Aww, c'mon. Everybody knows that the cameras are for revenue. Speeding tickets are for revenue. There are towns in the USA where the whole departmental budget comes from traffic tickets.

There were rumors that the EZpass system (an electronic toll taker) would be used to issue tickets--As in "You made it between toll A and toll B in x amount of time, therefore, given the distance, you had to have been speeding. Here's your ticket".

Of course, if they did that, everybody would drop the system, so they haven't done that. Yet.

I liked the fact that Northumbria police released a statement "As everyone is well aware, income from fines generated by speed cameras is ploughed back into road safety measures."

Those 'road safety measures' wouldn't be more speed cameras would they?

Nope "road safety measures" are sarcasm training for motorway police, catching those that travel quickly on the safest roads.

Now has anyone ever seen a policeman outside a school arresting those parking dangerously to drop the sprogs off at the state-childminder (school)?

Well, I've heard plenty of anecdotal evidence of the EZ-Pass speeding stings, but that's all it is in a cursory google search. BUT, the New York State Thruway terms of use state that your EZ-Pass can be suspended for speeding. I would imagine that the Terms of Service are probably rather uniform throughout the participants in the pass. I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find someone who has gotten a speeding ticket on the system, tho. I imagine they'd get around the 'moving violation' part by just making it a fine, no points, violation.

"speed cameras make people slow down and therefore save lives."

Now that is a questionable conclusion that is just being assumed without much evidence. In many cases a uniform speed with gradual rather than abrupt changes is safer. That is not necessarily the same as just "slowing down".