Safe Speed Forums

There are 100 news stories on google about Idris. Lots will have a coments box.

Get typing lads and lasses.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

It's academic now, of course, but I don't think that would have happened - not least because it would have caused a public outcry and clearly exposed the money-box nature of automated speed enforcement.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

This is quite a comprehensive report;

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/18/1832.asp

I'm disapointed of course with the ECHR courts result.............but NOT surprised. After all, what European state is going to render a current "cash-cow" (which they all use) illegal?

To me, the right of NOT being forced to incriminate yourself by means of threat (i.e. "sign this and pay £60 or we'll take you to court and fine you £1000+ costs!") or (admit it or we'll pull out your toenails one by one!) is a basic right bestowed upon us by the Magna Carta.

After this judgement, I look forward to the arrest and/or imprisonment of those "scrotes" who are caught on surveilance cameras being forced to sign away their human rights and admit that they are guilty without evidence and accept their punishment without trial..............or those smokers having an "illegal" drag 'round the back!

Can't see it happening though can you?............. It seems that a man has rights until he drives a car!

That's a very good point; I hadn't really though about it like that. The judges aren't just generically "international", they're all from European countries themselves. And as Draco said, most if not all of them are up to exactly the same tricks: making money from automated speed enforcement.

But I'm sure few if any of them are as vexatious and petty as here in good ol' Blighty. I wonder if there's any other country in the world with so many ridiculously low speed limits, and talivans in such unbelievable places. Not to mention the huge amount of traffic "calming" we've now been lumbered with. (Somewhat ironically, I doubt there's a single talivan in or anywhere near Afghanistan!)

The only consolation, I suppose, is that while the "improvements" are only superficial (different numbers on lollipops, hatching, bus lanes, yellow lines etc), they can be reversed in the future by a more enlightened regime at relatively low cost. It's when they start phyiscally ripping up roads that we really have to worry....

(Oops, flew off at a tangent there at warp speed; sorry.)

Completely back on topic......

What I can't get my little head round, is why you should have a right not to incriminate yourself. Regardless of how you may personally feel about the rights or wrongs of any particular legislation, surely if you have committed a crime, then anything you say should be taken into account.

Just keeping quiet is surely obstructing justice?

If you did not have the right to not self incriminate yourself or your wife you could have a situation where the police could send everone an e-mail asking what crimes they commited today and to turn themselves in and cough up. (a bit like the congestion charge) pay your fine by 10pm or it escalates.

The diference with section 172 is that if you don't seclare who was driving you as the car owner are under threat of heavier criminal penalty.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

In that situation though, if there could only be a husband or wife who might have been driving the car, whilst I agree the police have a duty to try and prove who was driving, if you keep quiet and refuse to say, isn't that trying to pervert the course of justice?

In cases where one person uses the car to drive to work every day, and the car has been caught exceeding the speed limit the way to work, I don't have much sympathy with someone refusing to say who was driving.

I/ve interviewed umpteen "suspected" criminals in the past with a solicitor present and just getting "NO COMMENT"

Basically though - all this means is that we have to ensure that all evidence we supply to the CPS for prosecute the case properly has to be 100% accurate.


Our job then is to prove the person did whatever we suspect very strongly he or she did.

We can do this with the video evidence - but photos of a headrest can be a bit difficult if the person claims he was elsewhere at the time or whatever claims made. But there may be reasons for his being elsewhere that he may not wish to disclose if he was perhaps "throwing a sicky" and exchanging one pile of poop for another

Now the problem we have with the speed cam paperwork as it stands is trying to get the person you suspect was driving to actually own up. Some people may feel a bit like "Judas" if they name their spouse/child on these forms. I do not think an employer necessarily has the same feeling.

The other problem faced though is if no record kept as to who drove the car in question and the RK is then forced to admit to a crime he did not commit to avoid a harsher penalty. That seems to me to be the nub of some of these problems. At least in this area - our " two noughty" drivers have no escape. We cop 'em red handedly "at it" and I am pleased to say most you cop in person accept a "fair cop and advice as to how not to attract us to their driving in the future ) We are even more draconian in urban settings though

The other problem as well seems to lie in a "lottery" as not all those cams are "live" with a cam actually mounted in them. To a great many - this also undermines justice in their eyes - especially if they were pinged at 35 mph whilst others pass the cam on the other side of the road with no "live" cam or even out of film at 40 mph.

The whole issue of enforce by automation, then, needs a serious rethink. Lancs have gone down a fairer route by widening the criteria for the speed course and warning the lower blippers by letter.


