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Original poster

Does anyone know if you get multiple speeding tickets if you have travelled at least 14 times in a week down a road thinking it was a 30 not a 20 restriction?

130 replies

Mummytotwonow · 25/09/2021 15:03

My poor friend travelled to Wales to help look after a friend after an operation and stayed for a week. She has just returned home and found a speeding ticket (she was travelling 26mph thinking it was 30mph road and the ticket says it was 20mph). She travelled along this road at least twice a day running errands for about a week. She is so so so worried she is going to get multiple speeding tickets with fines and points and lose her license. It says she will get up to 3 points and fine on the first ticket. I have have checked the name of the road online and it looks like it's a fixed camera. She is so worried. Does anyone know what happen in a case like this?

Thanks x

OP posts:
MolkosTeenageAngst · 25/09/2021 16:10

To travel the same road 14 times and not see the 20mph signs suggests that they were obscured or absent. I would think she can prove that there was not any visible signage stating the road was 20mph then she might be able to plead her case. If the 20mph signage was clearly visible and your friend is not being completely honest about her travelling over the limit being a ‘mistake’ and the issue is really that she didn’t know there was a camera and thought she wouldn’t get caught then it will probably be a different matter.

PheasantsNest · 25/09/2021 16:13

@Mummytotwonow yes we all make the odd mistake. Not 14 times though. The limit is set to 20 as it's so much safer for pedestrians. Her driving at 30 so many times put other people at risk.

CasperGutman · 25/09/2021 16:18

Signage requirements for 20mph limits are much less onerous than they used to be: www.20splenty.org/signs_regs_changes

The signs at the start of the limit can now be smaller, and only need to be on one side of the road not both. Repeater signs aren't required.

I can well imagine it being possible to miss a limit in an unfamiliar area, with kids in the car. That doesn't mean it's an excuse under the law, though!

SaddenedByItAll · 25/09/2021 16:24

To be fair if she thought it was 30 then she may well have noticed he camera being bright yellow and thought nothing of it
However nice she is for doing what she did
She did however drive past the "gateway" signs at the start of the zone some 14 times
Regardless of her good nature (and I bet everyone could use a friend like that in times of news) it's a pretty daft thing to do

CasperGutman · 25/09/2021 16:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StCharlotte · 25/09/2021 16:26

@BertramLacey

She has never been to this area before, was looking after two young children, helping her single parent friend recover from an operation as she doesn't have anyone else. It's hardly doing 50mph in a 30 is it! She's never had a speeding ticket in her life. People make mistakes.

Doing good things for someone in need doesn't change the basic physics of speeding. Either the signs aren't adequate, in which case she could appeal, or they are, in which case she drove down that road every day for a week without observing the signs.

I'm also rather suspicious of her story. IME, whenever you obey a 30 limit, traffic stacks up behind you and often overtakes you. It's a rare driver who does 26 in a 30 zone. I suspect she realised it was a 20 zone and thought it was fine so long as she didn't go over 30.

Not necessarily.

I got caught doing 47 in a 40. But I thought I was in a 60 but was going slower because it was quite a dangerous bit of road and 60 would have been madness (hence it was a 40 of course!).

It was an unfamiliar route and I had no sat nav. When I drove it again the next day, I spotted the 40 sign behind a directional sign. It wasn't obscured as such but I was checking the directional sign so I had missed it.

(Annoyingly I too was doing someone a favour.)

LabiaMinoraPissusFlapus · 25/09/2021 16:40

I looked into this recently as I thought my husband was going to be in this situation. It turned out he only got one ticket in the end. Apparently if you get to the point of going to court you are likely to be allowed to carry on driving if it would other cause hardship (ie can't get to work) and it is on the same stretch of road with an otherwise clean license.

Pissoi · 25/09/2021 16:40

I'm sorry to say this OP but my friends DH got 6 tickets from one camera across a day helping someone move house. He was offered the option of a speed awareness course for the first, but the remaining 5 were 3 points each so he was summoned to court and suspended from driving for 12 weeks and fined plus court costs

saraclara · 25/09/2021 16:44

Near in mind that the cameras are hardly ever switched on. It's unlikely that the camera was on for more than one day that week. So she might get two tickets, but I'd have thought it's unlikely she'd get more.

saraclara · 25/09/2021 16:47

Some years ago, a local vicar was caught going over the speed limit limit at 1am, rushing to go to support a parishioner whose DH had just died.

