Am I Banned?

metz · Post by **metz** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 9:31 pm

On my way to scarbrough today i was travelling at 35mph (by my speedo) on what i presumed was a 40mph speedlimit road, anyway i went past a mobile piggybank (safety camera car) and thought nothing about it untill i left the village...as i left i looked in my mirror and saw the sign said 30mph limit

Does anyone know what percentage or what speed you have to do on a 30mph road to be caught by these mobile camera vans as 3 points and i have to do my test again so bye bye licence

(i already have 3 points)

Petrified · Post by **Petrified** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 9:47 pm

I've gone past one at 80 in a 60 zone a few months back and didn't get anything through the door

. Speedo's always overread anyway so you may have actually been travelling 32,33 mph. I wouldn't have thought they would get you for this.

I'm not sure how the mobile vans work, but with the handheld laser they will only point it at you if they think you were speeding anyway.

The camera may not have even been on.

I would think positive mate. How did you get your first 3 points?

James.

GroovyCarrot · Post by **GroovyCarrot** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 10:11 pm

I've had a few situations like this.. couple of times I've been crapping myself for weeks about it. No points yet, but I'm also still on a probational license, 6 points max, terrified of losing it...
I wouldn't let yourself panic about it... do you know what type of camera van it was? Digicam (little hole in back door or panel with a lens sticking out) or gatso-esque with the back doors open and the camera on a tripod? If it was the latter, you would have noticed it flashing if it had you.. the digicams are buggers though because you can't really tell.
As a general rule, a 30 limit camera will trigger at either 33 or 35 mph (limit + 10% or limit + 10% + 2mph) depending on the local police force. Also, your speedometer will almost certainly read a couple of mph over what you're actually doing, for example mine reads 30mph when I'm actually doing 27-28 (I checked on a GPS tracker).
If you thought you were in a 40 limit, is there any chance that you actually were and then it was changed to a 30 without you noticing the signs? Just a thought...

Anyway, the best thing to do is not to worry about it. If it caught you it caught you, worrying won't help, but chances are you'll be ok. I've only ever seen the local van catch one person and he must have been doing 45 through a 30.. never seen it flash for anyone else and people rarely do under 33 on the stretch of road that it's usually on...

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you

chubbster · Post by **chubbster** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:36 pm

you'll probably be alright, there normally after people properly pushing on. doing a few more than speed limit means that your barely worth the effort. all the red tape nowadays about filling in forms and crap like that means you should get away with it. when i was 18 many years ago (im 27 now) i got pulled all the time for spot checks, now cos of all the racism stuff the police have had against them means that every stop search needs to be justified. its pretty similar with speed traps tons of ars;ng forms for them, which is good for us slowing the entire process down.

i think if you dont hear from them in 2-3 weeks the case is not valid by law anymore. i got gripped in the isle of man for doing 43 in a 30 and i was going to use the right of silence so i checked into road laws. check some of these sites on this link page they may help you blag round it if your called up
http://www.speedcam.co.uk/links.htm
i think you'll be alright but anyway as carrot said fingers crossed

metz · Post by **metz** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 9:09 am

Cheers guys, i'm going to nip over to madmatts and get him to do 40mph on the GPS and let me follow him to see what my speedo reads then i can get a clearer pic as to how much the speedo is out.

James i got 3 points for driving while not supervised back in 2002.

carmadaaron · Post by **carmadaaron** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 10:50 am

if u dont recieve anything in 2 weeks, u r ok!

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 2:11 pm

I shouldn't worry mate, unless you've recalibrated your speedo for those tiny pimpin' rollerskate wheels, it'll be reading *far* over! (what were they again? 155/60s?)

Was it a road you've been down many times and either used to be a 40, or everyone takes it as one because it's not really deserving of a 30 limit? They're bastards for that.
Waiting to see how much rolls in off a local one that's been stealth-dropped from 40 to 30.. only warning you get of it is a tiny little white-on-red text sign (as if you can read that at 40mph!) which looks just like a "new road layout ahead" notice, except it says "new 30mph speed limit in force" with rather wobbly, unprofessionally set letters. At the END of the zone!
Whereas a mile across town there's roads that have always been 30s plastered with very large, highly obvious, dayglo-backgrounded "30 NOW IN FORCE" signs...
Unfortunately that practice is 100% legal as there is now no change of speed limit between what was the 40 zone and the 30s flanking it. I think I remember something about legal notice of a lowered limit being required for a certain length of time after, but that's fufilled of course...

Hang tight, you should be fine - im remembering my own flash flash here for 58 in a (motorway) 50. Nothings happened so far and that was aaaaaages ago.

metz · Post by **metz** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 3:16 pm

My tyres are 185 50 14's sp the speedo is just overreading i think.

Are GPS spot on with their mph reading? as im off to madmatts to see what my speedo reads against his GPS.

LOW PHAT SPREAD · Post by **LOW PHAT SPREAD** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 6:53 pm

Think u shud b ok. If ur speedo said 35, and if it is reading a bit over, then I rekon u will b ok, I fink its 36 that u get done 4 (like I did!)
Horrible int it (the fact that we can only get 6 points) if u do get another 3 points, dont u av any1 that will take them 4 u?? Naughty I know, but a gud idea 2 save ur licence!!

