I have just come back from Donnington park, I had been watching historic motor racing.

Travelling there I took the A628 Woodhead pass and then the A616 Stocksbridge bypass.

Anyway the A616 is home to around 6 Yellow Vultures aka. Specs cameras. which calculate your average speed between each one using digital number plate recognition.

I think I may have been caught, however what if I have been caught between more than one pair?? Answers from anyone who has had experience of these nightmare cameras please!:(

Firstly the summons needs to be issued on you within 14 days, they give you a miminum of 10%+2mph (as per ACPO guidelines) and can work between a number of points depending on how many cameras are set out on that strech of road. It could be camera one and 3 turned on 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 and each camera only covers one lane and cannot measure your speed if you went through camera one in lane one and camera two in lane two (against home office approval).

It can work day and night and if you hold a digital camera towards one you should see a glow on the sides of it if its working too

You could look up a site like pepipoo which has tons of info on what to do in these situations as well

Also, they cannot give you more than three seperate prosicutions in one day......

(I believe they DO prosecute people moving accross different lanes, I thought it was an urban myth that changing lanes lets you escape it.... home office regs don't mean much, its supposed to be a serving police officer that has to jusge you are speeding before pulling the trigger on a laser divice.... but they use civil servants! speed cameras are supposed to be positioned only at accident blackspots not on an empty M75... but the do! [although they have just changed the law to accomadate this... cameras can now be anywhere...])

Caught by Specs eh? Looks like you could be in the "frame" for a ticket then......:thumbdwn:

Should have gone to "SPECS-SAVERS" ???????

Just say you were on official business or testing the road - I believe that works.

Just say you were on official business or testing the road - I believe that works.

Yawn , yet another ill-informed anti-police comment.

As for the speeding , if you have been caught by multiple sets on the same stretch of road then you should be able to get it treated as a single offence

My sincere apologies for my topical, if not amusing, joke. I'll try harder next time.

Well lets see what comes through, problem was it was too late by the time I realised what was happening, it is hard to estimate what my average speed was, I may be ok.

I got stuck behind HGVs which in turn were behind a caravan, so as soon as the overtaking lane became available going uphill I got past them all. At the top of the hill were a pair of yellow vultures so who knows? Doesn't look good though.

Did you change lanes at all?? I'm lead to believe that confuses them.....

Did you change lanes at all?? I'm lead to believe that confuses them.....

I think I may have done, however as mentioned above, it was only a dual carriageway going uphill.

This page will give you the definitive guide to all things SPECS.

It should do as they brought the bloody thing to market!

There is a slideshow that is worth watching at the bottom of the page.

Cr@p fact of the day: SPECS is the brand name for the system that is actually called SVDD (Speed Violation Detection Deterrent)

Remember your speedo will display your speed at a few MPH under what you are actually doing as well. i used to regularly hammer along the Stocksbridge Bypass at what I thought was 70MPH (but clearly was within the accepted speed limit) and never had a ticket.

This page will give you the definitive guide to all things SPECS.

It should do as they bought the bloody thing to market!

There is a slideshow that is worth watching at the bottom of the page.

Cr@p fact of the day: SPECS is the brand name for the system that is actually called SVDD (Speed Violation Detection Deterrent)

Thanks for that, very helpful!

Remember your speedo will display your speed at a few MPH under what you are actually doing as well. i used to regularly hammer along the Stocksbridge Bypass at what I thought was 70MPH (but clearly was within the accepted speed limit) and never had a ticket.

Thanks also! Like I said, no point crying until I know if I have been caught. dstev2000's link is interesting to watch, there is also a map of all the sites in the UK temporary and permanent so I should have known better to say I am keen on driving.

The map of sites is somewhat out of date, several sets on the map have been removed and there is one set not even shown thats been in place for a while now.

The M26 SPECS cameras have been gone a while now :thumbdwn:

Remember your speedo will display your speed at a few MPH under what you are actually doing as well. i used to regularly hammer along the Stocksbridge Bypass at what I thought was 70MPH (but clearly was within the accepted speed limit) and never had a ticket.

Shouldnt that be a few MPH over what you are acrually doing? Thought it was illegel for a speedo to under read.

Shouldnt that be a few MPH over what you are acrually doing? Thought it was illegel for a speedo to under read.

Yes you are right i meant to say your speed will be a few MPH under what your speedo reads.

if it was a 70limit then the camera would have been set to 79 and above, your speedo reads at about 5% higher than you actually going, so you in theory need to be travelling at just under 83mph

Do SPECS zones not have to be signposted?

Do SPECS zones not have to be signposted?

I have just driven the same stretch of road, however this time I got 43mpg!! It is amazing how economical the mk1 vRS can be when driven on a whiff of throttle.

Anyway, I digress, the point is there is a sign saying average speed check but it is around 3-5 miles away from the start of the average speed check cameras and I missed it, I am pretty sure that it should have been closer than that to the Specs cameras. There have been a few motorists that have escaped points on this stretch of road due to bad signposts.

As for the camera locations, the first one is at the bottom of the hill with the overtaking lane and guess what the second is around the corner at the top!! Thats a nice revenue maker. "here you are mr motorist, put your foot down and loose your licence thankyou!"

if it was a 70limit then the camera would have been set to 79 and above, your speedo reads at about 5% higher than you actually going, so you in theory need to be travelling at just under 83mph

They dont have to be set at anything like the ACPO guidelines. If a force or partnership really wanted to, they could easily set them all at 71mph and bust everyone.

In fact some forces now set their 30 cams to 31mph!

Son got done on same set :thumbdwn:

When faced with SPECs, cruise is your friend :thumbup:

Try not to worry too much, it probably won't amount to much

I wasn't concentrating one day and I found myself doing just over 40 in a 30, and I only realised as I was going across the white lines. Given that I want a career in driving in the future, I absolutley shat myself for 2 weeks.

Then I have also sped past 3 mobile vans, one where I was doing about 10mph over the limit,

Nothing has ever come through my door

However I think I will register my next car to Mrs. Jenna Hedges at my address, as I would like to see a police officer issue a £30 fine to a Manchester Terrier:D