OT: Speed Cameras on motorways

From: "Howard Neil" Newsgroups: uk.rec.cars.maintenance Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 4:38 PM Subject: Re: Speed Cameras on motorways

(OK I should have said 10% +2 which is 79 - I can't add up) Well stuff me - what does the acpo site say ! on a motorway - (that is 70 mph speed limit) there is a fixed penalty at

The guidance to police officers is that it is anticipated that, other than in the most exceptional circumstances, the issue of fixed penalty notices and summonses is likely to be the minimum appropriate enforcement action as soon as the following speeds have been reached: Limit Fixed Penalty Summons

1. £60 (pending)
2. Licence endorsed with 3 penalty points Magisterial discretion (level 2) maximum of:
3. £1000 fine
4. Licence endorsed - range of penalty points available
5. Disqualification
6. Compulsory re-testing

Yes and it is where human error comes in to it. Any police office using VASCAR has to pass a quite stringent test on operating the system before he/she is let loose on the public :-) It does rely on human intervention both in starting and stopping the VASCAR system. Perhaps you should read a little more about it - or are you a serving officer?

Doki wrote

I checked my Mondeo and my mates' cars with a GPS, and the most accurate was the Mitsubishi Galant (UGH!), which read only about 3 mph high at

1. The Focus, and the Mondeo were both about 4mph high.

I have yet to find one which reads low.

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought that you meant his tenure as Chief Constable of North Wales.

You could well be right as to his chairmanship on the ACPO committee but don't expect any departure to make any major difference. As I have said elsewhere, ACPO only issues guidelines. Those guidelines do not have to be followed.

One of the reasons for having ACPO committees in the first place is to try to standardise things across the country. This works well with such things as equipment because there are good reasons for Chief Constables/Commissioners to agree to this.

Standardising the way forces deal with any offence, however, is a whole different ball game. Chief officers will listen to their local police committees first and, irrespective of any action taken by Transport2000, I do not believe that this ACPO committee would have been able to dictate policy re speed enforcement. Even then, if would have been impossible (and not legal) to dictate to the Constables what action they should take on the streets.

The Home Office has realised all this for some time and there are moves afoot to start combining forces into larger (in some cases, even national) units. I believe that this particular Home Secretary would like the greater power that this would bring him (it is easier to manipulate fewer forces which will also have less local political pressure as they would cover such a large area).

"> > >>ACPO guidlines say 10% + 4 so you would be ok at 79 - assuming that your

The police have to live in the real world. Any speedometer is inaccurate - legally, manufacturers have to comply with the +/-10% accuracy max limit. Often a speedo will be over at low speed and under at high but unless you have it calibrated every time you make a journey you will have no idea of the actual "true" speed. Tyre type/tread wear also make a difference.

The police reflect this in their guidelines to officers. That is why it is a uniform 10% + 2 (er said 10% +4 in previous post) except for the 20mph limit.

Anyone booked for speeding at speeds lower than that indicated could/would have a valid defence in that the speedometer was inaccurate.

I keep to speed limits in built up areas and I would advocate more 20mph limits in housing areas. Town centre speeds are low anyway, at least they are where I am

I tend to drive at 80mph (speedo reading) on the motorway. If, in my opinion, conditions warrant it.

You said "The police car that follows and actually stops you uses VASCAR and is very accurate as it is calibrated over a known distance at the start and end of a shift. Less accurate is the "stopwatch" system used for the start and end of the distance used to get your speed."

You say that a "stopwatch" system is less accurate than Vascar which is very accurate. I agree that Vascar is very accurate but it is still a "stopwatch" system which, as you say, relies on human intervention to stop and start it. Where is the difference?

- or are you a serving officer?

Not any more. I'm retired.

Transport2000,

Speeding guidelines have been standard for many years - letting the public know is recent.

That's probably because you need a speedo that overreads by up to 10% but must not underread to pass type approval.

