Mobile speed cameras: Motoring Motoring Discussion forum

Motoring Discussion > Mobile speed cameras	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Ambo	Replies: 32

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Fri 26 Feb 16 14:28

Mobile speed cameras - Ambo

I may have got clocked this morning by a static police van at about 35 mph in a 30-mile limit. Would a light have flashed if I was? There was no light in this case.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 14:45

Mobile speed cameras - Slidingpillar

Didn't think they needed a flash, never seen the one that occasionally hangs out locally to flash.

A speedo 35 is either 32 or 33 and while exceeding 30 is an offence, I've never heard of anyone getting nicked for that little.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 14:55

Mobile speed cameras - WillDeBeest

We've done this many times before, of course, but in both my cars - and the one I sold last year - a speedo 35 is 35. The overreading begins around 40 - except in the MB, which is accurate to 1mph up to 80, and probably beyond.

The true 36 for which I was (benignly) pulled last summer certainly didn't read the 40 or so that SP's logic would require.

Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Fri 26 Feb 16 at 14:55

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:08

Mobile speed cameras - Dutchie

My speedo 32 true speed 30.

You never know with these so called safety speed check camara vans.We have one near us, van is parked at the bottom of a hill.My speed was about 33.

And the waiting game starts because you never know at what speed they will nick you.Could be a mile over the set limit.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:10

Mobile speed cameras - smokie

It's still true that it should not be an under-reading i.e. Ambo's speed wasn't more than "about 35".

See p8 of the APCO Speed Enforcement Guidelines here www.cambs-police.co.uk/roadsafety/docs/201305-uoba-joining-forces-safer-roads.pdf

But forces can do what they like, for instance Kent don't do anything below 37mph (in a 30) then from 37 - 42 it's either fixed penalty or speed course, 42 - 49 is fixed penalty then after that summons.

No flash when it's a van.

Good luck...!!

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:06

Mobile speed cameras - zippy

The general ACPO rules are speed limit + 10% + 2mph so 35 in a 30 zone should be ok.

If this is the only offence in 3 years then you might get a course.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:11

Mobile speed cameras - Runfer D'Hills

Here's an odd thing. In my big automatic Merc with oodles of torque I find it easy to maintain a steady and legal speed where required or desirable. In my wife's underpowered manual Nissan I constantly have to consciously slow down as it very easily creeps up to higher speeds than are strictly sensible.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:14

Mobile speed cameras - WillDeBeest

Maybe it's a Nissan thing. I commented in my mini-report on the courtesy Micra that it was hopeless at high speeds but ran away at low ones - tended to 40 from either direction, if you like (which I didn't.)

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:16

Mobile speed cameras - Runfer D'Hills

Maybe that's why Micras are almost always to be seen doing a constant 40 mph?

;-)

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Fri 26 Feb 16 15:52

Mobile speed cameras - tyrednemotional

>> The general ACPO rules are speed limit + 10% + 2mph so 35 in a 30 zone should be ok.
>>

...AFAIK, the ACPO 10% + 2 guidelines define the point at which action is taken, not the maximum at which it won't.

So, if ACPO guidelines are applied (and, being guidelines, they aren't always) 34 in a 30 zone would result in no action, 35 would result in a fixed penalty.

In my experience, in most vehicles an indicated 35 would be somewhat less on the road, but it's the "14 day sweats" for the OP I'm afraid.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:18

Mobile speed cameras - Old Navy

We only have camera vans in Fife, apart from police with hand held devices. The camera vans are invariably out of sight of approacing traffic around a bend just past schools, or on the NSL dual carriageways. The handheld ones are usually in small villages with few hundred yards of 30 limit. None of them flash. We have had camera fitted motorway gantries with variable limits installed in the last few years, I have not seen them flash either. The 40 limit across the Forth Bridge and through the road works on each side is enforced by average speed cameras, several thousand speeding tickets have been issued according to the local press. I am in pinch of salt territory on that one, I use the bridge frequently and have seen very few chancing it, the traffic is usually too heavy to speed anyway.

Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 26 Feb 16 at 16:20

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:36

Mobile speed cameras - commerdriver

>> The 40 limit across the Forth Bridge and through the road
>> works on each side is enforced by average speed cameras
>>
Pedant mode - The Forth Bridge does not have any cars going across it, the Forth Road Bridge has a 40 limit.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:52

Mobile speed cameras - Old Navy

Or if you were a local you would call them the road bridge, rail bridge, and the new bridge. I made the big mistake of crediting you lot with a little common sense.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:58

Mobile speed cameras - commerdriver

to be fair, my comment should have ended with a smiley

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:26

Mobile speed cameras - Bill Payer

>> ...AFAIK, the ACPO 10% + 2 guidelines define the point at which action is taken,
>> not the maximum at which it won't.
>>
>> So, if ACPO guidelines are applied (and, being guidelines, they aren't always) 34 in a
>> 30 zone would result in no action, 35 would result in a fixed penalty.
>>
Correct, except that normally it would be a Speed Awareness Course first. It's likely that the mobile speed trap is operated by a member of the same team that runs the courses so there's an obvious incentive for them to stick precisely to the rules.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:29

Mobile speed cameras - Old Navy

No courses in Scotland, you get a ticket. :-(

Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 26 Feb 16 at 16:30

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Fri 26 Feb 16 16:58

Mobile speed cameras - smokie

"It's likely that the mobile speed trap is operated by a member of the same team" maybe but often not.

www.theaa.com/aadrivetech/driver-awareness/

ndors.org.uk/index.php/courses/locations/

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Fri 26 Feb 16 17:11

Mobile speed cameras - Enderman

I got nabbed a few weeks back by a camera van hiding round a bend about 100yds after the limit changed.
Didn't at all feel I was driving 'too fast' - I'll hold my hand up that I just never registered the sign at that point because I was idly chatting to the spouse.

But that's now FIVE of us just at my workplace alone (of circa 100 people) that have been nabbed on that same stretch of road (which happens to be about 6 miles from work, so it's not like we're all steaming out of the carpark at 6pm, and mine was on a Sunday), PLUS one of those colleagues's auntie, who is 79 years old!

Which suggests to me that 30 mph is not the 'natural' speed for that road, just a handy revenue-generating number to paint on a signpost.

And unlike my colleague who was clocked going faster than me, I wasn't even offered the option of a course. I suspect the classes were already brim-full of people they'd copped on that stretch. :-(

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Fri 26 Feb 16 17:48

Mobile speed cameras - Zero

I think I got nabbed this morning, near home as it happens, at a place it never normally lives.

Its a 50, and when I saw it (late because i was daydreaming) the speedo was over 60. Given the 10%+2 prosecution leeway, and the 3mph speed overread its going to be damn close. I'm expecting the NIP.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 17:57

Mobile speed cameras - Runfer D'Hills

Still does over 60 then that thing? Kept it well enough.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 19:56

Mobile speed cameras - Zero

>> Still does over 60 then that thing? Kept it well enough.

Aye, it panics tho if you go over 110, and throws up the ABS warning light

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Fri 26 Feb 16 18:08

Mobile speed cameras - Old Navy

>> But that's now FIVE of us just at my workplace alone (of circa 100 people)

Five that you know about, some will not admit to a NIP.

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Fri 26 Feb 16 20:41

Mobile speed cameras - Dutchie

It is annoying and costly getting a fine for speeding.I got five speeding tickets over thirty years of driving.I drive to the road conditions which is a crime according to the safety speed camara jobsworth whatever.

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Sat 27 Feb 16 08:46

Mobile speed cameras - Bromptonaut

>> Which suggests to me that 30 mph is not the 'natural' speed for that road,
>> just a handy revenue-generating number to paint on a signpost.

Would you be willing to post a streetview link to the site so we can discuss the appropriate limit?

