
A113 SpeederBot
using location data to log speeding drivers through Little End, Stanford Rivers
What even is this thing?
Firstly, all data is provided in good faith using open source software. You can see the GitHub project page here.
Bot not working? See our Service Status Page.
The A113 SpeederBot is an automated computer program that tweets (Twitter) or posts (Facebook) regularly when a driver exceeds 150% or more of the 30mph speed limit through the Village of Stanford Rivers, in Essex. That’s 45mph or higher; we’re not bothering with people doing 33mph, okay?
Where did you get the idea for this?
Gareth Rees gave me the idea, after I read this BBC report when it popped up on Twitter. Gareth also helped me get set up. All praise goes to this guy for this amazing idea. See his Github page here.
Who pays for it?
I paid for the bot from August 2021 to November 2022; this meant funding the software platform that the bot ran on, the website, the domain name. Since then, Stanford Rivers Parish Council agreed to fund the software platform, more on that here.
How does it work?
You know when you check Google Maps for your journey and part of the route is red, indicating congestion, and you say “oh, no – this is gonna take ages!”? Google does that by using location data – you can get it from places like here.com. We use that same data to log vehicle speeds along part of the 30mph section of the A113 through Stanford Rivers.
Where do I see the speeds you’ve logged?
You can see them on Twitter or Facebook, give us a follow if you fancy it; we’ll like that! Want all the speeds in a useful format, like a spreadsheet? You can get those by looking at our Annual Data page.
Haven’t you got anything better to do?
Yes, I have plenty of better things to do. Go out on my bike, spend time with my wife and kids, drink a beer, or drink a whole load of beer, watch a film, go down the pub (hang on, there’s a pattern forming here), pop out for a nice meal, waste time on the internet, sit in the garden; do you want me to go on? No? Okay…
Why are you doing this then?
Because I don’t like the entitlement that we see on the roads every day, I don’t like the “car is king” model we currently all put up with, the one that bullies people on bikes, or people walking their dogs down country lanes, the people that are told, “you shouldn’t be using the road”. I don’t like it that, on average, five people are killed by drivers on UK roads every day. I’ll start with the A113, let’s see if we can raise awareness about errant drivers here. Let’s see if we can try to change that. Think of it like putting the bins out. You probably don’t want to do that, but you do it, don’t you?
I actually don’t think you’re a sad nerd and I want to do this too for a road near me.
Good, you can get full instructions here. Now, don’t forget to put the bins out.
What else is coming?
I’ll make good use of the blog on here to keep people up-to-date, whether that’s on the bot itself or how I’m doing on making the A113 safer.
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