Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Ghost in the shell on July 18, 2009, 04:55:14 pm
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A friend of mine thinks he may of got clocked by a speed camera van, (those safety camera partnership vans)
He was going over the limit as he came towards the rear of the van on a motorcycle, but slowed down, remember on a motorcycle the registration is at the rear of the bike so as he was coming towards the van the camera wouldn't see the licence plate, but passed the van UNDER the limit.
Are the cameras set up to get you as you go AWAY from the van or TOWARDS the camera in the van??
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Both <*< <*< <*<
timo2
PS 2 cams one forward one away <:(
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Are the cameras set up to get you as you go AWAY from the van or TOWARDS the camera in the van??
They are set up to get you as you travel TOWARDS the van however these days, the vans also have a forward facing camera specifically to get the reg of bikes.
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Do they send the picture and ticket registered mail?
Tell them you never got the ticket... must be lost in the post. %)
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{:-{ Well Ghost, your friend will just have to sweat it out for the next 14 days,
if he doesn't hear by then he is in the clear, they have to inform you within that
time or theyre out... bigH
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{:-{ Well Ghost, your friend will just have to sweat it out for the next 14 days,
if he doesn't hear by then he is in the clear, they have to inform you within that
time or theyre out... bigH
Bit of a myth that!
The legislation says that the NIP must be sent so as to reasonably sure of it getting to the registered keeper within 14 days. This means that if it is delayed in the post the offence can still be pursued. The police do not have to prove that they posted the letter, or that it was received. If you do dispute that it was received it will be for you to show, in court, that this is the case. (I know – it’s hard to prove that something did not happen, but that’s the law as it stands).
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Moral of this tale is simple; Don't break the speed limit, it's cheaper in the long run! ;)
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Last year I got caught by a similar static van and got the choice of £60 fine+ 3 penalty points or a voluntary £68 training session + zero points :o :} No prizes for guessing my choice. The course :police: was 'interesting'. :D
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are the vans allowed to hide in the UK. downunder they hide behind trees, signs, anything they can find. not the most popular people around. they are supposed to be a deterent to stop speeding but my theory is they would be more effective in the public view. hiding is purely revenue gathering. rant over. :-)
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They are not supposed to conceal themselves but sometimes seem to do so. I got caught a few years back in circumstances which were in no way dangerous, early morning, no traffic, heading out of town within a hundred yards of a no limit sign. I have also seen the vans positioned where there is absolutely no danger from people speeding. OK, so you shouldn't speed but I definitely detect an element of "we are out to get you" and raise money as opposed to encouraging people to drive safely. It doesn't engender a spirit of co-operation. neither do those authorities who site five cameras on a two mile stretch of road.
But then I think that the application of speed limits is very inconsistent across the country and some authorities appear to take pleasure in confusing motorists by ramping the limits up and down along a road for no very good apparent reason. If I could be certain that the limits had been set according to strict criteria and for good reasosn i would be more sympathetic but they often seem to be arbitary - different limits applying on the same stretch of road just because you have crossed a County boundary.
Colin
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The only people ever prosecuted for speeding are those who are breaking the speed limit. We all know what it is, so there's rarely an excuse. I've been caught four times in the last twenty years. I still speed, particularly on dual carriageways and motorways. I know its wrong, so I don't whinge if a guy with some high-tech gizmo catches me doing it - and if he's got the cunning to do it from behind a tree, good luck to him.
Rick
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Moral of this tale is simple; Don't break the speed limit, it's cheaper in the long run
Nope, the moral is don't get caught and if you're speeding in a residential area you deserve it
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The only people ever prosecuted for speeding are those who are breaking the speed limit.
....
Rick
That's not true... ok2
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/motoring/article-1122042/Motorist-beats-98mph-speeding-charge--buying-car-proving-manage-speed-85mph.html
....
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I have other issues with that kind of statement, but only because I had a friend falsey accused.
She was "harrased"(investigated) for over two years, spent her inheritance on lawyers, and
when the money ran out, a public defender was assigned to her to sort out the accusations.
The incident ended with a plea bargin over a posted letter she had in her apartment at the time
the federal officials searched it two years earlier.... The accuser.. he did nothing but make the accusation and
go on with his life... sorry, end of rant... but statements like, "Only guilty people should be worried" does not
hold true in my mind... {:-{
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My wife has a radar detector in her Boxster, but is still very conscientious about speed limits.
