Safe Speed Forums

I would entirely agree.

Furthermore, whilst it would appear that we "agree to disagree" over the wisdom of absolute speed limit enforcement, I also entirely agree with you r more general stance, ie that your role is to do your best to interpret the laws as Parliament intended them, and not with your own interpretation. If what you have said so far is anything to go by then it seems you do an admirable job of that, whatever your own views might or might not be.

I think the main grievance that I have is the absolute blind faith that has to be placed in automated speeding detection systems solely because they have Type Approval. I can understand the reasoning behind this, in that any alternate line of reasoning would give every defendant the option of instilling "reasonable doubt" simply by gainsaying the evidence of the machine, but nevertheless I think this whole system is being mis-used to the detriment of justice.

I was accused solely on the uncorroborated evidence of a SPECS system. When I made enquiries about how on Earth I could be prosecuted on one sole piece of evidence I discovered that Type Approval removes the need for any secondary evidence. If would seem that if the evidence were adduced as a speed reading scribbled on the side of a banana then that would be accepted as "beyond reasonable doubt", just as long as the banana had Home Office Type Approval! Again I can see the logic behind this, but when this point is stretched to the extent of completely automating the detection process then I think it becomes bad law.

If, in my case, I had been done by a Policeman who had simply made an error of judgement, then that would be a lot easier to accept, as being the unfortunate minor side effect of an otherwise necessary system. The acide test would be that if the Policeman thought my driving constituted a danger and used a speeding ticket as an easy "proxy" to gain a conviction, then I'd feel that justice would still be served even if the actual allegation were incorrect. With an automated system that essential road safety element drops right out of the equation and the offence becomes a merely technical one.

Which is why a purely technical defence seems so appropriate!




I am not able to comment on the high court decision because that is way above any experience or training I have had.[/quote]

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Absolutely correct.

The feeling I came away from the original court with was that the Magistrates and in particular the Clerk, were sympathetic towards me but not to the extent of showing any bias. In my opinion they listened to the case dispassionately and applied the law carefully and even-handedly.

In short they were everything you could hope to expect from a Magistrates' Court, (and I'm not just saying that because they found in my favour!).

I went to the RCJ full of respect and reverence, and with a small feeling of pride that I was involved in a tiny way with carrying on the traditions of English case law, the envy of the civilised World.

I came away feeling abused and cheated. Whether or not the verdict was actually correct in law is immaterial when set aside the sneaky and underhand way the process was carried out. Denied the chance to properly prepare for the legal points that were raised I'll never now know whether the judgment was correct or not.

Thank you for that.

I have to be honest and say that my feelings are to try and just put this behind me now. It's already cost me two days off work, plus a third no doubt for the re-trial, not to mention a few hundred in out of pocket expenses.

Whilst in theory the "right" thing to do would be to appeal the decision to the House of Lords, the two aspects that put me off this are firstly that the original stated case isn't "tightly" worded enough to nail it down to the legal points that were actually applied on the day. In other words, whilst the intent and meaning behind it all is abundantly clear I fear it leaves too much room to exactly the sort of "fudging" that went on last time; and secondly that there is a risk that they might be of the same frame of mind as the RCJ, and deliberately wrong-foot us in similar fashion to last time, by unexpectedly introducing yet another legal argument that no-one has yet considered.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

And so where did that get him, just to an even more costly defence !!!

And where is the justice this case ??

The one thing that gets forgotten in all this legality is that all of this is supposed to be about improving road safety, yet it could be a million miles from that.

Are there any reasons at all allowed in law for imposing a speed limit? I don't know any. It's just 'authority given' isn't it?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

In which case you need to convice parliament that you and your statistics are correct and that they and their statistics are wrong.

At the moment it seems to me that you are actually challenging their right to impose laws that you disagree with. Rest assured that they will fight that with all the power at their command.

You are probably right. I was trying to convey that safety alone is not the only reason that can be used to impose a speed limit. I just didn't choose my words very well.

Paul Smith, who runs this website, has certainly been trying very hard to make our government aware of just how ineffective speed cameras are, but it has clearly been a difficult struggle for him.

I am doing what little I can, by bringing the matter to the attention of my own and various other MPs, and hopeful even help you to see their futility, but I fully appreciate the blind and misguided faith many have about speed cameras and they would rather not accept that they don't work.

What I have seen in just this forum, including your comments, totally convinces me that the police and legal process will use whatever tricks and manipulation of the system they can to prevent a motorist from getting any justice once he has been accused of speeding, however innocent he may be of that allegation.

All I am trying to do is express an observation that all this heavy handed legal process associated with speed cameras is doing nothing to improve road safety, but all it is doing is to bring alienation and disrespect to the police and legal system.

You can keep quoting that “the Law is the Law and has to be obeyed” until the cows come home, but that will do nothing to reduce the deaths and injuries on our roads, and neither will having speed cameras covering every inch of our roads and making criminals out of every driver and rider.

[quote="
What I have seen in just this forum, including your comments, totally convinces me that the police and legal process will use whatever tricks and manipulation of the system they can to prevent a motorist from getting any justice once he has been accused of speeding, however innocent he may be of that allegation.

You can keep quoting that “the Law is the Law and has to be obeyed” until the cows come home, but that will do nothing to reduce the deaths and injuries on our roads, and neither will having speed cameras covering every inch of our roads and making criminals out of every driver and rider.[/quote]

but nobody makes them break the speed limit, (as stupid as it is on occasions) and if the driver driver gets caught then they have the options available, if they go to court and get heavily fined that is their choice,

its not my fault (day out of the van for me),
its not fishermans as he sits on whatever cases are booked for the day, its not the CPS's fault, as the defendant elected this course of action

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now retired

You obviously haven't read some of the postings higher up inthis thread.



loitering with intent?



so it's the motorists fault that the system allows some busybody to set whatever limits they fancy, that the system allows a draconian level of enforcement of said limits, that the CPS uses threats and menaces to discourage the motorist from doing anything other than paying up meekly - even if they're innocent, that the motorist has virtually no defence in court - even if they're entirely innocent?

It seems that we haven't really progressed from the dark ages, and that the Bill of Rights might as well not have been written.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

If I got all my information from this forum I would agree with you.
Thats not a dig at the forum or those who run it, just a reflection of the fact that it attracts people who view the system in that light.
If you have a look here
http://www.brake.org.uk/index.php?p=269
you will find a forum that attracts people with the opposite view.

I can only say that I have seen attempts to manipulate the system, some successful some not, from both prosecution and defence.

It is a fact that in just about every case I have seen where there has been a collision the driver will say that if he had been doing 10 MPH less there would not have been a collision.
I am not trying to suggest that speed alone was responsible for any of those accidents just that I fail to see how allowing drivers to set their own limits would improve things. After all someone who will do 50 in 40 when it puts his licence at risk is hardly likely to drive slower when there is no risk to his licence.

Don't forget that no driver leaves home intending to damage his car. They all drive in a manner they consider to be safe, right up until they hit something.

The law only makes criminals of those who break it.

substitute "voters" for "motorists" and you are on the right track

Ah! the good old bill of rights. As a protestant I look forward to taking up the right to carry weapons which the bill of rights guarantees me. I promise not to kill any catholics.

Fisherman: "The law only makes criminals of those who break it."

It has also been said that the law is an ass

I feel that something that the our current legal system and government sems to think is that because it is law it is correct - I think Emily Pankhurst might have something to say about that !!

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

A frequent source of conversation in the magistrates court retiring room and the crown court judges lounge is criticism of whichever law we have just been dealing with. In the crown court in particular the disscussion is highly informed and often very critical.

Lots of letters are written as a result of those conversations, if any notice is ever taken i am not sure.

Then we go back into court and do our best to uphold the will of parliament. Just think how much worse it would be if the judiciary decided which laws they would uphold and to what extent.

