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!

Slightly off topic, but I had this thought the other day about parking tickets (while watching the third car that day get ticketed outside one of my shops).

 

If you just put a old parking ticket sticker thing on your windscreen when you parked up do you think you'd get away with not getting a proper ticket because traffic wardens would think you'd already been done?

Good idea but I'm sure I've seen someone be ticketed twice, or maybe a stack of them. I guess if there's only one person for that patch of road then they'll know it's a day old or whatever and stick another on.

I once saw a woman in a big ass 4x4 park up totally illegally (all squint, straight on on a double yellow with the arse of the car sticking right out into the road), get out of the car and put an old ticket envelope under the windscreen wiper before going into a pub.

 

A warden walked round the corner about 2minutes later and promptly gave her a ticket.

 

I lol'd.

:')

Similar to the autostrada in Italy, where your average speed is calculated by the times you pass the tolls. So people have a cuppa en route.

No, because [see my post].

 

I think it's just another blue light.

I've seen a couple of cars with multiple tickets - one with about 10, and one in a motorway services with probably about 30 tickets - I think that one had a note on the dashboard saying "Broken down" or something. The windscreen was completely covered with tickets anyway.

 

One thing that used to work for someone at our venue was to drive onto the kerb, switch on his hazard lights and leave his boot wide open all evening. Because nobody would do that if they weren't making a real delivery.

 

I've been pulled for speeding once, in France, but the points never made it over the channel.