Speed Camera Notice (Peculiarities??)

darbooka

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/6231085.stm

Taxi driver's 420mph speed ticket

Tom Matthews was carrying a fare in his taxi when he was photographed
A taxi driver has been given a speeding ticket for allegedly driving at 420mph (676km/h) on a city street.
Tom Matthews was photographed while carrying a fare in his 12-year-old diesel Vauxhall Cavalier in Newport.

When a notice of the £60 fine and three penalty points arrived, it said he was clocked at 420mph in a 30mph zone.

Mid and South Wales Safety Camera Partnership apologised and said the mistake was made by an employee rather than roadside equipment.

Mr Matthews, 38, of Newport, said: "I could not believe it. I was a bit shocked because there was no way I was going that fast.


Speed camera bosses acknowledged the mistake

"I was just driving along Cardiff Road at 2.20 in the morning and the camera went off.

"I drive down there about three or five times a day maybe."

Mid and South Wales Safety Camera Partnership manager, Phil Davies, apologised to Mr Matthews.

He said: "Due to the size of Mid and South Wales Safety Camera Partnership, we process a large number of offences every year.

"This error was made by one of our employees and is an extremely rare occurrence. It was not an error in speed recording equipment.

"We are grateful to Mr Matthews for bringing this to our attention and would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Wig

And have you heard anything Darbooka? What was your date of offence?
Are you still doing nothing and allowing it to go to court or have you now identified the driver?

darbooka

Howdy, Wig. Thanks for your comments. With respect, I prefer at present not to state the date of the first offense in case some of the speed cam administrators - or Magistrates - happen to be MoneySavers. But I will gladly disclose more factual info embarrassing to them when the matter is decisively finished. I can say that we are getting excitingly close (VERY few weeks) to the 6-month limitation period at which point they will have lost all opportunity to resolve it in court. Well, that's if you go by the original date of the alleged violation as indicated until the Police's more recent correspondence when THEY CHANGED THE DATE making it appear to have allegedly happened later! Fortunatley I have all the earlier correspondence!
On one hand, obviously I wouldn't want to be dragged to court. But on the other hand, I would relish the opportunity to tell the Magistrates - and then ya'all - about a handlful of silly blunders they've made. I did reply to them (I wouldn't have felt comfortable ignorning) but I have not been able to decisively name a driver, their evidence was not helpful to me in determining who was driving, and I did not sign the s172 form (by the way they sent me - and so who knows how many others received this as well - A FLAWED S172 FORM! And I pointed this out to them but in their reply they did not address that matter at all).
Really, I think speeding drivers should be penalized to the full extent of the law; but I also think that penalizing speeding drivers - just like any sort of penalization - MUST be contingent upon proper evidence, handling and processing and administration by the authorities. The ways they have handled my case, including huge delays on their part after adamantly specifying time restrictions upon me, and including laughable inconsistencies in their correspondence do not reflect well on the proficiencies of the Police.
Personally, what worries me most from my experience experience is that if this is how the Police handle something so basic as what they claim to be a speeding violation then how the heck can we be sure they are doing well enough in enforcing more intricate, sensitive and in some ways perhaps also more important laws? Maybe we should all be paying a lot more Council Tax (not!).

craigieboyo

does anyone know if it is true that you must recieve the NIP within 14 days of the offence .i was allegedly caught doing 36 in a 30 on the 25th november and didnt recieve the notice of intended prosecution until the 6th jan

oldbill1969

taxiphil wrote:

Darbooka, you're absolutely right in the stance you're taking on this matter, and I commend you for your common sense.

A simply analogy of the speed camera NIP procedure, for those who still don't understand it is as follows:

The police are writing to you saying "We believe a crime has happened, but we don't know who did it. We have no way of knowing or proving who was driving your vehicle. Therefore, in the absence of us being able to prove anything, we insist that you confess to the crime, or incriminate another person by telling us they definitely committed the crime. If you don't confess or incriminate someone else, we'll charge you with another offence of refusing to confess instead".

It's outrageous for the police to behave like this, really. They are using threats and coercion to extract confessions - denying you the right to remain silent and thus contravening the European Convention on Human Rights. They are also encouraging people to pervert the course of justice - for example a man already on 9 points who needs his car to earn a living may feel pressured into nominating his wife to take the 3 points on her licence. The police's view on this is that "it doesn't matter who takes the rap, as long as someone takes the rap". Hardly a responsible attitude to road safety.

There is a fundamental flaw in your argument, this being that they are using threats to extract a confession. I ask you to think a little deeper, to the fact that when a person commits an offence, for which there is a power of arrest, that person is arrested and interviewed under caution. From the interview the Police can make enquiries in testing the validity of the responses given.
There is no power of arrest for speeding and as we know legislation dictates that it is the responsibility of the registered keeper, to provide the details of who was driving the vehicle, when the alleged offence was committed. Without this legislation every person under the sun could could just return the paperwork and say nothing, thereby evading the law of the land. Would it be better that legislation was changed to allow the Police to interview the Owner of the vehicle under caution at a Police station ?
There are lots of genuine cases where the owner will genuinely not know who the driver is, however there are far too many people jumping on this particular bandwagon, instead of holding their hands up when they have been caught.Please don't forget speeding kills and heaven forbid if someones relative or friend was killed as a result of someone speeding we would all want that person brought to justice (Apart from the few who believe that the Police are bullying people when they ask who was the driver) thereby allowing the offender to get away scott free

darbooka

craigieboyo wrote:

does anyone know if it is true that you must recieve the NIP within 14 days of the offence .i was allegedly caught doing 36 in a 30 on the 25th november and didnt recieve the notice of intended prosecution until the 6th jan