Transport2000,

I don't disagree with you at all - I was just pointing what the ACPO attempted to do. The fact that it was taken to the high court shows that they were, at the very least, approaching the limits of their authority. As I understand it, any decision as to whether to prosecute lies with the individual officer, and it was the replacement of this individual discretion with rigid guideline (whether real or implied) that was objectionable to the pressure groups.

You would actually have to prove that your speedometer was inaccurate to the court for this to be a defence. It would be foolish to assume that the police will not book you for doing 34 in a 30, just because there is a guideline that says that doing 35 and over should be treated with a fixed penalty. The same document says "This guidance does not and cannot replace the police officer's discretion and they may decide to issue a summons or a fixed penalty notice in respect of offences committed at speeds lower than those set out in the table." Drivers in the UK should count themselves lucky - my experience of living in Australia had some unpleasant surprises, including police cars equipped with forward facing radar who could book you on sight, and a zero-tolerance approach to speeding (especially in Victoria) where 2km/h over the limit would guarantee a ticket - albeit a fixed penalty on a sliding scale.

Bob Davis (bob snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

While that'd be easy enough - if far more expensive than a fixed penalty ticket, unless it was the one that banned you - I'm not sure it'd get you very far.

And bring a charge of driving a vehicle that doesn't comply with C&U guidelines.

This could easily lead to a higher fine and points equivalent to the original speeding charge.

SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

All the CUxx points codes include the wording "dangerous" - which nobody could argue an under-reading speedo is.

True, this is an uncomfortable position. I prefer to keep ahead or behind or at least minimise the time spent alongside a lorry. I really don't trust the manoeuvres they make.

Hmm, 40 years of driving...touch wood.

I can.

Surely it's better for a driver to be able to judge for themselves what a safe speed is, than to have their eyes glued to a little dial rather than watching the road?

The speedo should be used as a confirmation that you are doing what has been deemed to be an acceptable speed on that bit of road only, IMO.

Anyone who is the least bit in touch with their car will be able to drive as safely with or without a working speedo, let alone one that reads under.

Unless of course you're making a point about muppets that need guidlines for everything they do from how to get out of bed to not feeing their 2 year old crisps. In which case they proably would be doing 120mph past a school if their speedo said they were doing 20...

Ahh, OK.

Oh, I don't know. Chief Constables around the country are realising what an effect on their relationships with the public that his obsession has had and many of them are advocating vastly different policies on the use of speed cameras.

Sure, but it's not really the ACPO guidelines that are the issue, per se, more his obsessive hatred of motorists and his continuing persecution of them as 'criminals'. Look at the crime clearup figures for North Wales police - they're one of, if not the, lowest in the country.

Perhaps it's time he concentrated on that rather than continuing to alienate the general public from the police by his attitude to drivers. I am a law abiding citizen and I was brought up by my parents to respect the police, however I would now be far less inclined to help them voluntarily (i.e. unless compelled to by law) than perhaps 5 years ago. This is all due to the obsession with speed cameras and treating motorists as public enemy number one.

It is that that many Chief Constables are concerned about - the way in which public support for the police has been well and truly eroded by the proliferation of GATSOS across the country and figureheads such as Brunstrom doing all they can to vilify pensioners by holding press conferences to castigate them for daring to exceed the speed limit by

I agree entirely with your sentiments.

You understand the decision to prosecute correctly. This is why I do not think that anything more than a guideline would have worked. There is only one Statute where a police officer does not have the discretion as to his/her actions. That is the Vagrancy Act 1824 and most of that was repealed a few years ago.

Bugger that! On the motorway it's more like the Darwin principle - or should that be Darwin awards? Placing another 2p-worth of comments on here: All you people who use the M25, listen up. You all know that you can't drive on the hard shoulder, but did you know that you can drive on lane 1? Yes, that's the one *next* to the hard shoulder that's usually quite clear. Just stop using the outside lane - the barrier there is not for you to rest the car upon as you do 60mph having a snooze. Okay, calm down...Big breaths[1]...aaaaaand, relax. :-)

Tom.