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It was a reasonable sunny day in Southern England today.
And this is what happens on sunny days in England.
A friend of mine lives in Maidenhead.
Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say. Somebody has to.
He rushed over to his Mothers house because she'd just been burgled and she'd dialled 999 (Englands 911) but could not get a policeman for at least 90 minutes.
My friend got stopped on the way to his mothers house by a Police gatso camera (a hand held speed gun) in Maidenhead, with three cars and nine 'officers' in attendance.
Figure that one out. Three cars and nine 'officers'.
I think I would let go with a long list of four letter expletives if it had been me.
I f----ng despair.
Would be better if they were in the local DHL depot looking for the missing computer files with 25m peoples bank details on them, but they won't do
something like that unless they are doing it at the weekend on overtime.
I now think that the burglars know that the wankers we call policemen will be out with the speed cameras on sunny days. It sort of adds up really.
Hi David, my brother in Law is a copper and I know Oz is different to the U.K. but we also have speed guns (read revenue collectors) and bad guys.
I can assure you that my B.I.L. and 99% of his colleagues would much rather be chasing the bad guys than stuck behind a speed gun. Overtime or not.
The problem in Oz is simple, the State Government's who the Cops work for want the revenue. Catching a bad guy and sending him to the slammer costs revenue. Catching you and me speeding raises revenue and lots of it.
I believe that in the US only a portion of the revenue goes to the government! A big piece goes to the camera company for the use and maintenance. How crazy is that!
I believe that in the US only a portion of the revenue goes to the government! A big piece goes to the camera company for the use and maintenance. How crazy is that!
Not if the Police are in, ahem, "partnership" with aforementioned company as they are in the UK.
"By Jove Holmes! This smacks of corruption on a very large scale......I wonder how high up it can go?"
The guy who feeds info to me on cameras around the London area says this 'booking'
should be appealed and he also says in future, carry a cheap digital or film still camera in the/your car and record as much as is possible. Their is also a chance for you to make a statement and any unusual circumstances, such as this one, should be stated and written down by the police. A copy of what you said can be given to you, if required.
I'm carrying one of these throw-away cameras in each of our cars now. You never know, one day I might be able to get a picture of a burglar.
think will be inersting to show u some of our italian ones.
Note, several autovelox are hired to local administration and such company earn the 40% of every penalty given,too often retouching also light timings to be SURE u will get the penalty.
Cool to see somebody rightly answer theme....
__________________ Paolo
I Think Nordschleife is the nicest track in the world.
Good grief, Paolo, they camouflage them!
At least in the UK they had to be brightly painted until recently. Let's hope the UK designers don't see your pictures - remove them immediately!
Surely, well-publicised locations of the GATSOs controls traffic speed, whether they are loaded or not. We all have them in our satnavs, so anyone caught by a fixed GATSO has been careless. I am happy to trade on that basis as being the best of a bad job.
Concealing the cameras will catch a lot more people, but will also destroy the relationship with the driving population. Watch out for a lot more fires and blasted GATSOs!
And now the latest in a lengthy series of "why there is never enough money to repair the pot holes in the roads" : I have just been informed by xxxxx xxxxxxxx who works for the Metropolitan Police Service (for those of you who didn’t know) that as and from the 15th February 08 all the Speed Cameras in the Variable Speed Limit section of the M25 near Heathrow Airport (JCT 10-15) are going Digital and the activation limit is being lowered.
They are currently the older film type cameras and Set at 90mph when the Variable Limit Signs are not in operation.
The new digital cameras are going to be set at the normal 10% 0f the speed limit + 2mph (80mph + and your taking a risk basically) when the signs are not in use i.e. national speed limit. I can’t confirm the activation limit when the signs are set (variable limits showing) but believe it would be the same 10% + 2mph of the speed shown by the sign at that time.
Please pass this on to anyone you know.
I hope this saves a few of you getting points on your licence!!!
Gee David, thats cruel. In Vic Australia we get an allowance of 3% + 3km/h with a standing limit of 100kph, variables down to 40 kph. Thats $135 for 44 in a variable 40 zone or 106 in a 100 zone.
Best part is that Australian Design rules require speed indicating instrument accuraccy better than +/- 10%, so what hope has the average law abiding mug got. The circumference of the tyres varies more than 3% as they wear from new to legal minimum.
And they do funny things like record 50 year old tractors at 130kph + on city freeways when they don't leave the farm 300km away.
In radar theory there is a speed at which contacts disappear. It's called the radar Blind Speed and every radar has a specific blind speed. It's a case of knowing the exact fequency of the radar and the theory goes that if you are travelling on a radial bearing to a radar (ie straight towards it or away from it) and travelling at half the wave length or multiples of it in the pulse interval then the target will not appear on the screen. Here is the real formula for it: vm = mf /102, where v is the blind speed in knots, m is the multiple of the radar pulse repetition rate and the number of the blind speed, namely a positive integer, 1, 2, 3, 4, . . ., for the first, second, third, fourth, and so on, blind speed, is the wavelength of the illuminating radar in centimeters; f is the Transmitter pulse repetition rate in pps (pulses per second); and the 102 is a units conversion factor.