Sinjon
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Sinjon...technology is universal....& this technology is based upon warfare
1) signal receptors += an outward beam
2) incoming signal + that of parameter = alert
In this day & age there is ZERO point in believing that a vehicle mounted radar detector will alter the chance or elimination of a $$$$$$$$$$$$ fine in the mail :-)) :police: O0 - Derek
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The radar detectors will allert you if radar is being used in your vicinity. It will warn you of cars ahead being zapped, by a police patrol or a forward facing speed cameral, and give you the chance to slow down. But not effective against radar directed at the rear of vehicles.
The effectiveness of these detectors was recognised by the police in several countries leading to the following strategies by law enforcement.
1/ In the US it was a legal offence to have radar detectors fitted to vehicles.
This was actually defeated by a clever strategy by Snooper. The story goes like this. Police were legally forcing entry into vehicles fitted with Snooper. Sometimes by smashing windows and damaging the interior of the vehicle in removing the item. This level of damage was legal as a crime was being commited.
Snooper then produced a batch of dummy/model snoopers, it was not illegal to have a model in your vehicle, and several police forces were sued for destruction of property for forcibly breaking into a vehicle and removing a model. As a result police stopped breaking into vehicles. Or so the story goes.
2/ Police forces, I think Germany was one of the first, started using radar that measured vehicle speeds when the vehicle was moving away. I.E. backward facing radar that zapped you after you went past.
3/ Police forces started using laser speed detectors. The beam is so narrow the only way to detect it is when you are the one that is zapped.
Radar detector do work. That is why the police hate them. And why after 30 years they are still selling.
Laser detectors are of little value.
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Derek, radar detectors are illegal in Australia, if you get caught using one, expect a BIG fine. :police: Apparently the police have radar detector detectors O0
Peter.
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The moral problem with radar detectors is that they're specifically designed to conceal a crime. Speeding is a crime. The limits are clearly posted, there's no guesswork involved. The only people who use speed radar are the police. You can't argue that they are for privacy's sake because speeding occurs on public roads and can't be made 'private', unless you invent a cloaking field for your car.
George Carlin had a good quote that i can't exaclty remember... "Ever notice how everyone driving slower than you is a moron, and everyone going faster than you is a maniac?"
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The local authority round here has installed those SPEX average speed cameras and the police are allowed to keep the fines towards their budget. The change in motorists' behaviour is astonishing. They still use mobile cameras vans as well but they always put them in the same spots so it's easy to slow down when you're near one and speed up afterwards.
It makes me smile whenever we go down to see my son in Northampton, because in Leicestershire the road signs call these "safety" cameras while as soon as you cross into Northamptonshire they become "eforcement" cameras! At least someone's honest about it.
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The limits are clearly posted, there's no guesswork involved.
Not really true....
I was famously trapped in June 2006 on a stretch of wide clear road through an industrial estate with wide grass verges both sides, no side roads, schools etc.
The previous day the local authority (Runcorn) had lowered the speed limit from 40mph to 30mph on that particular stretch of road and the revised signs weren't in place. I drove past the police camera van in the dark believing that I was driving perfectly legally at 36mph. It's a route that I know well. but use infrequently - there were no notices that the speed limit had been changed.
3 points on my licence and a £60 fine. The points on my licence for 4 years, and I have only just applied for a new "clean" one - cost £20. No option of an £80 "training course" and higher insurance premiums for 5 years. I'm convinced that the only reason that the speed limit was lowered was to catch unsuspecting motorists and raise revenue.
I'm a law abiding bloke, never been in any trouble, I've never seen the inside of a police station or a court room. I was brought up to respect the police, but now I wouldn't trust any of them as far as I could throw them.
Malc
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Did you contest it? Assuming there was no public notification, I'd say you were in the clear, if the new signs weren't up yet. Here, they put the signs up in advance of any changes but cover them in black garbage bags. The extra time and money is worth it to put the police in their place, because they aren't your 'friends' and when they screw up, it's best to see that the screwup is recognized.
Don't get me wrong, speed enforcement is usually a joke, but it is at least within the letter of the law, the majority of the time.
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In most cases, everyone KNOWS when they are breaking the speed limit, they just want to go faster than eveyone else for whatever the reason, be it latenes or impatience or simply just to get in front of the bloke ahead of them. It is mostly deliberate and means they are bending the rules to suit themselves. If they decide to break the rules, they are 'taking a chance' so if they get legitimately caught doing it..... serves them right!
We have a stretch of road here where people died on a monthly basis, it is a very dangerous cross roads and the speed limit has now been reduced to 50mph. It goes from a single carriageway and runs into the dual carriageway, still posted at 50mph and for good reason since vehicles cross the dualled carriage way quarter of a mile down the road. Every single time I use this bit of road, I witness people stuff their foot to the floor and go for it as soon as they enter the dualled stretch. It is a deliberate act, they know what they are doing and they simply couldn't give a s--t about the rules, the reasons for them or whether it inconveniences or endangers anyone else.
They are simply selfish law breakers who don't care about you, me or anyone else except themselves because what they do is genuinly dangerous.... and they know it! If ever there was a suitable place for a speed camera or a regular police speed check, this is it but in the years since this speed reduction system has been in place, I think I have seen an traffic officer twice!
The nasty bend outside my house is clearly marked 30MPH, in 20 years of living here, all I hear is the sound of squealing tyres as people who don't care and have no social concience take this bend at breakneck speed. I watch as they scream round here, grinning from ear to ear, impressing their mates in the passenger seat as the vehicle drifts over the other side of the road on the blind bend.
To hell with them, the fines should be heavier and if I had been a taffic cop, I would suffer from repetitive strain injury through writing out tickets over the years!
That said, we all break the speed limit at some time or another and if I do it and get caught, (I did once) then as far as I'm concerned I deserved it!
We all have choices in life.. in this case it's a simple one, it's foot down or foot off and as the great man said " Do ya feel lucky punk... well do ya?" "Go on, make my day!"
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Malc, I sympathise with you in your case, what happened to you appears quite wrong and should have been contested with photographic evidence and witness statements in the county court. You would probably have been exempted as the local council appear to have breached their own rules.
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I have a subscription to the SCDB http://www.scdb.info/ which allows me to download fixed camera locations for most of Europe to my SATNAV which is not illegal. And it only costs 9.95 Euros per year. It is a voluntary organisation so cannot guarantee to have every camera but from my experience, here and on the Continent, it does a pretty good job of coverage.
Each country download is separate (guess who is out in front by a mile?!) but I have found that, although undocumented, it is possible to load in data for as many countries as you want to be active simultaneously which is handy if, for example, you are driving from the UK to Germany.
As Sheerline says, most of us break the speed limit inadvertently from time to time and usually by only a fairly small margin. But I bet that's where the majority of the revenue comes from. We need more traffic police to catch the people who won't get caught by cameras, frequently because they are driving a stolen or unregistered car.
Colin
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Speeding is a fact of life and practiced by the vast majority of people on the highways. Part is because of the lack of respect for others, part is because, in some cases, the posted speed limit doesn't reflect the construction of the road, but rather is/was posted for some reason other than safety, but is kept in place for "safety".
To illustrate, all our 400 series highways (motorways in British vernacular) are 100KPH (62MPH) speed limit. When most were built they had a 70 MPH speed limit. This was in a time when most vehicles weighed over two tons, had drum brakes, over half had manual steering and none had the safety appliances we now take for granted. In the mid seventies, during the first "oil crisis", the speed limit was lowered to 60 MPH to save fuel. When the "crisis" abated, the speed limit wasn't raised. It was talked about but never done. In the meantime vehicle handling and safety appliances improved the highways became wider and the actual speeds went up. Today, if you were to travel at 100KPH during a free flowing traffic day, you'd be run over like a stone in a fast moving stream. To travel at 110KPH is slow, the norm is 120KPH. Even the police travel at the same speeds. They won't bring you down at those speeds if you are moving with the traffic. In situations such as that, a slow moving vehicle can be just as dangerous as a fast moving one. The relative speeds make the difference. There has been talk of raising the speed limit to 110KPH, however, no politician has made a move.
I agree, there are many times when a speed limit is a safety item and should be placed to reflect a safety concern on the highways, however there are times when overall traffic patterns are more of a true reflection of what speed limits should be in a certain area.
