You would be surprised.You obviously dont watch the right things on TH-cam.Many are as thick as planks.I often wonder how they get into the force.@@LG-kl3co
A similar thing happened to me. It was my very first speeding ticket. It was 2am on a road with zero traffic. So annoying. The funny thing is that all my friends and family are always telling me off for driving too slow so thought it was hilarious! 🤦♀️
I objected to 20mph limits in part of my town, and learned that 20 mph tends to result in speeds of 25mph. At the time istr 20mph limits were not enforced, but I guess that's changed
The Greed of a Corrupt Money Laundering Corporation..... when everyone realises it's only there to make money for them lawyers and the Corrupt Corporations currently known as A GOVT!
I'd simply go state to a judiciary that its within the combined margin of error for the speedometer and the radar and you like it to be dismissed. No legislature with any credibility will allow it to stand, its simply revenue gathering through false means.
Those committing real crimes don't usually pay fines. The war on the motorist is to raise revenue. Pure and simple theft by state sanctioned road pirates.
Having been a traffic officer for 25years the 10% was always there because that’s the tolerance Speedo manufacturers have to comply with when they make their instruments. Police patrol cars needed specially made speedos that had to be accurate to within 2%. These were checked and certified and the had to be checked every week against a measured half mile with a stopwatch that had to be checked itself and certified every six months. Records of all these checks had to be made in case they were asked for in court. Usually the speedos in cars measure under the speed limits as can be seen when you have a sat nav in the vehicle, they always show a slower speed then the actual speedometer in the car.
As a traffic officer, may I ask you a question, mate.: What does it mean when the police sends someone a "conditional offer"? And if the police say they've taken "unspecified action" against a driver you've reported, what's that mean? And do "warning letters" mean anything or go on record? Kind regards.
Back in the 90s I got zapped fair & square doing 72mph in a 30 as a young & dumb new driver only months into having passed the test thinking I was the business in my crappy Escort. They were hiding in a car park & speed guns at the ready. That wave of panic set in knowing i'd just been zapped. By this point I was a good 200m away from them & wondering if I should just keep going as I could have easily got away but no, I turned around at the roundabout & went back. I was praised for coming back on my own & only received 3 points & a £60 fine to my surprise. I took this good fortune seriously & never did it again & have never been stopped or had any fines since. I guess when you reach a certain age when your brain has finished fully developing it starts to dawn on you just how dangerous some of your actions were, not only to yourself but to everyone around you.
@@SittaCarolinensis All the cars I have had the speedometer reads faster than actual road speed speed. The amount will alter as the tyres wear. Think of all legal problems if it was the other way round.
The biggest problem here is the insurance scam. Your penalty points only stay on your licence for 3 years. Your insurance company will penalise you for 5 years even though legally you no longer have points on your licence.
Insurers will also increase your premiums if you have had an accident which wasn't your fault, even if the other driver was held 100% liable and the claim was paid in full, because they are greedy b4st4rds.
@@rickconstant6106 Wait until you have a hit and run then have to put it down as a fault claim every year when it was not your fault at all. There is no hit and run option when renewing, it is a fault claim against you! Winds me up every time.
Hi Daniel, I wondered if you could do a video about an incident that occurred to me last weekend. I took a damaged “Bag for life” back to M&S and asked for a replacement. I was told, “We don’t do that anymore.” What is your opinion about this? When M&S sold the bag they clearly and loudly stated that it would be replaced free of charge once it was worn out. The bag actually has the following statement written on it: “When it’s worn out, just pick another design and we’ll replace your bag for free.” Are M&S obliged by law to provide a free bag?
Pretty sure they are. They’ve created a contract by saying they will replace that bag so any bag they produce that says this they will have to replace. If they replace it with one that doesn’t have the wording then they can wriggle out of it but it’s there in writing
I got points and a fine for doing 32mph in a 30mph limit. I was going downhill and was literally 2mph over the limit!!! I said on a hill it's often difficult to realise you are a mile or two over, unless you are constantly looking at the speedo, and in that case you're not concentrating on the road. I was told that people should drive around 3 to 4mph under the speed limit at all times, to avoid getting caught speeding! It's blatantly obvious that being prosecuted for going 2mph above the limit is just a way to get more revenue out of drivers.
Speedos read high to make sure that if you are going the speed limit you are actually under by a few mph. So to do 32 in a 30 your speedo would be showing 35+
I'm in S.Scotland. Got a speeding ticket just before covid. First and last in my life. In a rural area, moving uphill from a crossroads in a 30mph area I was pulled over for speeding. I was surprised learn my 1 litre vehicle was even capable of speeding within 20 seconds of a standing uphill start. 42mph? Seriously? I was almost proud. Also threatened with a charge of failing to stop when ordered. A charge that vanished when my carcam showed an officer stepping from behind a bush and wildly waving his arms rather than offering a proper stop signal. OK... Went straight into the local copshop next day to pay the fine - to find a minor riot going on. The young civilian female clerk (no support for her anywhere arround) had her booth closed and locked - afraid to come out. What on earth was going on? The place was full of angry small business people complaining they'd been ambushed while simply trying to earn a living. I and a couple of other calmer guys managed to calm the situation, and the young lady opened her desk to accept the ticketed fines. BUT... After the first motorist paid his fine for speeding at 42mph, he was followed by another - clocked at 42mph. And another - clocked at 42mph. I asked everyone in the room to show me their tickets. Every single one of us - 20+ people - had been clocked at 42mph !!!!!!! I paid up, but I haven't been civil to police since. They're nothing to do with law and order - just an income generating RACKET!!
Was this with a speedgun? It is easily done especially if the tuning fork or other calibration device gives a reading of 42 mph. Even facing the speedgun into an air vent of a vehicle can give a reading............ You get a gold star for knowing about proper hand signals. Even knowing which hand they used can be important as some rules say that the right hand must be raised.
