Safe Speed Forums

From your picture I can see no reason what so ever to reduce the limit. I can only put the reduced limit down to another addition to Gordon Browns Tax fund. The scary thing is though that this sort of speed reduction will become common if nothing is done about the new Council review of rural speed limits .

Added: If it makes you feel any better it won't be long before we all end up as speeding criminals. They'll pick us off one by one

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Doesn’t surprise me. At that kind of range the beam width from the LTI will be quite small. It’s likely that all of the beam hit the VRM or passed through the grill; none of it would have hit your windscreen, directly or bouncing up the bonnet.
Worst still, unless you can scrub off a few mph in 0.3 seconds (including your reaction time): even if it did alarm it would have only told you that you have been pinged – so there wouldn’t be any useful warning anyway.


To make money from safe drivers like you? Well, if that was the aim then it worked

Diesel moment, that has to be one of the most poorly set speed limits i have ever seen, my heart goes out to you. I've just asked (forced, lol) some friends to guess the speed limits on the pictures on both of your threads, both this thread, and for both roads my friends guessed NSL. They were gobsmacked at the 30 restriction. No wonder the tallivan sits down there.

The picture of the road on this thread appears to have no visible evidence of street lighting or 30 repeater signs. Have you checked to see whether this absurd limit is signed apropriately and legally with adequate repeaters or streetights not more than 200yrds appart?

T2006 - Thanks for your response.

As far as I'm aware, there is no street lighting along this stretch. Does there have to be street lighting not more than 200 yards apart for the 30mph limit to be legal? If not, what is the maximum interval between successive 30mph speed limit signs? I'm going back to this spot this morning to check...

You have seen the picture I posted in the direction I was heading. Here is the scene looking back the other way.

You're welcome. Unfortunately, thats the limit of my knowledge i'm afraid!

All I know is that a 30mph limit needs repeater signs every so often if there is not system of street lighting in place, or if the lamposts in the system are greater than 200 yards apart. If no street lighting is in place these repeaters need to be at set intervals apart.

If there are no repeaters or street lights, you could argue the speed limit was NSL and not 30.


Have you read the detailed information regarding speed limit signing requirements on the abd website? www.abd.org.uk and click on the link to the left of the page "speed limits"

Nice car by the way

Is there an accepted definition of what a "reasonable" distance between repeater signs is? I would have expected "reasonable" to mean that within a few seconds of passing one, another would be coming into view?

If the repeater signs are not there, you should fight the prosecution - it doesn't look as though they are from your picture. If they are present on that stretch, then consider what is reasonable - if there is an accepted definition - and raise that in court too.

I do support speed enforcement, but it is simply not acceptable to enforce a limit that is not properly communicated. It's amost as bad as the "unwritten rule" in the Piranha Brothers sketch:

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

A word of caution about trying to assess the 'safe speed' characteristics of a road from photos. The 'length of the lens' can make a fairly massive difference.

In fact if anyone has a camera with a wide-ish range calibrated zoom lens it would be absolutely fascinating to examine a particular road scene with various degrees of wide angle and zoom applied to see what we all think about 'safe speed' assessment distortions resulting from the characteristic length of the lens.

I'd do it myself, but I don't have a suitable camera. I'll place my personal bet that around 50mm (for 35mm film) would give the truest picture.

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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

"Road more than 250m in length:
(i) on which the speed limit is less than 30mph; or
(ii) where there is a 30mph limit, but a system of street lighting is not provided (or lights are more than 200 yards apart)

Max. distance between consecutive signs on the same side of the carriageway = 400m

Max. distance between consecutive signs on alternate sides of the carriageway = 250m

Max. distance between start/end of length of road required to be signed and first/last repeater = 200m"

Taken from the ABDs website

Hello DieselMoment, welcome to the club.

I found myself in a very similar situation. Got my case discontinued, but it took quite a lot of time and effort. It also cost more than than the fine, but helped to reduce the points on my license.

Reducing the speed limit helps to increase the revenue for the Safety Camera Partnerships.

