Police mobile speed check...

[turbonutter69]

How sneaky are the police now with mobile speed checks. I once read that they are suppose to display signs so far up the road in each direction. I see them doing it all the time where i live except they don't have any signs up, they hide in the hedges and only stay there for half an hour so they don't get complaints. I think it's ridiculous that they can sneak up us like that. Whats your thoughts and have you been caught like this???

 

[HDi fun]

This is a much deliberated subject. Personally I cannot see the point of covert speed enforcement unless the objective is to gather revenue. But we all know that this is not the case, don't we?

Rather than repeat myself at great length, please refer to this site:

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/index2.htm

There are other issues besides.

 

[fingers]

I don't mean to sound like an old fart, but if you have a real problem with being caught by a speed camera, fixed or mobile, stick to the spped limit. Then it wouldn't be a problemthen would it. People moan that speed cameras are ther to generate revenue, but if people stuck to the speed limits (that are there for a reason) then there wouldn't be any revenue to generate. I would love to have a speed camera down my road, people come down here like lunatics.

 

[old-git]

I don't mean to sound like an old fart, but if you have a real problem with being caught by a speed camera, fixed or mobile, stick to the spped limit. Then it wouldn't be a problemthen would it. People moan that speed cameras are ther to generate revenue, but if people stuck to the speed limits (that are there for a reason) then there wouldn't be any revenue to generate. I would love to have a speed camera down my road, people come down here like lunatics.

And I thought that I was alone on this one....

 

[HDi fun]

We all know this, if you don't speed the you can't get caught.

The problem is that over zealous speed limit enforcement gives out the message that you can drive however you like provided you don't exceed the posted and often arbitrary speed limit.

I'm not against sensibly placed speed cameras or other means of enforcement.

In my opinion people who campaign in favour of ever lower speed limits and ever more draconian enforcement of them are actually poor drivers themselves.

 

[HDi fun]

Further, those of us who think that dishing out tickets for 95mph on a deserted motorway are branded as homicidal, genocidal maniacs by the pro camera lobby.

It seems that speeding is nearly as socially unacceptable as fiddling with children.

 

[turbonutter69]

I don't mean to sound like an old fart, but if you have a real problem with being caught by a speed camera, fixed or mobile, stick to the spped limit. Then it wouldn't be a problemthen would it. People moan that speed cameras are ther to generate revenue, but if people stuck to the speed limits (that are there for a reason) then there wouldn't be any revenue to generate. I would love to have a speed camera down my road, people come down here like lunatics.

I wasn't saying that i break the speed limit all the time. And also when i have seen mobile speed checks i've always been under the limit. Infact i have never been endorsed for speeding. I was saying how sneaky are the police when they hide there cars and just stand at the side of the road with a speed trap. Where i live they wait at the bottom of a hill on someone drive they hide the car up the drive and stand at the end so you don't see them until you have reached them. And unless your on your brake all the way down it's hard to stay at thirty on a wide road that would be fit for a forty limit.

 

[obi_waynne]

I saw a car with radar gun parked on the second of 2 flyovers which rendered them invisible to cars coming the other way. VERY SNEAKY although there were permenant police speed check signs on the road.

 

[pgarner]

I saw a car with radar gun parked on the second of 2 flyovers which rendered them invisible to cars coming the other way. VERY SNEAKY although there were permenant police speed check signs on the road.

yip see this a lot on the M74, and will proberly be worse in the new year when the Cumberland gap is opened as a Motorway. that why i perfer to use the back roads less places for them to hide and you can see them scanning the m,ways

 

[fingers]

This may come across as a little petty but just to clarify.

I wasn't saying that i break the speed limit all the time. And also when i have seen mobile speed checks i've always been under the limit. Infact i have never been endorsed for speeding.

I wasn't saying you do. I was just saying that if the police using speed cameras as a revenue generator is such an issue, then people who spped should stop it and there would be no revenue generated by them.

I was saying how sneaky are the police when they hide there cars and just stand at the side of the road with a speed trap. Where i live they wait at the bottom of a hill on someone drive they hide the car up the drive and stand at the end so you don't see them until you have reached them.

Sneaky it might be, but they are there enforcing the law and that is their job.

And unless your on your brake all the way down it's hard to stay at thirty on a wide road that would be fit for a forty limit.

Not trying to be an ass and tell anyone how to drive, but, if you use the gears properly you can use engine braking to regulate your speed, Coming into Halstead, Essex where I live you go down a hill where if you let the car roll in 4th, you can easily be at 40-45mph and its only 100yards or so. If you put the car into 3rd or maybe 2nd (if your carrying weight) you can roll down at 30.

 

[pgarner]

Not trying to be an ass and tell anyone how to drive, but, if you use the gears properly you can use engine braking to regulate your speed, Coming into Halstead, Essex where I live you go down a hill where if you let the car roll in 4th, you can easily be at 40-45mph and its only 100yards or so. If you put the car into 3rd or maybe 2nd (if your carrying weight) you can roll down at 30.

