more focused on 20mph main streets, where it's easier, can be more concentrated, and has more benefit. Apart from filtering, the third policy that needs to be implemented at this level is controlled car parking. At a higher level, as ever there is reducing the need to travel, reducing the propensity to travel, etc.