Safe Speed Forums

That was clear from the outset. As someone who is familiar with the law you are well aware you need to be very precise to avoid misconception and error.
Speedwatch is intended to be an education program ;that is quite right;the questions that has been debated from page 1 is "CAN the evidence from 2 witnesses who are or who perhaps are not members of the speedwatch scheme be used in court"? The answer is still "yes it can"!
Whatever the intent of each local scheme or even the national guidance, that does not prevent the lawful use of the evidence of 2 witnesses.
Note the use of non-approved equipment, was that not brought into doubt by the sceptical not too far back? If it is a choice between a £3,500 approved device and not carrying out CSW activity or use a £200 instrument and carrying it out what would you choose? And again the question would arise about using the readings as evidence; yes it can be but just not certified under section 20 of the RTOA 1988 as explained earlier. Certificate to evidence record =Type Approval required, witness to evidence record =no Type Approval required.
This becomes an area of interesting debate in Scotland because they are requiring 2 witnesses of the speed reading making the number of witnesses effectively 3 in total. Why then do they need an instrument because with 2 police officers the instrument is merely providing the speed reading for penalty after conviction rather than evidence of speeding. Even so, it is not unusual for defendants to be acquitted on alleged doubts in accuracy even though that evidence is not required. Quite bizarre.

Greenshed, nice try at squirming out of your untenable position, but it certainly didn't appear to be clear to you, given your insistence that cases exist where people have been convicted based on CSW evidence. I ask you once again to cite these cases.

If you refer to my earlier point about the two witnesses staring at their cat, rather than the back of a speedmeter, you'll see that the issue has never been whether they 'can' or may give evidence, it's whether the CPS would ever bring a case on that basis (I rather hope not, since I am funding them to pursue cases that are in the public interest and have a reasonable chance of success) and whether the court would find their evidence compelling enough to convict (which has never happened, despite your insistence and subsequent lack of substantiation).

I would personally love to see your conjecture that a device need not be type approved merely because two people are looking at it tested in court, but I doubt it ever will be, since it's clear to anyone with an inkling of legal knowledge how simply it would be dismantled. Again you seem to fail to grasp the distingction between legislature and judiciary; just because legislation doesn't prohibit something being put in front of the court does not mean the court is compelled to give it any credence.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

You do seem to confuse easy and have a rather impractical grasp of the law despite your education.

The court doesn't have to be compelled to accept the testimony of the 2 witnesses but the court can indeed take notice of 2 witnesses; the head of the argument being that the witnesses do not have to be police officers and can be any 2 live witnesses or one live witness and a mechanical device.

There is no law, legislation or case law that requires a police officer to be the only type of witness in a speeding prosecution. You will find millions of prosecutions have been safely concluded on this basis; in fact I have made several thousand of them myself and have yet to have one questioned or overturned on the basis I have never been a police officer or ever will be.

You'll find that I have never pursued the "police officer only" angle, so that's irrelevant, what I am interested in is instances of speeding offences being convicted based on the evidence of CSW members. If you cannot produce the cases you insist exist then maybe you would have the good grace to, at the very least, admit that you were mistaken?

As for confusing easy (sic), I see it is you who have taken the concept of finding evidence compelling, and taken that to mean compelled to accept.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Greenshed, no such thing appears on page 1, which is strange because you had used double quote marks to refer to the wording. The wording in question was "legal force".
You have clearly interpreted the argument to suit your agenda.

We have already discussed how evidence can be used on court, culminating with this response, which is thus far remains addressed.

How about the other challenge raised within this very thread - your exact wording: "...prosecutions have resulted from the evidence of CSW volunteers" ? You're still posting in this thread, so why not prove your claim as repeatedly requested?

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

Yes, Greenshed, I too would be very interested to see the evidence to back this claim up, so that's at least three of us, so be a good chap and either put up or admit you are wrong (once again maybe?)

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Please stop it greenshed, you have never, and will never make any prosecutions for a speeding offence, you and I both know this to be the case. Your constant references that suggest you are involved in speed enforcement whilst amusing to someone who knows your true profession, are exceedingly tedious for everyone else.

Would suggest that SCP are not interested in the DWDC /DD charge - as long as they get their £60 -that s fine - Why bother with the real cause -after all they'll get a few more chances to rake in some more cash - and that's where the system falls down.( /has fallen down for all these years )

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

i thought that for a while until i started to delve into things, going back to pre 2007 COFP were withdrawn around the 50mph / 30mph



what do you wish to discuss, i am not a SS member as yet, i have my views

Pardon me ,Steve , if I'm treading on toes , but to toonbarmy - a fiver (£5) a month gets you that privilege - all contributions faithfully received and duly applied . And - you'll get a very warm welcome in the clubhouse .Brake et all have Gov't funding - Claire only has what we donate -so the more the merrier -ADDED to that -she does make a little go a long way - so if you feel inclined -chip in and help a worthy cause .She's slowly chipping away at the speed freak mentality .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I have moved the Cambridge Speedwatch posts to here ....