@@johnvienta7622 No idea. But either way, in my book it was still a con. Got worse recently. All of my small town now restricted to 20mph. Can anyone explain to me how the environment is protected by everyone driving around in 3rd gear? Or how pedestrians are safer, given delayed and impatient drivers?
This is a complete lie and I know it's a lie because fines are paid at sheriff courts! 😂 Furthermore the ticket would never have been valid because by law in Scotland an police officer must always be visible, they can't legally hide because that's entrapment and an offence.
Currently about half my longer journeys are held up at some point or other by some idiot who has failed to drive safely on the road, the mk1 human has not changed, hence the speed limit needs to stay where it is, or perhaps on many roads reduced, for instance non motorway standard duel carriageways.
@@roberthardy3090 What they need to do is ban those who do not know how to drive on a motorway from them and then up the speed limit so those that know how to use a motorway can get from A to B !!!
@@cpyart Who are these super drivers? Do we just allow self certification? Perhaps cars need to test the drivers state of awareness and drive you into a sand trap if they decide you are no longer aware enough to qualify. The reality is that very few are willing to question the quality of their driving and we lose far more time in holdups caused by failures of concentration than ever we could gain by an increase in the speed limit. Though are you contemplating increasing the HGV speed limit too? Otherwise there would be even greater speed differentials on our very crowded motorways and the consequence would be rising accident rates and even slower journey times.
@@roberthardy3090 If the speed limits were raised for all vehicles, then these journeys would take less time. This would also mean less people on the road overall. If you slow down all the traffic and make journey times longer, then you will create massive amounts of congestion. Speed has never caused any accidents, they are all caused by careless, reckless or dangerous drivers. You know the sort because they crash. Now if you removed these from motorways along with those who use phones, rely on electronic devices for directions because they don't even know where they are going and those who hog lanes, motorways would work as they were designed to do. Slowing vehicles down, leaving them on the roads for longer amongst the congestion that would be caused will just lead to the possibility of accidents. It's all quite simple. Trucks could do 80 at nights when the motorways are quieter and this would most likely lead to less trucks on the motorways during the day. Trucks and cars should be separated where possible because when they come together at 50 it's not nice.
Husband at the wheel (wife beside him) is doing about 77 mph in a 70 mph zone, when he is stopped by traffic enforcement. “You were doing 77 in a 70 zone” says the police officer. “No, I wasn’t - more like 71” replies the husband - “It was definitely 77 from the reading I have here” says the officer. “You’re device must be wrong, it was definitely only about 71” comes the further response from the husband when his wife suddenly leans over to the officer and says: “Oh, don’t mind him, he always gets a bit argumentative when he’s had a few drinks… “ 😜 !!!!!
Reminds me a story given to me by a police officer: guy gets stopped squarely over the speed limit and when stopped gives this as an excuse: I didn't realise how fast I was going because I was on the phone (no hands free kit present in the car)... To which the officer replied: "Let's just pretend I didn't hear that"!
As funny as this sounds It reminds me of the time I had to tell my passenger ( my wife) to shut up, after she said something to the police officer, that had stopped me.
In the early 1990s, in another job, we used to be chauffered about in traffic cars, the big "Jam sandwich" things. I was told by the driver, a traffic officer, that they had tolerances that they worked to as the everday motorist didn't have a calibrated speedo. Whilst doing this job, the police driver asked me if it was okay to pop home to his house, he'd forgotten his sandwiches. It was coming up to lunch time. So, I said I didn't mind. We travelled along the A38, dual carriageway, topping out at 130 plus MPH. All to get his sarnies. It was quite frightening. It was at this point that I finally and definitely realised that it was one rule for us mortals, another rule for them.
@@davewright9312 Believe what you want, not asking for approval for facts. This was working out of DOT Agaton Fort, Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall Police, driving along the A38 from St Budeaux to Plympton. True facts. Dangerous, illegal, abuse of position. With regards to your other trolling farther down, takeaways, yes, many do close at 10pm or before. Again, in Plymouth, this was quite common. Only in clubland were they open longer.
Not only satnavs, there are plenty of radar road signs on the side of the road that show your speed when approaching and all those that I pass are always a few mph below the speed my speedo shows. However, the question is which are the most accurate, speedos or road signs compared to actual speed cameras that are used by the police or on gantries above the motorway for example?
@@macroman54 The radar/laser devices used by the police are required to be regularly calibrated. Static cameras operate in a way that doesn’t require regular calibration because all they measure is the time taken to travel between 2 fixed points.
It is a statutory requirement for all car speedometers to display a faster speed than that at which you are actually travelling, so yes it is built into the car,
I believe it's a legal requirement for speedos to overread. I think it's just in the US where they're required to read the correct speed, but in Europe they will overread.
Modern speedos are highly accurate. I regularly pass the signs that tell one the speed one is doing (in green if one's at or below the limit), and the speedos on my motorbike and my car are within 1 mph of the speed indicated by the signs.
I think you'll find , driving at 88 mph in a stainless steel car does nothing more than get you a speeding fine. Marty Mcfly and Dr Brown are full of shite
Last year the cost of a speed awarness course in the South West was £100. I got cought doing 32 in a 30 zone by average speed cameras. They must have caught a lot of cars at almost the same time as I was in a stream of traffic and was not aware I was speeding, we were all going at the same speed to keep our distance. Yes technically its speeding but still rather annoying.
Years ago I got 2 tickets in a week for accidently crossing a bus lane to turn off a road to where I used to live . not knowing thay had just installed a new camera system .a few months later thay changed the exit off because the bus lane exit was to near the exit into the road I was going into but thay still wanted the fine to be paid .I recently gave up driving its just another way the driver being hit with government taxes parking or fuel bills or general maintenance of the vehicles the joys gone out of it completely now
Really?! Was that on a major road/duel carriageway? I drive a vehicle restricted to 56mph, I'm always going through the average camera's at full speed on 50's, I didnt even think those "average" ones where really catching people, I don't know anyone in real life who's got caught with the average camera
@@drbennyboombatz9195 It was on a dual carrigeway where they have closed one carriageway off for the best part of a mile, its been like it for over ten years, no one knows why. The speeding letter that came by post stated that I was caught by the average speed cameras on that stretch. I cant remember the exact wording but it did say average speed cameras.
