Safe Speed Forums

Just received first NIP after 10 years of driving (48 in 40 - not a built-up area) from a Cumbria scamera van. With it came a lovely leaflet telling me how naughty I had been and came with these handy hints:


Be aware of pedestrians, cyclists, children, animals and motorcyclists.
Was doing this instead of watching the bushes for hidden vans and a dial on my dashboard

Check your speedometer as frequently as you would your mirrors - it could save your licence.
So how much of the time will I be looking where I am going then? I check my mirrors quite frequently to help me assess the road around me, especially in the summer months when motorbikes are likely to appear from nowhere (not intended as an attack on bikes). Maybe someone else can work out how far I would travel with my eyes off the road if I took this advice literally.

Well since this leaflet came from a man who also said "if you're exceeding the speed limit you're not in control of your vehicle" and who also claimed that not knowing the numerical speed you are moving at will cause you to crash into the car in front I'd be inclined to ignore it and chuck it in the bin.

However, if you're happy taking driving advice from someone who's primary job is fining people for driving safely but faster than some arbitrary limit which has nothing at all to do with the safe speed for the circumstances at the time...go ahead.

Honestly, the garbage put out by the CSCP was well and truly demolished on the now-defunct CSCP forums. Have a trawl back through the refugees section here if you have time and want a laugh.

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Less Kodak, more Kojak.
In times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Whereabouts in Cumbria was it that you committed this heineious crime?

I bet your driving was so dangerous, they had to stop you immediately before you ran down som innocent children playing in the road, you scoundrel!
It's people like you who prove that the CSCP are NOT slowing people down with speed cameras. Dont you care that you are helping tarnish their reputations? The manager is looking forward to the day that everyone slows down for his cameras, and he no longer has to turn in for work every day - it's not like he needs the job or anything, yet you are helping prevent his early retirement.

Your damned lucky you did not get struck by one of those old or young, drunk or drugged drivers that they mention on their website (but do little about unless they speed)!!

Well at least you know it will be spent on something useful now, like proper road safety measures... or will it?

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

Happened on eastbound A65 at Lupton, but don't remember seeing a van despite claims that "I think we can safely say that the new design is striking and if people are driving and observing the road then they will have no difficulty in recognising the vans." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/3770373.stm.

I think that my problem must've been that I was observing the road and not the hedgerows. Thinking back, I remember thinking about speed traps because of passing a Gatso on the same road (don't know whereabouts exactly, but near a BP garage that's also a sales place for 4x4s. I think). Anyway, was "got" without warning and as Ernest's pointed out, I was clearly a menace enough to fine, but not to stop before I killed someone or caused an accident.

I have tried to log in to their website to view details of my alleged offence, but they didn't give me a PIN so I can't. Nor have they put up the calibration certificate? Would you advise waiting to see this before taking any action? Do they legally have to provide you with the certificate (or a copy of it) if you ask?

But a decent driver is probably checking their mirror every five seconds (if driving at normalish speeds in normal conditions)... If we assume a mirror check takes a second and a speedo check takes a second, that means we should only be looking ahead thirty six seconds a minute

This is slightly disingenuous. It's not like we drive for 24 seconds every minute with our eyes shut! When I learnt to drive, I was taught to keep my eyes constantly on the move - scan mirrors, dashboard, road ahead, mirrors, dashboard...etc. etc. I've been driving 18 years now, seven of those on articulated lorries, and I still drive like that.
I sympathise with freddie - I'm against the camera culture as much as anyone, and I recognise that it's not necessarily unsafe to drive 8 mph over the speed limit - but some of the other posts on here seem to be suggesting that checking the speedo from time to time is a grave impossibility that only the truly brave or the bowel - looseningly stupid would attempt. This is not true, it is simply part of a driver's routine.
All that said, I do think it wrong that someone should be automatically fined for exceeding an arbitrary limit, that speed cameras should be hidden or sited in devious locations and that our road safety policy seems to be focussed solely on reducing overall speed on the roads.

The important part of your statement being from time to time. Now contrast that with the statement from CSCP - Check your speedometer as frequently as you would your mirrors. Thus, according to the CSCP, monitoring your speedo (not any other parts of the dash, just the speedo) is as important as monitoring your mirrors. Which is, of course, complete cobblers. At least if safety is your prime concern.

Routine dashboard checks should be part of a drivers routine yes, but the amount of time we allocate to different observational sweeps shouldn't be dictated by such a simplistic formula as this, which is, I think, the problem most of us have whenever the SCPs come out with stuff like this. We're not saying it's suicidal to check your speedo every now and again, we are saying it's an unnecessary distraction to be checking it as frequently as is required when passing through some camera zones. Particularly if, as the scammers would like us to believe, the cameras are there to prevent accidents at known problem spots... If that stretch of road is so dangerous, is it a good thing to encourage motorists to be taking their eyes off the road to check their speedos as they drive along that bit of road? And if it isn't dangerous, then what purpose does the installation of a safety camera serve?

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Chris

With a 27 year-old car as my daily drive, the oil pressure and ammeter get the first scan after the mirrors...

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Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...

