Aging but accurate?
Discussion
A couple of years back I was done for speeding late at
night on an empty 3 lane A road. The lone policeman followed me and calculated my speed using a vascar to be 102mph. Bit annoyed about the fact that it was an empty road etc.. but them's the rules so I didn't contest it and duly got banned for 21 days. Earlier this year I had to travel to edinburgh (I live in london) I had a stop over in manchester, couple of days in bonny, then back home. The traffic was light and I am a compulsive speeder, so I was travelling in the 90's but slowing down when the traffic got heavier.
Unfortunately I didn't notice the big white volvo with blue lights and a bright orange stripe down the side until too late and , once again, I was parked on the hard shoulder waiting for the inevitable. The point of this rambling is that I was apparently tracked doing 102.8mph which was calculated by (vascar) 0.2mile covered over 7 seconds. I am adamant (not that dodgy singer bloke) that I was doing (speedo indicated) 98mph at the time. Other topics have suggested that car speedo's generally over read the actual road speed which means that my actual speed was probably around 95mph, regardless of this I was going under 100mph.
As I have said previously, I am 'happy' to take it on the chin when caught for speeding, but this has annoyed me because the difference -100mph+ in the eyes of the law is significant, even more so considering I have a previous speeding conviction. Is there any point in even attempting to contest the vascar evidence considering the error margins are quite large, or shall I just accept that I'm not a celebrity or royalty and get thwacked?!
p.s. sorry for the over long ramble
night on an empty 3 lane A road. The lone policeman followed me and calculated my speed using a vascar to be 102mph. Bit annoyed about the fact that it was an empty road etc.. but them's the rules so I didn't contest it and duly got banned for 21 days. Earlier this year I had to travel to edinburgh (I live in london) I had a stop over in manchester, couple of days in bonny, then back home. The traffic was light and I am a compulsive speeder, so I was travelling in the 90's but slowing down when the traffic got heavier.
Unfortunately I didn't notice the big white volvo with blue lights and a bright orange stripe down the side until too late and , once again, I was parked on the hard shoulder waiting for the inevitable. The point of this rambling is that I was apparently tracked doing 102.8mph which was calculated by (vascar) 0.2mile covered over 7 seconds. I am adamant (not that dodgy singer bloke) that I was doing (speedo indicated) 98mph at the time. Other topics have suggested that car speedo's generally over read the actual road speed which means that my actual speed was probably around 95mph, regardless of this I was going under 100mph.
As I have said previously, I am 'happy' to take it on the chin when caught for speeding, but this has annoyed me because the difference -100mph+ in the eyes of the law is significant, even more so considering I have a previous speeding conviction. Is there any point in even attempting to contest the vascar evidence considering the error margins are quite large, or shall I just accept that I'm not a celebrity or royalty and get thwacked?!
p.s. sorry for the over long ramble
I was vascared (?) at 100.68 over 132m back in 1992. Friendly brief's advice at that time was say sorry and get a letter saying you need the licence for the job (I did). The biggest pain was not the £120 and 3 points, it was the day out, by train, to Staines because I might not have been driving home.
This does seem crazy, but I guess only one of our resident BIB can answer this. But surely if they vascar you over 0.2 of a mile the margin for error is huge. Say you had actually taken 7.3 seconds to cover this distance you would then you would have been under the magic 100mph. If I understand Vascar correctly Plod has to press a button twice as you pass two fixed points. This means his podgy little fingers have to be accurate to 0.15 of a second. Sorry I don't buy it and can't belive this could or should stand up in court...
gro,
this is what I initially thought, but having read a bit about vascar, it seems that the law simply takes the word of the operator. Apparently you cannot legally operate a vascar unless you have passed a test to show that you can accurately measure a vehicles speed several times over. There must be a lot of anticipation involved and, like you say, the margin of error must be huge at this distance and period of time. I don't know if the officers have to retake the vascar test periodically, but I find it very hard to believe that they continue to accurately measure a vehicles speed every time. Think its one of those cases where they will never allow the contesting of the evidence as it will result in such a huge number of people wanting to have their convictions overturned.
The vascar system does have a margin of error built into it I believe but I don't know what this is.
I once read an article on this that basically concluded that the officer would have to have better reactions than a pro. drag racer to get anything like accurate results!!!
Oh well
this is what I initially thought, but having read a bit about vascar, it seems that the law simply takes the word of the operator. Apparently you cannot legally operate a vascar unless you have passed a test to show that you can accurately measure a vehicles speed several times over. There must be a lot of anticipation involved and, like you say, the margin of error must be huge at this distance and period of time. I don't know if the officers have to retake the vascar test periodically, but I find it very hard to believe that they continue to accurately measure a vehicles speed every time. Think its one of those cases where they will never allow the contesting of the evidence as it will result in such a huge number of people wanting to have their convictions overturned.
The vascar system does have a margin of error built into it I believe but I don't know what this is.
I once read an article on this that basically concluded that the officer would have to have better reactions than a pro. drag racer to get anything like accurate results!!!
Oh well
Sp60
Do you know anything about Vascar?
If not e mail me off line and I may be able to help with your problem.
When Police Officers are trained to use Vascar, they are rigorously tested to prove the accuracy of the device they operate. They will not pass the authorisation to use the device if, over a series of 10 checks being examined, they are more than 1 mile per hour inaccurate in a single check or an average of more than .5 of a mile per hour inaccurate over the whole exam.
Do you know anything about Vascar?
If not e mail me off line and I may be able to help with your problem.
When Police Officers are trained to use Vascar, they are rigorously tested to prove the accuracy of the device they operate. They will not pass the authorisation to use the device if, over a series of 10 checks being examined, they are more than 1 mile per hour inaccurate in a single check or an average of more than .5 of a mile per hour inaccurate over the whole exam.
Sympathies, of course.
Like you, I find the constraints of the speeding regulations immeasurably frustrating much of the time so prohibit my own extraterrestrial accelerative excursions to what you might broadly term 'the most suitable circumstances.'
You simply can't drive over 100 at night, even in the best circs, without checking WHO your fellow road users are.
Obviously, all the usual stuff applies regarding m-way entry points and fly-overs, long sweepers from which Joe 90 might magically appear, etc, etc, etc.
Before any serious assertion of the habitual need for brief Millenium Falconism, keep it dead simple; creep up on vehicles in front and allow lights behind to catch up if they aren't behaving like blatant CLODs (I think that's the acronym!). Once the trilby/baseball cap has been assessed - it's Mr.Redline.
For busier sections at night, though, looking forward in time, I'm bound to concede that you really must TRY and stay below 91; one or two traffic patrollers of my acquaintance seem to be indicating that despite whatever the politicos say, quite a few of the guys think that's generally ok. After all, show me a m-way with any kind of free flowing traffic where the Vectras and Mondeos aren't doing at least 90 and I'll show you a good idea from the manifesto of Red Ken.
Easy now.
Like you, I find the constraints of the speeding regulations immeasurably frustrating much of the time so prohibit my own extraterrestrial accelerative excursions to what you might broadly term 'the most suitable circumstances.'
You simply can't drive over 100 at night, even in the best circs, without checking WHO your fellow road users are.
Obviously, all the usual stuff applies regarding m-way entry points and fly-overs, long sweepers from which Joe 90 might magically appear, etc, etc, etc.
Before any serious assertion of the habitual need for brief Millenium Falconism, keep it dead simple; creep up on vehicles in front and allow lights behind to catch up if they aren't behaving like blatant CLODs (I think that's the acronym!). Once the trilby/baseball cap has been assessed - it's Mr.Redline.
For busier sections at night, though, looking forward in time, I'm bound to concede that you really must TRY and stay below 91; one or two traffic patrollers of my acquaintance seem to be indicating that despite whatever the politicos say, quite a few of the guys think that's generally ok. After all, show me a m-way with any kind of free flowing traffic where the Vectras and Mondeos aren't doing at least 90 and I'll show you a good idea from the manifesto of Red Ken.
Easy now.
quote:
For busier sections at night, though, looking forward in time, I'm bound to concede that you really must TRY and stay below 91; one or two traffic patrollers of my acquaintance seem to be indicating that despite whatever the politicos say, quite a few of the guys think that's generally ok.
But don't take the p!ss when you slide past the marked ones!
It's a happy state of affairs that the jam butties generally sit at 60, meaning you can legitimately slide past at70..
It's immensely irritating to me when they cruise at 70-75 at which point you can't really go past them at all..
How on earth do you not fall asleep at the wheel driving a big Bimmer/Volvo at 60 on MWays?
It's immensely irritating to me when they cruise at 70-75 at which point you can't really go past them at all..
How on earth do you not fall asleep at the wheel driving a big Bimmer/Volvo at 60 on MWays?
quote:
Do you know anything about Vascar?
A little, I read a lot about it a while ago but have forgotten most!
quote:
If not e mail me off line and I may be able to help with your problem.
Thanks, thats a very generous offer, I may take you up on that
quote:
When Police Officers are trained to use Vascar, they are rigorously tested to prove the accuracy of the device they operate. They will not pass the authorisation to use the device if, over a series of 10 checks being examined, they are more than 1 mile per hour inaccurate in a single check or an average of more than .5 of a mile per hour inaccurate over the whole exam.
Well, yes I have read this before and its fair enough. But how many times are the officers re-tested to prove that they are still accurate? Even if they are re-tested frequently, I don't think anyone could repeat this accuracy every day of the week every single time. Everyone has bad days.
This is starting to sound like I'm having a pop at police and the speed limits, let me backpedal and say that this is not what I'm doing. That is a different issue. I was simply looking for opinions on this particular situation where I am pretty much 100% sure that I was not doing the speed indicated by the vascar. I was speeding and am 'happy' to accept the punishment, I'm just a bit miffed at the speed recording
especially knowing that as it is above 100mph it will make a big difference when I have to go to court. many thanks for the feedback
quote:
Don't they have to measure your speed over at least 3 tenths of a mile?
no, the minimum distance is 0.125 mile. The white squares that are painted on the motorway lanes are 0.2 miles apart which is what the police use as a measurement.
vascar link:
www.leconcepts.com/radar/Web%20Site/news/news6.htm
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