Speeding fines

[jarre]

This morning on the M62 in the variable speed limit section, 3 of the 4 lanes showed a 60 and the 4th board was blank (not the hard shoulder, but a full lane, the next gantry showed a reduced limit in that lane). Anyone care to guess what the limit in that one is?

Can grab an image from my dashcam.

Are you sure the 4th lane wasn't one of the hard shoulder lanes only used when it gets mega busy?

The boards are never set well on that stretch of the M62. I often drive down there to go through say 60, 60, 50, 40, 30, 60, 70. It's stupid. It slows everyone down to 30 for no reason at all.

[gadgetman]

Managed motorways cause more delays than non managed IME

[Huskoda]

Are you sure the 4th lane wasn't one of the hard shoulder lanes only used when it gets mega busy?

The boards are never set well on that stretch of the M62. I often drive down there to go through say 60, 60, 50, 40, 30, 60, 70. It's stupid. It slows everyone down to 30 for no reason at all.

Very sure, look at th picture, you can see 4 lanes and the hard shoulder and the 4 lanes all have directions on them. It's a broken board, I've seen it a few times now and that one is never lit. So if it's broken and not showing the speed correctly, can you still be prosecuted? Or rather, have you any chance of defending it. Dashcam footage will not likely win vs the speed camera.

As someone said, you won't have any proof the sign is broken.

[mdon]

Very sure, look at th picture, you can see 4 lanes and the hard shoulder and the 4 lanes all have directions on them. It's a broken board, I've seen it a few times now and that one is never lit. So if it's broken and not showing the speed correctly, can you still be prosecuted? Or rather, have you any chance of defending it. Dashcam footage will not likely win vs the speed camera.

As someone said, you won't have any proof the sign is broken.

I think a safe and competent driver would know that if a speed limit is enforced on lanes 1.2&4 (or which ever signs are working) then it also applies to lane 3. Plus the other boards will be working and they are only a few hundred yards ahead and behind.

I don't mind people challenging a fine/prosecution if they honestly believe they are innocent but I can't understand why people go to such lengths to squirm out of speeding fines when they've been caught. Take it on the chin and pay the fine, you know you were in the wrong.

[JohnMcL7]

Not read any of the article but wanted to put a couple of things down..

If you weren't speeding, yet you get a fine, I don't think it's a good idea to say 'oh well I'll pay to go on the course'. I thought from now on, by law, you have to declare to your insurance company if you have been on one, even if you have no points.

Secondly, speed limits frustrate me. Near me there's a 1.5mile stretch of dual carriageway. Near on perfectly straight, no junctions off it or crossings, 50mph limit. Why? You go to the otherside of the housing estate and not far from that are very very tight bends on country roads, 60mph limit. Where's the logic?!

 

You don't have to declare speed awareness courses by law, if anything the ones doing the course wouldn't want that as one of the selling points is it doesn't affect your insurance.  The Admiral group do now ask if you have been on a speed awareness course and I assume increase your premium as a result if you have.

 

John 

[keystonedriving]

You don't have to declare speed awareness courses by law, if anything the ones doing the course wouldn't want that as one of the selling points is it doesn't affect your insurance.  The Admiral group do now ask if you have been on a speed awareness course and I assume increase your premium as a result if you have.

 

John 

Yes, Admiral do treat people who have attended a course as if they had got the points.  As far as I know they are the only ones who do.  It's a bit perverse, really, if you have had the benefit of a safe driving refresher you should get a discount not a penalty.

 

A study underway at Aston University is tending to suggest that if you have done the course you are less likely to get caught again than if you have received the points.

[mender]

Yes, Admiral do treat people who have attended a course as if they had got the points.  As far as I know they are the only ones who do.  It's a bit perverse, really, if you have had the benefit of a safe driving refresher you should get a discount not a penalty.

 

A study underway at Aston University is tending to suggest that if you have done the course you are less likely to get caught again than if you have received the points.

There's a lot on the Honest John site about this-he suggests boycotting all insurers that adjust their premiums as it defeats the scheme's object

[octavia5]

Lots of different topics being covered in this thread. Dash cams were covered early but if you do have a good quality one with GPS and a link to google maps you can at least check for yourself that were actually on the road where the you were detected at the time of the detection and that you were indeed over the limit.  If you were speeding then take the points or do the course.