Or something like that - it's years since I did that sort of thing practically but it really did work and allowed us to do certain other things. Unfortunately, the sort of radars we went up against meant doing about 240 knots (about 275 mph) but it would be interesting to know what the speed camera radars operate use.
A cunning plan ?
It might be a bit difficult trying to drive everywhere at 275 MPH, but I do concede it would be fun trying.
I got a fine in the mail two weeks ago with a nice photo of a bike exceeding the speed limit by 14 KPH, only problem is it is not my bike.. I ride a Harley and the bike pictured is a Yamaha pretend Harley. The number plate is partially obscured, so someone has decided because the visible numbers are the same as mine and the bike vaguely resembles a Harley, it must be me.
After two hours on the phone pressing buttons and talking to F***King computers I finally got a human who said "the senior sergeant will look into it and you should hear from us in 14 days". Yeah right!
They are probably preparing the warrant for my arrest for non payment of the fine as I write this.
I'll keep you posted, but I can see myself hanging around court all day to fight it.
Travelling home from work a couple of years ago, I was approaching an intersection which I knew had an active speed/ red light combo camera, as I had observed it snapping away on way to work in the morning.
There is another light controlled intersection about 80m past the camera equipted one, with stationary traffic banked back leaving 2 car spaces vacant on the far side of the armed intersection.
I was snapped going through the intersection on a green light at 15kph, which I could not understand till I was blown off my a Madza MX5 in the left lane.
I actually had a minute to get diary from briefcase and write date, time, my speed, location, lane no, etc down before the next set of lights changed. Subsequently caught up to MX5 and added its reg no to the info 1km along the road.
Sure enough, six weeks later along comes an infringement notice, claiming 88kph in a 70 zone.
I promptly collected diary and infringement notice and headed 35k into city to discuss the matter with Civic Complience who issue notices and collect proceeds. Waited in the queue to view my piccy, went in when my turn came up, and before even looking at the piccy on screen, showed the diary entry to the attendant. Sure enough there was the MX5 in the left lane about 2 m ahead of me in the next lane, my brake lights on and theirs not. They have about 50m clear road ahead, I have 15 max, and I'm supposed to be doing 88kph?
Got issued with the standard complaint form and sent back out of the booth to complete while a couple of others viewed there pics, and then surprise was asked back by the attendant.
I had raised enough doubt with the attendant for him to view the two previous and following 2 pics from my lane and in every one there was no car in the centre lane but one in the left lane. He then extended the search to the previous 10 and following 10 pics from my lane, only 3 pics of 20 had cars in my lane, all had cars in left lane.
Attendant advised that he would pass on his information to review people with my complaint form and suggested that there was a very strong probability that the notice would be withdrawn within 14 days. It was withdrawn in three days.
Now this camera had been in place for more than 2 years, happily snapping and collecting revenue, and no one had enough detail to convince the Gestapo to investigate the camera setup. Bloody fool contractors had connected the lane 1 and lane 2 speed sensing loops arse about, no one in Gestapo HQ had raised the issue of 50% of pics not having a vehicle to be guilty, and they had collected in excess of $1,000,000 in 2 years from this intersection.
It might be a bit difficult trying to drive everywhere at 275 MPH, but I do concede it would be fun trying.
I got a fine in the mail two weeks ago with a nice photo of a bike exceeding the speed limit by 14 KPH, only problem is it is not my bike.. I ride a Harley and the bike pictured is a Yamaha pretend Harley. The number plate is partially obscured, so someone has decided because the visible numbers are the same as mine and the bike vaguely resembles a Harley, it must be me.
After two hours on the phone pressing buttons and talking to F***King computers I finally got a human who said "the senior sergeant will look into it and you should hear from us in 14 days". Yeah right!
They are probably preparing the warrant for my arrest for non payment of the fine as I write this.
I'll keep you posted, but I can see myself hanging around court all day to fight it.
Well my time to pay expired with no word from plod, so I wrote to the prosecutor giving notice that I wished to appear in court to defend the case. I included a photo of my bike pointing out the differences between it and the bike in the gatso picture.
I also noted that I had rung them stating dates and times and the name of the only human I had been able to contact and that I would point out to the Magistrate they were wasting the court's time needlessly.
Today a got a letter saying they had dropped the charges and had removed my demerit points.
During an instant message dialogue with my 'informed' friend we were discussing the m25 cameras and he disclosed the following : xxxxxxxxx: I'm with you, so how are things, remember those camera's go live tomorrow on M25
RACEMET: Yes - more revenue. nothing to do with safety.
xxxxxxxxx Exactly, were being sent out to get speeders as we are not meeting goverment targets so using A5 at staples corner, flyover which is 30 mph
So look out guys - they (THE STAZI) have to meet the f-----g quota set by your friendly civil servants - whose f-------g salary you pay as well. But wait - they are switching off the street lights at night because the green wellie friends of the earth non driving windmill powered wankers th
f /102, where v is the blind speed in knots, m is the multiple of the radar pulse repetition rate and the number of the blind speed, namely a positive integer, 1, 2, 3, 4, . . ., for the first, second, third, fourth, and so on, blind speed,