First get yourself to www.PePiPoo.com and get what legal advice you can from there. Join SafeSpeed and help to support the fight against speed cameras.

If it was with a camera van, then it was probably an LTI 20-20 and there is also probably a video.

First ask for photo evidence that it was your car and not a case of mistaken identity. From the photo you should be able to tell if it was an LTI 20-20 with a video recorder.

If you accept you were the driver then you can, under the Data Protection Act, with immediate effect, then ask for a copy of the video and any other personal information the police are holding about you. See my other postings in this section. You need this so you can check the validity of the speeding allegation. This may show something which could invalidate the speeding allegation.

If they refuse then come back, since the Information Commissioner's Office upheld my appeal to ask for the video under the Data Protection Act prior to taking the case to court.

From what I understand...

The start of a speed limit requires a speed limit terminal sign at either side of the road (unless the limit changes on a junction?).

If either of these signs is near to a street lamp (within 50 metres?) then it must be illuminated.

If either terminal sign is illuminated then the other one also must be similarly illuminated. (so if one is internally iluminated and one externally that could invalidate it)

Except for internally illuminated signs, I believe they must be reflectorised.

Repeater signs must be "at regular intervals", whatever that means, it isn't defined anywhere. I don't think the distances T2006 mentioned above are current law, but they used to be and are a good guide.

I believe repeater signs must be reflectorised too.

Just some things to be checking for...

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Andrew.

Thank you, Gentlemen.

I revisited the "scene of crime" today, in fact I travelled along the A4155 right through Henley and out into Buckinghamshire. All along this rural route, I can tell you that numerous (at least 6) speed limit repeater signs are damaged or hidden by foliage, and are unreadable by passing motorists.

SS, the distances to the signs in the pics I will use in Court can be assessed by counting the number of long dashes forming the single carriageway centreline. I would like to PM you these pics, but...

...I am reluctant to post the pictures I intend to use when my case comes to Court for fear of spies! But I can tell you that two consecutive speed limit repeater signs were completely obscured by foliage. However, I can post some sample pics. These next two were taken in the small Bucks settlement of Mill End.

In this first picture, you can see that the sign has been positioned very close to some sort of hedge or shrub.



An unfortunate consequence of the positioning of this sign is that it is completely unreadable from the opposite direction.



The repeater signs at Shiplake where I was caught are similarly obscured by foliage.

This double sided sign was part of a pair. Its twin was alongside, on the other side of the road - but the sign was missing from on top of the grey pole!


Having problems because the pole has been positioned too close to a flintstone wall such that the wall gets in the way of the sign? Around here that's no problem! Just turn the sign round 90°! It becomes difficult to read by drivers from both directions, but what the heck - that means more speeding fine revenues!

Those problems with the signage look like a case-winning defect to me.

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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

SS - you've cheered me up!




I'll post my other pics in a .ZIP in a PM if that's OK - I'll do it tomorrow. I'd be happy for you to look at my actual pics and comment on the strngth of my case.

No attachments with this software. Email to psmith@safespeed.org.uk instead.

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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

Looks like problem solved !!!

No need to argue about video evidence if signage errors are to be believed.

Did these signage errors apply to the section of road where you where zapped ??

You could also visit; http://www.abd.org.uk/speed_limits.htm
for further information.

No, this was not the exact section, although the signs in the section where I was zapped are not much better.

I have looked at the ABD website, thanks, and my interpretation is that a 30mph speed zone is designated as such in one of two ways.

• Street lighting, where successive street lights are not more than 200 yards apart on the same side of the road;
• 30mph "repeater" signs, like the ones in my pics, at intervals of not more than 400 metres. One would assume that the signs must also be visible and readable to passing motorists.

It's interesting that the law uses a mixture of yards and metres in its definitions...

SS - I'm preparing a .ZIP file now, and will send a link via the email address you supplied.

Remember that these are only recomendations...


I though it was (now) defined as something like 184 metres for the street lighting?
It's also interesting how many different definitions there are in law for "a bus"...

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Andrew.