Ontario tried camera vans in the eighties. It was not liked. The vans were unmarked and parked on the side of the road and not necessarily in a place that posed a safety problem. When a vehicle's picture was taken the registered owner of the vehicle was given the ticket even though they may not have been the person driving the vehicle at the time. The vans were seen strictly as a money maker not as a speed deterrent since you didn't know if you'd been caught until you received a bill in the mail some time later. It was a greater detterent to be stopped by the police at the time of the offense. Receiving a bill later was looked at as the cost of doing business. The program was dropped within a year of much political wrangling. To date it hasn't been reintroduced.
Something that was tried with success, at about the same time, was placing unmanned marked police cruisers at strategic points on typically fast traffic days. They planted one near my place. It a had a dramatic effect on the speed of traffic.
Speeding is a here to stay for a number of reasons, and not all disrespect. Its something we have to live with.
John
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The point about the speed limit not matching the construction of the road, made by Oldiron, is an important one that is often contested in the highways industry.
There are many stretches of the road where the 'design speed of the road' (engineering, width, number of carriageways, width of verges) would suggest a higher limit than that posted by the local authority (LA).
In some cases a road that was designed for 50mph traffic has been downgraded to 30mph. People in the industry suggest that if LAs are going to do this they should also re-engineer the road. Either by narrowing, or by putting in parking bays (same effect as narrowing) on alternate sides of the road to create bends. This is someting practiced a lot in Germany.
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Malc, I sympathise with you in your case, what happened to you appears quite wrong and should have been contested with photographic evidence and witness statements in the county court. You would probably have been exempted as the local council appear to have breached their own rules.
Photographic evidence? What a joke...and witnesses? What witnesses?
The form that arrived in the post notifying me of my misdemeanour was quite specific in that I wasn't entitled to see the photograph that was taken of me speeding, (but that it would be produced in court by the police as evidence if I chose to plead not guilty).
Magistrates aren't allowed to dispense justice these days - only penalties. If I had decided to plead not guilty, the £60 fine would likely have been quadrupled, thus compounding my misery.
Malc
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Malc, what I was getting at was photographic eveidence showing the lack of posted speed restrictions and witnesses to back it up.
When presented with such evidence, your speeding ticket could and probably would have been thrown out as there are specific rules governing the issuance and legitimacy of such documents. The local council isresponsible for the roads and their markings, the law relating to speeding is based on the fact that these markings are in place and are clearly visible and if that were not the case, the speeding ticket would be invalid. The rules apply in the same way with regard to parking fines.
You will often hear me rage on about the 'thieving lying b--st--ds' in local councils and this highlghts exactly why. It's a 100% certainty that these deceitful scum will not send you a letter stating "We have fined you in error as our road markings were not in place" even though it is obvious to them that they had illegally extracted money from you. They seem to be able to chase down people when they want money from you but NEVER appear to offer it back when taken in error. They hunted my son down for a £30-00 unpaid parking fine for three years apparently. Oblivious to the fine, he ended up being arrested by the Police and dragged through the courts at massive expense of themanpower and the taxpayers money. If they can go to those lenghts for £30-00, you can see why we're being deceived in the way we are. It's theft pure and simple.
Where's that ruddy rope of mine???
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No angel me I have had several speeding tickets all deserved but I still have some issues with the system.
We have a ring road duel carriage way speed limit 40mph with several sets of time over distance camera's. So travel at 43mph for less than 5 miles 15 points & £300.
What gets my goat is that very close by we have a straight road, single carriage way 30mph, one junior school right along side the road and two other schools in very close proximity. NO FIXED CAMERA'S and never see a camera van. The locals know this and the idiots do 60 plus.
Colin H.
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Isn't the legal requirement for the accuracy of your speedometer +/- 10%? That's why most cameras are 'quoted' as being set at 10% + 2mph?
My speedo, compared with a GPS reading, slightly over-reads. So some of the smiley face signs smile and tell me I'm doing 28mph when I approach. Great, but then why do some others tell me to slown down to 40mph when my speedo says 41?
As for the practice of not letting see what evidence they have against you - ie the photo - surely that's like declaring you guilty until proven innocent. Suppose it wasn't your vehicle that triggered the camera? The police probably sent a speeding fine to the other car as well. You'd never know, unless you were prepared to take a chance. Human rights breach?
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As for the practice of not letting see what evidence they have against you - ie the photo - surely that's like declaring you guilty until proven innocent.
Precisely....With speeding (and presumably other fixed penalty offences), the onus is placed upon you to prove your innocence, when the basic principle of English justice has always been that you are innocent until proven guilty.
It stinks...
