Safe Speed Forums

Yes. But what's the sauce? Many appear to think that it's the law or speed limits. I think it's discretion and the benefit of the doubt.

Or, shifting the emphasis, it's an assumption of trust.

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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

Paul: One can understand that there needs to be some constraints to prevent excessive and dangerous speeding in inappropriate conditions and even the need to use speed cameras in appropriate situations. The problem for normal drivers is, however, that there is absolutely no discretion allowed, or benefit of the doubt from the police, however nonsensical the situation, such as the lady doctor moderately exceeding the 20mph speed limit over Tower bridge when called out by the police during the night, which you commented on.

In comparison it would seem that despite the five thousands times that police were caught on camera in Essex in six month, this did not result in a single prosecution. I very much doubt that in every case it was the result of an emergency situation. As you said yourself on BBC Look East Television, “Everyone is going to believe it is one rule for them and another for us.”.

I certainly believe so and that is part of the sauce, combined with what I have personally experienced from the police in the past couple of years for moderately exceeding the speed limit on an occasion, when it was perfectly safe to do so, and another case where I do not believe I was travelling at the alleged speed, but the police have consistently denied me access to the evidence that I am entitled to have, which I needed to check the validity of their speeding allegation.

Please tell me what options I have for “shifting the emphasis” or making “an assumption of trust.”

Looks like we agree completely but, possibly, you misunderstood what I wrote.

I said discretion and the assumption of trust are the sauces that must be applied equally (and liberally) to both goose and gander.

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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

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Fast is not the same as dangerous

Feb 2 2006

Daily Post Comment

HIDDEN away in a High Court judgement yesterday was a ruling, the ramifications of which road safety campaigners - both those who consider speed to be an integral cause of injury accidents and those who believe it has nothing to do with dangerous or reckless driving - might well like to consider carefully in any future arguments.

The appeal to the court by the Director of Public Prosecutions concerned a police officer who had been cleared of dangerous driving (and speeding) after reaching 159mph on a public road without warning lights or sirens while familiarising himself with a new high-performance police car and "honing his driving skills".

But in allowing the appeal and ruling that there must be a re-trial, Lady Justice Hallett declined to find the Pc "as a matter of law" guilty of dangerous driving. "Speed alone", she said, was not sufficient to found a conviction of dangerous driving.

"It has to be a question of speed in the context of all the circumstances - it's not for this court to attempt to lay down hard and fast rules that driving at 'X' time at any particular speed is so excessive as to amount to dangerous driving per se."

This is interesting because drivers convicted of breaking speed limits in North Wales have, for some while, been labouring under the impression that their behaviour has been tantamount to being reckless with other road users' lives - whereas many believed that all they were in fact guilty of was breaking a notional speed limit, sometimes by only one mile per hour, on a straight, dry road with perfect visibility.

They did not - so far as we are aware from the very many comments of our readers - object to being fined for breaking the law, even if the law was being enforced, in their view, unnecessarily harshly and inflexibly. What they did object to was being labelled by their peers, dangerous.

Indeed many people whose interest is solely in reducing road injury and death, are convinced that targeting speed alone is counter productive and may even pose a hazard itself.

The controversy over speed cameras has raged up and down the land for a number of years to no satisfactory purpose because the Home Office has been content to allow the matter to be dealt with as seen fit by individual chief constables, some of whom scatter them like confetti around the road systems, and others who believe them to be a curse.

The rationale has never, as far as we know, been tested in the High Court - until,, albeit obliquely - now...

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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

So now we’re not driving dangerously in the eyes of Judges, however in the eyes of our Government and SCP’s we are. What's going on?



No, but if you leave it up to SCP’s, it is laid down hard and fast, and accordingly all motorist caught speeding are branded dangerous killers and criminals.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I didn't really have any opinion on this case either way until I realised from the news (as Paul mentioned in his first post on this thread) that the alleged offence was in the early hours of December 5th 2003.

I would therefore be concerned not about the speed per se but about the aspect of driving in the dark at high speed on an unlit road and beyond the limits of the lights on the vehicle (if this is the case).

Well, one problem is that 'dangerous driving' has a strict legal definition, while 'driving dangerously' is more to do with risk assessment. The judge was obviously talking about 'dangerous driving' in law, so there's a real risk here of comparing apples to oranges.

That said, numerical speed alone is clearly never going to be evidence of driving dangerously either, but that's not what the judge said.

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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

Can i illustrate the difference between law and policy?

An officer in cambs police was threatened with prosecution after he had a crash, exceeding the speed limit (30mph i think). He was not a trained police driver, a new recruit in a marked car. He was hung out to dry, but the Police Federation rightly pointed out that he had a defence in law to his actions, effectively "police driver self defence". All they could do was shout at him a lot under police internal policy, in that the chief decided untrained drivers cannot use lawful speed exemption. PC Milton automatically has the law on his side as he was on duty. It is for a jury to now decide whether or not he was correct in his use of that law.

I think there is no problem with PC Miltons driving, only the actions now taken against him/it. His Force support hisactions behind the scenes, until it reaches public disquiet. The day after recieving the Vectra GSI he couldhave been in it on a pursuit of a stolen porsche 159mph, which is more dangerous than driving alone.

The head lights issue, yes i meant dipped beam. I would say that 95% of drivers do not routinely use main beam at night.

80 in a 30. What sort of 30? There is a stretch of A1 in north london signed as 50, more suited to 120mph than the A1 Southoe bends. In grimsby, a section of the DCW is signed a 30 despite being better fenced in than most of the A1. 100 in that 30 is perfectly safe in my opinion.

Poor form of me to forget about Pepys, i take that with a reddened face .

To usea scuba diving term, visibility is the distance you can recognise your buddy underwater. In driving i would say on a clear day visibility is measured in 100's of metres or more. At night, visibility extends to the limit of your headlamps and no further. On a dark road, travelling at 6omph nad stunned by oncoming traffic, how many people really actualy slow and near stop, there limit of visibility all but removed? Id say no-one i know. At night, with MB on, vis would be in my car about 150metres. this would equate to nearly 500 feet, and within the stopping distance of 100mph. To use the term again, The Road is Seen to be Clear - not within effective headlight range. If ambient lighting illuminates the road 1/3 mile away, but headlights do not, the trained police driver will act on that and drive accordingly, maybe reducing or increasing speed.

The other point of general discussion is that of speeding. You must be convicted of a speeding offence, in doing so the alleged illegal speed must be presented in evidence. No speed, no evidence of offence, thank you your worship. A police driver is allwoed to break the speed limit. There is no legal stipulation by how much and there never will be. If he thought he was able to speed, he can do so legally. there is no discussion on the matter of his attained speed. 31mph in a 30 or 150 in a 70, it is still speeding. He was testing the car as taught so at any speed he is innocent. they cannot say that he is guilty of speeding because 150 is too high, but 80 is acceptable. One speed, all speeds. When i decide to speed, it is either flat out or not at all. My power allows me, the risks and outcomes will be mine too. If you think you can speed at 38mph in a town centre, it is the same law being broken as doing 150mph on a DC/W or M/W.

I genuinely feel that the idiot who reported him was after some form of promotional credit as we call it, and didnt expect it to get this far. now the CPS is committed to it they cannot be seen to drop it, so round goes the handle, lots of government/police management handwringing, press releases like confetti, people will shout about hipocracy, Igor at the Home Office will grunt a little and everyone back to work on monday, embarrassed and trying to avoid the subject.

I have, and am on the recievign end of this kind of action. It happens every day.

LP

This is a nice summary of my own feelings. It should never have got out of the bag. Now it has it is going rancid and will smell bad no matter where it ends up.

And mine as well. Only hope(though now very doubtful as this is now a PC and political hot potato) is that someone decides to treat this case like David Jennings on the grounds that PC Milton would not get a fair trial with a media witchunt going on - e.g. the Sun was calling for a long ban -( OK- thats the Sun) - but the more publicity he gets the less chance he has of a second fair trial - and thats what british justice is (suppossed to be) about.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I firmly believe that if he was driving safely then no moral crime has been committed.

However, I have also come to realise that reasoned arguement alone will not drive home the point about the dangers associated with automated speed enforcement and the speed kills mantra.

I feel two fronts need to be adopted one is the reasoned statistically based debate the other is the hypocrisy angle...when the police have to abide by the same draconian rules then they should start to demanad change.

I'm happy to be pursuaded I'm wrong though.

What it is going to come down to is:
1. was he authorised to do a high speed test run to familiarise himself with the vehicle.
2. was he displaying blue lights on the vehicle.

if the answer to the above is yes then he should be cleared as there was a law lords ruling about police officers training under blue light conditions. that is why police forces have driver training schools and the methodoligy for being comfortable with th vehicle being used.

otherwise he is guilty

however the implications of if he was authorised and had blue lights on and is found guilty, then it coud lead to emergency services adopting blue lights within speed limits, there are a number of police forces discussing this in light of awaiting the courts ruling. Remembering as we do that to be a road traffic/motorway police driver is a voluntary position not a mandatory position...so they guys if they feel theatened will no longer do the job...

It shouldn't do, the exemption for emergency vehicles does not depend on whether blue lights are used.