Undercover Agents
Following on from my previous post in May regarding the sneaky way some road safety cash generating departments are fielding speed cameras, comes the latest wheeze from Derbyshire Road Safety Partnership who are extending the use of ‘undercover’ speed detectors.
A camera van mocked up as a scruffy blue worman’s van has been used in the area since March to trap, er catch speeders in the Peak District. The council is doubling the amount of unmarked camera vans (OK, done for effect as doubling sounds more impressive than increasing by one).
They state that they want to give motorists the idea that any vehicle out in the area could be a speed detector & thus deter more motorists from speeding. The fact that this is an area with a very large percentage of visitor & holiday traffic most of whom won’t have a clue that undercover speed detector vans are even legal, (leaving aside that they are against Dept of Transport & ACPO guidelines which say they should be clearly marked & the roads they’re used on clearly signed) seems immaterial to the Partnership. I’m not sure, under the circumstances that it will deter a great many people from speeding, but am bloody sure the revenue will increase.
Of course, it will be the police who cop the flack on this again.
Maybe a greater deterrent would be to have more traffic patrols on the roads of the Peak District as a visible deterrent & a reminder that you may get stopped, not only for speeding, but all the other numpty-ways of (dangerous) driving which speed cameras do nothing to detect.
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Inspector Gadget says:
Ruralshire Constabulary call them “Community Safety Cameras” - as if changing the name will alter people’s views. They really do hold us in contempt.
September 4th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Tony F says:
The damned things don’t catch anyone driving like a prat if they are not speeding. The other day, I was following a tractor/trailer along the A15, we had double white lines approaching a blind rise with a junction to our right. Yup you guessed, a twat overtook me and the tractor (we were doing about 35 and the brow of the hill was only about 100 yards away) The poor ambulance driver coming the other way was white when he got level with me..
September 4th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Plodnomore says:
A friend of mine recently had his prosecution for speeding thrown out - I’m not telling you how as I may need to use it sometime in the future - but he defended himself and requested copies of the ACPO guidelines, maintenance and servicing schedules, details of how often the machine is calibrated and the last two calibration details as well as copies of the statements and PNB entries of the two operators in the Revenue Raising Vehicle. At the first appearance he requested the case be thrown out as none of the information he had requested had been forwarded to him so he had been unable to prepare a proper defence. Possibly because the courts receive a share of any such revenue, the case was merely postponed for 6 weeks to enable the relevant information be sent to him. On the next appearance he asked for details of the vehicle, how it was parked and whether it had been secured by anything other than the vehicle handbrake. He then asked how the RR camera was fixed in the vehicle, i.e. was it bolted to an immovable part of the vehicle or on movable units such as suspension units? His point was raised that the vehicle would rock in windy weather or when a vehicle would pass it by and as the camra was bolted to an immovable part of the vehicle, the lens would also rock in an unpredictable arc as and when the vehicle moved. He asked the operator who had attended if this was so? If the camera was then moving in an arc could it be confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that the lens would be fixed purely on the vehicle registration number and not also on parts of the vehicle which were a different distance to the camra, may be curved or reflective and is it possible that this could affect the reading of the camera? If the camera was being manually operated, could the operator confirm without a shadow of a doubt that the aim would ntyo be affected by and rocking or movement of the vehicle? These questions did not form part of the main element of the defence but it certainly made the operators (both people were asked the same questions) look like incompotent, untrained, idiots. They were also asked if, as they claim to be for a safer roads partnership, how many disqualified, drunken, uninsured or unqualified drivers they had caught and how many stolen, untaxed or uninsured vehicles they had caught? He also susccessfully argued that his expenses be paid from the Force in question rather than from public funds due to the unnecessary and timewasting prosecution.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:06 pm