The NIP must be sent so that it will arrive within 14 calendar days of the alleged offense. Every day counts, including weekends and holidays. Very few circumstances can be considered legitimate in any delay - these include such things as the recipient moving home, or changes in the keeper of the vehicle, etc.

darbooka

Oldbill1969, with respect you seem misinformed on a number of points:

oldbill1969 wrote:

There is no power of arrest for speeding

The Home Office, which is responsible for the Police, clearly states:
"What road offences result in arrest and imprisonment?
The police can arrest you for any offence if they see fit." - http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/police/powers/road-traffic/

oldbill1969 wrote:

...legislation dictates that it is the responsibility of the registered keeper, to provide the details of who was driving the vehicle, when the alleged offence was committed.

At the same time, there is no legal requirement for the keeper to keep specific records of who was driving the vehicle at any and every given moment in time. Thus where different drivers share or have shared a vehicle, it may be genuinely impossible for the keeper to provide this information retrospectively and definitively.

oldbill1969 wrote:

Without this legislation every person under the sun could could just return the paperwork and say nothing, thereby evading the law of the land. Would it be better that legislation was changed to allow the Police to interview the Owner of the vehicle under caution at a Police station ?
There are lots of genuine cases where the owner will genuinely not know who the driver is, however there are far too many people jumping on this particular bandwagon, instead of holding their hands up when they have been caught.

Nobody necessarily need be dragged to the Police station for an interview. Where human police officers are deployed instead of automated cameras, the police officer could definitively verify who the driver is at the time. Police can even give a fixed penalty notice at the time. But where the legislation enables local councils to use speed cameras as revenue generating devices instead of deploying far more reliable and effective human police, clearly their revenues and effective enforcement may incur certain limitations and even be subject to some degree of exploitation.

oldbill1969 wrote:

Please don't forget speeding kills and heaven forbid if someones relative or friend was killed as a result of someone speeding we would all want that person brought to justice (Apart from the few who believe that the Police are bullying people when they ask who was the driver) thereby allowing the offender to get away scott free

Speeding is an abhorrent. But enforcement requires that the Police be not only adamant, but also effective and efficient in satisfying the procedural requirements and standards of proof that are required by due process in the justice system. Even offenders have human rights that are protected by UK and European law. But the Police must first verify who the offender was, if they can. When the Police get electronic data indicating that an abhorrent offence was committed, where despite the repeated dangers occuring at the same spot human police officers didn't bother to deploy and opted to leave it to automated cameras, and where it takes weeks or even months for them to finally get around to sending requested photo "evidence" to the person they accuse, and where the photographic "evidence" does not identify the offender, there are definatley going to be people who genuinely cannot determine whethery they committed the offense and probably some who will exploit the system. There is a lot that Police and prosecutors can do, and do better, to reduce both types of situations. But apparently they and local Councils are content enough with the status quo, where enough people who aren't sure are too afraid or unware of their rights, that they will pay despite whether or not the Police can satisfy the evidentiary burden. This is wrong.

DAMNOME

oldbill is correct - speeding is a summary offfence and not indictable - so not arrestable - it's a reportable offence so you are summonsed and not arrested.

tomstickland

Please don't forget speeding kills and heaven forbid if someones relative or friend was killed as a result of someone speeding we would all want that person brought to justice (Apart from the few who believe that the Police are bullying people when they ask who was the driver) thereby allowing the offender to get away scott free

However there seems to be have been a creeping and rather pointless extension of limited zones. Once it was a NSL A road. Then it was a 40 limit, then the 40 limit was extend a mile into the countryside. Then one day it became a 30 limit despite once being a 3 lane A road and being in countryside with nothing there.

Yes, a car hitting a pedestrian could kill them. However all sense of proportion seems to have deserted this country with regard to the risk-speed distribution.

Having read all of this thread I'd rather be walking along a 40limit where drivers were paying attention rather than a poorly justified 30limit where the driver was having an argument with their wife. Poorly thought out limits lead to driver frustration and that's dangerous. I've been there; in Somerset on the A38 I was shouting out loud and nearly foaming at the mouth at the sheer stupidity of some of the limits. This is what !!!!es people off.

darbooka

DAMNOME wrote:

oldbill is correct - speeding is a summary offfence and not indictable - so not arrestable - it's a reportable offence so you are summonsed and not arrested.

Are you sure? Anyway, many people stopped for speeding are arrested for other related things. Speeding drivers can be nicked for dangerous driving, for example. And many people arrested for various transgressions including drug-related crimea and theft were first initially stopped for speeding. But for the purposes of this thread arrest isn't really a very relevant issue. The point is that if the authorities were really so concerned about speeding in a given area, then they could put human police officers - or even trainees - where automated speed cameras are deployed and that would entirely eliminate any doubt regarding who might have been driving.
In any event, nobody 'summonsed' because that's not a word!Summoned, perhaps.