Safe Speed Forums

I'm heading up the A413 northbound just before the turn off for wendover. It's 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon with very few cars on the road. It's a two lane NSL single carriageway where the lanes are nearly two car widths, plenty of safe overtaking happens here since it's just after a twisty bit and some villages, so what do I see parked up on a bridge?



Yup, that's a Thames Valley Police camera van, you know the ones that have the big orange logo on the side so you can see them. You can just make out a tiny bit of orange that isn't hidden behind the brick wall if you look at the van for long enough (as opposed to, say, the road)

Why is this necessary? Perhaps there are children playing in the street up ahead, or a bus stop or heavy traffic, lets take a look shall we?

View from just in front of the bridge, looking in the direction of travel for vehicles liable to get caught by the van


View from under the bridge, looking in the same direction as the van itself.



Nope, no children, junctions, crossings, cows, deers, badgers or sheep here, there's a few pigs out of shot though.

Coming the other way, the van is much easier to see, and performing it's advertised function of being a deterrent and slowing people down. People were doing 50 in this direction, but the van isn't clocking these people, it's clocking the others.



Lastly, a view from a different angle, note how hard the van is to spot:



Edit: I meant single carriageway in the first paragraph, not dual, doh! Should be clear from the pictures though.

Edit 2: Here is a map showing the location Note the railway line separating this road from the town full of happy frollicing innocent little non-chav children

if

Could it be that this semi-covert operation is so regular that the OP knew where to look; or that the OP had driven on the overhead and had to negotiate the hazard caused by the talivan?

_________________
Will

Sounds like the deployment of an exquisitely tuned MkI eyeball!

I figured out it was a van after more squinting and peering than was probably safe (fortunately it was a completely straight road with no way for pedestrians to suddenly spring out on me and no cars in front, then slowed down. If it was heavier traffic you'd have no chance (unless you wern't watching the car in front of course)

I then parked up in the layby just after the bridge and walked on the other side of the central reservation to get the pictures.

What's the posted limit on that stretch, BTW?

Cheers
Peter

NSL

At the end of the day, Camera Operator, the reason why people like me (with no criminal antecedents {other than speeding itself, of course}) despise people like you is because you and your ilk ply your trade in places where ordinary people drive to the road conditions.

Looking at the photographs in the post, I'd say that this road on a sunny day is probably good enough for 90mph or maybe more.

Still, it's a nice little earner for now. But sooner or later enough of us will make enough noise about this that such abuses will be stopped.

What will you do after you get the redundancy notice?

Any idea of how the vicinity of those overhead wires might affect the equipment?

It's laser so probably not very much.

I posted these pictures on another forum, apparently this bit of road is the Wendover Bypass, and that spot is a regular haunt of the Thames Valley camera vans.

I've also emailed the pics to The Sun. You never know they might print them.

Have you contacted the partnership concerned to ask them for their explanation?
It's usually laughable - when I showed a picture on the CSCP forum, I was accused of using a picture taken on a day when the Camera Van was not there!!


They DID eventually get the grass and overhanging trees cut back, but I have just had to ask for the sapling blocking the lollipop and camera warning sign to be cut back once more! In this picture from last spring, you can see the foliage on the left - this year it is twice as big!

Do you get funny looks from friends and family when you stop to take pictures of speed cameras and GATSO's????

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I think the second example is worse.

At least those of us that are conditioned into looking for speed traps always check overbridges carefully for parked vehicles and slow down just in case.

But the second one - no chance of seeing that until it's got you.

Does anyone know what the usual "snapping" range of a typical camera van is? How far away can the get you from?

This is the first time a van has pissed me off enough to stop and take a picture of it and I was on my own.

A couple of people slowed down since I was wandering about in the grass verge. One looked to see what I was photographing and gave me a wave. Just my being there probably saved a couple of people tickets (depending on how far away the camera was pointing)

Got to wait 14 days to find that one out

To quote the other forum I posted on, on the Wendover bypass it's "very hard to drive like an old woman"

Have I mentioned that the bridge is a footbridge yet? From the behind pic it seems that it's barely wide enough to take the talivan. Does anyone know more details of this bridge specifically if the path marked on the map is also a bridleway as there is no chance of getting a horse across with that thing in the way. (I could not get up to the bridge to check as there is no way to the road from the bridge)

No I haven't contacted the SCP. What's the best way of going about this? email or letter?

Edit: It's a shame that the people who spray camera lenses black don't get into the graffitiing bridges game (as practiced by environmentalists and fox hunters) because doing something like this at all the hiding spots would be rather funny:

[quote=Ernest Marsh]Do you get funny looks from friends and family when you stop to take pictures of speed cameras and GATSO's???? [/quote]

Not half as funny as the looks you get from the usually overweight uniformed inhabitants of the van. If looks could kill ............

N Wales Police do this all the time.

It's marked as a bridleway on Ordnance Survey maps. Probably not breaking the law by driving up there, but if it's a bridleway doesn't that mean public right of way. If so I'd have thought it's a bit iffy parking up there even if a horse can get round.
http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=51.7641&lon=-0.7552&scale=25000&icon=x

Nearly forgot to mention. From the aerial photo on Multimap it doesn't look like there's much space for him to turn round when he leaves, and if so I'd say that reversing back the way he came is a bit anti social as well.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

In reply to my query about overhead wires.



ACPO guidelines for operating the equipment say mobile phones and radios should be turned off therefore it is reasonable to suspect the equipment can be affected by the overhead wires.



Even if it is a bridleway (the O/S map shows a footpath) then it may not be a right of way for motor vehicles. From the O/S map I would say it was private land, the question would be who owns the land (possibly local highways authority own the bridge) and do the pratnership have permission to access it?

AIUI from reading up on green-laning, if the road is classified as a Bridleway, vehicular traffic is banned. However, I suspect that an exception exists for the emergency services while for the purpose of that service (same as speed limits).

_________________
Will

Talivans usually have orange lightbars and are therefore not an emergency services vehicle, surely?

Can anyone confirm the lightbar colour of the Thames Valley vans?

I think whether it's a bridleway or a footpath depends on which OS maps Multimap are using. If it's Landranger then it's a bridleway (dashed for bridleway and dotted for footpath) and from what Willcove says they probably shouldn't be using it. If it's a footpath that's even worse IMO.

Not sure about the lights on TVP Talivans. I thought they were blue, but that doesn't make 'em emergency vehicles that are exempt from the rules. The Portsmouth Coastguard vehicle had blue lights, but wasn't a real emergency vehicle and was supposed to stick to the same rules as the rest of us (often requiring a blind eye on the part of the local plod I'm told - if you're stuck in the mud with the tide coming in I'm sure you'd think of it as an emergency vehicle).

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein