Safe Speed Forums

As a long distance coach driver with 30 years experience, I have just had my first flashing camera. More and more of these so called safety cameras are being situated at the bottom of long steep hills on single lane roads. The speed limit for a coach on single lane roads is 50 mph. ..60 mph for cars. However with an empty coach, (no passengers), weighing in excess of twelve and a half ton, it does not take rocket science to work out that with the foot off the accelerator at the top of the hill while doing 48mph , the weight of the coach will cause the speed to increase progressively as it rolls down the gradient. It is fine and well in a car to brake or change down gears, but with an automatic coach the brakes heat up very quickly and start to fade if used to slow a bus over miles of downhill road. All coaches are fitted with speed limiters, restricting the top speed to 60 mph and it is often safer to allow the limiter to slow the bus rather than suffer brake fade by travelling downhill constantly braking. I had been travelling into Perth en route to Johnstone and having travelled from Inverness on the A9. Just after Pitlochry there is a very long steep gradient of about three miles in length. The road is straight as a dye but very steep. At the top of the gradient I was travelling at 45mph as recorded on my tachograph. My speed gradually increased as the brakes started to fade. I could see the camera almost 250 yards away almost at the bottom of the three mile gradient. I was pressing hard on the brakes as my speed had increased to 57 mph. I had a car in front of me which had just overtaken and it went through the camera faster than I was travelling. The camera did not flash the car which I believe was doing around 65mph but it did flash my coach (empty at the time) which according to my tachograph was doing 57mph. As I had been doing everything possible to slow the coach to keep it below the speed limit AND had just been overtaken, I was livid to have been flashed. Only the gradient of the hill had caused me to go over the speed limit, yet now I have to sit and wait to see if I am to receive my first ever penalty points. Situating cameras at the bottom of hills is dangerous in that drivers are having to put excess strain on the braking system to maintain the speed limit. Further to that, they then have to carry on the journey with brakes not working to full effect due to overheating. I am not suggesting that we should abandon speed limits on hills, far from it. But a bit of common sense should prevail where cars or buses are just 10 mph over the limit on steep hills. No fixed penalty should be applied in such cases. Uncontrolled, a fully laden coaches speed would increase by up to 25 mph on a steep hill if it did not have a limiter fitted. Cameras at the bottom of hills are put there solely to catch vehicles that have run away and are totally unfair, causing more danger rather than improving safety. Your Views please

Did I miss something here? How can a limiter slow a vehicle if engine braking and the brakes aren’t enough to stop it?


The gatso got you and let the car go because gatsos make use of a crude method to differentiate between vehicle classes, determined by the amount of radar signal returned (the vehicle class can be confirmed by cross-referencing the registration in the database).


Do they really have to carry on? Would it not be safer to pull over for a few minutes to allow the disks to cool in case an emergency stop is required?

As I understand it, the only way to help prevent brake fade is to go down the hill much slower; spreading the potential energy over more time means less instantaneous power, hence cooler disks. Am I right?
Also, slowing and changing down gear allows the engine to do even more of the braking effort.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

The limiters are reluctance devices - working with eddy currents I think. Mind you, even they will generate heat somewhere after all regeneration has been used up.

Question: Can the limiter not usefully be set down a little - to 50 or 55 - for such occasions? I thought those retarder things had several click stops - different resistor bank configurations?

Forgetting the camera for a minute......

I'm a little concerned that this particular design of coach would not be able to brake effectively for an unexpected hazard halfway down said hill as it is incapable (according to the original poster) of remaining within the speed limit, let alone performing an emergency stop.

Mike.

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Or maybe the OP hasn't quite got the bottom of why he feels aggrieved. I'd suggest that he's aggrieved because he knows he was driving perfectly safely, yet believes that the law is there to make the roads safer.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

To be fair the original poster is complaining, not because an NIP has dropped through his letterbox, or that he's just been taken to the cleaners after contesting a speeding case...no he is complaining "I have just had my first flashing camera"......from there he assumes he is to be the proud owner of an NIP in the next 14 days and vents his spleen as to the efficacy of speed cameras.
Now to me that is rather jumping the gun somewhat...the usual modus operandi of one so aggrieved by the placement of a speed camera is to actually get caught and then complain...is it not? As yet the jury is still out on whether the guy has actually been nabbed or not.....

There is a difference between a retarder and a speed limiter.

The speed limiter is fitted to limit the maximum speed of the vehicle (as fitted to lorries for a number of years now, and set at 56mph (90kph) when the motorway speed limit is 60).

Retarders serve to slow vehicles down, or allow the driver to maintain a steady speed on inclines. Their effectiveness diminishes at low speeds. They are usually used to slow vehicles down, with the final braking being carried out by a friction brake. As the friction brake does not then need to be used so much, particularly at higher speeds, the service lifetime of friction brakes is enhanced.