I've just spent a few days in the bottom bit of the island of Ireland where you can do 120kms (75mph) on empty motorways - like England's motorways in the 1970s. I still did only 65mph out sheer habit...
@@alanmon2690 A couple of decades back, Italy raised the speed limit on motorways, resulted in a noticeable reduction in accidents. We governed lorries after a lunatic tried to kill everyone in his path. Resulted in 10% more lorries involved in accidents. Then an influx in foreign drivers raised that number again.
There is a stretch of road near me that is about 2 miles of straight, flat, good visibility road with no cameras or obvious hazards. Drivers have been known to put their foot down there . . .
Home office guidance is a funny one. I know this as I own firearms. Most forces abide by it to the letter some will invent their own extra stringent policies and others will ignore it completely. It's really a lottery.
Why on earth does this persist? I disagree with many of the limits but I know if I’m anywhere in excess of them I risk points. My biggest annoyance is that many speed limit signs are hidden in hedgerows and trees with visitors to the area unable to see them, yet just around the corner is a police Christmas fund van with high tech equipment to catch them. Now that’s despicable I my eyes.
I wonder if that would be an argument in court, the signs being hidden. I follow the speed limits, but I'm only human and occasionally get a bit unsure if a road is, say, 30 or 40 mph.
I think your comment about the police Christmas fund is daft because that's OBVIOUSLY not what it is but I totally agree with your comment about signs. Where I live a road has recently changed from 70 to 50 and the council has put average cameras up, the sign is barely visible and there are no repeaters. That's b/s!
@@jaysee2213 I’ll admit, I was being facetious with the Christmas fund comment, but, in fact, all we know is that this cash goes into the consolidated fund. What is then passed out via the appropriation act is far less scrutinised so it’s not impossible that it does pay for some ridiculous things. And your comment re the signs is spot on. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d say it was intentional. Change the speed limit and hide the signs. Also, if you think about it, it’s almost like a game where human play against a computer armed with a camera which never loses. I’d agree with anyone who said, ‘Well it’s you in charge of a vehicle’, but how many times do drivers tailgate, potentially taking your attention away for a second, for example. That could be the second where you lose. All cars should have the option of a gps speed device which chimes if you hit or exceed the limit. My Volvo had it and I found it very useful on roads I didn’t know. 👍
@@goodyeoman4534 I think I read somewhere that it has actually happened where exactly this has been argued in court and won. Not a common defence, though. 👍
@@BionicRusty modern cars have things like that more and more which is very useful I would think, especially when somewhere unfamiliar since councils (certainly Bradford) are very poor at putting up repeaters. Maybe one day I can afford a car with such systems......when those cars are old and there is something better available to more affluent drivers lol
I was stopped on the way to a pre booked MOT , “officer “ said “where’s your tax ?” I said I didn’t need it as mot booked , he said I did and don’t argue or he’ll nick me ! The head of traffic in Hereford also thought the same 😵💫 I wrote to the chief c¥ntstubble suggesting he get them retrained as toilet attendants
I always understood that this tolerance came from when speedometers were of an analog so subject to an inbuilt error of design and construction outlined in the old construction and use regulations but certainly not something to be relied on...
They estimate your speed based on the outer diameter of the tyre, so it'll be affected by things like temperature and load. I would use GPS but I've been using two GPS devices and they differ by a couple of MPH!
Regardless of the rules or the law, On the motorway people are usually moving at around 80mph (speedo indicated). In fact, I'd argue that 80mph is the more appropriate speed for motorway travel. I would feel much safer at this speed because I would be keeping with the flow of everyone else. At 70mph, there is often a lot of people overtaking or following close behind which feels less safe. I have tested this beside police with no blue lights, they too are usually moving around 80 and they don't care if you're doing that speed. Speed cameras are a different story, reducing speed in these areas is easy because everyone else does too.
With regards to the insurance companies. As insurance is obligatory, you, as a driver, must have one, the insurers, especially in this country, taking every opportunity to rise a premium to astronomical levels and finding every, even smallest excuse not to pay out any claim. They are like a mafia protected by law, always inventing the ways to not pay out but charge as much as they please. Excess, which is an invention to get rid of small (up to £500) claims that drivers should sort out between themselves, no claim bonus discount, which is nothing less than warning to not to make any claims or else. They charge more and give you less or nothing at all. Pay up or face a prosecution, don't expect anything in return. Other European countries aren't much better, but UK is the worst one. You can't even drive your friend car, because you are not added to the policy. It's not a case in many European countries.
Exactly! I find the way how insurance companies proceed as a scam. They have the full freedom to ask more and more money and to offer very little to nothing when they are asked. It's a nonsense but it's default practice to be bumped by a guilty third party and the next year premium to raise. I get it's the punishment to be in the way of an incompetent or irresponsible driver.
@@monikel A few years back I was involved in a minor 'non-fault' road traffic collision(I needed to present a case to the civil court as the other driver invented a spurious allegation about me being in the wrong lane on a roundabout ! My case was successful). When my insurance renewal arrived the premium had increased substantially. I challenged my insurance company (a well known one that advertises a lot on commercil tv). The explanation I was given for the rise was that statistically, drivers involved in an accident will be involved in another within five years. Hows that for getting blood (£s) out of a stone. ' Insurance company' translates into 'legalised highwayman (sorry, person).
Having been a police officer for 30+ years I believe I am able to share my opinion with some benefit of experience. And that is on both sides of the system!. In terms of 10% +2. Yes, this is only guidance, not legislation. However, most police officers who have stopped you to discuss your manner of driving will apply this rule. This will not be the case if you are being processed by a Speed Camera system. The administration team who manage the Speed Awareness or Safety Camera Partnership units apply a strict enforcement policy. I have knowledge of Awareness Courses being offered at 2mph over Speed limits. Best advice is to drive legally. In terms of tolerance. There has always been a requirement for corroboration of Speed offences. This is the evidence of two constables, or if acting alone by evidence from a calibrated speedometer or other device. It is accepted that a vehicles speedometer would not be calibrated and is likely to be inaccurate.
It's a two way street. Police parked on double yellow lines in a covert location using laser guns in a low accident area does absolutely nothing to convince me about fair policing. Shooting fish in a barrel purely for commercial gain.
A former Labour MP did that exact thing in 2017 because she thought it would "look bad if when she was caught speeding".....lets just say no longer an MP
The Labour MP you are thinking of is probably Fiona Onasanya (was MP for Peterborough), convicted of colluding with her brother to avoid speeding tickets and thus perverting the course of justice. But then again, it is likely that such things have happened more than once to more than one party. Lib Dem Chris Huhne & his wife Vicky Price were sent to prison for perverting the course of justice over a speeding ticket in 2013 (he left the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition Government in 2013, but the ticket was from 2003!). Bound to be more I have forgotten over the years. [There is no, afaik, "alleged" about the two cases I have named - the outcomes are what the Courts decided.] Politicians tend not to overly comment on such things, because we can all name scandals involving all the main parties over the last 30-40 years. Folks in Glass Houses, usually involve do not throw as many stones.
It was a Lib-Dem MP, Chris Huhne, who was in the coalition Government. He has his then wife (VIcky Pryce) take the points, as he would have been banned under the totting up process. Both he and his wife were found guilty of perverting the course of justice and sent to prison, each for eight months.
I remember that. Another famous case was Lib Dem politician Chris Huhne. His wife claimed she was driving to take his points and fine, and eventually both were convicted of perverting the course of justice and given custodial sentences.
You are correct. I was a young policeman in early 1980s when this policy came in. It began as a suggestion from the Magistrates Courts in N. Ireland. It became a police policy. We had no radar guns and relied on our own police car speedometer to follow a speeder. We needed to calibrate our own cars, fitted with 'Smiths' clock over a standard 1/4 mile to gain accuracy. The 10% rule was introduced because most Speedos were not accurate and the Courts wanted to ensure fairness at that time.
I was in court recently for a speeding ticket from a camera in a 20mph but i wasn't actually speeding i was doing 17 mph i was able to prove my actual speed with the road markings and math it was pretty stressful when i knew i hadn't done anything wrong
Yeah I got done at 39 due to the van I was in (for work) was new and accelerated a little faster than I was used to. It was the same on my course. People done for just a few mph over 30 or 40, within what they thought was the 10%+2 rule. I try and sit just under the limit these days as that course gave me some interesting insight into just how much difference 1mph can make in the event of a collision with a person or other vehicle, in spite of what most petrol heads seem to think.
In my local Police area the safety awareness course is exactly the same amount as the fine would be, so only a fool would not take the course if offered as they would save the points on their license
Can you imagine heading to Scotland, downhill from Shap, and the vehicle has increased speed to 80mph because of that. 4am in the morning, hardly any traffic around and I still got ticketed. A case of quotas being filled if ever there was!
We all know speeding is the least of our worries on the roads with inattentive drivers being at the top while police do very very little to deal with that.
@petebusch9069 The fact you don't know is worrying! You should always be in the left most lane unless overtaking. Too many just drive in lane 2 or 3 when 1 or 2 are clear respectively.
@@ChrisLee-yr7tz Going to the left as fast as safe to do so, allows for people to safety come through at max speed in lane 3 . At least keep 1 lane of our Autobahns to be used as intended .
Over the Mountain on the unrestricted one way stretch from the Gooseneck to the Creg. You can still get pulled by the Police. The IOM Police. They notice the difference with being quick and safe, and fast and reckless. I visit friends on the Island a few times a year and take my bike over. Always best to do the Mountain when the TT isn't on. A much more pleasant experience without the TT traffic on the best stretch of Road in the World..
Wrong, you'll end up in the Jurdy Hilton and your licence will be gone with 3 days. Only the mountain road is unrestricted when one way only, going through Kirkmicheal at over 30 mph you'll get nicked.
My dad was caught doing 60 in a 50 zone. Dual carriageway, no pedestrians. He had a clean licence for over 50 years, but still got points and a fine. No offer of a speed awareness course.
I got the offer of a "speed awareness course" But they still wanted me to pay a fine....so I have to waste an entire day AND still get fined?.... I said gimme the 3 points thanks very much. My time is more valuable than sitting in a room being patronised about how speeding decaptitates children everytime I go above 30mph.
Got caught coming off the moors at Whitby, from NSL to 30mph I passed the sign at 35mph as I was decelerating, tax van was hidden round the corner catching tourists. Sneaky. Nothing to do with safety
Whilst technically, you can't complain if you speed and get fined, I do question what is more dangerous: Doing 80mph on an empty motorway, in good weather, when you have a modern car. Or doing 60mph in the overtaking lane or middle-lane hogging or dangerously undertaking, weaving in and out of traffic or tailgating? I have seen all of the above so many times, and sometimes in front of police cars, which have done F-all about it.
There is an added factor, I use accurate GPS based speed measuring and every vehicle I have ever driven by design over reads the true speed (analogue or digital read outs) so at an indicated 70mph your almost certainly doing closer to 67-68mph, whilst the police measuring your speed are using calibrated, correctly reading devices. You generally have a little more leeway than you think, which is not a bad thing really.
Exactly. I have three vehicles that all have digital speedometers. There is a 30 limit near me with a digital speed check on the sign post. When I pass it at an indicated 30 mph on all three vehicles the speed device reads 28mph - and 38 at 40 mph.
