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Driving to Gatwick yesterday along the A303 I was behind a Romanian registered car in a queue of traffic which was playing an interesting game. It couldn't go flat out, but every time he got to a speed camera he hung back to create a gap, and then floored it to set the camera off. Quite apart from the fact that this bloke was nailing it through accident blackspots, is there any likelihood that his misdiscretions will catch up with him down the line?
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No.
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Thought not. Mind you, it'll give a laugh to whoever has to sort their way through all yesterday's camera photographs. :)
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Nailing it through accident blackspots? Oh do come off it. Nailing it through revenue generators.
Good luck to him I say. If it irritates the people processing the photographs, all the better.
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I have a feeling this is coming, a few weeks ago I read somewhere that the EU are working on Data Sharing scheme to allow automatic cross border vehicle registration checks ( terrorists & speed cameras, police intel etc)
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From the local press in Spain -
"THE DGT traffic department will be issuing Guardia Civil traffic officers with new technology in October so that they can report traffic violations immediately to a central computing system. PRIDE units will allow Guardia Civil officers to report traffic offences on the spot and motorists who are fined can pay using a credit card thanks to the units? magnetic band reader....the new system allows officers to register a traffic offence and send the details directly to the central computing system for action without the need to fill out forms. Officers will also have immediate access to the driver and vehicles details and records on the PRIDE unit screen, information which is currently only available by radio contact with head offices. The units will be connected to the central computer system via a global positioning system operated by a major mobile phone company"
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If this is adopted Eu wide, how would Traffic officers prove an offence has occurred? Would it be one target driven traffic officer's word against yours, or would they need to provide photo evidence?
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That system doesn't operate across borders although it will be an asset if such a system ever does. All that does is change the way bribes.......I mean fines are taken from paper to computer.
In any case you can get fined when caught by a law enforcement official today, you can even get banned from the roads of whichever country you are in if the offence warrants it.
What can't happen at the moment is that points from an offence in a foreign country be applied to a UK licence although there is talk of that happening.
Personally I don't see how it could ever happen because it goes against natural justice ie how do you appeal against something in a foreign court and how do they prove it was you behind the wheel.
I like the system the way it is, the look of anger on a Gendarmes face when you apologise in his own language and tell him to keep the change from your 90 euro fine after peeling off a 100 euro note from your wad is priceless.................
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DH - cameras at accident blackspots? This is a new and interesting development! I thought they were on downhill dual carriageways on which the speed limit has recently, and for no apparent reason, been reduced to 50 mph ie a cash rasing scheme!
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The ones I drive past are near schools or junctions with an accident history.
Remember - it is an optional tax/bribe - if you keep close to the limit (and it is not difficult) you do not have to amke a contribution!
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The ones I drive past are near schools .
Now that is one place where cameras should be, but I've never seen one outside a school.
On the A303 westbound there is of course one on that steep hill (Chicklade?) that forces you to slow down just as you need to build momentum for the hill. That really makes sense!!
I must remember to polish my B2 so that it reminds me to slow down when I go down there tonight.
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>> The ones I drive past are near schools . >> Now that is one place where cameras should be but I've never seen one outside a school.
Yes, the nearest camera to me is on a long straight 30mph road that the kids cross to get to school. Before the camera was installed people used to drive at 50mph and there were several accidents, including some involving children. Its a busy road and around 3.30pm you'd see gaggles of kids at the side of the road waiting to cross and drivers would still be doing 50mph - this is why you can't rely on drivers choosing a speed 'appropriate to the circumstances' - a lot of drivers are simply too thick to know what an appropriate speed is. The camera has been there a couple of years and all the locals now stick to 30mph. Its a heck of lot safer than it used to be. 30mph is still too fast at times, but its safer than 50mph I guess.
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Yes the nearest camera to me is on a long straight 30mph road that the kids cross to get to school. Before the camera was installed people used to drive at 50mph and there were several accidents including some involving children.
Exactly the same story with my second-nearest camera. Regular fatal accidents before camera installed, no fatalities in the four or five years since. That's a real, proven safety measure, and if those few who choose to ignore it pay plenty of money into govt coffers, so much the better.
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Before they issue fines, they have to catch you.
Big news in this week's Costa Blanca News:
Speed choppers:
THE DGT traffic department has announced its intention to equip its helicopters with speed cameras.
The MX-15 radars are still undergoing tests by the department of industry to check their accuracy and approve them for use. Once they are approved, the DGT will begin to use the cameras to catch speeders, particularly on smaller roads where patrol cars can't set up radars.
To record the speed of a vehicle, the helicopter must fly at roughly the same speed as the car, focusing two cameras on it: one to catch the exact speed of the vehicle and the other with a zoom lens to take the registration details.
In a video released by the DGT while they were testing the system, the camera could focus on the inside of a car from 300 metres above the road to such a high quality as to be able to tell if the occupants were wearing seatbelts or whether the driver was talking on a mobile phone.
The system works at up to 300 metres above the road and a kilometre behind its prey.
Spain will be the first country in Europe to use this pioneering system, and a DGT spokesperson said that to begin with there will be one camera in every province where there is a traffic management centre (Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla, Málaga, Zaragoza, Valladolid and A Coruña) with the eventual aim of having a camera in every DGT helicopter in the country.
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Well, yeah, "accident blackspots" in a Daily Mail type of voice. Actually, there's one camera that's blatently used as a revenue generator on the A303 that I think might have got me on Tuesday.
It's on the dual carriageway bit just before it goes back to single carriageway. So, anyone who steps on it to get past some slower moving traffic before they end up stuck behind them or forced off the road gets their photo taken. I didn't see a flash, but wasn't looking back at the camera so it could well have gone off.
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