Stoke on Trent Police getting crafty...

pulliptears

Travelling through the Meir area this morning on Sandon Road I saw half a dozen Bike traffic police surrounding a hire van. My first thought was they had pulled the van over for something as the doors were open and police were in and out.

Drove past later and was amazed to see they had obscured the open door with a sheet and now had a camera sticking just over the top! The half dozen bike police were now hidden in a side road.

My dear old mum, the nosey type, went a walk with the dog and one of the policemen spoke to her, his words were motorists were wise to the speed camera vans so they were being more covert
:eek:

So, if you are a Stokie, watch out for silver Afford rental vans!!

harveybobbles

Almost as bad as this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7322582.stm

http://www.btst.co.uk/sneaky/images/5.jpg

pulliptears

very sneaky isnt it?! The spot is well known as a camera area so I think revenue must be down.

As for the horse box, NOTHING surprises me for North Wales traffic Police at all.

Pssst

So the problem is......?

maninthestreet

Don't break the speed limit, and you won't have to worry about these vans.

sarahg1969

maninthestreet wrote: »

Don't break the speed limit, and you won't have to worry about these vans.

Really? So the camera never lies?

What about when I received a NIP, accusing me of driving at 39mph outside a school at 8.45 one morning?

What about when my father received one, alleging he'd been driving a van at 48mph in 30 limit, seconds after he turned out of a side road?

I think too many people assume that they are in the wrong, if they are told they are. And even if they don't believe it, a lot of them don't have the courage or knowledge to take it further, because you are not entitled to see the evidence until after proceedings have been issued. It's not just a case of writing in, asking them to reconsider.

tomstickland

I treat all parked vans with suspicion.

Nilrem

The fact it had the bikes parked up in a side road suggests ANPR rather than Speed camera to me, as the speed camera wouldn't needs additional officers unless they were planning on stopping and issuing every speeder manually (very man power intensive compared to how the speed cameras normally work).

jaydeeuk1

Certainly destroys the myth that they're there as a deterent.

Why not simply electronically limit all production cars to 70?

Ian_W

Nilrem wrote: »

The fact it had the bikes parked up in a side road suggests ANPR rather than Speed camera to me..

ANPR = Automatic Number Plate Recognition. There to catch:
STOLEN,
UNINSURED,
UNTAXED,
DISQUALIFIED DRIVERS &
THOSE WITH CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE MARKERS ...

NOT speeders!

Still such a bad idea? :rolleyes:

Nilrem

Aye, which (as I've said in a few threads*) is a very effective tool for the police and something I thoroughly support (mind you i'm not anti speed camera either).

Jaydeek, because it wouldn't do anything to stop speeding in many areas and it would cause an even bigger outcry by the public (not to mention the car companies), some people do take their cars outside the UK where speed restrictions are different, or to "track" days where they run them on race tracks etc for the day.

IIRC they are testing a system that is linked to GPS to limit the cars speed, but having a TomTom with up to date maps I can see a very obvious problem with that idea.
The speed limiting is only as good as the mapping, I wouldn't like my car to drop to 30mph on a busy A road because the system mistakes an overpass's limit as being the roads limit (not to mention it would require updating, and add a new load of potential problems in regards to the complexity of the cars electronics).


*It sounds like the got the positioning better in this case than they did in the thread the other day (it doesn't sounds like in the op's case it caused any disruption to normal traffic).