2 speeding tickets in 2 mins same camera

Bazza1306

I was caught by the same camera in 2 mins doing 40 in a 30, I was unaware it was now a 30
Should this be classed as the same journey and 1 offence?

TadleyBaggie

Different directions? So presumably you had to slow down to below the limit to turn around. This may make arguing a "continuous offence" slightly tricky.

apw81

Pay up and take the lesson. If you start going at them with ‘I didn’t know it’d changed’ excuses, they’ll just say that’s careless driving and you should pay attention when behind the wheel of a death machine. It’s a speed limit not a speed recommendation, slow down.

Mildly_Miffed

You say you were unware it had changed from 40 to 30 - didn't you notice the lack of repeaters?

You can tell the speed limit on any road in about 200m.
Are there repeaters?
Yes? That's the limit.

No repeaters - but are there streetlights?
Streetlights - urban default. 20 in Wales, 30 everywhere else.

No streetlights - extra-urban default, so NSL... count the carriageways.
1 - 60.
2 - 70.

That's it. The only exception to that is 20 mph zones, which have regular traffic calming.

facade

Mildly_Miffed said:

You say you were unware it had changed from 40 to 30 - didn't you notice the lack of repeaters?

You can tell the speed limit on any road in about 200m.
Are there repeaters?
Yes? That's the limit.

No repeaters - but are there streetlights?
Streetlights - urban default. 20 in Wales, 30 everywhere else.

No streetlights - extra-urban default, so NSL... count the carriageways.
1 - 60.
2 - 70.

That's it. The only exception to that is 20 mph zones, which have regular traffic calming.

Same thing happened to me years ago, and I am a Total Driving God.

I wasn't looking for the absence of something that had always been there but now wasn't. The road had been 40 ever since I was a small boy, and they'd changed it about 12 months before.

I hadn't driven down the road since the change, but roadworks caused me to change my route that day, so any "New Speed Limit in Operation" signs were long gone.

No doubt the massive processing power of my brain had "filled in" the void where the 40 terminal signs were with what used to be there.

Obviously, as a Total Driving God I am fully aware of how to identify speed limits, however the morale is to treat every metre of road as if it is the first time that you have ever driven on it in case the limit has been arbitrarily reduced.

baser999

Bazza1306 said:

I was caught by the same camera in 2 mins doing 40 in a 30, I was unaware it was now a 30
Should this be classed as the same journey and 1 offence?

Wasn’t it Jim Davidson who tried that argument. Said he was caught speeding on four cameras on M1 and argued he was actually only speeding once

TooManyPoints

That's it. The only exception to that is 20 mph zones, ...

And motorways.

Wasn’t it Jim Davidson who tried that argument. Said he was caught speeding on four cameras on M1 and argued he was actually only speeding once

And he may well be have been right (I don't know the details of his claim). If the driver can convince the court that he maintained a speed above the limit without a break and there were no changes to the limit a court would usually consider that to be one offence, regardless of how many cameras there might be within the stretch. The alternative would mean that a separate prosecution would be valid every so often. So how often? Every mile? Every lamp post?Every ten yards?

Unless the police accept it, the only way for the OP to argue that it was a single offence would be in court (which means any out-of-court offers of a course or fixed penalty, are off the table). The merits of his argument are impossible to evaluate without more detail. But since it is said to be the same camera it looks like any such argument will likely fail. If it did, he might be able to convince a court that, although they were two separate offences, they took place "on the same occasion." The Road Traffic Offenders' Act (Section 28) says this:

"Where a person is convicted...of two or more offences committed on the same occasion and involving obligatory endorsement, the total number of penalty points to be attributed to them is the number or highest number that would be attributed on a conviction of one of them..."

This means that, although he would be liable to two convictions, two fines and two endorsements, he would only receive penalty points for one of them.