"whilst the police measuring your speed are using calibrated, correctly reading devices. " I'm not convinced by that - I hope it's true, but I know that alcohol in blood/urine tests were not properly calibrated some years ago, so I would not be surprised if the same applied to speed measurement. If you drive at the same pace and get a passenger to watch the speed on the satnav, it will keep changing, not by much, but it will change.
GPS is not necessarily accurate, it uses an algorithm to smooth out the very zig zag track that the gps measurements yield then plot them to the mapped road and estimate the distance covered and hence speed. Modern digital speedometers are likely more accurate, but slightly over estimate to allow for variation and progressive tyre wear. My car is generally about 3% over the speed reported by radar signs, those also probably vary in accuracy.
GPS speed in my experience matches exactly the same as the speed signs you sometimes see. I drive with a 2 mph buffer on what the GPS speed gives. I've yet to see a speeding ticket. I drive to 110% of the speed limit. So highway I drive at 75, to give the 2 mph buffer of 77mph.
8:02 An SP30 driving offence is a code used to denote a specific driving offence in the UK, specifically “Exceeding statutory speed limit on a public road”. It is not specific to speeding in a 30mph limit.
I know someone that did 105mph on a motorway, and was summonsed to court and won, because he was driving someone who was stabbed in a service fuel station and had to rush to the nearest A&E. It was documented at the service station the stabbing happened, and an ambulance was not able to get there for nearly an hour.
I'm fairly sure you can break most laws if it's proportionate, i.e. it's to preserve life or prevent a serious crime from taking place. I'm not sure of the technicalities of it, perhaps BBB could make a video about this?
If you are reported for an offence, on the road or anywhere else, the police have to answer two questions with a "yes" before they pass the file to the CPS. Those questions are (1) is there enough endurance to be at least 50% sure if a conviction; and (2) is it in the public interest to prosecute It's on (2) that you'd get off driving someone to hospital in a genuine emergency. Then, assuming the police get the double-yes, then once the CPS get the file they consider the same two questions again.
Fair enough. But if he'd caused an accident and killed someone, what then? Also worth pointing out that an ambulance wouldn't drive that fast to the hospital, but ofc they'd be able to give treatment while on the way.
Full disclosure. I am a retired police officer and former forensic road crash investigator. I have dealt with too many fatal crashes that could possibly have been avoided, which had involved excessive, or inappropriate, speed. Consequently, I have a vested interest in road safety. Back then (pre 2012), there was an EU directive that applied to speedometer accuracy. It may or may not still apply in the UK, I don’t know. I’m long since retired. In those days, the requirement for speedometer manufacturers did not permit a speedometer to display a speed lower than that being driven, but allowed a tolerance of not more than 10% +2.5mph above the actual speed travelled. This should not be confused with the guideline 10% +2mph tolerance for speeding prosecutions . Then EU directive ensured that speedometers would be relatively accurate, but that any inaccuracy would err on the side of safety. In other words, and at the theoretical extremes of the EU directive’s tolerance, a vehicles’s speedometer displaying, e.g., 70mph could be travelling no faster than 70mph, but could however, at the lower extreme, have been travelling as slow as a little over 61mph. With that in mind, someone booked for speeding at e.g., 79mph on a 70mph limit motorway (guidelines of speed limit plus 10% +2), would have had a speedometer displaying anything between 79mph and 89.4mph, so no excuse for not knowing. There are countless reasons for exceeding the speed limit, but no excuses. It is possible that the prosecution guidance of 10% + 2 was put in place to prevent the courts being over-run with speeders, and had/has nothing to do with speedometer inaccuracy, since that is already accounted for.
We have a set of lights with 50 signs the other side. So a natural thing is to increase dpeed as you see them. But a camera is set right there, largest hotspot in area for tickets, not put there on purpose of course
not a good idea if youre involved in an accident and you end up killing someone, if evidence is found that you intentially broke the speed limit you'll be in some deep deep trouble.
I remember a modern (2010's) "Traffic Cop" show that had a delivery of new traffic officers cars. They followed the engineer that prepped the fleet, who described how they remove the offset from the speedo (taking the unit out, programming on the bench). I've also owned a few cars without the offset, where others have been wildly over reading. I can imagine the wake-up some people get when they are used to sitting at 78 on the speedo, not realising they were barely 69-70, then try it in a new car getting "their first ticket in 50 years". While the speed on a GPS is a guide, it's pretty much the value to assume is absolute max before a ticket.