Gotta agree with fingers, i find that 3rd gear pretty much keeps me around 30mph on even the sharper inclines around here.
nothing is worse than having someone brake all the way down a hill for no reason

 

[HDi fun]

There's no excuse for saying that your speed just drifted up by a few miles per hour. as posted by fingers, you are at liberty to shift down a gear (an automatics can be held in lower gears, too).

If my car is travelling at 94mph, it's not by accident. I've chosen to put it at that speed.

 

[billyo]

Does this mean that cameras and speed traps are ok at peak times in heavy traffic and not on empty roads?

 

[HDi fun]

Basically, yes. What I'm alluring to is that speed enforement should be done by the police in response to safety issues. Not by cameras that are sited according to some set of predetermined criteria set down by self appointed experts

 

[pgarner]

Speed should be enforced with someone who can think for them selves. if i go down an empty duel carrageway at 80mph in good weather, roads dry all clear etc, a fixed camera will pick me up regardless. But if it was a traffic cop sitting he could assess if what i was doing was wrong

 

[HDi fun]

Thanks PG for offering another dose of common sense. I don't think that the police would pay you any heed at all for 80mph in the situation you describe. Certainly not in a covert car.

 

[pgarner]

well ive went passed the nice van at around 80-85 in a 60, on a blackspot.
had just passed a few wagons doing 40 ( their limit on this road ) with nothing coming the other way. did expect something but nothing and thats been a while. showing that some people must hav some sense still.

think most would do you harder depending on the circumstances. doing 35 in a quiet street is better than doing 35 outside a school

 

[HDi fun]

I know, it's typically British to be so over bloody zealous with everything. We can't just have a bit of public information about eating heathily, for example. We have to declare 70% of us obese, by changing the definition of the word obese to mean anyone a couple of kilos over their ideal weight.

 

[turbonutter69]

Gotta agree with fingers, i find that 3rd gear pretty much keeps me around 30mph on even the sharper inclines around here.
nothing is worse than having someone brake all the way down a hill for no reason

The hill where they sit where i live unless you are on your brakes ALL the way down you stray over the speed limit. I to stay under the 30 limit i have to brake all the way down. And yes i do use the engine to break but even third gear doesn't slow my car enough. Without braking an just rolling in third with no throttle i'm going 38mph. An my point is that if i'm on my brakes all the way down the cars behind get a bit upset and aggravated.

 

[obi_waynne]

OOOO ER! Braking all the way down a hill is a great way to heat up your brakes. You risk brake fade, brake failure due to vapour lock or worse the brakes binding on.

You are better off using 2nd gear if you have to. 3rd gear only holds my car at 30 if I am doing 30 at 31 and over it will pick up speed again and a few times I've needed 2nd gear.

 

[HDi fun]

disc brakes won't bind on. There's a reason why we have 5 or more gears - and they work downhill as well

 

[AutoCustomEng]

I think that everything is taken out of context a little, I think everyone at any point in there life has broken the speed limit,

What i hate and i think is seriously out of order is undercover £90,000 Mercedes cars, Surely the best way to police a road is to show police presents not make a car look exactly like a normal car and then tempt people into speeding??

Can't see the point nor the costs invovled in these luxury cars!!! I will not sit here and say i don't speed because do and probably always will however i don't see 80 mph on a non restricted road as speeding!!!

with this dispute about going down a hill at 30 is really irelavent, if you hit 35 i dont count that as speeding and if they do give you a ticket fight it in court, i would stand by the defense and tell the judge that it is a common fact and in the high way code not to sit on your brakes down a hill, and a 5mph over is not acceptable to give a man 3 points for,

If it does get to this point where it becomes such a nanny state, off will come the number plate, off will come the chassis number and on the road we will go!!!

 

[HDi fun]

Covert police cars spend very little time in the pursuit of speeding motorists.

Chances are you've passed one on the motorway well at over 90mph and they've not bothered with you at all if everything is in order and you're driving safely.

Plain clothes cars are more usually used to intercept known target vehicles which may be carrying firearms or drugs, for example. This is hard to do in cars plastered in police livery.

 

[AutoCustomEng]

I have to disagree, the plain clothes were on a dual carriageway not a inner town and they where patrolling, they do this alot around my way. Going between to roundabouts up and down pulling people over,

I have great respect for the police and see them patrolling is a good sign however stealth is not the way as it shows the police as 'sneaky' not high visabilty which will prevent rather then catch and make people weary!!!

 

[HDi fun]

I agree, that activity seems a waste of taxpayers' money. I know they're going to do this from time to time and focus on speed but it shouldn't be a primary function of a covert car really.

But if they're pulling people over for a roadside talking-to rather than issuing tickets then I'm up for that. Supposedly they'd be sensible and leave alone a safe driver at eighty in order to apprehend a questionable one at 69mph? Who knows? But I'd like to think that's the case.

 

[AutoCustomEng]

Always going to be political !!