My personal view is that a law will be unpopular with a percentage of the population and popular with another percentage with the majority not bothered one way or the other.
The thing that enabled Emily Pankhurst to win her battle was that the laws she fought were clearly unfair. Unfair in that they discriminated not on behaviour, which we can control if we want to, but on gender which we can't control.
Similar comments can be made about racial discrimination in South Africa.

The speed laws and their enforcement are not even close in importance, discrimination or effect on peoples lives.

Fisherman: "The speed laws and their enforcement are not even close in importance, discrimination or effect on peoples lives."

Really ?? How about people who have been pinged at traps like Folly Bottom, the SPECS in London that started outside the 20mph zone. These have caused financial consequences in terms of the fines and subsequent increases in insurance. I would say that is a case of law or enforcement of that is unfair, wouldn't you ??

I have had numerous conversations with Essex Camera Partnership about one of thier sites operating near Witham that is a hazard to other road users - that is a professional opinion not a personal one - given that the potential outcome of thier method of enforcement could be a fatality, would you care to explain how that is not 'even close in importance,... or effect on peoples lives.' ??

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

That would be the same organisation that said, just the other day, that emergency vehicles should never exceed speed limits.



The word of a driver involved in an accident hardly counts as expert opinion, does it? And they would say something like that, wouldn't they?
But they're right, even if they don't know it. In fact, had they been doing just 1mph less, or even 1mph more, there would not have been a collision - simply because they would have been somewhere else at the time the collision occurred. Think on that.



It's essential for drivers to set their own speed - otherwise they'd just drive at the limit in situations where an appropriate speed would be far lower than the limit.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I disagree with that type of thinking. that is changing fate. We need to be concentrating on the bunching that speed cameras cause.

I prefer the argument if they had been an extra half a second apart then the accident may not have happened.

The government is stuck up on speed but space is a REAL life saver.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

REALLY? Have you seen this: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/fatality.html ?

Or this: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/buckingham.html ?

The 'fatality gap' deaths are now up to about 8,000. We're running over 1,000 lives each year behind schedule.

I gave up work three years ago because I am CERTAIN that the fatality gap deaths are due to bad road safety policy founded on speed cameras.

Add in the damage to confidence in Police and the justice system.

Add in the damage to lives when people who were driving safely are banned for a purely technical offence.

Add in the long term damage to road safety culture.

And perhaps you'll understand why I think it's so damn serious.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

If you think that equates to being denied education, health care, the right to vote, the right to live where you want and the right to jobs that pay a living wage because of the colour of your skin then you and I will have to disagree.

I simply wanted to point out that it is possible to believe you are a member of an overwhelming majority if your information comes from one website.

the system regards a guilty plea as the strongest form of evidence. When someone says that 10 mph less would have avoided a collision they are making things worse for themselves not better.


Sorry, poor explanation on my part. I meant to say allowing drivers to set their own limits in excess of the posted ones.

So you trust a driver's judgement when it tells them it is only safe to drive below the posted limit, but not when that same expertise tells them it is safe to drive above it.

That's a very neat theory but in practice you can't have it both ways! If we continue to metaphorically slap peoples wrists every time they safely drive over the speed limit then the message we are drumming into them is "disregard your judgement - the number on the sign is the speed we want you to drive at". I believe this will have a particularly profound effect on new drivers who have only ever driven under this regime.

How many times have we read or heard a driver being exonorated on the basis that they "weren't speeding", even though their speed was clearly too high for the circumstances? The message going out is that it is more important to drive at a legal speed than at a safe one! When you consider the theoretical purpose of having speed limits in the first place, that sounds to me like the tail wagging the dog!

By all means lets have speed limits, and lets by all means prosecute people for exceeding them, but only where the judgement of an expert (ie a traffic policeman) tells us that such a speed was unsafe and / or irresponsible for the circumstances. Then and only then will they be serving us in the way they were intended.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!