I recently had a speeding fine come through the post and, on the day in question, there were genuinly two people driving at various times during the day

so I wrote back and said "no idea who was driving, can you send the photo"
they did so, and it was taken from behind, quite a long way behind
so I wrote back and said "still no clue, sorry"
they wanted to know who else might have been driving, so I told them that
they then wrote to my mate and said "Mr Cooper says you were driving .. etc"
he wrote back saying "nah, he said we don't know who was driving, cos we don't"
they then tried me again with "Mr Whatsit says he wasn't driving so was it you ... etc"
I replied "he didn't says that, he said we don't know, which we don't and the photo is no help
then they wrote again saying "you have a legal responsibility to tell us who was driving .. etc"
I replied "that maybe so, but since I have no clue I can't"

Their last reply said "ok, we give up, since you've never been caught before we'll let it go this time"

I was so tempted to write back with "what do you mean 'never been caught before '? I haven't been caught time time!"

they may do now, I distinctly remember there being quite a to-do a while ago because some ambulance admin staff were spending hours a week appealing tickets

Is your mate an oompa loompa and/or the tango man?

no, he is not orange, I just don't know as he would want his name online

Aw. I am now dissappointed. :[

Is there any chance he could be painted orange?

It would help settle any further ambiguities about who the driver is! :D

I actually belkive he would be up for being painted almost any colour (he wouldn't allow pink)
wouldn't help with the picture though, since he wasn't painted when it was taken

Great stuff.

 

I've seen a few Ambulances get caught by speed cameras. Mainly at about 5am whilst doing a milk round a few years ago.

were they not able to give you the time and exact location where the photo was taken? It would surely be a rare case that you didn't know given that information?

yes they were, but I was helping someone move house on the day in question, both me and my mate drove the car whenever suited us several/many times throughout the day and the letter came about two weeks later, we just couldn't decide who had been driving at 12:20pm

Remember that emergency services don't have any God given right to speed. It was never explained to me for Ambulances, but Police are meant to write it to the log of whatever it is they are responding. I.e.:

 

12:35 - 999 recieved, female, burglary in progress
12:35 - Unit B2 dispatched
12:39 - B2 through Speed Camera, Whatever Road, Birmingham

 

But even so, it can still be deemed speeding depending upon the circumstances. And it could also be used if that police car took out a pedestrian 300 metres down the road.

 

I'm not saying that I agree with Jons example that Ambulance workers should spend hours appealing it, but I don't think they should just be ignored.

 

For more interesting reading, ask a police officer what happens when they try and PNC a car dangerously driving and it ends up belonging to Whitehall...

I've heard of 'professional' (lorry/taxi) drivers passing points onto family members. I can understand why the family members accept them, if it's the main/sole breadwinner, but how would they feel if a subsequent speeding offence resulted in someone else's death when in reality that driver should be off the road?

 

IT MADE ME WANT TO SHOUT AT THEM!!!!!! :@

That argument does annoy me, if your job depends on your driving licence then shirley the answer is to drive more carefully.

If your job depends on a clean drivers' license and your continued employment depends on meeting unrealistic delivery deadlines you're a bit fucked though.

I think SPECS cameras are possibly the hardest to see (no stripes etc) and also the most difficult to trick, since they work on average speed - however, they're definitely visible during the day. I've also heard of a possible way of tricking them: just drive through them on different lanes :D

edit: the most irritating cameras as far as I'm concerned are the ones on the M25. Annoying sh!tboxes which slow down traffic on an already busy motorway, doing nothing but generating free money. Grr.

Nope, the most annoying ones are those average speed ones that they setup along roadworks on motorways, when it seems that there's no-one bloody working there at all, certainly on the days/times that I drive past them.

that's the SPECS ones yes. Still often narrower lanes I guess though. I have heard that they fixed the lane-change trick but that could be LIES to slow us down. Always makes me laugh when I see people speeding between them misunderstanding what average means.

They're the ones Serge just mentioned.

 

And yeah, the average speed cameras are most definitely the most annoying. I've seen 40 and 50 mph average speed cameras on free flowing motorways that could easily be moving along at 70 or 80 mph.

That trick never worked. Think it was more down to the fact that the initial ones were just shit.
Top Gear had the best solution, drive 140mph up to the second camera then stop and a have a cup of tea whilst your average goes down.

Don't know if there's any paperwork involved but the ambulances round here have a blue 'running' light on the rear number plate that comes on when the blues are turned on.

 

I thought it was so the camera people could see the vehicle was on an emergency call, but are'nt gatso photos in black and white ?

 

My other theory was that the blue light somehow makes the number plate invisible to the camera because it's at a certain wavelength or something, and that it's all a big secret otherwise everyone would fit them !

The best way to do it would be to have a row of very bright IR LEDs. Invisible to the human eye but would possibly mask the plate. Might try that actually!