Safe Speed Forums

sort of a follow on from the colours thread ...

I read once that a certain type of car (Alfa 147) was statiscally far less likely to be pinged by a speed gun than any other type. The hypothesis was that the 147 had less flat surfaces than any other standard car and thus did not reflect the radar beams as well.

Friends of mine had a different hypothesis - that it was difficult to get a speeding conviction when you were broken down!

A third explanation could be that the market segment of people who buy 147's are more aware of speed limits and make more efforts to adhere to them?

Anyway, is there any kind of statistictics of this sort published? Would the authorities want to suppress this kind of information in case the first is actually true (and it would give a sales boost to one manufacturer?)

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

or because it is a relatively rare car?

how about this for a incidence of pinging formula

IP = fn Popularity of car, desirability of car, miles driven, colour

The thing I vaguely recall reading was based on a bit of that - saying that the 147 was statiscally less likely to be pinged compared to sales (it was the lowest sales that could be realistically compared).

Of course it did not take the miles travelled, or colour. I'd have trouble understanding how "popularity of car" and "desirabilit of car" could be measured independently to have statistical importance?

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Popularity of car - more of them on the road

Desirability of car - triggers the innate jealousy within the scammer 'Ferrari coming......got him'

ahhh ... I wasn't thinking of the camera vans but the fixed sites.

So you need to factor in petty behaviour from the camera operator. If we are factoring in stuff, then factor in the single most important one - the driver, who is the only one in control of the speed.

Back to original question - are the statistics available?

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Yes I was thinking mobiles,

and its not unreasonable to account for human response of a camera operator...or driver for a given type of car.

I'd think the fixed cameras should get each car evenly, it is the mobile ones where the discrepancys would start to come in.

If you hear the roar of a loud engine and see two cars coming towards you, one is a Mondeo and one is an Impreza, you'll likely point the camera at the Impreza, even if they're both speeding.

I'd love to see an FOI request for car models/colours pinged by automatic cameras vs those pinged by manually operated ones. Any discrepancys there could give a good enough reason to cause a stink about biassed camera operators.

Lum Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject:

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If you hear the roar of a loud engine and see two cars coming towards you, one is a Mondeo and one is an Impreza, you'll likely point the camera at the Impreza, even if they're both speeding.


IMO the imprezza driver would be more aware of his speed, have a GPS camera alert in order to keep his / her insurance down, alfas are a pain as you have to pan to the right

i would like to think that i am not steroe typed into targeting any particular make let alone model,

if anyone wants to create a manufactures list i'll conduct a straw poll

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now retired

Days BC ( before cameras) i read an article on a road test of a sporty model of somat juicy - was testing it on a M way at approx 85 ish and was pulled up - comment was that if he'd been doing that in a Sierra he'd have been ignored ( or possibly not believed)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I had a similar experience some years ago...

I was travelling down the M1 in convoy with a couple of colleagues on our way to a conference (we weren't car sharing as we were all going to different places afterwards). Our convoy consisted of Pete in a Vectra, me in a Porsche and John in an Omega... About 2 weeks later I received a "sharp" circular letter from the Chief Constable of Northampton saying that "the speed of my vehicle had been checked on the approaches to roadworks and found to be excessive, but they weren't going to prosecute this time". Frankly, I couldn't remember the incident and asked the other two if they could remember... Guess what? Neither of them had heard a word about it!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev