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The camera can lie (but you'll need to prove it)
Sunday February 5, 2006
The Observer
Jon Robins meets the motorcyclist clocked for riding at 46mph in a 30 zone who fought back - and found he was actually doing 18mph
If the speed camera flashes and the Notice of Intended Prosecution arrives, how many motorists can swear they were under the limit?
Bryn Carlyon, a 47-year-old biker from Mid Glamorgan, had no such doubts. Last May, the engineer was allegedly clocked racing along at 46mph on his Suzuki VX 800 in a built-up 30mph zone on the North Road in Cardiff.
'I knew full well that I hadn't been speeding, but I had no idea how to challenge it,' he says. 'It was a matter of me having to try and prove my innocence in a system that I believe is full of flaws.'
Instead of paying the £60 fine and taking the three points on his licence on the chin, Carlyon decided to fight back, requesting proof in the form of the photographs from the fixed Gatso camera that snapped him. However, the authorities were not forthcoming and last November he was forced to try to clear his name in court.
Even then, the police did not bring the photograph, so the magistrates adjourned the case until 16 December. A week before that hearing, a couple of grainy snaps did arrive. A straightforward calculation revealed that Carlyon, who had been driving for 30 years without a ticket, was safely below the limit. In fact, he reckons the photos indicate he was riding at 18 mph.
It took seven months for the biker to prove his innocence. 'How many other people would bother?' he asks.
So how do speed cameras get it wrong? Phil Davies, manager for the Mid and South Wales Camera Partnership, which is responsible for the camera, explains that Carlyon's erroneous prosecution was due solely to 'human error' and a misreading of the photographs because the camera was triggered by a second vehicle.
Davies insists that the 138 cameras, covering only 2 per cent of the largest region in the country, make a huge contribution to road safety. For example, on the A470 (where Carlyon was mistakenly clocked) eight people had been killed or seriously injured in the three years prior to cameras being installed in 2000. Since then, however, there has been only one serious accident. This region boasts the highest reduction in serious accidents in the country - 74.5 per cent - as a result of cameras, which equates to 28 lives saved on the roads.
While Carlyon was clearly in the right, the reality seems to be that more often than not motorists think they are innocent when they are not. 'You don't have to be speeding by very much to be caught by cameras, and if you're driving a 10-year-old car it may well be that your speedometer is not completely accurate,' says Alastair Coggins, a solicitor at law firm Gardner Leader.
Cameras may or may not be fallible, but some commentators insist that the system is. Solicitor Nick Freeman - known to the tabloids as 'Mr Loophole' - specialises in getting celebrities off motoring offences. His client list includes David Beckham, Sir Alex Ferguson, Shaun Ryder and Colin Montgomerie.
'There are legal arguments which in my view would almost exclude anyone from being convicted if they have the right legal advice,' he claims. Freeman reckons he lost only one speeding case last year. 'I am in court four days a week and 50 weeks a year,' he adds.
Freeman estimates that some of his clients have spent 'up to six-figure sums' to stay on the road, but not everyone can afford such fees. However, he has now launched a website (Freemankeepondriving.com), which means non-celeb motorists can receive the benefit of his wisdom for £4.99 a month.
Lost licence, lost job
If you accumulate 12 points on your licence in a three-year period, you face a ban from driving. But what if your job depends on you staying on the road?
Drivers can plead in a magistrates' court against disqualification on the grounds of 'exceptional hardship'. 'It is open for the magistrates to find on the facts of each case,' says Alastair Coggins, of law firm Gardner Leader. 'Exceptional hardship must go beyond what magistrates would reasonably expect you to suffer. Most magistrates think it's foreseeable that if you get more than 12 points and are banned, you will lose your job. So that does not on its own count as exceptional hardship, but every case is different.'
How to work out your speed
You need the picture evidence if you want to check the accuracy of a Gatso speeding charge. 'If you don't get it, say to the magistrate, "I can't defend myself without seeing the evidence",' advises Andrew Dalton, a solicitor at the biker law firm White Dalton. 'If the prosecution doesn't have them, ask for the case to be slung out.'
If you get the pictures, ask for an adjournment so that you can prepare your defence. 'Since you cannot name the rider or challenge the accuracy of the speed measurement without the photos, the magistrate is likely to recognise a prosecution stitch-up,' says Dalton. 'As a matter of human rights law, you must be able to defend yourself.'
Once you have the pictures, find out whether the lines in the road are 1.5m or 2m apart. The lines are the prosecution's secondary evidence and enable the accuracy of the camera to be determined. Calculate the number of lines crossed and time between the two photographs being taken, then work out the speed on the basis that 1m per second equates to 2.237mph. 'If the photos and the lines in the road show that the camera is inaccurate, you have raised a real case for the magistrates to find you not guilty,' says Dalton.
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