Caught by Police using a handheld speed gun

Car_54

Manxman_in_exile said:

Ectophile said:

[Deleted User] said:

sand_hun said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Does anyone know whether, when there is a Community Speedwatch Area, manned by volunteers with a "gun", can they actually issue speeding penalties (NIP), or just warning letters?  

They will have been writing down your number plate details and the make of your vehicle. At worst, you will receive a warning letter (and a telling off from your wife).

Yes, you can safely ignore them. They rarely have any clue how to properly operate the speed gun, and even on the very best days it's unreliable and likely to produce inaccurate readings.

Get yourself a dashcam with GPS feature that records your speed on the video. Then if you have any issues in future you can review the video to see if you were actually speeding, and then decide what to do.

If it ends up in court, the police will be able to produce a training record for the officer who was using the gun, and a calibration certificate for the speed gun itself.

You will have a recording on a dashcam, which will come with no calibration information.

Which do you think the courts will accept?

I think you've misunderstood what rigolith said?  They weren't talking about trained police officers using laser guns, they were talking about untrained volunteers in a Community Speedwatch Area.  I doubt that anything would end up in court based on their evidence alone.

Ectophile  was responding to  Rigolith's "... if you have any issues in future ...", which seems to embrace trained police officers.

Manxman_in_exile

sand_hun said:

...

He suspects he was caught by a new device that the police are trialing. Possibly a blue camera called a Tach2/Tac-2?

...

Why on earth would your friend "suspect" that?  Is he the speed detection equipment equivalent of a trainspotter or something?

Manxman_in_exile

Car_54 said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

Ectophile said:

[Deleted User] said:

sand_hun said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Does anyone know whether, when there is a Community Speedwatch Area, manned by volunteers with a "gun", can they actually issue speeding penalties (NIP), or just warning letters?  

They will have been writing down your number plate details and the make of your vehicle. At worst, you will receive a warning letter (and a telling off from your wife).

Yes, you can safely ignore them. They rarely have any clue how to properly operate the speed gun, and even on the very best days it's unreliable and likely to produce inaccurate readings.

Get yourself a dashcam with GPS feature that records your speed on the video. Then if you have any issues in future you can review the video to see if you were actually speeding, and then decide what to do.

If it ends up in court, the police will be able to produce a training record for the officer who was using the gun, and a calibration certificate for the speed gun itself.

You will have a recording on a dashcam, which will come with no calibration information.

Which do you think the courts will accept?

I think you've misunderstood what rigolith said?  They weren't talking about trained police officers using laser guns, they were talking about untrained volunteers in a Community Speedwatch Area.  I doubt that anything would end up in court based on their evidence alone.

Ectophile  was responding to  Rigolith's "... if you have any issues in future ...", which seems to embrace trained police officers.

Thanks but that's not how I read it.  The quote could have been clearer - as yours is.

Jumblebumble

facade said:

It was probably a TruCam II.

If it was working, and he was speeding, he will have been caught.  They don't normally prosecute below the limit +10% + 2mph, and his car speedo will read over, so in a 60 say, if he was doing less than 70 on his speedo, he would be below the threshold.

This is unfortunately nonsensical speculation and scaremongering
I had a camera pointed at a car by a cop on a motorbike when I knew I was speeding in London a few months ago
After 16 days I rang the process office to be sure that there was no interest as it was not my car and i did not want the owner to have any grief and was told that Metropolitan Police policy is to stop cars if they are caught on handheld and they wish to prosecute and that the traffic officer was probably measuring average speeds

Car_54

Jumblebumble said:

facade said:

It was probably a TruCam II.

If it was working, and he was speeding, he will have been caught.  They don't normally prosecute below the limit +10% + 2mph, and his car speedo will read over, so in a 60 say, if he was doing less than 70 on his speedo, he would be below the threshold.

This is unfortunately nonsensical speculation and scaremongering
I had a camera pointed at a car by a cop on a motorbike when I knew I was speeding in London a few months ago
After 16 days I rang the process office to be sure that there was no interest as it was not my car and i did not want the owner to have any grief and was told that Metropolitan Police policy is to stop cars if they are caught on handheld and they wish to prosecute and that the traffic officer was probably measuring average speeds

Why do you think the OP was in the Met Police area?

Jumblebumble

Car_54 said:

Jumblebumble said:

facade said:

It was probably a TruCam II.

If it was working, and he was speeding, he will have been caught.  They don't normally prosecute below the limit +10% + 2mph, and his car speedo will read over, so in a 60 say, if he was doing less than 70 on his speedo, he would be below the threshold.

This is unfortunately nonsensical speculation and scaremongering
I had a camera pointed at a car by a cop on a motorbike when I knew I was speeding in London a few months ago
After 16 days I rang the process office to be sure that there was no interest as it was not my car and i did not want the owner to have any grief and was told that Metropolitan Police policy is to stop cars if they are caught on handheld and they wish to prosecute and that the traffic officer was probably measuring average speeds

Why do you think the OP was in the Met Police area?