It sounds to me like the coach did not have a retarder fitted.

Thanks for this. Are the speed limiters (as opposed to retarders) active, ie, apply the brakes to reduce speed if the vehicle is proceding over the governed limit, or do they regulate only by cutting engine power? If the former, I suggest they are most dangerous, insofar as they will cause certain brake fade in long declines where the driver has previously been running with the hammer down. I have yet to do the sums, but am assuming that brakes will be more effective in bringing a coach down from, say, 70 to 20 in a short time if they are cold than 50 to 20 in a short time if almost to the point of fade already through gentle friction over a sustained period.

Thank you for the input. Now I will reply to as many points as I can. Firstly I do not yet know if I will receive a fixed penalty notice as it was only three days ago. On the day in question I had taken 57 people and 57 sets of camping equipment to the Roch Ness Festival and was returning empty when I was flashed. My brakes were probably a;lready working at their maximum as that is a lot of additional weight onto the weight of the coach itself. Making a combined weight of around 17 tonne. I had been in a line of vehicles all travelling at around 50mph when we reached the top of the incline just past Pitlochrie where the camera is sited at the bottom of a three mile very straight road. The cars all increased speed on the incline and I had to brake to stay below the 50 mph limit. Most of the vehicles in front disappeared into the distance as they increased speed to 60mph or more. I was constantly having to brake to stay below the 50 mph coach limit. The further down the hill I travellled the more pressure was required to slow the coach due to the brakes heating. I could have stopped the coach safely in an emergency but it would have required a lot of pedal pressure and a dropping the automatic gearbox down to a lower setting which can damage the gearbox as it is designed to make changes as the speed decreases not increases. By the time I reached the camera I had been overtaken by around fifteen cars even although I was now travelling at 54mph. I had two vehicles closely in front of me, both of which had overtaken. I took my foot off the brake momentarily as I passed the camera and the coach speed crept up to 55..57 as recorded on the tachograph. The vehicles in front were still pulling away from me so were obviously doing more than 57mph. The camera never flashed either of them but did flash me. The coach is a 1994 model albeit in beautiful condition. However it is NOT fitted with the latest type of limiter or retarder although it does have both. The retarder fitted is actually a Brohhmes brake, which is literally just a button on the floor which you press to retard the engine revs and which also acts as an automatic brake which comes on and stops the vehicle should the brake air pressure drop below a safe level when driving. It also stops you driving away with low air pressure. The speed limiter does exactly what its title says it does. Limits Speed. It keeps the speed below a pre determined leveland requires by law to be fitted, and calibrated bi annually. They cannot be over ridden or altered, although on steep inclines they CAN momentarily allow the vehicle to race away before kicking in again and slowing the vehicle to the pre set limit. This did not happen at the time I was flashed and the limiter was holding the vehicle below the 59 mph set limit. My argument is that if cameras are fitted at the bottom of such long steep hills , then they are more of a danger than a safety aid, due to the necessity to over use the brakes to stay below the limit. Even car brakes would start to fade if you had to put your foot on them for three miles. Only difference is that car brakes are not stopping 13tonne of dead weight which is a coach. Stopping to cool the brakes would be an option of course if brakes are over heated, but to cool sufficiently would require at least an hour of a stop, something which as a commercial operator is just not feasable. Driving the coach in a proper manner and not excessivly using the brakes in the first place is the best option. Something which you cannot always do with speed cameras sited at the bottom of hills. Police know they will catch more people there for that very reason. It requires braking to stay below the limit. Totally wrong in my opinion.

I don't really agree with any of this. It sounds as though the coach brakes are woefully inadequate.

Agree and agree.

Allan, who is the owner of the coach? It could be that you could claim inadequate brake equipment against the owner of the vehicle, so giving you a defence against the ticket should you get it.

The coach in question had only just passed its annual inspection two days prior to the incident. The brakes were deemed to be working satisfactory in relation to the type model and year. Obviously a modern day car working at its optimum would have far better brakes than a vintage model in optimum condtion? Same goes for coaches. It is not that long ago we were driving coaches without power steering. When fully laden you had to stand up to steer the damn things because they were that heavy.lol I have checked my tachograph for the day in question and there are only three minor blips where the coach went above the 50 mph limit. Should I receive a fixed penalty, My defence is going to be that it was the inertia caused by the steep hill which caused the coach to reach 60mph for a maximum of two seconds on three occasions in the course of a ten hour shift. The blips are hardly noticeable on the tachograph but on close inspection you can see three single lines where the coach speed increased to 60 and was brought back to 50 almost instantaniously. The camera has flashed me in the miniscule moment when the coach had crept up to 60 prior to me braking. I am going to stand firm on this. After all they use tachographs to prosecute drivers therefore it is only justice that they can use them to quash charges.