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

On the BBC News this morning was an article saying that CSW volunteers were being used in Wiltshire (now that the cameras have been turned off) and that lots of motorists have been prosecuted. However, I can't find it on their website.

On the BBC - must be true.

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

Any prosecutions would be by the neighbourhood police, who can ticket four drivers per hour, leaving Speedwatch to report less serious offences. Sometimes Speedwatch and the police hold joint sessions. Speedwatch as noted previously does not prosecute - unless something has changed.


On the BBC News this morning was an article saying that CSW volunteers were being used in Wiltshire (now that the cameras have been turned off) and that lots of motorists have been prosecuted. However, I can't find it on their website.

On the BBC - must be true.

Speedwatcher - there's the rub.

To summarise this thread up until you joined (:welcome: by the way):

BBC says "Wilts CSW prosecuting motorists."

We all say "Really? That's a first."

Greenshed says "technically they can and do."

We all say "Technically they can, but are they?"

You join and say "Technically they can, but they don't - as far as I know."

It would be nice to have a definitive answer as to whether Wilts have started basing prosecutions solely on CSW evidence, but we may never know.

I've just emailed them

It would be nice to have a definitive answer as to whether Wilts have started basing prosecutions solely on CSW evidence, but we may never know.

Here is a definitive answer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11755222

It would be nice to have a definitive answer as to whether Wilts have started basing prosecutions solely on CSW evidence, but we may never know.

interesting to see the first vehicle targeted was "well under", so much for prior opinion, GS if the CSW are using SLR equipment, do the same mandatory checks that are required fot the LTI apply, if so what recording mechanism is used, are they issued with police notebooks? AFAIK notes should be made at the time, all i observed was a scribble on a A4 jotter

Speedwatcher!

I have a question , if I may?

Although common practice is to take no action up to 10% + 2MPH, do CSWs have any discretion? I've read your previous posts and I think one of them mentioned some pretty hair-raising speeds! While I don't argue that speeding is an absolute offence, I think most people would agree that there's "speeding" and there's "SPEEDING "! Unfortunately the two depend on a considerable variety of constantly changing factors. Would a CSW operative be allowed to "turn a blind eye" to (for example) 50 in a 40 limit where that 50 limit used to be a National Speed Limit road and was, at the time of the "offence" lightly trafficked, in good, dry conditions with no pedestrians around etc? Similarly, would they be able to report (say) 32MPH past a school at chucking-out time, in the snow, with lines of parked cars on each side of the road?

Speedwatch has discretion in that they are volunteers. If they are in a 40 then it would be because it is residential, so a 50 is likely to be reported. At fifty the speedo will be 53 upwards so the driver should know better. We would not hold a check where the speed limit serves no sensible purpose for safety, or hte time of day is wrong, here the discretion would be simple, we would refuse to hold checks and yes, we have done so. We only hold checks where there is an issue. As for your 32, no, the limit we can report is 35mph. Many schools are now 20s. In that situation the police would be asked.


Although common practice is to take no action up to 10% + 2MPH, do CSWs have any discretion? I've read your previous posts and I think one of them mentioned some pretty hair-raising speeds! While I don't argue that speeding is an absolute offence, I think most people would agree that there's "speeding" and there's "SPEEDING "! Unfortunately the two depend on a considerable variety of constantly changing factors. Would a CSW operative be allowed to "turn a blind eye" to (for example) 50 in a 40 limit where that 50 limit used to be a National Speed Limit road and was, at the time of the "offence" lightly trafficked, in good, dry conditions with no pedestrians around etc? Similarly, would they be able to report (say) 32MPH past a school at chucking-out time, in the snow, with lines of parked cars on each side of the road?

Few years ago we had problems with feral yoofs causing a lot of damage - fences kicked down /eggs , sausage thrown at houses /cars targeted for damage ,tyres damaged. Failing attendance from Police, we suggested a reactive team to respond to these invasions, and "persuade " the yoofs to go elsewhere. Police response was that this might be construed as "vigilante tactics " .
But then we get another lot , doing the same to motorists . It's called "community speedwatch " . Anyone get the similarity, and why is one " vigilante tactics" , when another is police approved .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on