Safe Speed Forums

News story on Midlands Today this evening 18th April. A police driver is on trial at Ludlow for driving at 159mph on the M54 near Telford. The officer, a police advanced driver, took the Vectra GSI for a (ahem) test drive one night in December 2003. He also hit 60mph in 30mph zones in the Oakengates area of the town. He was nailed when the in-car video was later examined. He denies speeding and dangerous driving.
Reading between the lines it looks like the guy decided to have a bit of a 'jolly' one night and got caught out - 159mph is rather taking the piss somewhat, safe or not!
The story can be viewed on the Midlands today website = http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/midlandstoday/

Click the Watch the Latest Programme link and slide along to about 20:15 mins.

In a Vectra GSi? It must have been a good one.. The manufacturer's quoted top speed is 154 and knowing the amount of extra clobber that the BiB bung in their cars I'd be more likely to question the accuracy of the measuring equipment at "radical" speeds like that.

The 60 in the 30 limit was probably more dangerous, but I suppose that doing 155+ along the M54 was quite exciting - I bet he was only overtaken a couple of times too.. (For those of you not "lucky" enough to be familiar with the M54, the best way to describe going along it at 70mph is "like going backwards in a forward gear"..

Manufacturers quoted top speeds are on the flat with an average of runs in opposite direction to account for wind.

On a downhill with the wind behind most cars will do at least 20 mph more unless you run out of revs or hit a limiter.

Wind is amazingly important - top speed occurs when drag balances engine output, and most of the drag is air resistance. A steady 20mph following wind would probably add 19 mph to top speed because airspeed is maintained.

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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

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 06:38 this morning:

PR188: Police officer accused of dangerous driving at 159mph

NEWS: for immediate release

BBC Midlands Today reported that Police officer Mark Milton is in
Ludlow Magistrates Court accused of speeding and dangerous driving.
Allegedly he drove an unmarked Police car at speeds up to 159mph in
December 2003 on the M54 near Telford. Mark Milton denies speeding and
dangerous driving.

Safe Speed says that such cases highlight the yawning gulf between
fact and official propaganda when it comes to speeding and speed
limits.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) explains: "Many assume that 'the higher the
speed the bigger the danger' but reality is far more complex. Often
20mph is dangerously fast in crowded places yet 159mph is fairly
routine and not considered dangerous on the German autobahns in
suitable conditions. Clearly safety cannot be judged by the number on
the speedometer - it can only be judged with full reference to the
prevailing conditions."

Paul continues: "The vast majority of dangerous speeds on our roads
are well within the speed limit. The government must wake up to the
fact that there's far more to setting a safe and appropriate speed
than obeying the number on the sign. They should be helping drivers to
use speed wisely, not giving out the dangerously oversimplified
message that 'you'll be safe if you stick to the speed limit'".

New camera vans positioned on the M4 motorway are apparently ticketing
drivers filmed at over 79mph, yet the Police routinely train their
drivers at speeds in excess of 130mph on public roads. These two
police behaviours cannot both be morally justified. Safe Speed says
enforcement must concentrate on danger, not simple legality.

Paul concludes: "It's very important that no one drives too fast, but
'too fast' depends on the conditions and not the speed limit. The
message given to drivers in the speed camera era is dangerously
oversimplified - £700 million pounds of speeding fines have been
issued to 12 million drivers and the roads are getting more dangerous
- deaths are up. Speed camera policy has completely failed. We have to
get back to the road safety policies and practices that gave us the
safest roads in the world in the first place."

<ends>

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

On the BBC News website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shro ... 458527.stm

Pc on trial for speeding charges

A police constable from Telford has gone on trial accused of driving at speeds of up to 159mph.

Mark Milton was on night patrol in an unmarked police vehicle when the speeds were recorded on a video box inside the car, Ludlow Magistrates Court was told.

The video, which was shown to the court, showed top speeds of 159mph on the M54.

He is also accused of driving at 100mph in a 60mph zone and 60mph in 30mph zones. Pc Milton denies the charges.

Public risk

The court heard that Pc Milton, an advanced police driver, reached the speeds while testing out a new Vauxhall Vectra GSI police car while on night patrol in December 2003.

The prosecution said an on-board video camera had shown the officer had driven at grossly excessive speeds putting the safety of other road users at risk.

Head of police driver training in West Mercia, Sergeant Andrew Chinn, agreed that a police driver would have to familiarise himself with the capabilities of a new car, but said it should never be at the expense of safety.

The case continues.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

159mph in daylight, in very good weather, on a road with completely clear views, no one else around, and driven by a highly trained and capable driver i would not be overly worried about.

But at night? Do Police cars come with a full set of Rally Spec driving lights now? Or maybe some sort of radar ( like the ones fitted to BMWs to enable them to drive faster than everyone else in the fog ) ? Main beam on a road car is not likely to be give enough forward vision, and no matter how good the driver is if he can't see the road clearly then that sort of speed is highly dangerous.

Then again i am not convinced by the 159mph, and i wonder why it has taken so long to come to trial.

I don't know the road, but some fast straight roads at night are so well lit that you virtually don't need lights at all, let alone a full compliment of Cibie Oscars (do they still exist?)

[quote="Roger"]I don't know the road [quote]


The M54 is a long straight motorway from Wolverhampton to Telford, and at many times of the day, and almost every night, it is so quiet you might think you have mistakenly strayed onto a carriageway that has been closed.

159mph in a Vectra, and at night - scary. The guy deserves some kind of award.

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

True, it's often quiet but I'd argue with 'straight'. It dips, curves and climbs through some pretty dingy woodland with no street lighting at all.
159mph is pushing one's luck and sticking 2 fingers up at the law to boot. Let's not forget that he also drove at 60mph in a 30 limit, indicating to me that he was pushing the envelope throughout the whole of his little jaunt, not just on the motorway.

According to the Shropshire Star he did the motorway bit between J3 and J4, so if he managed to coax it up to 159 it was probably on the straight downhill stretch just before J4.

I'm with you about the 60/30.. IMHO that was probably a lot more dangerous to third parties than flat out along an empty motorway. OK, he could have killed himself but there wasn't anyone else around to accompany him and other than being a tad pedantic about destruction of publically-owned property (to whit one Vauxhall), suicide ain't agin the law.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

No, but if he had crashed, then it would have been a positive statistic towards the 1/3 lie.

I don't see how there can be any justification for this behaviour - it certainly was against the law, and the guy should lose his licence immediately. If he subsequently then also loses his job, well it has happened to many other people for much less than this.

But somehow I don't think that this will happen - he might get a slapped wrist - as with many other cases where speeding involves the Police the absolute hypocracy of the treatment will be quietly swept under the carpet.

What about that Manchester Assistant Chief Constable (in charge of traffic) that was a passenger on the M6 Toll clocked at over 100mph? In a world where the average motorist is expected not to excede the limit by even 1mph, and (according to Blunstrom) is not supposed to be staring at their speedo all the time because apparently we should be able to know what speed we are doing by the pitch of the engine & tyres (!), an ACC is apparently sitting in the back of a car and is unable to notice that it is doing over 30mph in excess of the maximum limit in this country. What a load of bu** **it.

IMHO the book needs to be well and truly thrown at this idiot, even if he's a good copper - tricks like this should NOT be allowed or condoned.

If you or I were to pull such a stunt, we'd be strung up and every newspaper in the land would be baying for our blood.

I don't care if he was on a closed motorway or anywhere else - he is paid to uphold the law and protect us humble taxpayers, not piss around on our time or money.

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6 points for speeding - higher insurance costs. Its the £120 for the B&W photos of the car I object to!

Newsflash:

He was found not guilty in court this morning. I'm trying to get more...

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 13:43:

PR193: PC Milton not guilty despite 159mph

News: for immediate release

According to reports, PC Milton of Telford was found not guilty in court this morning despite admitting driving a Police car at 159mph on a public road.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign (www.safespeed.org.uk) comments: "Here's a clear and proper admission that in suitable circumstances even 159mph need not be dangerous. If 159 mph can be safe enough not to endanger the public, then surely this is a clear official admission that driving a few miles per hour over the speed limit isn't necessarily dangerous either."

"There is so much more to safe driving than speed. Any speed at all can be deadly, and any speed at all can be adequately safe if conditions are
suitable."

"Road safety depends on drivers selecting safe and appropriate speeds according to the conditions and the vast majority of us do it well and do it safely. But erroneous official messages have been undermining the process and deaths are going up. We have to get back to the policies that gave us the safest roads in the world in the first place, long before speed cameras and the pointless obsession with numerical speed."

<ends>

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I have somewhat mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, it's good to see an admission that speed alone in the right conditions is not inherently dangerous or wrong.

On the other hand, it smacks of corruption and hypocrisy. I believe this is the highest ever speed anyone has been prosecuted for. Considering that an 'ordinary' person has virtually no defence that a court will listen to for exceeding the limit by even a few mph, it's hard to see how a judge can find him not guilty of speeding under the present system.

Surely now a precednt has been set, where if you can show that your driving was safe you can now use that as a defence against speeding?

I don't see how he could be found not guilty of speeding, as I thought the evidence was quite clear.

However, I would have been concerned if he had been convicted of dangerous driving, purely on the basis of the numerical speed reached.

Presumably a clearer picture will emerge later.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Hopefully yes. Those with clean driving records /further training should be left alone and the scallies with awful driving records should get blasted.

Actually, I'd have thought that the evidence was anything but clear.

The case was apparently brought after examination of the in-car video system, which I'd have thought would comprise one piece of corroboratory evidence. If so, that isn't sufficient for a successful speeding prosecution, as there would also need to be a primary measurement or jugement of his speed.

The only way I can see that there would have been sufficient evidence for a prosecution would be if he had given evidence against himself, which seems unlikely.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

His defence was that he was using the vehicle for police purposes, in which case speed limits do 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

Coming back from Istanbul on a BA flight on 20 March, I read in a copy of that day's 'Daily Mail' given out by the cabin staff that someone had been prosecuted for doing 174mph on (I think) the M1 in a 911 Turbo.

He too was acquitted - can't remember the reason. He wasn't a BiB. Sorry I didn't keep the printed story, as someone else ended up with the paper. Anyone remember this?

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts