Safe Speed Forums

It's been 14 working days since I passed a mobile camera van in a 50 mph zone breaking the new land speed record... I know it's my own fault, but in my defence the road used to be a 70 mph limit, it was a Sunday evening and I was the only car on the road so opened the car up a little.

Anyway for the past 14 (working) days I have butterflies in my stomach everytime I walk through my door in the evening expecting my court summons to have arrived, put it this way I have most definately learnt my lesson, am even thinking of changing my car for something slower to take some of the temptation away.

So my question is, how much longer have I realistically got to wait? I acquired a SP-30 3 years ago on one of these units and the ticket took no more than a week or so.

If you're the Registered Keeper, it's sounding very good.

The legal requirement is to notify the registered keeper within 14 days (not 14 working days) of the date of alleged offence. If that window is missed then this is fatal to any prosecution.

There's the possibility of an argument about 'the notice was lost in the post', but the possibility that the van didn't record your speed is far higher. He may have been setting up, looking the other way, unable to get a 'lock', drinking his tea, having a kip... anything.

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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

It was early evening, so I must have been his last customer of the day or there abouts, maybe with it being dusk he struggled to get a reading. However he was most definitely still in the back operating the camera.

I said the same thing re: drinking his tea But a friend of a friend who is a Berkshire police officer seemed to think the kit they run out the back of those mobile vans runs all day, like a video camera. Is their any truth in this?

Oh and yes I am the registered owner - it's been the worst few weeks of my life! Because it will definately be a ban, a long one! In fact I was half expecting to be carted off to jail!

Custody is NOT available for speeding.

Speed alone is not enough for a dangerous driving charge, which would bring a real risk of jail.

Hmm - either way I am currently rather concerned. I won't be entirely happy until were half way through this month and I still haven't received anything.

I would add that you must be correctly registered as the keeper of the vehicle (assuming it is your own vehicle) at the time of the offence (and up to 14 days afterwards). The SCP are under obligation to send the NIP to the registered keeper as stated on the DVLA database within the 14 days, if your details are entered incorrectly then you could be waiting for 6 months for the NIP to arrive.


Would you care to state what speed you believe you were doing?

It is a rather perverse fact that if you are not driving directly towards a laser speed gun (which must be the case if on a straight road) the faster you go, the chances of a good lock on by the gun is slightly reduced for each attempt because the operator has to pan faster; also the number of attempts is reduced as you spend less time in the measurable zone.


Purely out of interest: exactly what lesson did you learn from this?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I have owned the car a little while, moved house last year but all the details are 100% upto date on the registration document.

I don't really know how fast I was going speed wise, but I probably went over the roundabout 300 meters up the road at 40-50 mph, drive an e46 M3 coupe and I had finished wringing out 3rd gear and changed into 4th (that gives you an idea).

As for the road it isn't 100% straight, it has a slight right hand bend in it. Which enables the van to stay just out of sight, so that when you eventually come around the corner you've built up a fair bit of speed.

Lessons learnt: be extra vigilant in 50 mph zones no matter how often you drive down that road you never know when it's likely to become a hot-spot, a 343 bhp road car doesn't take much trying to get you into potentially lots of trouble and lastly I need my licence for my job, and therefore without it I can't pay my mortgage. I need to grow up, maybe spend less money and run a cheaper, slower road car and spend the money saved on the M3 on track days for my kicks, even considering buying a go-kart.

I should mention, karma is a bitch - the following day someone went into the back of the car at some traffic lights whilst the damage was very minor three weeks on it's still not back

There probably is, but it is my understanding that they should not do this. Before they train any speed measuring device on your car they must have formed prior opinion that you were exceeding the limit, which is then confirmed with the device. I'd be willing to bet that they don't do this though, and just film as many vehicles as possible in the hope that some are exceeding the prosecution thresholds so they can get paid.