FWIW I doubt 30 would be a natural speed for most of the road through this village. That doesn't mean it (and the 20 through the conservation area) are not fully justified.

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Sat 27 Feb 16 12:38

Mobile speed cameras - No FM2R

>> I doubt 30 would be a natural speed for most of the road through this village

Which is rather the point I would have thought. A speed limit and enforcement must be much more important if people habitually / naturally / whatever drive faster than that.

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Sat 27 Feb 16 15:22

Mobile speed cameras - Bromptonaut

>> Which is rather the point I would have thought. A speed limit and enforcement must
>> be much more important if people habitually / naturally / whatever drive faster than that.

IIRC using the 'natural speed' (ie some sort of median figure) is a now abandoned methodolgy for limits on open roads. The default in habitations has been thirty since my Dad were a lad!!

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Mon 29 Feb 16 10:35

Mobile speed cameras - Alanovich

40 limit on my daily commute. Often a mobile camera van in the vicinity. I set cruise to 40 and watch the impatient overtake me. Seen a few nabbed. Sigh. No way it needs a 40 limit, but I'm not risking the points and fine. I've long suspected a local councillor lives in one of the large piles behind the hedges/wall.

goo.gl/maps/sjRbJDKd4wE2

Last edited by: Alanović on Mon 29 Feb 16 at 10:35

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Mon 29 Feb 16 10:51

Mobile speed cameras - WillDeBeest

I've had that same thought all over our almost-mutual patch, especially that absurd over-extended 30 into Shiplake.

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Mon 29 Feb 16 10:54

Mobile speed cameras - Alanovich

I'd forgotten bout that one, it's an utter doozie. Don't often drive up north at the moment.

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Mon 29 Feb 16 13:32

Mobile speed cameras - Old Navy

>> I've long suspected a local councillor lives in one of the large piles behind the
>> hedges/wall.
>>

The upside of a Councillor resident in your quiet street is regular gritting and sweeping as required. We certainly noticed the difference.

Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 29 Feb 16 at 13:33

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Mon 29 Feb 16 13:43

Mobile speed cameras - Alanovich

I have the opposite effect in my street.

As you can probably guess, Reading Council is usually Labour controlled (thanks to artificially small, gerrymandered LA boundaries). But for one glorious, brief moment in 2010 we were under a Tory-LibDem coalition (probably my favourite form of governance). In that year, the leader of the Council was a Conservative Councillor who ripped up a load of Labour dogma (and traffic lights, obstructive build-outs in the road etc) and refused to let them have any say.

Lives in my street. Guess which street needs resurfacing badly and isn't getting a look-in? Guess which quiet, residential, prestigious, dead-end street on the edge of town, had a bungalow purchased (sub 1 acre plot on an steep escarpment), two doors up from said former council leader, for the construction of a new Primary School, and long trek from the actual places where the children who would need the school actually live?

Labour. ARGH.

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Sat 27 Feb 16 20:57

Mobile speed cameras - Bill Payer

>> "It's likely that the mobile speed trap is operated by a member of the same
>> team" maybe but often not.
>>
>> www.theaa.com/aadrivetech/driver-awareness/
>>
DriveTech was founded by a traffic cop. They did our driver training at work and they had a few core staff, ex-police, and the rest were serving and retired police officers brought in as required. This was before they were acquired by the AA.

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Mon 29 Feb 16 18:30

Mobile speed cameras - Armel Coussine

We have them around here.

I'm quite a good judge of speed and my reckless days are long past. Nevertheless I got flashed for a perfectly safe 36mph through the middle of my local townlet at 2 a.m. or so a few yeas ago, and chose the Speed Awareness Course option as cheaper and more interesting.

Eeeeeh... it was OK but pretty much a wasted day. The instructors were charming and there were coffee and biscuits. Don't think I learned much I didn't know backwards already. Had to go to Brighton for it too.

I think I've posted this perhaps 500 times. Will i vanish yet again? Who knows.

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