I obviously have no idea where this took place  but I am replying the the bold statement that the OP "will have been caught" which is scaremongering because  the OP will not know till they actually hear or they can call the process office just like I did and put their mind at rest by asking the people  who actually know if there is any police interest in the car

Manxman_in_exile

Jumblebumble said:

facade said:

It was probably a TruCam II.

If it was working, and he was speeding, he will have been caught.  They don't normally prosecute below the limit +10% + 2mph, and his car speedo will read over, so in a 60 say, if he was doing less than 70 on his speedo, he would be below the threshold.

This is unfortunately nonsensical speculation and scaremongering
I had a camera pointed at a car by a cop on a motorbike when I knew I was speeding in London a few months ago
After 16 days I rang the process office to be sure that there was no interest as it was not my car and i did not want the owner to have any grief and was told that Metropolitan Police policy is to stop cars if they are caught on handheld and they wish to prosecute and that the traffic officer was probably measuring average speeds

Did you ask him (or her) how an individual officer on a 'bike could possibly measure "average speeds"?  If they told you that I would be inclined to disbelieve everything else they said...

ontheroad1970

Manxman_in_exile said:

Ectophile said:

[Deleted User] said:

sand_hun said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Does anyone know whether, when there is a Community Speedwatch Area, manned by volunteers with a "gun", can they actually issue speeding penalties (NIP), or just warning letters?  

They will have been writing down your number plate details and the make of your vehicle. At worst, you will receive a warning letter (and a telling off from your wife).

Yes, you can safely ignore them. They rarely have any clue how to properly operate the speed gun, and even on the very best days it's unreliable and likely to produce inaccurate readings.

Get yourself a dashcam with GPS feature that records your speed on the video. Then if you have any issues in future you can review the video to see if you were actually speeding, and then decide what to do.

If it ends up in court, the police will be able to produce a training record for the officer who was using the gun, and a calibration certificate for the speed gun itself.

You will have a recording on a dashcam, which will come with no calibration information.

Which do you think the courts will accept?

I think you've misunderstood what rigolith said?  They weren't talking about trained police officers using laser guns, they were talking about untrained volunteers in a Community Speedwatch Area.  I doubt that anything would end up in court based on their evidence alone.

Rigolith has said the same thing in another thread where the oriole doing the assessment are trained policemen.So this context doesn't change anything

ElefantEd

Manxman_in_exile said:

Jumblebumble said:

facade said:

It was probably a TruCam II.

If it was working, and he was speeding, he will have been caught.  They don't normally prosecute below the limit +10% + 2mph, and his car speedo will read over, so in a 60 say, if he was doing less than 70 on his speedo, he would be below the threshold.

This is unfortunately nonsensical speculation and scaremongering
I had a camera pointed at a car by a cop on a motorbike when I knew I was speeding in London a few months ago
After 16 days I rang the process office to be sure that there was no interest as it was not my car and i did not want the owner to have any grief and was told that Metropolitan Police policy is to stop cars if they are caught on handheld and they wish to prosecute and that the traffic officer was probably measuring average speeds

Did you ask him (or her) how an individual officer on a 'bike could possibly measure "average speeds"?  If they told you that I would be inclined to disbelieve everything else they said...

Presumably what was meant was "the average speed of the traffic". So you would take hundreds of readings of instantaneous speeds, add them up and divide by the number of readings (ie the mean, which is what is commonly meant by 'average'). Though it's difficult to see what use this info is. The median or mode would be more useful, and of course this could easily be obtained from the same data.

sheramber

rigolith said:

sand_hun said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Does anyone know whether, when there is a Community Speedwatch Area, manned by volunteers with a "gun", can they actually issue speeding penalties (NIP), or just warning letters?  

They will have been writing down your number plate details and the make of your vehicle. At worst, you will receive a warning letter (and a telling off from your wife).

Yes, you can safely ignore them. They rarely have any clue how to properly operate the speed gun, and even on the very best days it's unreliable and likely to produce inaccurate readings.

Get yourself a dashcam with GPS feature that records your speed on the video. Then if you have any issues in future you can review the video to see if you were actually speeding, and then decide what to do.

How does SpeedWatch work?

A Community SpeedWatch can be set up in any village, small town, or urban area, governed by either a 20, 30 or 40 miles per hour speed limit.

A team of local residents who are willing to volunteer a small amount of time each week are trained and issued with speed detection equipment to monitor speeds.

Vehicles observed speeding will be sent a warning letter along with advice to help change their driving behaviour.

Further action will be taken by the police against persistent and high end speed offenders as well as targeting individual locations.