We have, since the proliferation of road cameras on our streets, had many a debate on these boards on the efficacy/reason for existence of such ‘safety’ devices.
This morning a friend of mine was driving along quite happy,
when she passed a speed camera. Further down the road she approached a row of traffic travelling in the opposite direction and as she passed, gave them a warning flash, the way that drivers do.
All well and good you may think, only one of the cars in the group was a police vehicle which promptly executed a U-turn and pulled her up. The driver approached hercar and proceeded to give her a good bollocking for warning the other drivers about the trap. She answered that the car at the front was on full beam and that she had flashed him to let him know (a lie, but quick thinking).
Anyway the cop didn’t believe her and said that if she commited the same offence again it would not be three points on her licence but an appearence in court for a 'criminal offence.
Now the problem:
When my friend flashed the other drivers, they slowed down, which made the road safer, having the same effect as a speed camera but without the need for anybody to suffer a £60 fine and three points.
Was she wrong?
Why was the cop so mad when the traffic slowed?
Would his argument stand up in court?
interesting that as cameras have spread in use, traffic depts have been scaled back.
notts for example doesn’t have a dedicated traffic team any more, just camera partnership vans, a chopper and panda cars - the subaru is now for show not pursuit - they got ride of the bikes and superbikes and now have 125cc learner-style bikes to patrol the cities on… even the off-road unit went!). The pursuit drivers are in corsas, escorts etc as regular officers or re-assigned to neighbouring forces. Derbyshire patrols the Notts section of the M1 !!
Since this has happened, the rate of accidents of legal vs stolen cars has risen. the numbers of pedestrians injured or killed by stolen cars has risen. neither of these are included in notrmal accident stats iirc. they are as a result of criminal not motoring offences so get put aside.
Also, as we’ve just seen the 1st rise in drunk-drive offences in 12 years it appears that the point is being made that speed cameras can’t breathalyse at the roadside or sit outside pubs to deter people. Of course, any resulting death is not included in the deaths from speed and so aren’t worried about when campaigning for more cameras and allowing traffic dept cutbacks.
So, in the long-run speed cameras being used as the norm, not as a resort for safety in major blackspots and in areas of high juvenile populations (for the green cross code is no longer taught!) - we will see a rise in death and injury. Unfortunately as they aren’t shown as caused by speed, they don’t “count” in the argument eh - idiocy
incidentally - if you see a camera sited (fixed or mobile) where it looks hard to have any accidents let alone a history of them - e-mail the force and partnership that covers that area and ask for the crash, death and cause stats for that site for the last 5 years. the amount of illegally sited cameras is phenomenal. Humberside have admitted to me they have no stats to show any accidents let alone fatal ones at a site where they regularly have a mobile unit, on the M180 (before the trent crossing, hidden up a banking, on a bend, behind a copse). In fact, the accidents that do occur nearby are 2 miles away on the M181 junction and are attributed to inappropriate speed, not excess speed (undetectable by camera vans) and mostly due to driving too fast in fog or on frosty/icy roads. This can’t be managed or solved by cameras, but by education and extra patrols in these conditions.
unfortunately, that isn’t force or partnership policy. illegally sited cameras are though it seems.
2 the cop could see his/her figures for the day/week going west, a freind of mine had the same treatment for flashing other truckers.
3 i think it would i seem to remember a case for doing just this but cannot remember the out come.
And by way of a personel rant and to add more truth to the rumour that the police think more of speed money than anthing else, a few weeks ago my shop window was smashed by a drunk and there was only one policeman on duty to protect 3000 plus souls so he could not attend not that he could have done anything anyway, i must add that he could call on police from nearby to assist if needed but my window did not merit it, the next day there was a speed trap in the village with six policemen, go figure.
What offence has she committed? By flashing her headlights she is saying ‘I am here’, which is not an offence.
Sounds to me like this cop was a bully. Perhaps she ought to write a letter to the chief constable!
I flashed my headlights to about 6 trucks this morning as I spotted a speedtrap. Every single one of the acknowledged my signal with a wave and a smile.
Just for information, this speedtrap was on the A630 at Warmsworth, about 1 mile from J36 of the A1(M).
Anybody using this road be careful as South Yorks Police regularly operate at several points on this road.
Just South of Newark A1 there is a blue road sign which says accidents down 20%, then another one which says thank you for slowing down BUT BUT Newark has only 2 speed cameras (A46 Farndon) which have only been in place a few weeks…
Also if it was a uniformed Police officer holding the speed gun then yes she has broken the law by preventing a Police officer from doing his job ( or something that sounds like that), however if it was a static camera van this is a civvy job so you could not be done for such an offence…
(Must remember that line about the main beam i like that, noted for future reference…)
a34 west midlands between great wyrley and bloxwich there must be at least 5/6 cameras on this stretch of 3 miles of road which is 30 mph most of it then a 50 mph for a half mile.
at the end of the 50 where it drops into a 30 there is a speed camera(static) about 30 yards further down.
west mids police feel the need to put a scamera van in the layby half a mile further down the road which is a straight road so can catch you going over the 30 mark as you enter it.
Yes, she was probably right, but I learnt not to flash when I was caught in Spain a couple of years ago. I did, what I thought was the decent thing to warn another HGV of the speed check, but tucked in behind it was two motorcycle police, who truned around, caught me up, stopped and promptly escroted me to the nearest cash machine. A very costly lesson!
But the sneaky way in which the UK police operate is very questionable.