Hate to say it to a fellow professional driver but you really don't have any defence. You should have gone down the hill significantly slower than that to start with so your brakes didn't heat up that much. Brake fade is dangerous. If you're going fast enough downhill that fade becomes a problem then you're going too fast.

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I'll place my personal bet that the OP's brakes were fine. I reckon his professional judgement says: "something is seriously wrong here", and he's blaming the vehicle, when he really should be blaming the over zealous application of the law.

If you want to give me a ring, Allan W, I'd be pleased to help you get the whole thing unravelled. I'm on 01862 893030.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It's common for Gatsos to reduce the threshold if they have run out of film. If you don't get a NIP, that's probably what happened.

In any case if the limit is 50, 57 is right on the threshold (10% + 2). If you do get a NIP and you can prove that you were doing 57, it could be worth challenging it, as there are clearly mitigating circumstances.

We've reached a sorry pass when people have to compromise their own safety and that of others merely to comply with a technical - and often inappropriate - speed limit enforced by a mindless automaton. Of course your frantic attempts to reduce your speed without damaging the engine in no way detracted from your hazard perception.

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Brian

For obvious reasons I cannot name the company I work for. However I have had a conversation with the owner who has informed me that since speed cameras became operational under current law, he has had at least forty letters from various Police forces requesting the name of drivers caught in speed cameras. He advised me that he always bins them and has only ever once received a court letter to disclose the name of the driver. He maintains that even after receiving up to three or four reminders for a particular speeding offence he still ignores the Police letters threatening prosecution and plays brinksmanship with them. In all but one out of forty drivers, they avoided the fixed penalty by him with holding the name of the driver. Is this maybe the way to have cameras removed permanently? I am all for speeding restrictions on dangerous stretches of road, but totally against speed cameras being used to make money and create high performance figures for Police forces. Average speed cameras are a far more acceptable option, as they will always catch the people who ignore speed limits and not those who lose concentration momentarily. I spersonally shall just have to sit and wait to see what transpires, but at least I have a tachograph which shows that if I did speed, it was only for a split second. Car drivers are never so lucky.

Average speed cameras - ask those who drive down the M1 etc .I have a friend , lucky to be alive due to average speed cameras on M1 - he slowed down for them - person following did not - firms van was almost written off, and he had to correct tail push. We never found culprit. These concentrate the drivers attention on numerical speed ,rather than on traffic conditions / hazards etc. Ask yourself which is preferable --a driver looking out for road works problems , or a driver looking at his speedo .

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I agree entirely. This also applies to gatso speed cameras. Drivers are now looking for cameras instead of concentrating on driving. There are so many cameras now, that on any journey you could pick up enough penalty points for a driving ban within an hour of setting off, and all for going just 7 mph over the speed limit. That cannot be right? especially when you may not even know you were flashed. At least with traffic cops you know you have been done and can take action accordingly. What is not right is that you could in effect be flashed by every camera you pass and know nothing about it till you receive a fixed penalty for each and a subsequent ban. More emphasis should be put on morons who drive up the middle and outside lanes of motorways at 40mph and who zig zag between lanes to queue jump. Also motorists who at road works wait to the very last minute before exiting a closed lane. And not to mention the real speed freaks who race away from lights boy racer style. Finally ..without appearing sexist..has anyone noticed how women never ever give way or let you out at junctions? I have observed over a period of time the sex of those who have let me out at junctions. In nearly six months only one woman gave way with the rest deliberately accelerating to stop me getting out. Women also tend to be speed freaks. Are they getting an easier ride at the driving test? Or are they just of the opinion the highway code says ladies first.. lol

People will call you sexist for saying that... I do also try to observe the sex of whoever

a) has cut me up b) Is sitting in middle/outside lane unnecessarily, c) is driving erratically d) driving so slow as to cause congestion, road rage in others and a traffic bunching e) is unable to navigate a roundabout safely f) driving too fast to be safe g) is not paying much attention to the road/is doing other things h) rear ending me

My results are
a) a mixture
b) mostly women/elderly drivers
c) a mixture of both sexes
d) mostly women & elderly
e) mostly women
f) mostly men
g) mostly women
h) mostly men (oo-er!)

I think, having observed other road users behaviour over the last 5 years of driving, that men are getting screwed on insurance - women are no safer in the real world, men are not more dangerous, insurance costs should not be less for women (why isn't this being claimed as sexist? If it was the other way, people would have been sued by now). I also think women do get an easier ride on tests, but that is down to the limited number of girls I know and have asked about it. I've no idea how my girlfriend or her sister passed their tests - they are shocking drivers. One female I know who drives doesn't even trust herself and the other has crashed 4 times in a year, totalling 3 cars.