Personally I would like to see a requirement for any video-linked speed measurement devices to show recording of an area away from the roadway prior to each vehicle being targetted. This would certainly strengthen the case that prior opinion had been formed, but would require them to actually do so! I would hope that cases would be thrown out where a vehicles is shown to have been targetted a mere split-second after entering the shot, since this would not allow time for prior opinion to be formed.

Interesting fact for those who may say 'prior opinion could be formed in a split second': The human Eyeball-Brain Apparatus Mk1 is very good at judging distance, but rather worse at judging speed. This is due to the fact that several different techniques for judging distance are used by the brain across our depth of view. Only those used closer in are much good at accurately assessing speed. With an object coming more or less directly towards an observer, at some distance off, the brain is likely to be judging that distance by comparing the observed size of the object to it's reference of the known size of that object and any objects around it. At distance the size changes little, and so speed perception is very difficult.

That's correct, but, possibly more importantly they CANNOT do this.

For a start a trigger must be pulled to initiate a speed measurement (game over).

And in virtually all practical cases the device must be aimed at the target and 'panned' with the target. (game, set and match).

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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

PC Mark Milton must have wondered about that
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12937&highlight=dangerous+driving

Speed alone doesn't do it.

There are lots of things which may be considered to amount to dangerous driving when they happen at the same time as high speed.


a few examples
restricted visibility due to fog or darkness
poor vehicle condition
lots of traffic
nature of the road
ice

At last something that would tip the scales slightly in my favour... The car is perfect in every way, visibility was 100% and the roads were bone dry. I was the only vehicle on the entire dual carriageway at the time. Still I don't have a plausible excuse other than I needed the toilet (and I really did!), but I don't think that counts.

One theory about the Mark Milton 'ping pong' case is that the CPS hope to establish high speed alone as a basis for dangerous driving. This would explain why they picked a case with no (strong or obvious) aggravating factors to take to the ends of the earth.

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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 that is correct someone wasn't thinking very clearly.

PC Milton is a police advanced (or whatever the correct term is) driver who was on duty at the time. Those two features of the case make it a poor choice for establishing speed alone as dangerous driving.

Do they? I think the opposite. If it was determined that Mark Milton's driving was dangerous by virtue of speed, then no other driver could reasonably claim to be better equipped.

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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

Ignoring the fact that PC Milton didn't actually have prior (or post) authorisation to do what he did, speeds in excess of 80mph in an urban 30 zone are taking the piss no matter how good a driver you are.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

IMO it depends on the 30 - as I posted here:-

And I still stand by the last line above ^^^

Depends on how isolated the road is:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewt ... ght=#78415
My car will easily do 30-80-30 along that stretch - not that I've ever done it. The majority of drivers on that road speed up to around 50.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I would suggest that that is not an urban 30mph zone.

What it boils down to, imo, is the potential for emergent hazards. On a dual carriageway, such as that pictured, there is very little liklihood of a kid chasing a football into your path, or a cyclist hopping off the kerb (they do that to me all the bloody time, like lemmings, it irritates the p*ss out of me!), and as such a higher speed is justified.

Exceeding 80mph, or even 40mph, on a residential street however, potentially with parked cars obscuring the view of the kerbside, houses with drives from which cars/bikes may emerge, side-roads, etc. etc. really is a bit dumb! I don't care how highly trained a driver may be, if they're doing 80mph and a kid pops out between parked cars they're gonna have a nasty dent in the bonnet!

For all my spirited driving, I will never willfully exceed 30mph limits in residential streets! This does not mean I drive with my eyes glued to the speedo, and every once in a while a suitably placed camera may have been able to detect a blip, but I tend to observe a slightly modified version of a well known rule: Do not drive so fast that you cannot stop in the distance you can see to be clear, and is likely to remain clear. I cannot think of a single residential street on which 80mph would conform to this rule.

And if they fail to establish that, everybody who has done some training from Pass Plus upwards will claim they have skills above the norm so its safe for them to drive at that sort of speed.