 

If your recording shows you were not there or not speeding you at least have the justification to challenge the evidence, ask for pictures, recordings, calibration evidence etc. Whether your recording would be accepted as evidence I do not know but it might help if you can find any discrepancies in the evidence. - now for the lawyers amongst us..........

[JohnMcL7]

Lots of different topics being covered in this thread. Dash cams were covered early but if you do have a good quality one with GPS and a link to google maps you can at least check for yourself that were actually on the road where the you were detected at the time of the detection and that you were indeed over the limit.  If you were speeding then take the points or do the course.

 

If your recording shows you were not there or not speeding you at least have the justification to challenge the evidence, ask for pictures, recordings, calibration evidence etc. Whether your recording would be accepted as evidence I do not know but it might help if you can find any discrepancies in the evidence. - now for the lawyers amongst us..........

 

The quality of evidence from a dash camera varies, the problem is that speed cameras are all Home Office approved devices that have been rigorously tested and it is assumed their result is correct by default (assuming it has been used correctly) whereas the dash cameras obviously hasn't been HO approved so unsurprisingly if the two disagree, the magistrates are likely to go with the evidence from the speed camera unless there's anything to indicate it hadn't been used properly.  Although assuming speed cameras are flawless isn't necessarily correct, it is partially understandable they have more credibility than a GPS based dash cameras as GPS speed measuring is generally fairly good on average but it's not that accurate at fixed points.  Furthermore many GPS logs are simply text files which can be edited meaning their authenticity cannot be verified, I think there are some that offer digitally signed logs (Roadhawk?) that the manufacturer will verify the file authenticity in court but you still have potential accuracy issues.  

 

Someone did actually try using a GPS log as evidence asking for advice on the pocket GPS forum, he was advised not to as the file format his system used was a basic text file which couldn't be verified but the person replied he wasn't very technical and wouldn't know how to do that.  A few months later someone spotted a BBC news article about a person with the same name as on the forum and from the same area of the country that had been convicted for perverting the course of justice - he had driven the route he had been caught speeding on but this time staying within the limit then modified the date/time to make it look like the original journey.  He was caught out as he forgot to account for daylight savings time so the times were an hour out.

 

The other big issue with this sort of defence is that it gets very expensive very quickly (unless in Scotland where each side pays their own costs), the starting point for costs for a not guilty plea is currently around £600 and if you're running a technical defence the cost can quickly spiral when the prosecution bring in expert witnesses to verify the workings of the speed camera.  There was a case within the last couple of years where someone challenged the accuracy of a Gatso which had captured them at 35 in a 30, after a few losses and appeals they were still found guilty and now have a bill of over £30,000 legal costs to pay to the prosecution.

 

John

[brownfox]

Off course if your a scroat and buy old bangers never register them, leave the previous owners name ,on the log book,and you don't stop, or it's a speed cam, you never get caught and they say crime does not pay. NO info no fine. It's only us stupid honest people who pay up nowt unusual there then is there.

Thinking about it no traffic police=no tax no insurance needed if you do get caught fines cheaper than tax and insurance. Similar to benefits really why work just scrounge,is,nt this country wonderful

[King Arfur]

Also drivers stick on the cruise or speed limiters

 

Wait until the GPS linked tachos are launched....!!

We really are going down the 'Big Brother' route, that's for sure!  Just wait until the entire network of motorway average speed cameras are finally installed and commissioned....

[mender]

We really are going down the 'Big Brother' route, that's for sure!  Just wait until the entire network of motorway average speed cameras are finally installed and commissioned....

......and linked up......

[DaKKs_152]

......and linked up......

 

Whoever came up with linked cameras should be shot. There's a stretch of about 200 kilometres here where there is a camera about every 5 km. And they're all linked, so it calculates your speed and takes a picture even if you're driving legally. So you can't speed up between cameras.

Last time I drove past it ****ed me off so much that I pulled over and took off my front plate. Good luck ID'ing mine out of 252236 cars.

[Brimma]

Some people really do think they are above the law, thank f * ck they live in Sweden

[BJM]

Some people really do think they are above the law, thank f * ck they live in Sweden

 

I always thought Hans Christian Anderson was Danish, not Swedish.

[King Arfur]

What makes me laugh is the amount of new speed limits that are introduced just before the Council budgets need to be spent/set.  Let's spend the last of our money swapping out NSL signs for 50mph signs to get rid of the last few pennies (and ensure the next years budget).... 

Edited 17 November, 2013 by King Arfur

[King Arfur]

Last time I drove past it ****ed me off so much that I pulled over and took off my front plate. Good luck ID'ing mine out of 252236 cars.

Once Big Brother goes national, number plate 'crime' is going to go through the roof.  But by then, all of the traffic cops will have been retired so that HAL2000 can monitor everybody's speed anywhere on any motorway, so I'm not sure how they're going to tackle it.....

[Paul007]

What makes me laugh is the amount of new speed limits that are introduced just before the Council budgets need to be spent/set.  Let's spend the last of our money swapping out NSL signs for 50mph signs to get rid of the last few pennies (and ensure the next years budget).... 

 

That's down to the unique way Local Authority is funded....and crazy it is too.

[DaKKs_152]

Once Big Brother goes national, number plate 'crime' is going to go through the roof.  But by then, all of the traffic cops will have been retired so that HAL2000 can monitor everybody's speed anywhere on any motorway, so I'm not sure how they're going to tackle it.....

Yeah, at one point every third car lacked a front plate. The fine for not having a front plate used to be 400 SEK (35 quid), now its 1500 SEK (130 quid). So now it matches the "cheapest" speeding ticket (1-10km over the limit). Assuming of course that they can prove it, which rarely happens.

Remarkably, front plates is still the second most common thing they fine you for. Seat belts aren't so popular around here. Hmm, personally I'd just legalize it and let nature sort itself out.

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

The Connect is actually 50/60/70 as it is not car derived and it has a MAM in excess of 2 tonnes. For a van to have car speeds it has to be both car derived and have a MAM under 2 tonnes. Very few vans these days pass both of those tests.

I was reading about this on another forum, was an interesting read. The connect is derived from a ford fusion and some of them are less than the 2 tonne limit. There was a fair bit of differing opinions presented from various sources as to what made a car derived van and what van came under what rules. (Not just the connect but others too)

[JohnMcL7]

I was reading about this on another forum, was an interesting read. The connect is derived from a ford fusion and some of them are less than the 2 tonne limit. There was a fair bit of differing opinions presented from various sources as to what made a car derived van and what van came under what rules. (Not just the connect but others too)

 

It's a complete mess now because car derived vans are no longer as simple as a car with a slightly different back end, with platform sharing between different manufacturers what makes a car derived van seems to get variable answers from different government departments.  I was reading a topic where someone was asking for advice after receiving a NIP for speeding in a Peugeot Bipper, they were within the speed limit but over the van limit.  The Peugeot Bipper van was originally released by Fiat as the Fiorino using the Grande Punto car platform, Fiat also released it as a small MPV known as the Qubo and Peugeot also sell a small MPV version of the Bipper Tepee.  Strictly the van version came first but the MPV version of the Fiat came before the Peugeot van version and the original Fiat van version was based on the car platform, they're all under 2,000 kgs.

 

In similar situations the police seem to usually drop it when the vehicle is explained but it still seems a bit hit and miss.

 

John

[keystonedriving]

Niether the Bipper or the Citroen Nemo has been homologated as a car derived van, so the whole question is acedemic.

 

I believe that, so far as the Connect is concerned, there was one version made very early on which was under 2 tonnes mam but as it onlt had a small petrol engine it didn't sell and they stopped making it.  Certainly the majority of Connects have an MAM of around 2200kg so are way over.

[JohnMcL7]

No, it's not academic at all as the actual law for this is very vague, all it says is (from the RTA 1984):

"A goods vehicle which is constructed or adapted as a derivative of a passenger vehicle and which has a maximum laden weight not exceeding 2 tonnes."

The Bipper and the Nemo are both derived from the Grande Punto so they meet the car derived criteria and they're under 2 tonnes, in practice they seem to go with the simpler definition of the weight as that's more clearcut.

John

[keystonedriving]

I can assure you that neither the Bipper nor the Nemo is a car derived van, so far as the law is concerned.  A lot of companies and drivers have found that out the hard way.

 

These days, the Fiesta, Clio, Corsa and Astra vans are about the only car derived vans being sold.

[vindaloo]

So far as Bigger and Nemo are concerned it's a mess, search t'web for the issue. What Van had a few things to say about it. In essence, keystonedriving is correct.