This is not entirely accurate I believe, and not a dig as there may have been some similar, but more general tolerance a long time ago. The 10% +2 guidance didn't come in until after the Road Traffic Regs 1984 (with S89 Speeding offences). The NPCC (formerly ACPO) issued guidance on speeding and levels of tolerance to allow police officers and forces with finite resources to focus on the worst offenders. Following the introduction of the Human Rights Act 'Proportionality' was added to the guidance. Vehicle speedos have never been allowed to understate true speed for a very long time and unless accurately calibrated or linked to a tacho they will always overstate true speed, typically by 5-10%, but it varies between manufactures. Even today modern speedos read over up to 10%. The amended Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 permits the use of speedometers that meet either the requirements of EC Council Directive 75/443 (as amended by Directive 97/39) or UNECE Regulation 39.[11] The Motor Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2001[12] permits single vehicles to be approved. As with the UNECE regulation and the EC Directives, the speedometer must never show an indicated speed less than the actual speed. This protects manufacturers because if you drive at the limit on your speedo you will always be under it at true speed, so no need for the extra tolerance as manufactures made their speedos over-read way before the 70's to avoid such liability. For all actual speeds between 25 mph and 70 mph (or the vehicles’ maximum speed if it is lower than this), the indicated speed must not exceed 110% of the actual speed, plus 6.25 mph. For example, if the vehicle is actually travelling at 50 mph, the speedometer must not show more than 61.25 mph or less than 50 mph. The last time I checked this was the up to date legislation, can't guarantee it hasn't changed. If as a driver you prefer to use a GPS device to monitor and regulate your speed like many motorists now do then this would be perfectly acceptable in my view. The speed the GPS unit is travelling at is mathematically worked out on the fly and is very accurate. Some modern vehicles now use a combination of the factory fitted GPS unit and mechanical/electronic speed measurement devices on the vehicle to increase speed accuracy further, sometimes down to one or two MPH but it will still overstate due to the regulations, even if it's by just 1mph. If a vehicle’s speedo display is showing 30mph the true speed of the vehicle will actually be somewhere around 27 to 29mph. On a road where there is a 70mph limit in place and a speedo is showing 70mph the true speed of the vehicle is going to be between 64 to 68mph as a general rule but it varies from vehicle to vehicle, manufacturer to manufacturer. My own vehicle is actually travelling at 64mph true speed when my speedo is showing dead on 70mph. It is out by quite a bit but still perfectly fine within the regulations. This is why other drivers might come past you on motorways or overtake you on single carriageways because you might be driving at 64mph true speed with 70 indicated, but the other driver is travelling at 70mph because they are using a calibrated speedo (traffic police cars) or GPS speed. We can all go a little bit over the limit on our speedo reading and still be within the speed limit. It also means if nobody went beyond the posted speed limit using the vehicle’s speedo display then no driver would ever exceed the limit risking a speeding conviction and penalty points or disqualification. Never forget what penalty points ultimately add up to though; Bicycles…
The implementation of this guidance has recently changed amongst a number of forces with "prosecution" starting at the 10%+2mph (so a ticket for 79mph) whereas they used to enforce from 1mph above (so they wouldn't generally ticket anything less than 80mph). It of course remains the case that it is down to officer's discretion as to whether to issue a ticket, the last conversation I had was with two officers who had been following me in an unmarked Volvo, they had seen speeds up to 90mph but liked my driving and after a quick check of the car and a nice chat we all went out separate ways NFA...
That's why the accident figures don't go down. The safer you feel the less you pay attention to the game in hand. I've just been watching the Isle of Mann TT. speed doesn't kill, it's stopping quickly.
a stupid analogy but as you clearly missed the point it doesn’t surprise. Since the new 20 mph speed limit was introduced in Wales I’ve seen the worst two accidents ever in my locality. People are so busy watching their speedometer as it’s so easy to exceed this ridiculous restriction or they are having a look at the surroundings due to travelling so damned slowly. According to police statistics 12% of accidents in the U.K. are attributed to speed, so that leaves an awful lot that are caused by other issues.
What frustrates me is that we seem to have a very good system to catch people out who have a momentarily lapse of concentration, do 35 in a 30 and they are bang to rights. But those who drive recklessly, dangerously, use phones etc etc are still able to go relatively unchecked because that requires man power and/or new technology which costs money. I was running yesterday and running past a queue of traffic counted 8 people obviously on phones. We have to have speed limits or it would be the wild west out there but we need to have far more focus on more dangerous driving habits than we actually do
Could you please discuss the approach of registering a vehicle to a company with multiple directors/employees and having the company fail to nominate the driver (and so pay the fine, but no points since no licence). Apparently people do this but I would have though it would be more widespread if it worked and would have been stopped somehow by now.
It’s worth remembering that our speed limits were set when cars were less safe and usually had drum brakes, no airbags, no crumple zones, no ABS etc. Maybe it’s time to update the speed limits.
Better ability to go and stop coupled with lower consequences for a crash and lower visibility due to thicker A pillars mean cars are capable of generating more sudden changes for other roads users to account for. And most of these changes don't help pedestrians, parents, kids or cyclists, only car occupants. So it's more important than ever to design car dashboards with fully tactile& audible feedback so that the driver doesn't have to take their eyes off the road like for instance you would have to for a touch screen... Oh, we're doomed
The speed limits were also set when we knew less about the way the severity of pedestrian injuries depends on speeds. That's why we did indeed update speed limits, deliberately reducing many 30 zones to 20. I'm so glad you support this sensible change, which is designed to save lives and reduce life changing injuries
@@trueriver1950Sadly the failure to demand better pedestrian protection design of suvs has increased the risk of even 20mph collisions with vulnerable road users.
unfortunately humans haven't been upgraded, so despite cars being faster and safer doesn't make the people driving them any better at doing so, if anything it encourages people to drive faster and more recklessly.
I have more points than rangers on my driving license .. 12 … they tried to take it off me .. but I explained that I’d need to pay off 5 people in my small biz .. so they let me keep it. The judge actually said ‘could you not run your biz and take your stock on the bus?’ To which I replied ‘are you being serious? Have you tried taking a pallet of stock on a bus, infact have you ever been on a bus’ Didn’t go down well in the courtroom 😜
I believe there is a tolerance built into the speedometer of your car such that the speedometer will always read higher than the actual speed of the vehicle. This is to stop an alleged speeder citing that the speedometer showed they were not speeding and therefore it is the car manufacturer to blame. Manufacturer's will always calibrate lower for this reason to allow for a tolerance.
I agree with you. those speed indicators checks found in certain areas always tell me I am slower than the speed limit and I get a big Smile or Thank You from it!
I think that may have been true of mechanical speedos in the past, now they probably have to agree with how fast any GPS-equipped or cellular tech says you're going, which should be spot on, except during very harsh acceleration, and even then nearly everything has accelerometers in it now.
@@trs4u my car with a digital dash is always over the gps speed. I think it still holds true that manufacturers dont want to be sued so err on the side of caution.
@@darrin2382 That sounds like it's the wrong way round? Surely over-reporting speed would mean you're less likely to break a limit? I've got to confess to be talking from a "that must be how that works" point of view and not actually knowing. Deliberately skewing meter readings is a rum idea any way one looks at it? I think my previous car (old Focus) was way over on the speedo versus gps, and almost spot-on in my current car (recent Focus).
Additionally, double the speed limit will get you an automatic ban in court but national speed limits and motorways are less than double, 100 on a motorway will get you a ban for example.
