Safe Speed Forums

Hi.

Average speed technology has just crossed the water to Northern Ireland! As I understand it these use ANPR and calculate the time taken to pass between the two points.

My question is... does ANPR calculate the taxation class of a registration plate and therefore calculate a speeding offence at a different limit?

Can they tell if a HGV travels over 40 when the road is NSL for cars?

Many thanks, Dan

On paper I don't see why not but this would mean near real-time access to the DVLA (?) database; I've no evidence of this practice in the UK (I wonder what they do on the A77). The operator processing the fine will be shown a photo of the full vehicle to confirm the class.

I went around exactly the same loop.

Then we end up asking the question,: "do operators ever look at pictures where there's no (reasonably certain) evidence of an offence?" Imagine trying to look at tens of thousands of pictures of cars going between 40mph and 60mph on a single carriageway road. It just doesn't make sense and I can't believe that they do it.

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Paul Smith
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One possibility is that the software has image recognition and can detect the size of the vehicle, but I haven't heard of this before. One problem is that it would use a lot of CPU time, whereas the ANPR software is probably quite optimised.

Gareth

I agree, that’s unreasonable practice.
I can only assume HGVs between 40 to 65 are simply ignored, those caught above 65 (the nominal PGL threshold) are summonsed.
Again, I can only assume bus and coach drivers between 50 to 65 are ignored, between 65 to 75 are offered cofp and those above 75 are summonsed.

Either way, there’s no possible way for a SPECS camera to identify that a PLG is towing a caravan (subjected to a 50 limit) so lucky for them - unless they exceed 65.

(the numbers are approximate)

We have GATSOs that can distinguish based on either vehicle height or (I think its more likely) axle weight. There's one on the A420 that will flash a truck at 40mph and everything else at 60mph. I haven't heard of the same technology being used on SPECS systems but I can't see any technical reason why not.

To be on the safe side I would stick you your limits Discodan.

Welcome BTW

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Gatsos differentiate larger vehicles by the greater amount of radar signal returned.
SPECS are just video cameras, nothing more.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big speeder! It's just this road crosses the border and as such there hasn't been any law enforcement on it for the duration of the troubles! Now they have installed these cameras and next year a motorway will open making this road redundant!

I know of drivers who have travelled the A77 & A75 without being picked up by this system, but they might just be lucky.

Cheers, Dan

Ahh, I didn't know that. Cheers smeggy!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I had suspected that for a long time, but didn't want to risk my licence in order to find out .

I regularly travel along the Stocksbridge bypass (A616) and always stick to 40 in my truck but I'm tempted to go faster now I've read this . Now if Smeggy would like to sign my declaration that if he's wrong he puts his name down for the FPN and points then I'll go for it .

You can do it based on access to the DVLA database, but they don't have this so can't automatically look it up there. They can automatically look it up on PNC, but that doesn't have every vehicle.

However it would be perfectly feasible to do image recognition to have a guess at if a vehicle may be a lorry or not, it certainly wouldn't take anywhere near as much CPU time as OCRing the number plate.

Sure it would throw up a lot of false positives, eg Transit vans, Luton vans, but it would certainly eliminate all the cars and therefore make the job of checking the vehicle class feasible, whether by looking at the image, or by asking the DVLA for info.

With the introduction of ANPR into the game, it's going to have real-time access to the road tax database, so this information will suddenly become available.

I wouldn't risk it personally.

Another thing is... Restricted drivers are restricted to 45... I'm assuming this is a NSL road... So unless they check every single person breaking 40 (for HGV40) or 45 (R plates), we can drive at 60 with no fear of being prosecuted...

So...

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Mike