Laser speed camera - distance could be wrong

facade

However, your friend will have to prove that he was driving at less than 70mph, the offence is one of "exceeding the speed limit" rather than travelling at a specific speed.


On a motorway the opinion of a single Police Officer that he was speeding is sufficient to convict.






Try registering at peppipoo dot com and ask for assistance/opinions there, they have more experience in this area.

AdrianC

facade wrote: »

However, your friend will have to prove that he was driving at less than 70mph, the offence is one of "exceeding the speed limit" rather than travelling at a specific speed.

But a lower speed may bring the penalty down into a lower band.

Since the argument would have to be introduced in court, there's no scope for turning it into a fixed penalty, though. And you have to weigh up the cost of legal representation and the chances of success... Remember, you're arguing that your gut feeling and guesstimation is more likely to be correct than the figure recorded by the approved equipment...

Keep_pedalling

Someone I know was caught speeding using a LTI 20.20 Ultralyte laser speed camera some time ago. The officer was on a motorway bridge, and snapped the [STRIKE]victim[/STRIKE] idiot coming towards him on the motorway, at a specified distance of 521m (presuming the second number down in the top right corner of the evidence photo is the distance). It was under 100mph but too high for a fixed pen.

I have made a small correction for you

Aylesbury_Duck

Yesmilady wrote: »

I'm not necessarily in favour of raising the speed limit, for the crash-related reasons you've stated. But when I'm out on the road, I "know" (ie feel like) 70 is piddling granny speed and anybody with eyes could safely do above it - utterly subjective though that might be. And I know I'm wasting my own time to sit there and get overtaken by buses.

How much time is actually being "wasted" though?

A 100 mile journey at an average speed of 90mph will take 67 minutes.
The same journey at an average speed of 80mph will take 75 minutes.
The same journey at an average speed of 70mph will take 86 minutes.

On this perfect, no-traffic journey you save somewhere between 9 to 19 minutes. You'd lose that with one toilet stop. Is it really worth worrying about the speed limits when the risk rises but the rewards are so paltry?

AdrianC

If you can't manage an hour and a bit journey without a toilet stop, you really should be seeing your doctor.

And you don't think that taking nearly 30% longer for a journey is significant?

Smellyonion

You can easily work this out using Pythagoras theorem.


DD^2 = HC^2 + DB^2


DD= Distance from Driver
HC = Height of Camera or Height of the bridge(use Google)
DB = Distance from Bridge (use the photo/ street view to pinpoint the cars distance from the bridge).


Don't forget to squareroot DD.

Smellyonion

AdrianC wrote: »

So the image says 520m, and the driver guesstimates 2-300m.

At 100mph, the difference between 520m and 300m is less than three seconds. And that's assuming the guesstimated distance is right.

I got 44m/s, more around 5 seconds - a significant length of time

CardinalWolsey

Do you know whether the speed camera was hand held or mounted? If I chose to contest such a charge in court (which I wouldn't), I would be questioning the ability for an officer to hold the device perfectly steady on a moving object at such a range,

To another point about speed limits themselves though. I personally feel that 70mph on today's motorways with modern vehicles is too low. The argument made above against increasing them doesn't do it for me either - take a look at France, with a very sensible system on the autoroutes of 130kmh when dry, and 110kmh when wet (very roughly 80mph and 70mph). You would think therefore that they have a higher rate of accidents caused by speeding, but no - joint highest causes in France are alcohol/drugs or fatigue (at ~25% each); speed is the cause for around 12% of accidents only.

But we'll all have to make do with what we have today anyway. I'm sure the next big changes to speed limits will come when motorways are limited to fully automated vehicles - at that point the allowed speed could be increased, as the biggest cause of any accident - the human at the wheel - would be taken out of the equation.

Aylesbury_Duck

AdrianC wrote: »

If you can't manage an hour and a bit journey without a toilet stop, you really should be seeing your doctor.

And you don't think that taking nearly 30% longer for a journey is significant?

:rotfl: It's my age!

30% is a significant percentage of course, but I don't think people think of journey times in terms of percentages, we use absolute time. No one describes congestion or delays as adding "10% to your journey time", it's described in minutes or hours. I agree that a 30% time saving on a transatlantic flight is significant, but on a 100 mile road trip? No.

AdrianC

Smellyonion wrote: »

I got 44m/s, more around 5 seconds - a significant length of time

D'oh. You are, of course, right.

My problem wasn't the 44m/s, it was subtracting 300 from 520 and getting 120 not 220...