It's not that a speedo check (or mirror check) can't be done safely - it can. And can be done quite frequently. However, a normal driver (not just an advanced driver but any reasonably competent driver) will not perform a speed (or other instrument) check or mirror check at a time when safety requires his eyes to be on the road ahead. In my experience, this happens quite frequently. For example, if I am approaching a junction with a minor road and a car waiting to pull out, I will suspend mirro and speedo checks until I am sure I have correctly assessed the developing hazard. There are many other similar examples.

The problem is that the more widespread the threat of speed enforcement becomes (whether a visible camera or a proliferation of enforcement signs), the more likely it is that a speedo check, which rarely makes any direct contribution to safety, will be done at the wrong time for the wrong reason. That lost second or so of observation may (eventually, in a sufficiently large population of events, will) make the critical difference between crashing and not crashing, possibly between life and death.

I emailed Transport2000 about something and they say Speedcams are there to punish drivers, nothing to do with safety...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I wonder what would happen if you returned the NiP with a letter saying the following:

Dear Sirs,
In view of the fact that your intended prosecution has nothing to do with road safety, I have decided to 'opt out' of the cash collection. Whilst I realise that this may be somewhat inconvenient to you at this time, I do not wish to become a member of your 'paid-up speeders club'.
You will, therefore, do me the service of cancelling this document and deleting all information in relation to this matter from your computer system. Do not bother to reply to this letter.
Please note that with effect from next week my address will be:.
Sunshine House,
Ventura Boulevard,
California,
USA

Yours etc..

What a lovely thing to do!!

Cooperman - following on from your last post and the "mail address" post some time ago - how long till some enterprising person sets up a car address mail box out of the uk for all DVLA/scp correspondance (assuming it's legal to do it) and watch the panic laws brought in to stop it.

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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

AFAIK the V5 must have a UK address, but it can be a PO Box number or the address of a limited company who may act as Company Secretary. Under EU law, however, address and company could be a UK accommodation address for a European Company as a Euro company can open an office anywhere within the EU. So, how about you have a company car registered to a UK subsidiary of, say, a n Irish (Southern) company with a UK address at a UK accountants office or a PO box number. This is probably quite legal and the Euro laws governing restrictions on trade could be used to all our advantages here.
What we need is a lawyer with Euro-business experience to structure this and recommend the best approach.
For example, if you had a limited company in Dublin, say ABC Developments Ireland Limited, then had an accommodation address for ABC Developments Ireland, a wholly owned Uk trading name of ABC Developments Ireland Limited, with a UK office at a local management services company, it would be too much of a tortuous path for the pratnerships to bother, even if they were able to unravel it all. The road tax and insurance would all be under the UK trading company name as would the V5's.That could well be the optimum route. Sure it would cost a 'few bob', but not a fortune and several cars could come under this arrangement for no additional costs.

Cooperman - possibly less than £60 per year - but think of the problems it would cause the SCP.

Now if some company set it up ??....................

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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

They might make a fortune!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I contact Ryanair and book my flight to Dublin

Fair point - now I think about it, I do that too. I still maintain that if you know your vehicle and you know you're going at 40 (or 50 or 30) when you check the speedo, if nothing changes (ie engine note on a manual car, wind noise or just the "feel" of the vehicle), you know you're still going at around the same speed. This is certainly accurate enough to cover you for 8mph over the limit, even if you don't have a musical ear!
Like I say, I do sympathise with Freddie because anyone can stray over the limit occasionally. I also take the point that there are times when it's inappropriate to check the speed. And that not every driver on the road is good enough to realise this. But I still don't think that maintaining a constant speed is as dangerous or as difficult as some of you seem to. How many on here have digital speedos, just out of interest?

Bedfordshire SCP nearly caused my untimely end recently thanks to their van on the A1 roadworks at the Black Cat roundabout.
The previously 60 limit has been reduced to 40 for the entire stretch of the works, but I had never seen a van at the site (although I had been warned they may enforce by a mate).
Heading southbound round a sweeping left-hander, I moved over to let other traffic join. Looked forward again after concentrating on joining traffic and moving over only to find an scp van staring me in the face about 150yds distant

First reaction - check the speedo. 43mph - fine, but maybe ease off.
Second reaction - stare at van again (no idea why).
Third reaction - re-check speedo.

Finally looked ahead after maybe 3-4 seconds to find stationary queuing traffic directly ahead and a Sierra right infront of me making an emergency stop, his back end twitching sideways in a cloud of tyre smoke . Lucky for me I am fairly religious about spacing with the car infront, but I still got a few reactions from the ABS when I braked hard to avoid him.

Checked the next day and the road at that point is now covered in skid marks - obviously enforcement here is making a real big improvement to road safety.

8mph over will earn you a nice letter from the local SCP in all but a 70 limit, so being able to judge speed to 8mph is hardly accurate enough these days...

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Chris

Sorry. That referred to the original post in this thread by freddieflintoff, in which he refers to being NiP'd for doing 48 in a 40. My point was not that being able to judge speeds to a tolerance of 8mph either way is sufficient, but that you should be able to tell that your speed's crept up, without looking at the speedo, long before you reach 8mph over the limit.

Have you considered gravity and hills? Going up-hill and maintaining 40mph requires the use of the throttle and a loaded engine, however having crested the hill most cars will then coast down the opposite side on zero throttle with a much lower level of noise despite the fact that they are going faster (and may even be accelerating). Many vehicles may even select different gears. The idea that sound can be used as the primary tool for maintaining speed (as was suggested by Blundstum) is very flawed.