Safe Speed Forums

I too have seen a number of these.
In all the ones I have seen the car has been modified to the point where it is capable of speeds well in excess of those listed in the manufacturers literature.


Yes it is.




Sentences have to be in line with the facts of the case and the guidelines. When they are not they can be appealed.


I heard a nasty dangerous driving case not so long ago.
Banner headlines in local press "dangerous driver gets off scot free". With an statement that he had "only" been given a suspended jail sentence of 3 months.

No explanation of the 150 hours of unpaid work.
No explanation of the supervision requirement to undergo an anger management course.
No explanation of the supervision requirement to undergo an enhanced thinking skills course.
No explanation of the 3 year driving ban
No explanation of the requirement to take an extended test to get his licence back.

I feel your pain to some extent fisherman as I realise you're in a difficult position. But I still see this as horribly oppressive because

1) It's not the fault of the accused that the case involves complex scientific issues. The police choose how to measure the speed and there is nothing the accused can do to make that different.

and

2) What you have said is significantly different from what Mr Hughes is saying. He is saying for example, that drivers who challenge whether signs are correct will face these 'slaps' from costs. Why therefore, is there not a counter campaign by magistrates to expose his bluff as the lies they apparently are? He's giving you a bad name after all. The term 'slap' itself implies that costs, or sentence, will be awarded punitively as a penalty for defending the case.

I've often quipped that there should be a school for the hard of thinking, but never thought it would be a reality.

Can I nominate the fuckwit who joined the M54 at 45mph today, weaving gently from side to side as he made his way up the filter lane at the same speed, oblivious to the world around him as he chatted away on his hand-held mobile. Once the conversation was finished he then booted it straight across into L2 right in front of a Beemer
I'm pretty sure he would swear on his mothers grave he was doing it safely...well there was no crash was there?

A couple of points to Fisherman. (I hope you are coping under this 'flak', by the way, you seem to be so far).

1. Speed envelope of the vehicle - clearly any vehicle modified to go faster has an expanded speed envelope. My point was made about unmodified vehicles; buses are not normally modified ! So any defence would obviously have to permit testing of the vehicle.

In the cases I saw up here, this had been done by independent motor engineers. In the case of the bus, the back of the bus vibrated at a certain speed and threw the speed measurement device out, and this was only detected by subsequent testing because the bus was proven to be incapable of the claimed speed. It was then claimed by the local Partnership to be 'an isolated case'. The trouble is that with 2 million being fined every year, if we assume 99.9% of speed readings are correct, i.e only one tenth of a percent are wrong, (a fairly heroic assumption given the known faults in the Lti 20-20) a total of 2000 false prosecutions occur every year; quite a lot in my book, and, of course it goes on year after year after year. I suspect it is nearer to 1% inaccuracy giving 20,000 false prosecutions due to the extensive use of the Lti20-20 and operators incentivised to get the convictions gathered in. Yet the normal law-abiding citizen cannot fight these false claims, he has no means of doing so; it has to be changed by the people using these devices admitting they have got it wrong, and I can't see that EVER happening !!

2. The 'dangerous driver gets off scot free' case would seem to have been well made by the paper that published it. The list of 'punishments' seems pretty mild to me, and in so many other cases like this the subject just carries on driving after his/her ban. I have seen bans given to youths without licences, and actually younger than the minimum age for driving ! - just what sort of punishment is this, I have to ask?

The fact is the scroats are laughing at us, and you can see this on the various TV programs on motoring crime. One sees really quite awful criminality and recklessness on display. It is clear they have no fear at all of being caught as the punishment always seems to be minimal compared to what is given for very minor offences. Certainly never in proportion to the offence itself, at least that is how it seems to me, and I don't think I am alone in thinking this. Just last week on TV, I saw film of a police motorcyclist stopping a dangerous driver, and the driver deliberately reversed over the policeman who was very seriously injured and then made his getaway - 18 months in jail, or in other words, out in 9 months or less. It's just barking mad !!

Fisherman - tell me I am wrong, I am willing to be convinced, it's just that I have not been so far.

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Some police areas (TVP is one) produce a s.172 response form that is worded as a witness statement. There is no compulsion on you to use that form. As long as you send the information in writing and add your signature, you have met your s.172 obligation.

If a defendant chooses to use a complex scientific approach to challenge the CPS they will need to reply in the same way. I really don't see a way round that.



I don't see the need for £000's worth of expert witness for that sort of case. I am not sure the CPS would see it either. I also don't see a court awarding those sort of costs for an expert witness whose testimony was clearly not necessary to counter the defence.
I can see an exception to this if there was a case of wide ranging and fundamental importance. For example one in which the defence was trying to show that every speed limit sign in the UK was unlawful. In such a case it would be vital to have the matter decided once and for all which would probably mean experts on both sides.



Individual magistrates are not allowed to get involved in politics or to challenge the law - not without resigning first. We either uphold the law as it is, in its entirety or we step down.

Its vital that we remain apart from politics. You only have to see the wild conspiracy stories that have arisen from the fact the HMCS (note the courts service and NOT sentencers) is part of the SCPs to understand why this is important.

There is a Magistrates Association which has members on various committees but they have relatively little influence. We have 1 JP member out of 15 people on the Sentencing Advisory Panel in spite of the fact that JPs sentence about 95% of all criminal cases in England and Wales.




Even assuming he is able to persuade individual CPS prosecutors to ask for huge costs, he can't ( I HOPE) compel courts to award them. In any case it would take a change of law to allow courts to impose costs which are too high for a defendant to pay.

I am sorry you see fit to criticise something you clearly don't understand.

