Safe Speed Forums

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lice14.xml

Police warn the drivers who got away with it: we are watching you
By David Millward, Transport Correspondent
(Filed: 14/09/2006)

Police forces are to step up their campaign against motorists who avoid drink-driving and speeding conviction by exploiting legal loopholes, it was announced yesterday.

Meredydd Hughes, the most senior traffic officer in the country, warned that drivers suspected of persistently breaking the law would be watched closely.

"I don't think it's dodgy to use intelligence about people's driving to decide who you want to keep an eye on," said Mr Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire.

"Drivers who fail to change their behaviour are undoubtedly likely to come to police attention and we intend that the prosecution process gives those bereaved in road collisions the sense that justice has been done."

One initiative would see police creating a special team to take on those trying to avoid conviction.

Police would employ experts to counter those used by defence teams trying to undermine speeding prosecutions by questioning the accuracy of cameras.

Officers and prosecution staff will be given extra training to avoid some of the errors that have led to motorists being cleared by the courts.

Mr Hughes, who heads the traffic arm of the Association of Chief Police Officers, was speaking against a backdrop of increasing frustration at the number of acquittals of motorists over technical errors.

Some of those cleared have been household names such as David Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson.

"It's both clever lawyers and police not doing their job," said Andrew Howard, the head of roads policy at the AA Motoring Trust

"One example which comes to mind is when somebody's secretary signed a form on behalf of the driver, which meant the court held that he had admitted the offence.

"Whether that was a legitimate mistake or someone advised that this should be done, we will never know.

"There have been a number of times when people have driven a coach and horses through the speed camera law.

"You have to think of a clerk processing hundreds of notices and they may overlook something which could create a loophole.

"You might have someone driving through Hereford claiming they could not read a speed sign because it had been vandalised and the court could accept that.

"But if there were several signs further down the road or the driver regularly used that route on the way home, it might be a different matter."

Mr Hughes's determination to increase the conviction rate was condemned by some motoring groups including Safe Speed, which campaigns against speed cameras.

"These tactics stink of desperation and intimidation," said Paul Smith, the group's founder.

"I presume that too many people are fighting speeding tickets and that it is interfering with the flow of money from speed cameras."

But Nick Freeman, Britain's best known motoring "loophole lawyer", said better police training could lead to fewer drivers being cleared because of technicalities.

"There are no such things as 'loopholes' in these cases," he said, "it is simply the word of the law.

"People are acquitted bec-ause the police are not doing their job properly."

A spokesman for Brake, the road safety charity, said: "We are very pleased that Acpo has announced that it is going to try to improve the training procedures to help stop loopholes occurring."

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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

Oh really? They want it both ways as usual. If someone in normal circumstances claimed they didn;t know the limit because they had never used that route before and there were no more signs further down, the scammers would immediately go into robot mode and declare "It's the signs that matter, not your judgement. Only what the signs say matters" etc.

Er, the government's own speed limit guidelines say:


(My bold)

It's irrelevant whether a reasonable person could work out the speed limit from the signage that's present - if it doesn't conform to the regulations, the speed limit does not apply.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Exactly. They want to enforce a technical definition of everything when it suits them, but fall back into some kind of 'resonableness' test when that suits them instead.

Note the attempt to make equivalent a serious and a trivial offence.


So they admit incompetence.


No mention of the increasing frustration of improperly convicted motorists.


You have to think of a motorist processing hundreds of signs and they may overlook something...

Self righteous load of twaddle.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Absolutely. Hello doublethink.

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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

Apropos this particular story, this is the editorial in yesterday's Daily Post, the daily morning newspaper for north Wales, and a newspaper which traditionally supported Brainstorm's "Arrive Alive" campaign, but since a few years has begun to doubt the scheme's motives and effectiveness.

http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/new ... _page.html

Don't turn one mistake into another
Sep 14 2006

Daily Post


FEW people like it when some Smart Alec lawyer gets his rich celebrity client off the hook for some driving offence or other because of some legal "loophole" - where others would be successfully prosecuted.

You can't really blame the lawyer for trying it on, and you can hardly blame the client, though you might well resent them both. But justice should not be a commodity.

You can blame the way the law is framed or interpreted, and you can blame the police if they have failed to follow the correct procedures.

Nevertheless you can sympathise with them: procedural loopholes should not be allowed to negate natural justice where all other features of the case point towards guilt.

But, the law being the law, should you then set out to target the client who the court has found not guilty?

After all, we are constantly being told that the letter of the law is what is important. Never mind that you didn't intend to exceed the speed limit by one mile per hour.

And if the letter of the law has not been followed by the prosecutors, why should they be cut any more slack than the accused?

The Association of Chief Police Officers is not perhaps the best body to debate moral conundrums. So what are we to make of the statement by Meredydd Hughes, their head of road policing, that officers should be "looking for" motorists who had been "unjustly acquitted".

Who is Mr Hughes to question the judgement of the court?

What is disturbing is not so much the use of a loophole in the first instance but the fact that these loopholes, once exposed, have not since been sewn up.

What is important is that people suspected of having committed a serious offence are dealt with at every stage competently. And that the law is, if necessary, amended by parliament.

However it is equally important is that our police do not consider themselves justified in adopting a vigilante approach.

If someone can afford to hire an expensive lawyer to save them from losing their licence because they were nabbed doing 35mph in a 30mph limit, it may make the rest of us seethe but that is no reason for them to be singled out for police surveillance - which a clever lawyer would no doubt be able to turn to his client's advantage anyway by arguing harassment or even provocation.