 

[pgarner]

a big problem is the amount of forces. we for instance have the smallest police force in the whole uk ( dumfries and galloway). they dont use fixed cameras only the mobile and guns. they defenitly wouldnt let anyone off with 129mph with a roadside bollocking, however they may let me off with more than what the cumbrian force would

 

[HDi fun]

PG: "they defenitly wouldnt let anyone off with 129mph with a roadside bollocking, however they may let me off with more than what the cumbrian force would"

I only got away with it because they hadn't followed me quite far enough to make a solid case. Two tenths of a mile is what they require to make a prosecution stick. A mile is 1760 yards so 2/10 is 352 yards. Under 6 seconds. So I was very lucky indeed. Another half second before burying the brakes would have cost me my license, a big fine, and possibly a short custodial sentence if they magistrate was especially anti-speeding.

The traffic officer was extremely reasonable, in my opinion, and very polite about the whole thing. That's why I have enormous respect for them whereas before I probably had a little less.

 

[turbonutter69]

They've been at it again at the bottom of the hill. Car hidden again. Now I have been reading up on this and i'm sure that when the Police do mobile speed checks they are suppose to display signs that say there is mobile speed checks in this area. But there is none around the one that sits at the bottom of the hill. How can they be allowed to do this? It really gets on my nerves....

 

[Twamgl3]

They have to have permanent signs installed within a 2.5 kilometre radius of the mobile camera.

They don't have to be on the same road, or in the same village or town, just a maximum of 2.5 km distance from the location.

If the signs aren't there then neither should they be, but if you know they're there every now and again go a different route or be good!

Personally I get nervous when a police car follows me any amount of distance but I'm really not phased by road side enforcement as I don't break the rules (too much).

 

[turbonutter69]

It doesn't bother in the sense of my licence it just annoys me that the police think they can do anything.....

 

[Twamgl3]

It doesn't bother in the sense of my licence it just annoys me that the police think they can do anything.....

Sorry, I didn't mean to infer you were a bad or irresponsible driver, I meant to say that there are some rules which are obviously written in favour of enforcement, rather than to try and make the world a better place!

 

[turbonutter69]

Sorry, I didn't mean to infer you were a bad or irresponsible driver, I meant to say that there are some rules which are obviously written in favour of enforcement, rather than to try and make the world a better place!

Yep and they still break those rules.

 

[HDi fun]

If the police are operating the speed check then they're supposed to stand in full view of oncoming traffic, fully attired with reflective clothing.

Technically they have breached the Home Office type approval and usage regs if this isn't the case. Clearly this is based upon health and safety rules (to protect the manufacturer of the equipment from damages claims) but it MIGHT just help if you really do need to disabuse yourself of the speeding ticket thus presented.

Naturally, the obvious answer is to drive within the posted speed limit thus avoiding any risk of prosecution.

 

[turbonutter69]

People are getting my point mixed up. I don't need to worry about a ticket cause I don't speed in built up area's. That is not the issue here. I am saying that they are being sneaky. They only do it every now and then and also they will only stay there a max of 30 mins because they park on someones drive to do the speed trap and the owner of the house has reported them for blocking their driveway and have also wrote to the police asking them not to park their. My point is the police seem to be able to do whatever they like. And it also seems like they only go there to get figures up.

 

[HDi fun]

Like you I do not speed in built up areas either. Speed enforcement is a traffic officer's most despised duty. They hate doing it, especially on motorways.

 

[Wcnwzrd]

ive found that in the area i live, if you are in the sticks/country ( not to much traffic or buildings) as long as you are being reasonable, they don't say much except to slow it down a little. If you are in the burbs or the city they are total pains, gave my buddy a ticket for 26 in a 25 when he was driving a 76 chevy truck. my biggest issue is them not using reasoning for thier sitations. i speed, ive been ticketed for it and almost all of em i deserved. only ever fought 1 and that was when second gear went out in my truck going down hill (but thats off topic). we used to have a traffic cam out here except they were finally forced to remove it due to the fact that they placed it infront of the speed limit signs off of the main road that fed into it. so it was you driving down the freeway, get off at said exit and didn't see the speed limit until after you passed the sign. not very proper in my way of thinking. pull me over and give me a ticket if im speeding but use your head to decide between giving me a talking to or a ticket thats all i ask.

 

[HDi fun]

Most mobile speed checks (if we're referring to the tally vans we have here in the UK) are operated by civilians. These operators are generally CSOs, as opposed to being proper police. The traffic police feel that such vans and their operation gives the general public a very poor opinion of the police service in general. Especially when such vans are used on dual carriageway 70mph bypass roads rather than in the town or village that such roads bypass.

 

[turbonutter69]

Most mobile speed checks (if we're referring to the tally vans we have here in the UK) are operated by civilians. These operators are generally CSOs, as opposed to being proper police. The traffic police feel that such vans and their operation gives the general public a very poor opinion of the police service in general. Especially when such vans are used on dual carriageway 70mph bypass roads rather than in the town or village that such roads bypass.

The speed check on this occasion Is always done by the Police. It was a traffic Mondeo Estate with the camera's mounted on the roof. It's not very often you see the camera van round here it is always trafic police.

 

[HDi fun]

Where is here, incidentally? And on which roads are the traffic police conducting such checks?