The ETS course can be extremely valuable when delivered to the right people. It took me a while to realise that its not aimed specifically at those of lower intelligence, although it can be helpful to such people, but more at the brighter but arrogant end of society.

All too often we see professional, well paid people in court because their success (I generalise but its a reasonable example) at university and in their chosen profession has led them to develop a thought process in which they are always right and everyone else is always wrong.
The ETS course has great success with such people and society is better off as a result.

Ahem, yes, the dangers of the throw-away quip

I have previously heard and read that the very traits which lead to people being sucessful at their careers, particularly in the cutthroat domain of business, do not translate well into the behaviours that are desirable for driving. It was observed that someone who is tailgating you perhaps sees you as a metaphor for someone in their workplace standing in their way of progressing up the career ladder.
Well, perhaps some of it is so much bunkum, but I can see and identify with the point you make.

We had one of these brought to a hearing once. The bench, the CPS, the defence solicitor and the defendant all had a go and were unable to produce a faulty reading that wasn't accompanied by a fault code indication.
Of course we may be the only people who every got one to work properly.



I disagree and I had access to all the information.
For a professional person to do 150 hours of hard physical work will be extremely demeaning. Having to confront his anger will not be easy, as the boss of his firm he is used to shouting and getting his own way. If he fails in any of it, off to jail he goes.



It gives a court custody as an option if they drive during the course of the ban, which is not available for driving without a licence.




For those of an age to appear in the Youth Court I am sure you are right. Youth courts are required to concentrate on the prevention of further offending and not punishment.
If they keep offending after they reach 18 their youth record and the failure to respond to previous sentences can see them in jail fairly quickly.
They also don't realise that with a substantial history of driving offences they are unlikely to get affordable insurance when they are of an age to drive.



Given the current state of affairs out in much less I fear.

On the TV you see the bravado. In court when you look them in the eyes and say "this offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence will do" the bravado quickly disappears.

Oh yes. With 'risk taking' behaviour centre-stage.

On the other hand, risk assessment and judgement are highly valuable on the road and in business, so maybe it isn't so bad.

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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

Risk taking with money is one thing, risk taking with a ton or so of machinery is another. With the former you can afford to have an assessment failure or two and not necessarily 'perish' as a result; on the roads errors are much more heavily punished.
And risk taking with money is being done in the cognitive domain, with driving it is in the psychomotor. The skill sets required to be successful at tghe two are not necessarily the same.

Most senior Government politicians fall into this category.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

To bring this more onto track as regards testimony from a supposed Expert, I am facing the notorious hit squad who intend to make assertions that the ACPO Code of Practice statement "must not be used from within a vehicle" actually means that it can be used from within a vehicle. As the author of this document is also the very person who is being called from the hit squad as expert witness I strongly object to this on the grounds that I have made no mention that I intend to contest the wording of ACPO. As far as I'm concerened, my gripe is on the basis that the device was used outside the Conditions of its Type Approval, which quite conincidentally is as a tripod mounted device with or without AUS camera and weatherproof enclosure. It just happens that the ACPO Code of Practice substantiates this by stating that it is not for use from within a vehicle.
So here I am, about to get screwed by someone who is making completely contradictory statements, and unless I can convinc eht mags that this witness is not an expert I will have to bear his costs if I don't win.
I mean, what the hell else can "must not be used from within a vehicle mean".

An expert witness is someone who gives evidence of his or her opinion or beliefs. An ordinary witness is only allowed to give evidence of facts which are in the form of admissible evidence for the case in which he appears.

So is this person to give opinion of a range of meanings which in his opinion can reasonably be drawn from the phrase in question - in other words is he an expert on the english language?
Or is he to give opinion on whether or not the accuracy of the device can be relied upon if used from within a van - in other words is he a physicist or similar?

It seems to me that whichever he is you have room for questions on the other aspect.

There is a reasonable background to opinion evidence on wikicrimeline
http://www.wikicrimeline.co.uk/index.ph ... n_Evidence




Don't forget these are guidelines NOT law. They can ignore the guidelines if they so wish.

....not if it was cited as a reference document for the purposes of type approval, otherwise any evidence captured with the equipment is inadmissible.

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

Well, I for one am going to give this one a rest. (Thank God, did I hear someone say ?)

I just hope that Fisherman, and his fellow magistrates , are now aware of the degree of public anger over serious criminality in motoring offences going virtually unpunished (or so it seems), and then when the ordinary cistzen transgressesin a minor way, the State comes down on him like a ton of bricks.

I say this because we, the ordinary citizens, don't really have any other sources of information other than the TV and the <better> newspapers. If justice really is being done, it seems to be hiding itself very well from these august bodies.

And don't get me going on the DPE parking regime; a tax farm like no farm on earth in its profit gathering capability, and no means of arguing the toss in court either !!

_________________
Good manners maketh a good motorist

Can you point me to a case or some other official reference to confirm this please?

Fisherman, would you find it acceptable for a manufacturer of equipment to act as an expert witness?
The suspicion is that having "SOLD" the equipment to the Home Office, and their scientific branch having established "type approval", the manufacturer is not the most impartial person to be expounding its virtues!

My son's school is assessed by OFSTEAD, an independent body, not his teachers, to ensure impartiality.
Should the accuracy of a complex bit of electronic equipment be attested to by the maker or importer?

It smacks of leaving the fox in charge of the hen coop to me.

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southwes ... eras.shtml



Not used to guidelines: not reliable.

They also said that speed cameras were not type approved for use on motorcycles but that didn't matter. You can still be caught on a motorcycle

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Prepare to be Judged