Malc
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The speed limits round Runcorn are a mess. the dual carriage way to the Bridge has a 60mph, which changes to 40 for no reason. then after the Bridge (Widnes side) it's 50, perhaps. then national limit.
I say perhaps because I was done at 53mph in what I thought was a 50mph, apparently it was 40 on that day.
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Hi all here my thought and what I have found out on some of the post's I have read on here.
Those little S##ts in the van are out to get max revenue and to help with safety many case to back this up.
Laser detectors weather they work or not is open to debate. Ever had one and driven past one of these vans and never seen it go off il tell you why. Simple when then first came out plod saw the numbers of speeding motorist fall why because every one had these detectors and new the van was the before they got there. So plod has wised up . they now sit in there mobile cash box's and watch the traffic . if they see some moving fast and you can tell go stand on a M way bridge they fire up the laser and check him in that way the stay electronically clocked until its to late. You are relying on some else ahead of you to get zapped and you detector to read his beam. Then you see people who put them in there front windows which are heated talk about shielding the incoming signal.
All those people on that band wagon .SIMPLE DON'T SPEED AND YOU WONT GET COUGHT. Well put a different record on . These stupid councils whose transport department are run by pedestrians Oxforshire idiots change the speed limit every 2 meters . That why People don't give a s##t any more because they pay how much in tax and to have this . So they start to ignore signs and it will only get worse. What is need is a NATIONAL set of speed limits that apply to all road not 50 then 40 then 30 then 50 etc etc back to the old days.Were there was 30,40 and 60 then 70 on M way + duel carriageways.
Are mobile speed cameras safe NO the did an experiment on them and showed a term call slipping .This can put an extra 2 to 8 mph on the reading the difference between a fine and no fine.
There was a great bit in a news paper a few years ago were road safety freaks were banging on about any one who did 1mph over the limit should be fined a stuiped about of money and the rest of all the ball s##t lies speed kill yer wright ,Er no it the collision, if speed killed why are all F1 drivers dead. Any way this head of police said it horrify him at the thought of all the drivers in the Uk looking at the speedometer so not to go over the limit and not the road.
John
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The speed limits round Runcorn are a mess. the dual carriage way to the Bridge has a 60mph, which changes to 40 for no reason. then after the Bridge (Widnes side) it's 50, perhaps. then national limit.
I say perhaps because I was done at 53mph in what I thought was a 50mph, apparently it was 40 on that day.
My own particular 'sin' was committed on the stretch after the roundabout past the Guinness Factory (south of the M56) on the Northwich road around 9.30pm one wet dark evening. I was going home after being over at Formby Models, replacing the display board in their show case as a favour...You would think that the cops would have crawled back under their stones by that time of night?
The speed limit on the Runcorn side of the bridge as you hang a left to pick up the Daresbury Expressway seems to change more frequently than my socks (at least once a day BTW).
I always thought that the National Speed Limit on the dual carriageway on the Widnes side heading out towards Speke Boulevard was 60mph, but my sat-nav reports it as being 70mph.
Malc
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here's a ponder.
my minivan has an optimistic speedo, when it says 55mph, sat nav gps gizmo says 43mph, so If I am on the m6, without satnav, and keeping my vehicle to 55mph indicated, and a cop is following me, can he actually do me, remember I am doing what the speedo says is a legal speed of 55, however 52mph limited big rigs would be overtaking me. am I actually committing an offence?
sounds a silly one i know
btw, I think I have smaller rolling diameter tyres than she should have hence the lower speed
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Unless you are travelling below 30mph (the minimum speed) on the motorway you are OK. The exception being heavy traffic.
Having a 'defective' speedo, for whatever reason, is not a defense.
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All car speedometers are made within the limits of +10% -0%.
So with the factory fitted wheels ahould always read fast.
On my Vectra I am 3mph indicated faster.
Bob
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The odometer in my Shogun reads 10% high pretty much across its entire range. My actual speed is therefore lower than the speed shown on the dial.
Because the built-in sat nav in my truck doesn't have speed cameras (or do post code destination searching) I also have one of those 'Indic8tor' speed camera gizmo's that works using GPS. When stationary, it displays the time, and when moving, the ACTUAL speed of the vehicle. (I also have a Tom-Tom sat-nav which correlates exactly, speed wise, with the Indic8tor unit).
