Speed limit enforcement

[rs1952]

Extract from another thread:

According to a good copper that I know (i.e does not do people for doing 0.00000000047mph over the speed limit which seems to be the trend these days...)



Can we have a bit of objective research and data on this matter from the forum members? What is the smallest amount over the speed limit (whatever it was in that particular area)that people have been nicked for?

Don't bother with the rumours eg. "I was told that a friend of my granny's butcher has a cousin whose boyfirend got done for doing 31" etc - lets have real, objective, proveable stuff. What have you, your close family or your friends, actually been nicked for?

Any answers?

[dimmadan]

My parents told me recently that their next door neighbours got done for 32 in 30 earlier this year.

[soulpatch]

I got done for 35 in a 30 by a Gatso a year ago.

[John A]

72 mph on M56 at Wythenshaw (sp)
Plead guilty - ie I was doing 72 - and filled in mitigating circumstances along the lines of "there are more important things to be paying attention to on motorways than the last 5 mph of speed". I was convinced I would get off, but fined and 3 points!!

[jmorgan]

John A said: 72 mph on M56 at Wythenshaw (sp)
Plead guilty - ie I was doing 72 - and filled in mitigating circumstances along the lines of "there are more important things to be paying attention to on motorways than the last 5 mph of speed". I was convinced I would get off, but fined and 3 points!!

That seems harsh. Thought there was 10 percent lee way?

[John A]

Yes, I thought that too. Very harsh. Bs!!
Out of interest, it was a camera on a bridge, and I was driving an old Landrover 90. First I knew about it was when I got the summons. Still got it as proof of the almost unbelievable.

[madcop]

John A said: Yes, I thought that too. Very harsh. Bs!!
Out of interest, it was a camera on a bridge, and I was driving an old Landrover 90. First I knew about it was when I got the summons. Still got it as proof of the almost unbelievable.

Are you sure there was no temporary limit in place at the time you went through. Restricted to 50mph for some reason?

[John A]

Can't be absolutely certain because the first thing I knew was when the summons arrived in the post. When I checked where Wythenshaw was I did remember having driven that road on the day in question and would have been doing somewhere around 70 (a decent rate in an old LR) This was in 1993, so the memory is not too sharp.
The paperwork makes no reference to what the limit was. It only gives the location and the speed I was doing.
Would it not be specific about a temporary limit if there had been one?
I'd feel a lot better about it if I deserved to be fined for being unobservant than I do about being fined for not driving with my eyes glued to the speedo!

[outlaw]

if the took the piss with a ticked like that at 72.

I would got to court and take a pis on the bench.

[granville]

Several years ago, having just received my first ever points for extreme reinterpretation of the NSL in a Porsche 928, I had opted for the south coast retirement home option of a 4.0 Jag Sovereign. Benign to the point of fluffiness, and about as likely to ruffle feathers as Uncle Tom Cobbley.

So it was with an air of no little incredulity that within a fortnight of that transgression I found myself pulled again, this time for the seemingly benign act of doing 40 in a 30 zone. No surprise there, perhaps.

So why the surprise? Well several things.

First, although a residential area, it is/was a well trodden, main arterial route into and out of town, ALL the traffic does AT LEAST 40 and quite frankly, to have gone slower would have been to disrupt an otherwise perfectly safe velocited, free flowing continuum.

Second, the risk to pedestrians was/is minimal; the houses on both sides of this wide road, well set back behind substantial frontal garden areas, being further recessed, as it were, by pavements which themselves run behind large expanses of secondary turf, American style. All the way, the precipitation of pedestrian accidents further avoided by the double yellows which improved driver visibility no end by prohibiting stationary vehicles from which an errant child could undoubtedly have lunged...

So I was doing what everyone in these situations does. Technically indefensible, granted but hardly the stuff of criminal legend.

I know. Have I ever had to do the unthinkable acts of which MadCop & co have probably had to deal with (which might, admittedly, quite change one's entire perspective in matters such as this)? Well no, so I comment as I find re specific circumstances.

I was the unfortunate mug to have an unmarked video camera patrol car in my rear view and it was this fellow who pulled me over and proved the error of my ways. In full humble mode I meekly pointed out that whilst I had no technical argument with the event I wondered how logical it was to effectively harpoon one fish amongst a scholl of poisson all scooting with equal dexterity on a common vector?

The response was that of classic 'clipboardista' and jobsworth. Were it not for my personal high regard with which I generally hold the BiB - and the thoroughly reasonable and wholly selective interpretation of the insanely gay NSL we are subjected to by the officer who had recently hauled in my ass in the Pork beast, it would have been easy to let this tale degenerate into an anti-traffic police tirade.

In truth, I just wish some of the guys could be more orientated to the spirit than the strict technical application in situations such as this. Especially when dealing with such a mild mannered, paragon of reasonableness as yours truly!

[s_willy]

104mph in a 70 the bastards, you'd think they had something better to do like catch real criminals

[bobthebench]

madcop said:

John A said: Yes, I thought that too. Very harsh. Bs!!
Out of interest, it was a camera on a bridge, and I was driving an old Landrover 90. First I knew about it was when I got the summons. Still got it as proof of the almost unbelievable.

Are you sure there was no temporary limit in place at the time you went through. Restricted to 50mph for some reason?

Even a temp 30, come on, it was a Landrover 90. No case to answer. Even if you did manage 30+ in a 'Drover, isn't that reckless endangerment of life ?

[bobthebench]

s_willy said: 104mph in a 70 the bastards, you'd think they had something better to do like catch real criminals

Are you just imaginary then ? Cos just imagine when you are wrapped round a telegraph pole, some imaginary driver has mown down the wife and kids, or some imaginary criminal T-bones you cos he couldn't make the corner.

[hertsbiker]

Bob.. very strange reply you wrote there.
Don't you realise yet that some limits are absurd, and have only been done because of reasons nothing to do with road safety? a lot of 60's are now 50 or 40, and solely because it is a nice little earner.