Speeding Tickets

[janh]

I have just got one (second this year!!! 30 years driving and never had one before!) for doing 36mph on a stretch of main road which had a 40mph limit the previous time I drove on it - halfway along I noticed the "new speed limit" signs and slowed down but not soon enough, obviously.

Questions - is this honestly not a licence to print money? (Who gets the money anyway?) And does anybody think I have any chance of being let off with a caution because of the recent change? (Does anybody think I deserve to be? Be brutal!)

Sounds a bit harsh to be done for 6mph over the limit anyway - I thought there was some sort of error margin allowed. How did you get caught?

I assume there's an appeals process if you think it's unfair. Write a polite letter setting out your case and see what happens.

Yes, I think you should be let off with a caution - I got flashed by a speed camera accidentally doing over 40 in a 30 (England V Argentina, no one else on the road!) and the fine never came through. However, the hard truth is that you were speeding, whichever way you look at it so you're at their mercy!

Oooh, you were lucky, Soupdragon! There is a fixed camera on this road but I didn't see it flash, I wonder if they had some bugger hiding in the bushes as well with a handheld one (that's how they got me last time - the official line is that 2 of them stand in plain view in fluorescent jackets holding an enormous instrument in the air but I don't`believe it, I think they lurk round corners and inside cars.

The margin for error is 10% or something so if you are doing 33 you're OK - I think - 34 and up is an offence and I think that was what my last one was. I am feeling persecuted! Neither of these roads is "residential", although there are houses on them, IYKWIM. Anyway I will try the polite letter...sigh....

Oh, yes, the other thing that worries me, if this happens twice more will I be BANNED? Like as if I had been doing 70 through a housing estate with a mobile phone in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other?

I think you definitely deserve to be let off. I think changing things without massive signs is a way of stealing money. I remember when Camden council some years ago decided to suddenly ban parking on single yellow lines on Sunday (something you can always do everywhere else). There were tiny signs placed miles apart which nobody could see and no indication that a huge change had taken place. There were squadrons and squadrons of traffic wardens ticketing entire streets full of cars which were parked in absolute good faith. They must have raked it in for months and months. I got caught and I was so furious.

I don't know about England but in Scotland the police were taking the line that speedos are so accurate these days that there's no need for a margin of error and that 30mph means 30mph. But a letter is always worthwhile. Years ago my db got a parking fine and wrote to say that he'd never been in that town before and didn't know how to use a parking meter. He got let off, probably just for being cheeky!

I'm in two minds about speeding tickets. On one hand I think that, anyone who speeds in a residential area deserves all they get, a view which has been stregnthened since dd1 was run down near our house. Fortunately the driver of the car was driving below 30mph, saw her and managed to slow down further so she escaped with only cuts and bruises. If he had been speeding she would, I have no doubt, been killed.
However, in your case janh it does seem v unfair that the speed limit on the road was raised with little publicity. Also I have much more mixed views on speeding on 'open roads' such as this one. Personally if you hear anything from the Police and you may not as a lot of the older non-digital cameras don't have film in them (I was caught twice, on non-residential roads I hasten to add, and got away with it), I would chance your luck and write to them explaining the situation. You may get off with a caution.
Sorry I can't answer your question as to where the money goes but I do remember reading an article about how speed cameras were being put on roads where lots of people would be caught and therefore lots of money made rather than on roads where the poor accident rate would merit speed cameras. The A8 near Edinburgh airport was given as an example.

Janh, yep, it's a licence to print money. I just got one too - the first in 17 years of driving - for doing 40 in a non residential 30 limit at 11.45pm having just driven 200 miles on the motorway. I know it's no excuse but I also know that I'll have to pay up, take the points (3) and pay more insurance next year. Am P*** off! I'd try a letter in your position I think but for me it's a fair cop.

If a camera has caought you, the fine and points are pretty much automatic, unless you want to plead "not guilty" and go to court to explain the circumstances.

My dh got caught by a camera in Cardiff. When the ntoice came in, asking who the driver was, he wrote and explained that the only reason he was speeding at the point that the camera took the picture was because a white van had come down a slip road at great speed and unless dh had accelerated, he would have been rear-ended. He had a witness in the car to vouch for this. The irony was he's actually been going SLOWLY in Cardiff, as he was unfamiliar with the place and trying to follow directions. However, the response came back that his only option was to plead not guilty.

He ended up just taking the points and fine, as it was not worth having to make a special trip back down to Cardiff to argue the case - plus risk the possibility of MORE points and a larger fine! But he was mighty pissed off!

Is it true they can't fine you if, when you are asked who the driver was, you say you are not sure who was driving at the time the picture was taken? Never been sure if it's an urban myth or not.

They've recently erected two cameras near our house. I'm not sure who they are hoping to catch though. The limit on the road is 30mph. The average speed of the traffic on the road between 7.45am and 10am is about 8mph on a good day. Ditto between 4pm and 6pm. Outside those hours you can often achieve as much as 25mph.

Perhaps they are hoping to catch people hooning through at 2am.

There must be a public record somewhere of how they justify where they place cameras. I can understand it in some places - a bit further afield they have recently been put up in most of the spots where the police used to stand with handhelds so do make sense.