Just returned from a brief afternoon out at Kendal Magistrates Court, to fight my speeding ticket from 3rd January.
As I am always careful to monitor my speed and pass the cameras at Ings 6 days a week, I was sure I was not over the limit.
A request to see my photographs was a long drawn out affair, as the online system was not working, and eventually when I received them, they showed very little. They also did not include the time interval between photographs.
These are not scans, but the original online pictures which I could not access, and have not been lightened.
Apparently it is possible to see the points of contact with the road, and accurately measure the position of my vehicle using the back office viewing system. The time delay was given in court today as 460 milliseconds. The difference between 45 mph (below the threshold) and 46 (prosecution threshold) is 17.5 inches per second, or 8 inches.
The lines on the road are 1 metre apart.
Apparently the back office software enables the operator to click on parts of the vehicle in the two photographs, and the software then works out the distance travelled.
The calibration certificates are available
here.
Look soon, as I suspect there will be some changes shortly, as these were NOT the calibration certificates brought into court!!!!!!
The magistrates were not bothered in the slightest that REDSPEED - the manufacturer of the cameras, is also the organisation for issuing the calibration certificates, even though if a camera was to FAIL it's calibration test, they may well have to refund all the fines!
Nor were they bothered that the CSCP do not keep records of maintenance visits, nor the reason for the same, yet their employee was able to state they had never gone wrong! So this was just a jaunt out for the maintenance man...
and this alteration to the height of the cameras had NO effect on the calibration of the camera...
Was I disappointed? Well not really - a few weeks ago, the usher TOLD me I would be found guilty even if I was innocent, and that I should consider changing my plea, and saving myself some money - as a result, I half expected for the magistrates to be completely in bed with the CSCP, after all they are not experts, and the wool is pulled over THEIR eyes as it is with nearly everyone else.
They are however complicit in allowing the CPS to introduce a completely different set of calibration certificates to the ones available online as if there was nothing wrong with this!
The court apparently has seen a lot of cases regarding the Ings cameras - and given the cost of fighting the case, and the time involved, this should tell them something, but instead they adopted the ostrich pose with their heads in the sand, and CSCP have got away with it again!!