An FOI of their speed course/warninletter data as to re-offends would appear to reflect very positively on their revised stance. Only time will tell if the DIS/Speed Awares are working and perhaps they are playing part in the marginal annual improvements nationwide. Our problem seems to be more in our ability to cross a road safely - and I-Pods/Mobile phone engrossment whilst on foot seem to be part of this increased collision between pedestrians and cars and even pedestrians and cyclists.


Current campaigns are set to target with a view to increasing public awareness to this particular phenomenum - aimed at all road users however they travel
These issues, along with our experience that folk will slow for a cam and then just drive at speed thereafter, were part of the criteria which our last guv took into full consideration when he weighed up the pros and cons. There were a lot of other issues which also formed his decision not to go the "partnership route" but to equip his RPU with the right training, fleet and equipment to do the job of enforcing traffic laws fairly, squarely and without alienating the public too much. Sure - drivers in this area are not too pleased when we nick 'em and we have complaints from speedy staff going to and from their work on a certain C road where our van "plays cat and mouse" But.. the road in question? Twisty, nasty and dangerous at speed above lolly. It took time, but we got the average speed down as pennies dropped that we were deadly serious about reducing our time spent clearing up prangs on that road We still monitor and overall we are prosecuting less on that road

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Our 'marginal annual improvement' is a mere shadow of what it ought to be from the vehicle safety improvements alone.

The 'true baseline' (i.e. before policy effects are considered) is about -4% pa allowing for growth in traffic. So Thursday's announcement of a 0.9% improvement is actually a ~3% loss.

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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

Please note: all off topic posts within this thread have been 'moved' to The Soapbox: Off topic posts from ECHR thread: "safety limit".

If you feel the need to continue the off topic discussion then please do so in that or a separate thread.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to think that nothing will ever change until we actually start seeing a rise. Virtually every article in the press starts by saying something negative (e.g., child deaths up), but ends by saying something like "but overall there were less accidents this year than last" or "accidents are much lower than 10 years ago".

For years I've thought the drop in the rate of decline was a simple matter to understand, but I'm starting to think the general population just don't understand that it isn't good. I think when they see even tiny changes (e.g. drop of 0.9%) they think "well, it is an improvement so it must be good".

Perhaps I am just getting sick of the general apathy to policies that are, I believe, causing many thousands of deaths every year

Until calculus becomes a retrospective educational requirement for every adult in the UK, noone in 'the general population' will understand that a reduction in the rate of decline is a net loss.

Well, of couse a reduction in the rate of decline is still a systematic gain. We have to look further inside the system to find the problem.

And I don't agree about the problems understanding or the need for calculus. Look at trade union wage demands - very similar arithmetic. The Nurses got 4% and the management only wants to offer us 1.5%. Call the lads out will you Bert?

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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

No.
Can't do that anymore !

For a dispute to be lawful it must be a 'trade dispute'. This means it must be a dispute between workers and their own employer and it must be wholly concerned about employment related matters, e.g. pay, working conditions, jobs, discipline etc. A trade union is legally responsible for organising industrial action and it is only legal if the trade union authorises or endorses the action. Authorisation would take place before the industrial action starts and endorsement after it has started as unofficial action. A strike ballot should not take place until any agreed procedures have been completed and all other means of resolving the dispute have been looked at. Employers can take legal action against any trade union which calls for strike action before a secret ballot has taken place.

By law, unions must give 7 days' notice of strike action to an employer stating that it intends to hold a ballot, the date on which the union reasonably believes the ballot will take place and any other information the union has which will help the employer make plans. The union must also give the employer a sample voting paper at least 3 days before the ballot. If the company has several sites, a separate ballot may need to be held at each workplace where strike action is proposed.

If workers vote in favour of strike action, it must begin within 4 weeks of the ballot taking place. This period may be extended up to 8 weeks after the ballot but only if the union and the employer both agree to it.

What's this? Oh yes it's a herring.

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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

Well, if you go back through the pages you'll note that I said it would fail.
That was such a certainty that I'm surprised anyone expected a win.

I suspect deep down most people would have been surprised if the case was won, although the ECHR did have quite a strong track record of upholding the right not to be forced to incriminate oneself.

It's hard to avoid scenting a whiff of political interference, to be honest.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Not a whiff. Politics and law are so deeply interwoven that any other verdict would have been unthinkable. Certainly, a verdict in favour would have had far-reaching consequences. Especially in EU countries.

Innocent until proven guilty is a nice phrase. But far too many people have had to prove their innocence for that phrase to be true.

More than a whiff, I'd say. A veritable stink, in fact.

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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