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Speed spray warning to motorists
By Adrian Short, Weekly News
Oct 27 2005

DRIVERS who think they can race through speed traps undetected are being warned not to waste their cash on a product designed to hide registration plates from cameras.

Trading standards teamed up with the Cheshire Safety Camera Partnership to run tests with a spray being promoted as a way of stopping the speed cameras from detecting registration plates.

Police also warn that drivers could face prosecution and prison for attempting to avoid detection while speeding, as well as being fined for speeding.


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The sprays are the latest incarnation of the old urban myth that covering your registration plate with cling film makes the plate show up black when it is snapped by a camera.

The driver complained to trading standards, which investigated the product after he received a notice of intended prosecution after being caught on camera.

The test involved placing a mock registration plate covered in the spray under-neath a Ford Focus's standard registration plate and driving it at 23mph past a speed camera set to go off at 20mph.

The images were taken to Cheshire Police HQ at Winsford where officers confirmed the spray had failed.

Lee Murphy, of Cheshire Safety Camera Partnership, said: 'The lengths people go to avoid prosecution amazes me.

'Speed limits exist for all our safety and when we pass our driving test we are given the privilege of being allowed to drive on our roads.

'But there are people who abuse this privilege and who feel they have the right to drive as quick as they like.

'The are numerous products out there that make spurious claims and cost a lot of money, yet we invest a lot of time and energy telling people where our cameras are and we put up lots of signs and ensure speed limits are clearly displayed.

'Simply adhering to the speed limit and traffic signals is the single most effective way of not getting a fixed penalty notice and by doing so you make the roads safer in the process.

'The use of camera blocker sprays is not only illegal, but pointless and is an example of drivers abdicating their responsibility to drive safely.'

Sergeant Paul Martin, of Cheshire Police, said: 'Anyone caught attempting to block a registration plate number faces a court appearance for a much more serious offence which carries heavy penalties including the possibility of imprisonment.'

60% of the driving population at last count

The only thing that could obviously have happened is that they tested a very poor product (which failed the complainant), TS then went to the SCP who were having big problems with other brands which actually work, and the SCP was eager to say that these sorts of products don't in fact work.

I will search around to see if I can find out which brand was tested.

Gareth

I agree Gareth. There's a smell of bluff and bluster again.

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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

Shame that Trading Standards and the SCP didn't team up to investigate the LTI 20-20

They recently sold me two pictures of my car going 40mph for £60. I'm not 100% sure if I got my moneys worth!

Perhaps you were only doing 35.. So they gave you a discount in terms of £/mph!

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

They're on the wall now next to the arial photo of the house....didn't ask anyone to take that either but ended up paying for it!

aerial