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Sun Sep 26, 2004 8:31 pm

mmmm ok your rolling size is maybe even a little LARGER than standard, if thats the correct figure

so why do they look so roller skatey? deffo 14s not 13s?

13in = 330mm
14in = 356mm

185 x 0.5 x 2 = 185 (duh

)
145 x 0.8 x 2 = 232
155 x 0.7 x 2 = 217

185 + 356 = 541
232 + 330 = 562
217 + 330 = 547
(185 + 330 = 515)
... but even so, what your speedo might say is 56kmh on 145/80 R13s (34.8mph) might be 54kmh on your current set (33.6mph)

(um, ok, quirk to enterprise, one to beam up.... nevermind! </runs>)

metz · Post by **metz** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 1:07 am

ok, what i want to know is how accurate is GPS on say a road angel and the like?
speedo reads 35mph GPS reads 30mph
So if gps is spot on i should be fine

PoloGTi · Post by **PoloGTi** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:20 am

They normally flash at 10%+1 so 30mph zone is 34mph.

But they are changing things at the moment so that people who drive well over the limit get punished badly and those who are breaking the speed limit by a little bit dont get punished

.

So I read somewhere...

GroovyCarrot · Post by **GroovyCarrot** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:52 pm

Yeah, they're working on revising the laws at the moment so that if you're just over you get a smaller fine than you do if you're clearly hammering along.. however, no one has mentioned a reduction in points yet which I find highly suspicious and a bit of an arse really.. personally I'd happily pay double the fine if it kept points off my license.

The GPS meter should be about as accurate as you can get.. your speedometer is only really an estimate of your speed based on some rough calculations based on wheel diameter etc, whereas the GPS is calculated based on your actual position relative to the GPS satellites, much less estimation involved. Plus, the GPS has no reason to tell little white lies to you to make you think you're going faster than you actually are, whereas if you got caught speeding because your speedo was reading a bit lower than it should then the manufacturer would have quite a case to answer for.
Reminds me of a little trick one of my dad's friends was telling me about a while ago when I was doing some work shadowing with him, he used to have a handheld GPS meter rigged up in his car, and used it to overtake other cars as he passed the local gatso

His logic was that most people will go past it at a bit under an indicated 30, so more like 25mph, and the camera would be triggered at 35mph, so he'd do 34mph, which was about an indicated 40

Never got done for it either

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 7:20 pm

GPS should be spot-on... at least when its reading to within a few metres or you set it measuring point-to-point average and drive steady enough to let it even out over say a (GPS-measured) mile. If it's at a 10 metre accuracy, then that's still 1 in 100 over a kilometre, 1 in 160 over a mile, which should be good enough for anyone but a land speed record adjudicator's needs.

(50m = 1 in 32 over a mile, so you can still tell if your speedo is grossly out, rather than saying somewhere between 30.5 and 33.5)

The new speeding fine system goes from I think 2 points and a Â£50 fine up to 6 points and god knows how much before getting into automatic ban territory. Which is a bit nicer, but I'd still appreciate a zero-points plus Â£50 baseline (say for 35 in a 30), more sensible limit-setting strategy (5mph-intervals, higher but variable motorway limit etc) and the destruction of 4 out of every 5 cameras (favoring those rare ones that are actually within 200 yards of a blackspot), a concentration on teaching decent f***ing roadcraft during driver training (and failing people hard for cocking up such things, rather than for random near-unnoticable faults*, retesting every 10 years to quash the creeping bad habits), and bringing back a good number of well trained traffic police.
But o'course, all that outlined above costs money rather than raking it.

*not bitterness, i passed 1st time, but i've heard enough stories of stupid fails...

GroovyCarrot · Post by **GroovyCarrot** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:05 pm

not bitterness, i passed 1st time, but i've heard enough stories of stupid fails...

I'll back you on this, although from the angle of bitterness. I was failed first time round. Did I nearly run over an old lady? Did I run a red light? Did I, at any point, even slightly exceed a speed limit? Nope, I slightly cut a mini roundabout that my instructor told me it was ok to cut anyway. I only had 5 minors as well.. I'm pretty sure the examiner was just making up his pass/fail quota for the month

The driving test isn't a way to filter out the bad drivers from the good, it's a way for the DSA to make another Â£40 for every driver they fail...

I'll back you on the speed camera destruction bit as well. Prime example is my local mobile cash cow, gets set up in one of the neighbouring villages every couple of weeks. The blackspot in the village is the secondary school, I've seen a couple of kids knocked down after the school closes, and I'd be all for a camera at the gates... but do they do that? Nope, they put a camera half a mile down the road at the edge of the speed limit, so they catch people anticipating the derestriction or people who are slowing down too late. Who cares that it doesn't help the accident rate, they catch more people that way...

Btw, Metz, how did you get done for driving unsupervised? Were you pulled over for something else, or did you get done by a copper who knew you were unlicensed anyway?