Speeding notice - what's the next move?

theres a very good discusion about this on one of the magazine web sites, LRE or LROI i think. i would do a search there too. It was very info. Went into what to write back, what to ask for, how not to word it etc.

Best of luck Mark

Austin, that's the impression I get from the guys on the BMWland forum, I've never been unlucky enough to get caught to be in a position to read one myself so can't comment on the wording. I'd imagine its not all that clear, either way, after all it would have been written by a government department!!!

Badger.

So Austin Shackles was, like

Don't think so - the form I have to fill in is just to confirm who was driving (which I am quite happy to do). On receipt of that, they say they will send me the prosecution stuff, which I imagine is where the fun starts.

Werwe you speeding or not ??? If so, tough louck thats the law of the land, if not good luck try to wriggle out any way you can.

John H

In many ways I agree. I recently fell out with my Dad for a short while when he was indignant at getting a ticket for 40 in a 30. There was all the usual bluff about 'you can't drive round looking at the speedo', but the fact remains that if you are not capable of controlling the speed of the car, you shouldn't be driving it.

But, taking the longer view, if the authorities are going to put speed cameras on the _exits_ of villages (which they do with great regularity) then they serve no purpose other than as revenue raisers. We therefore have every right to make it as difficult as possible for the powers that be to collect our money, including demanding the right time on notices and accurate measurement.

There's a camera about to go up near me, and I applaud it as there have been two accidents recently in which vehicles have ended up the garden of someones house. It's actually not possible to go round the corner above 25mph (as many have found out). That is where cameras should be sited, not where law abiding motorists will be accelerating out of a hazard having made a proper assessment of the conditions and being a few yards from a national speed limit sign.

I did 65 (reasonably safely) past a camera in Nottingham yesterday in a 40 limit. I'm not sure whether the 'rushing to hospital' excuse (whilst entirely true) will help me out.

So Tim Hobbs was, like

Agreed.

What I was trying to say, but put much more clearly.

If all cameras were placed where there was a specific need, I doubt if there would be any opposition - certainly not from me. ISTR that the original GATSOs were to be placed at accident black spots and at traffic lights to stop people going through on amber (weren't they originally called "traffic light cameras"?), and I remember thinking what a good idea that was.

Good luck!

I hope you weren't doing 65 around the ringroad at all (I assume you were heading for the QMC, in which case you probably were)

The whole damn ringroad and most radial roads in Nottingham are rigged for SPECS now.

Far more insidious form of speed camera.

P.

Isnt that the horrid one that works out your average speed between two points - and if that exceeds the limit you get a notice?

I remember when they trialled that on the M1 at leicester - we were doing a job in nottingham and a load of my staff came up from london, when we got there one chap had his head in his hands

"whats up malc?" I asked "we were laughing at the registrations being displayed on the matrix sign, only when we got here, the lads checked the car and told me that last one we saw was mine"

He got away with it cos they were testing!

Si

So Hirsty's was, like

Good point. So which party should I vote for at the next election if I want "safety" cameras restricted to "safety" related sites? No-one's offering that at the moment.

Democracy, for all its virtues, can be a bit of a blunt instrument.

Wandering off-topic slightly further, I think it's more a question of :- "what party is the least likely to lead us into another war that's really none of our business and potentially make us victims of increased terrorism in the process?" Just my tuppenceworth, speaking as someone with first-hand experience. Badger.

On or around Tue, 25 Jan 2005 19:04:18 +0000 (UTC), "Badger" enlightened us thusly:

any or all of the shpxref, if the bloody yank government wants it.

Quite a few 'mothers' are Jps :-)

May I suggest you allow it to go before the court and then request an investigation into potential irregularities in the evidence? I don't mean 'demand', more, as I said, 'request'. You may add that this is not a denial of the offence, however it is a denial of the degree of the offence. May sound daft...

So Mother"

If UK law is like NZ law then you'd best request the training records of the operator too. In NZ a request like this often leads to the whole thing being dropped as the operator had missed his 6 monthly refresher course or whatever. If they don't have training records you might like to insinuate that as the operator's knowledge/technique hadn't been tested/refreshed of late there is substantial doubt as to whether the equipment was being deployed correctly.

It may sound even dafter, but Courts do try to be fair. Moreover, they have a duty to be fair and impartial. If you request of the Court, or the bench, information in order to further clarify the evidence as presented, they have a duty to listen to your request and if reasonable, in the interest of justice, grant it.

This won't really be an issue soon as statutory fines will be doshed out in such 'FTS'* circumstances (I cannot comment upon whether this is a quick, easy and dirty means of disposal of 'non-proven offences').

Courts (sadly) don't care about this. Their duty is to weigh the evidence, and make a judgement accordingly. If you don't like it, vote for a change - the Police and Courts aren't working hand-in-hand, both simply do what they are charged to do by the lawmakers. Mind, whoever you vote for, 'The Government' always seem to get in... ;-)

• FTS - Fail To Show, also knows as DNA - Did Not Attend

The speed cameras in Melbourne (Australia) were recently found to be faulty and the cops had to do a lot of refunding and recrediting of demerit points. Shows that fighting things can have a result. Having said that, you've admitted you were going too fast (not at the speed the camera reckons) so cop it sweet and learn from it. A colleague got done for speeding recently (118km/h in a 100km/h zone) and he reckons the thing that really brought it home was being given the nickname "speedy" at work. Peer group pressure made him realise that speeding is never safe.