When driving, I use the speed displayed on the Indic8tor unit, rather than the odometer for reference. Most other drivers, especially on motorways, presumably do similar which would explain why, if you're driving at 70mph on the dial, you are being overtaken by pretty much everything else on the road other than HGV's?
Malc
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Malc, I have a Pajero, which is a Shogun over there, and my speedo keeps me on the safe side of the limit, too, but as Bob said, just about every car's speedo reads faster than you are actually going. I suppose that's a good thing in a way, because if you rely on your vehicle's speedo, and stay within the posted limit, you should never get booked for speeding....theoretically.
Peter.
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i have a snooper radar detector and a tom tom Sat nav... i use both, the sat nav for an accurate indication of current speed and i also use it to alert me of speed camera sites that are coming up and the radar detector to highlight any potential cameras and ' speed traps'- it also is a method of alerting me in areas i dont know.... but not necessarily for speed traps but for junctions, intersections and similar, alot of intersections and major junctions, or crossings and similar now have enforcement cameras and my snooper will pick these up approx 1/4 of a mile in advance, so you as a driver can be prepared for these. the snooper is also great for understanding why some drivers do the erratic driving ahead of you as they all frantically break to slow down as they approach the impending camera !- the snooper alerts me well in advance and you can check and if needed modify your speed well inadvance so as to drvie safely and smoothly.....
the latest generation of radar detectors are very very efficient, they will pick up bounced back laser, radar and k band signals, both front and rear, admittedly they are far more accurate on forward facing laser and radar signals....
i dont drive at excessive speeds, i dont drive like a total nutter as many seem to do now, ( my old diesel wont let me either ! ) and in 20 years of driving i have only once been 'done' some years ago for doing 34 in a 30 zone and got 3 points and a fine for it....i notified my insurance company of my misdemeanour and as i had several vehicles my policy premiums rose, the total increase on my policy premiums were over £200...
this is when i was bought the snooper by my wife...financially it was no brainer,if it prevented another stop at 34 in a 30 zone then its paid for itself !
i totally accept travelling at 34 was in excess of the speed limit which was 30, the road was clear, dry, the conditions and visability were good, its not in a residential area but a rural one, but the location is coming towards a T junction and the junction is just before the limit goes from 30mph back up to 60.... i was not overly familiar with the area then but i have travelled that stretch of road before, the camera was concealed within a van which was parked up in a field entrance parallel with the road, it was not marked up as a camera van or a roads safety partnership van, the van had roof rack and stuff and looked like a typical builders van...
the camera was in the van and the police cars which were marked were waiting approx 1 mile ahead in the layby- so i passed the van at 34 and approx 1 mile later i was flagged down and done by the officer.....it was a fair cop...
whilst the officer told me what i had done the other officers were pulling in other unsuspecting drivers, one after another,
there were 9 officers present and the motorists where lined up to get their telling off and their paperwork and fine.....this was in my opinion nothing more than a revenue generating excercise... its not an accident hotspot but the van was placed just before the limit reverts back to 60 so drivers were likely to be looking ahead and maybe increasing speed....
i paid my fine and i guess so did about 20 other drivers -( i estimate there were approx 20 drivers stopped during the 10 minutes i was being spoken to by the boys in blue)
since then any bleep from the satnav or the radar detector and i do a double check on the speedo and then anticipate anything that may be coming up ahead- the snooper is great for alerting you to any intersection or junction that may be ahead before you can easily see it too so its like an early warning system...
anyway i dont ocndone speeding, it is a crime, i dont use my radar detector in france where they're illegal but i use it everyday here in the UK,
the police force who did use the unmarked van no longer use ' builders' type vans now and there was alot of negative press at the time about them being sneaky and doing it....
if the police can do this IMHO to raise revenue then us joe public can use radar detectors and satnavs to counter this cash cow idea !
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Having just completed a 300 mile drive yesterday, my thoughts revolve, not around camera vans, but around the average speed cameras that are now common gear on most roadwork areas in the country. Mile after mile of traffic slowly getting slower and slower as drivers bleed their speed off just in case they are drifting over the speed limit. Can they not do the mental calculation of checking their speed? Most annoying when only one stretch of road was actually "work in progress", the rest (a high number) were just coned off with SFA going on.
When the camera vans started to be used around here, the official story was that their function was "to trace the cars being used by naughty people in the commision of crime". Result? A large squad of police bikes and cars gathered at a spot to stop any suspect vehicles. Bit of a giveaway to see such a large turn out. Good results though, they caught an amazing number of "baddies" in the process.
