Flashed by gatso but under limit 212

David Knowles

John & Lisa Jamessutton I'm aboslutely positive about my speed. Any advice welcomed. Irrelevant. I was positive about my speed (30 or 31 in a 30 limit) when snapped by a scamera van last year, and could prove I was 5 miles away in a meeting at the time recorded for my "offence" by the machine. I chose to contest it in court. Result? Found guilty anyway, plus stung for costs, making £240 instead of the £60 FP I would have paid had I owned up to something I genuinely believed I had not done. Don't expect the system to be fair - you're a motorist and therefore guilty of whatever they throw at you. Good luck. -- Rich ============================== I don't approve of signatures, so I don't have one. ---------------------------------- How on earth can someone be found guilty when not the driver of the vehicle at the stated time? What was the reasoning of Magistrates? -- John Building our caravanning web site and forums... www.gmails.co.uk-forums I pbutted the van on the exit from a village at 6.40pm last January. By 7.00pm I was in a meeting with about 15 other people about 5 miles away. I was as certain of my speed as the OP seems to be. The prosecution, however, noted the time of the alleged offence as 6.57pm. Apparently, I can drive 5 miles, through a town, make a 200 yard walk and climb two flights of stairs in 3 minutes. I challenged the prosecution on the grounds that if they can't get the time right on the machine, how can they possibly expect the machine to calculate speed correctly, if speed is measured as a function of time and distance travelled? The CPS solicitor asked if I had any qualifications in electronics (which I have not) and asked how I could possibly comment on a technology I didn't understand. Common sense, apparently, was not a sufficient answer. The magistrates did not offer any reasoning. They just said "guilty". The only concession they offered me was to increase my fine to £90, but kept the costs to £150 instead of the £500 requested by the CPS. Funnily enough, I met the camera operator (now a shiny new PC) a few weeks later in a different context. He admitted that, to him at least, I had introduced sufficient doubt into his mind that he would have let me off. I have to admit to being pretty bitter about the whole thing, as I always register, tax and insure my cars and tend to drive fairly responsibly (and have driven for 35 years accident-free), and it boils my pee when I see other people getting away with bad driving, unroadworthy cars and drunkenness (to name a few) which cameras can't spot or prevent. Sorry for the rant. No need for apologies Richard. I sympathise completely. Surely the most ardent seekers of better road safety should be starting to recognise that our current regime of speed limits, and the enforcement thereof, is: a) penalising a lot of drivers unnecessarily, and b) not delivering the goods in terms of real safety results. In my view we need a fundamental change of policy. Best wishes all, Dave.

Agree totally. And as for not delivering the goods, AIUI the decline in annual road rests and serious injuries which has been steady since the late 60s has more-or-less flattened out since the mid-90s. Exactly when speed cameras started to be widely used.

-- Rich ==============================

I don't approve of signatures, so I don't have one.