Safe Speed Forums

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 22:47 yesterday:

PR218: Folly Bottom: all fines to be refunded (at last)

News: for immediate release

The CPS have called for all fines issued for speeding at the road works at
Folly Bottom on the A303 in Wiltshire to be refunded. This follows a drawn out
battle where many motorists were wrongly fined for allegedly exceeding a
speed limit they couldn't know was there.

As far as we can tell around 6,200 motorists are affected, with the fines
amounting to more than £372,000.

The speed limit laws are strict - if a speed limit isn't properly signed, then
no one can be convicted for exceeding it. Safe Speed points out that this
aspect of the law is fair and necessary, because no one can reasonably be
expected to observe a speed limit if they didn't have any way of knowing that
it existed.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "I hope any motorist who has suffered any loss as
a result of this wrongful application of the law will be able to obtain proper
compensation without too much difficulty. Of course, if anyone lost their
driving licence and their job as a consequence then the compensation could be
considerable."

Paul continues: "It was soon after the court cases exposing the Folly Bottom
'folly' that the Wiltshire and Swindon Camera Partnership announced that they
would be placing camera vans on the M4 motorway. I wonder if they have made up
the deficit yet?"

Safe Speed recommends that motorists should ensure that any alleged case
against them is accurate, complete and legal BEFORE they pay any fixed
penalty. There are far too many errors being made by greedy camera
partnerships.

The partnerships may not 'recover costs' from court fines - only from fixed
penalty tickets.

<ends>

New BBC story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wilt ... 701181.stm

Previous Safe Speed PRs on the story:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/21

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/23

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

It's good to note that a link to safespeed is one of the related links on the BBC story - not something I've seen before.

Cheers

Paul

Paul great news and well done. I agree with you that the M4 cameras are related to folly bottom its the logical move

But will the Pratnership concerned chase after those due a refund as hard as it did in chasing up the keepers to name the drivers in the first place?
How long to get their cash/points refunded and for any damages and costs to be discharged?
Malfeasance in a Public Office, maybe!

Interesting how quiet the Scamerati are when these issues come to light. Normally they have an opinion on everything.