As a footnote, they dropped the speed limit on a main shopping street in the area to 20MPH, all signed etc. An office worker drove down this road (fully aware of the change) and was followed for over two miles by a panda car. When she got home the police car pulled up behind her and the driver demanded to know why she had driven so slowly down the road (about a quarter of her trip). When she replied that she drove at below the speed limit and was not aware that that was an offence, the police driver was baffelled. Completely unaware of the change in the limit (been on leave!) and asked if the limit was "enforcible".
Now that really does give you some hope when the police don't even know if breaking the speed limit is an offence!
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The speed limits round Runcorn are a mess. the dual carriage way to the Bridge has a 60mph, which changes to 40 for no reason. then after the Bridge (Widnes side) it's 50, perhaps. then national limit.
I say perhaps because I was done at 53mph in what I thought was a 50mph, apparently it was 40 on that day.
My own particular 'sin' was committed on the stretch after the roundabout past the Guinness Factory (south of the M56) on the Northwich road around 9.30pm one wet dark evening. I was going home after being over at Formby Models, replacing the display board in their show case as a favour...You would think that the cops would have crawled back under their stones by that time of night?
The speed limit on the Runcorn side of the bridge as you hang a left to pick up the Daresbury Expressway seems to change more frequently than my socks (at least once a day BTW).
I always thought that the National Speed Limit on the dual carriageway on the Widnes side heading out towards Speke Boulevard was 60mph, but my sat-nav reports it as being 70mph.
Malc
It's 70 going towards Liverpool and 60 going towards Runcorn, I think, but then I've got form for being naughty round there, so I could be wrong.
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Hi all,
I work in a car body repair shop. 3 years ago we had a Mazda mx5 in for repair, after repairs were complete the car had an annoying rattle that was difficult to trace. Durring 1 day 3 of us took it out for a test drive to try & isolate the rattle. 1 of us ( i honestly don't no who) passed a camera van doing 53 in a 40 limit but was unaware of it. some weeks later we got a letter from the police asking if the vehicle was in our care at the time of the offence & who had been driving it.
we wrote back to the police stating that 3 of us had driven the car & we were unaware of who had committed the offence, so they invited the boss up to the police station to view the photo. As the Mazda had a plastic rear screen in its soft top , the picture was unclear & driver identification was impossible. because 3 of us had all admitted driving the car, the police were unable to prosecute anyone so we were let off. The law has now been changed so that the registered keeper of the vehicle has to supply the name of the driver, so i wonder what the outcome would be now. would they prosecute the owner, or the boss of the body shop ??
i also once passed a fixed camera on my motorbike whilst going considerably faster than the limit & it didn't flash at all, so maybe the answers to go quicker to avoid the pesky cams :-)) ( not that i condone speeding at all !!!)
cheers Glenn
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This reminds me of a story I heard about somebody in Holland.
When approaching a speed camera at below the limit he noticed that the camera flashed him. Intrigued, he drove around the block and the camera flashed him again. The same thing happened a third time although he was definitely below the limit.
A few days later he got a notice of intended prosecution - for not wearing a seatbelt. %)
Colin
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well i have been told off though not fined (yet) for not wearing mine.
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I know that some companies are deliberately failing to name the driver of a company vehicle that has been zapped for speeding.
There is, I believe, a £1000 fine for this. For many companies the costs of replacing a worker are more than this. And for some smaller companies the valuable contribution of the worker/boss is also more than this.
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she replied that she drove at below the speed limit and was not aware that that was an offence, the police driver was baffelled.
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I used to drive a lot of miles for work running blueprints and engineering specs around for the office.
On one particular trip, I was returning to the office, and came up behind an old lady in her old lady car, and
driving old lady speed... But at the ol' 88kph mark. I changed lanes to pass, but as I did, a woman in her
orange BMW also pulled out and started a pass. Just as the BMW pulls even with the old lady, a state police
trooper ques up behind us.
This freaked out the woman in the BMW, and she freezes up, stops her pass, and drives next to the old lady at
88 kph... I followed for about a mile, and seeing that the BMW woman was afraid to go fast enough to finish the
pass, I pulled in behind the old lady. The State Trooper pulled up, and followed the BMW woman for another mile
and then pulled her over for "blocking the passing lane" %)