He appealed it, it went to court, he still got fined.
He still got fined.

CoffeeAndKittens · 25/09/2021 16:51

Yes, she will absolutely receive 14 tickets if the camera was active each time she went down the road over the speed limit. You don't get a free pass if you've been caught a certain number of times!

It was lovely of your friend to be helping someone out, but I'm afraid missing a sign FOURTEEN times is not acceptable. So either the sign isn't obvious, in which case she may have a case. She should go and find out where the sign is and whether it was obscured. If it is actually obvious, the courts will take a dim view of her missing it so many times. It doesn't matter that she was doing a kind deed - she was so distracted that she didn't see a speed limit sign multiple times which means she must have been driving distracted fourteen times and therefore could have missed seeing something far more serious...

godmum56 · 25/09/2021 17:02

@insancerre

She drove at least 14 times on the same road and didn’t notice once that it was 20 miles per hour? I don’t believe her And if she is telling the truth then I really don’t think she should be driving at all
yup, each time is a separate offence.

Assuming the signage is there I am afraid she is in the do do.

Overthebow · 25/09/2021 17:34

Either the signs aren’t adequate, in which case she should argue that point, or they are and she somehow missed them 14 times in which case she probably deserves to be caught 14 times.

SaddenedByItAll · 25/09/2021 17:36

@saraclara

Some years ago, a local vicar was caught going over the speed limit limit at 1am, rushing to go to support a parishioner whose DH had just died.

He appealed it, it went to court, he still got fined.
He still got fined.

How much time do you think he saved by speeding? One minute? Maybe 2?
Original poster
Mummytotwonow · 25/09/2021 17:38

Hi, thanks everyone. The name of the road is Ty Draw Road in Wales. She really believes that she didn't see clear signs stating 20mph but is doubting herself and might have possibly missed them?? Which like she even herself and others here have said 14 times to miss just doesn't sound right.

OP posts:
Deux · 25/09/2021 17:41

What’s the date of the offence on the ticket? Was it the first day she was there? It might reassure her if it was on day 3 or something.

Original poster
Mummytotwonow · 25/09/2021 17:43

@Deux it was the first day

OP posts:
titchy · 25/09/2021 17:44

@Mummytotwonow

Hi, thanks everyone. The name of the road is Ty Draw Road in Wales. She really believes that she didn't see clear signs stating 20mph but is doubting herself and might have possibly missed them?? Which like she even herself and others here have said 14 times to miss just doesn't sound right.
Wakes is a big country OP - can you be a bit more specific!
Dinoroaraus · 25/09/2021 17:47

If it's in Cardiff by a big park then google maps shows it has a massive 20 in the middle of the road.

Hellocatshome · 25/09/2021 17:47

Can she get someone in the area (the friend perhaps) to gonto the area and see how prominent the signs are. If any are obscured by trees etc get photos to prove this.

BarbaraofSeville · 25/09/2021 17:48

Not knowing the road isn't a reason to speed. You'd have to have an extremely limited lifestyle to only ever drive on roads that you were familiar with. If you have a driving licence, you should be able to work out what the speed limit is from the visual cues on the road, and it is something that you should constantly be aware of while driving.

As others have said, 20 limit roads are usually extremely well signed, so if she hasn't noticed this, multiple times, it seems that some refresher training might be in order. Hopefully she will receive an offer of this from one of the other tickets if she receives more of them.

20 limit roads are usually there for a reason, like a history of collisions with pedestrians and drivers not paying attention.

Hellocatshome · 25/09/2021 17:50

Ah Google earth seems to suggest both a big 20 painted on the road and a 20 sign on a pole at the side of the road and that's just in the bit peg man landed on.

KarmaStar · 25/09/2021 17:51

They don't enforce the 20mph here.

HarlanPepper · 25/09/2021 17:51

@PheasantsNest

She needs to go for an eye test by the sounds of it. Lack of observation.
Helpful.
BarbaraofSeville · 25/09/2021 17:52

@Dinoroaraus

If it's in Cardiff by a big park then google maps shows it has a massive 20 in the middle of the road.
It's also very narrow with lots of parked cars on one side of the road and a park at the other side of the road. There's likely to be lots of pedestrians, including children, crossing the road that can't be seen well due to all the parked cars.

The sort of road where, even if the limit is 30, that's too fast to be safe on that road.