Safe Speed Forums

The Courier (Tayside & Fife hereSince the Highways Agency have authority over the main trunk roads, I assume that they will have sought permission from them, Dept Transport or will it still be the local Council ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

AIUI:
The driver (of the enforcement vehicle) committing an offence does not invalidate the evidence they have gathered against another offender.

So such vehicles can kinda be parked where ever they like - but - just like other drivers, they are liable for any offence they commit (speeding, parking infringement, etc); so they take that risk like everyone else. Only emergency services on call have special dispensation.

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

who owns the vehicle

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now retired

The driver takes responsibility. Someone recently told me thought that some organisations can be held responsible but I have not had time to research this. Is this your point ? That those who operate an enforcement vehicle can shift their responsibilities to their employee organisation in some way ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I think the point CO was making is that the police operate speed enforcement vehicles. It is therefore likely that the operator of the vehicle has full permission from the police to use that observation point.
Even if the operator didn't have permission and was in the process of committing one or more serious offences at the time the speed was measured, as long as those offences have no effect on the speed measurement then that evidence can be used in a prosecution.
The authority for the road maintenance, whoever that is, H.A. or its Scot's equivalent, has no say on who can use the observation point beyond issues of safety and maintenance.
The points the letter writer makes about legality of parking and use of signs are not issues that would make the evidence gathered by the operator inadmissible in court. He may have well have said the colour of the van invalidates the evidence as his points of challenge are of no consequence.

Whether or not this, and other instances of scp transgressions, in any way affects the validity of the evidence they capture, it certainly does nothing to dispel any impressions of one rule for us and another for them.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Always? What about vehicles single crewed by SCP staff?

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

Yep quite appreciate all of that ... was trying to establish that when the police humps were made, is there the appropriate authority in place for use by mobile vans, who mostly seem, too only have police authorised personel in operation than 'genuine police'. Then even if they are genuine police officers is there the right Road Traffic Act, Orders in place for their use (and then widespread use) on all Police humps.

There was the guideline originally, that a (mobile speed camera) van cannot operate more than 12ft away from the side of the road, is this still current in the guidelines, has your latest ACPO approved guidelines come to light anywhere yet ?
Are any or all of those humps not more than 12ft away from the roadside ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Does this help?

What would be required?


Why would it be necessary not to have a van more than 12ft from the carriageway? It makes no sense.
The reason why this was inserted in the ACPO CoP, it was 10ft not 12ft see page 67, was to reduce the effects of the angle on the speed measurement. If you make measurements at a slant range of 100ft or 120ft for your 12ft then the angle has very little effect.
It makes more sense not to use a specific distance for the horizontal and vertical displacement but to use a rule that the officer can use to estimate an acceptable offset. i.e. 10:1 for slant distance:offset.
It would make even more sense to actually explain why the advice was given; then it would prevent the ignorant repetition of something that can be quantified and either taken into account or discounted.
There are loads of them more than 12ft away from the lane being measured, I would say probably all of them are on the motorway. What difference does that make? None because you can calculate the effect with ease....but you only omit to do so if you are quoting an apparent rule as a potential defence rather than adducing evidence of its effect.

Which official source did that diagram come from GS? (Note: Steve Callaghan's arse does not count as an official source, no matter how much you might insist it is)

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

What do you mean ? In the Traffic Order - I know that they must comply with the right part of the right act - talk to Richard Bentley he'll know ...
You answered your own 'next' question - I'll check the operation manual when I get a sec ...

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

What is the definition between Police Officers and Police Staff ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

What is the source of the image? This one is hosted on Imageshack, so without the source data there is a risk that it could have been simply fabricated, possibly by someone with serious delusions of grandeur.

I have kept a copy for my records.

SCP staff are merely gatherers of evidence; they do not have the powers and authorities of police.
Indeed you (greenshed) have previously inadvertently argued that SCP staff have no more powers than civilians ('takes two civilians for conviction'); so you've already blown your own argument out of the water before you've begun.

I know of one member of SCP staff who used police headed paper to send correspondence.

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

Oh come on now!

?

Police Officers = Constables or warranted Officers
Police Staff = Civilian Staff

For some reason civilian is no longer PC (and I don't mean 'constable')

It is clear you and your play-mates know f***-all about the structure of the police and the staff thereof.

I have drawn the image because I happen to know what the structure is. It was given in good faith to help you see the structure and relationships within the police and the SCP's in respect of the enforcement personnel. In my experience, there are no SCP enforcement personnel and constabularies that do not fit into this basic structure. Some police may have no operators that are police officers and some may have no operators that are police staff (civilians), some have a mix of the 2 so the ellipse at the bottom can be as seen or will move the the left or the right as appropriate.

Before you criticise what has been supplied you should really make an attempt from time-to-time to accept that people other than you can supply original and accurate material.

The debate about needing police officers to operate speed enforcement devices has been held before. You seem to be of the opinion that a police officer is needed in a speeding prosecution. No police officer is needed; all that is required are 2 witnesses or one witness and the reading from a speed measuring device.

Confusion abounds about the requirement for a police constable; it appears it is here too. A Police Constable is only required to be in the process if a conditional offer of fixed penalty is to be offered in respect of a speeding offence. No Conditional Offer = No Police Officer required.

You can claim all you like that a police officer must have operated the device but there is no law that requires that. If you claim there is then please advise us all of the law that legislates that requirement.

As in the community speed watch debate; 2 witnesses, no police officer = good to go on the prosecution of the offence. The thing you cannot do in that case is make a conditional offer of a fixed penalty. You can however do so if you can convince a police constable that an offence has occurred, then a CoFP can be issued. There is still no police constable witness to the offence though so if it goes to court after refusal to accept the FPN the police officer involved in the CoFP is not a witness to the offence and need not be called. Why do I know this and why should you accept it? Pop down to your local magistrates' courts it is being completed every day.

The world does operate in accordance with rules, laws and procedures that have not been formulated, agreed or even known about on safespeed.org.uk/forum all you have to do is open your mind and you will experience it....oh!...and we all have the ability to be right as well as wrong; consider giving that a go as well.

should be Chief Constable - deputy CC, Chief Supt, Ingear, area inspectors, duty sgts, constable, CPT, response, CID intel etc etc

civilian - non operational - HR, Fianance, Admin, IT, etc etc
civilian - operational PCSO, front desk clerk, jaolers, camera van operators, CCTV operators etc etc

£20,000

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now retired

I don't have to if there is no reference, especially if it was requested - twice!


Full marks to you for completely missing the point! Bonus points for your wanton evasion of mine!

I say again:


And you answered this with an image you drew up, without any reference. Is that at all reasonable?

The reader could easily conclude you are making this up as you go alone. A reader with knowledge of your profession can reasonably conclude your delusions of grandeur are borne from your demonstrable, direct, strong and vested conflict of interest.

So anyway, when will you answer my original question, in the context of the thrust of this thread?

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

...I missed that bit. and after a full and detailed investigation wasting 10's or possibly even 100's £thousands it was found that the member of SCP staff who happened to be a senior member of police staff was indeed authorised to do just that. Now isn't that interesting.