The speed limits here were set in the 1960’s. Modern vehicles are vastly superior and infinitely safer than they were then. New speed limits are appropriate, I’d suggest: 20mph around schools and colleges. 35mph on Main roads in the city. Maybe even 40mph. 60mph in the single carriageway ‘country’ roads. 90mph on motorways.
My very best advice is to regularly check (self calibrate) your vehicles speedometer against 2 GPS based sat-navs and note the indicated speed at the actual speeds, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70mph. Then whenever possible set your vehicles cruise control to stay with the actual limit or a couple of mph above actual. You will expose yourself far less often to be caught speeding. Also use the satnav to give you a fairly accurate arrival time, therefore taking the guess work out of what speed you need to do to ensure you arrive on time. You will also save a significant amount of fuel on your journeys too.
@@andrewknight665 Good then thats what I'll do when one is behind Me, I don't think I'd get a mile before they pulled Me over to have a "friendly" chat
Your speedometer is underrated by about 10%. The satnav gives a lower figure than the reading on the speedometer and will be far more accurate. Try those automated warning signs that give the speed and you will see this in action. Manufacturers are prohibited from under-reporting a vehicle's speed so they go for the cautious side. That is not an excuse to speed more that if you are going over the speed limit and getting caught your speedometer will have been reading well over the maximum speed for the road if you hit that 10% tolerance you think you have.
It's true that the 10% + 2 discretion is police guidance and not law. However, a barrister who specialises in motoring law, practising for 20+ years, has NEVER seen a NIP for 10%+1 and under. Many people will tell you that they received courses or FPN's for "31 in a 30 mate, ridiculous", especially those on the actual courses, but I'm willing to bet it's extremely rare, to the point of being virtually zero. There may be times when a traffic police officer pulls someone for only just above the limit and does issue a ticket, but that may be due to the speed being inappropriate to the conditions, or generally bad driving/attitude, and the speeding ticket is an easy win for them, rather than without due care/dangerous etc.
If this became allowable, idiots would go that bit further maybe 90 mph. Must admit it’s frustrating late night/early morning when there is nothing else on the road.
I have no problem maintaing an indicated 75mph on motorways (72mph actual), in my opinion there's a serious lack of driving skills in the UK. I've held a clean driving licence for 61 years and have driven many hundreds of thousands of miles here and overseas. I tend to feel safest on roads in countries where there are far fewer restrictions. German Autobahns are a prime example, along wigh derestricted Autostradas in Italy. Driving standards are far better outside the UK, particularly in countries where the driving test is more rigorous than ours.
There is a difficulty in trying to enforce 20 mph limits in as much as there is no specification for any degree of accuracy at all for vehicle speedometers at that speed . The construction and use regulations only specify accuracy of vehicle speedometers from 25 mph upwards ; therefore , in the eyes of the law , drivers have no approved device for allowing them to know , with any degree of accuracy when they are travelling at , above or below 20 mph , until they reach a speed of 25 mph , at which point their instrument could lawfully be indicating as high as 27.5mph . No conviction for exceeding 20 mph is safe , until that speed has been exceeded by a significant margin , and certainly speeds below 25 mph should not be prosecuted since instrumentation is not required to accurately indicate any speeds below 25 mph .
These pervasive myths are why when driving licences expire, they should actually expire and require a theory refresher test that (a) addresses common myths like this (b) special emphasis on changes in the Highway Code in the last 10 years. Most drivers never crack open the highway code ever again after passing their driving test, and this could have been 40+ years ago.
An elderly neighbour of mine was prosecuted for 31 in a 30 zone. The newly installed speeding camera (or more accurately the operators of same) became notorious locally for prosecuting any discretion over 30 - so much for "device tolerance". Maybe it was possible to challenge this but then you would have to go to court and you risk a larger fine and 4 points instead of 3. Go figure🙂
I had a police officer told me when stopping me for speeding on a motorway that he would not have bothered with me if i was doing 80 mph, letting me know that was his cut of point, cross it and you get stopped We have seen 70 mph on motorways for 60 yrs or so and cars can stop an awful lot quicker nowadays, the limit should be 80 mph, it should be raised but they wont want to lose their money on the fines
The thing about speed limits is that people will always pinch a bit extra, so if you raise it to 80 mph, it will become normal to drive at 90. Car braking systems may be better now, but the limiting factor is the nut holding the steering wheel.
When I was a kid in Australia speed limits were "recommended" limits. So you would not necessarily get fined for doing say 10 Km/h over. There is absolutely no proof that any speed limit is not safe or otherwise. They eventually dropped the recommended bit, not for safety as they try and use as an excuse, but because they realised they could screw a lot of revenue out of motorists.
@@plugus_maximus There is truth in this. There's a road near where I live that's a notorious 'speed trap' of sorts. The speed limit signage is poor and the appearance of the road/area suggests a higher speed limit than the cameras themselves enforce. I know multiple people who are quite religious about staying under the speed limit who have been 'caught' on that road. When I got 'caught' on it myself and took a speed awareness course there were a fair number of people in the room who said they were 'caught' on that road too. The problem is that contesting the speeding offence is too risky for the average person to want to do (by design), and all the police have to do is point at the speed limit sign that _technically_ exists, even though it's evidently easy for drivers to miss. Police just convince themselves that that particular road is a magical area that makes non-speeders suddenly speed and that they are doing the lord's work by 'catching' them. I would be genuinely interested to know how many people who have taken speed awareness courses had to do so because they actually made a conscious decision to break the speed limit, as opposed to simply not knowing they were breaking the speed limit at the time.
The rule is pretty simple, it is written into the highway code, Rule 124 "You MUST NOT exceed the maximum speed limits for the road and for your vehicle (see the speed limits table). The presence of street lights generally means that there is a 30 mph (48 km/h) speed limit unless otherwise specified." Any further guidance is to allow for human error, such as over-acceleration, changes in gradient etc. Not as any form of "you legally can go over the speed limit".
@@eyesodd This does not change that you (if you are a license holder) have agreed to follow the highway code at all times you are driving a motor vehicle, and have therefore agreed to follow the speed limit at all times.
@@DAFPvnk Indeed, you'll notice the Highway Code shows the limits starting at 30mph direct quote "A speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h), or 20mph (32km/h) in Wales, generally applies to all roads with street lights (excluding motorways) unless signs show otherwise." As I've said the standard limit is 30, if councils want to make it 20 they need to apply for a traffic regulation order and it be clearly sign posted. My local council website goes further and says this :" A legal and self-enforceable 20mph zone requires traffic calming features such as: road humps speed cushions road closures one-way systems pedestrian refuge islands and road narrowing to be introduced at the appropriate distance." Which most twenties zones don't actually qualify for, so again are they enforceable if they aren't legal by their own rules?
And just to add to the confusion, the speedo on your can does not read the actual vehicle speed, as this is derived from the gearbox speed and doesn't take account of tyre wear and pressures etc. As no OEM wants to be dragged into court as one of their vehicles was speeding, all the speedo's will read higher than the actual speed. Where i worked the speedo was set to read 2km/hr -0%/+10% of the actual speed.
I’m not sure if this is still the case, but with regards to your speedometer it can be a maximum of 10% out and still MOT compliant. I think this is where people get confused about the 10% above the speed limit. The +2 is the actual leeway that you are given, because if your speedometer is 10% out and you drive at 77mph indicated you’ll actually be driving at nearly 85mph.
Speedometers are not an MOT item. However, they do fall under the vehicle instrumentation construction and use regs. These state that a speedometer must be accurate up to 30mph. Over 30 different manufacturers vary in accuracy. If you were to compare the cheap Veglia instrumentation found in a bottom end Fiat vs say, something in a Mercedes or something similar, their higher speed accuracy will be very different.
Calibration tolerance on speedometers is required by legislation to be within +0%/-10% of actual speed, and has been for decades. Guaranteeing 0% tolerance is impossible in a mass production environment, so speedos in all modern cars are calibrated around -5% +/-5% by design. This means your speedo always under-reads by a few mph. You can check this in your car by comparing your speedo to gps speed with a phone app, or by timing yourself driving at a steady speed over a known distance. The only way a modern car will be under-reporting its actual speed is if there is a fault somewhere, or you have modified your drive gearing or wheel size.
@@peterthomson127That's the nearest to the correct comment I've seen. It can display up to 110% +6.25 mph, but never display under the actual speed, Which is a huge tolerance, as you say manufacturers always display over to be safe. This is on new tyres also, worn tyres will make the indicated speed greater also.
I drive below the speed limit to make sure. My speedometer reads high so I am never sure what speed I am actually going so want to be on the safe side. Which pisses every body else off because they all want to speed. The other issue about being fussy about a couple of kph or mph over is what, do you want us constantly looking down at our speedometers rather than out the windshield for traffic? That is a lot more dangerous than a bit of speeding.
I don’t intentionally break speed limits, but I was once fined for speeding. For quite a while afterwards I was so paranoid I would spend half my time driving looking at the speedometer rather than the road. I became an objectively less safe driver. This is why there needs to be some tolerance, the law needs to make things more safe, not less safe.
I fully agree - I've driven over 750k miles in 30 years & in Wales now with all the 20 limits I'm more focussed on my speedo than what's in front of me.
Well, you'd be a safer driver if you were able to keep to the speed limit while also keeping your eyes on the road. Maybe additional training would help you?
@@terryboland3816 wouldn’t that be a perfect world, where everybody can be trained to never misjudge their actions. My point wasn’t whether or not my ticket was deserved, which is why I didn’t specify the details, it’s that a zero tolerance approach would have a cost that may not outweigh the benefits. Eg. how many lives would be saved if people were driving at 20 whilst constantly watching the speedometer compared to driving between 17-23 and watching the road?
@@Monkey-fv2km So you're arguing against any speed limits. I prefer a system where signs say what the speed limit is and drivers are trained to be able to judge their speed so they can drive safely while keeping their eyes on the road.
@@terryboland3816 well, I would prefer a world where no accidents happen, no one makes mistakes and no one has a bad intention. Also a world where people are able to correctly read TH-cam comments, but until that magical time I will try to make the best of an imperfect situation.
For those old enough to remember from around the 60/70's police vehicles had a secondary speedometer installed on their dashboards that were calibrated regularly to ensure there accuracy because vehicle installed speedometers were not that accurate, hence a leeway of 10% was generally allowed in fairness to drivers when accused of speeding (something that you do not see now days, fairness I mean)
I set my car cruise control to 80mph and that comes to about 76mph on my satnav. Been doing that for years and never got a ticket so I'm inclined to keep doing so. I rarely get overtaken at that speed but I have seen someone do that once and a camera flashed them, so I'm cutting it close.
I think it is worth mentioning that while this is likely relevant to an isolated speeding only offence, if you are involved in a road traffic collision and it is proven that you are breaking the speed limit, all other things be in equal you are highly likely to be apportioned more of the blame. Imagine a crash with a pedestrian as a simple example. If you’re doing 24mph, a speed camera may not photograph you however, if a collision investigator proves you were doing 24mph in a 20mph and you injure someone….you’ll likely end up in some difficulty in court. Also, SP30 isn’t just speeding in a 30 - it’s the standard conviction code for a normal speeding offence. Adios!
How can an inspector prove retrospectively accurate speed when even devices designed to capture speed of moving vehicles in real time have a 2mph error tolerance?
@@user-Wojciech forensic collision investigators have ways and means. Including interrogating vehicle computers which often store speeds of collisions certainly if airbags are deployed. EVEN IF the true speed was 20, but the car thought it was going 24 and that was what would have been displayed on the dashboard to the driver…it’s not a good look in the eyes of a magistrate (or worse).
@@user-Wojciech cctv footage. You look at where the car was at each video frame and go and measure the road with a long measuring tape, using the number of frames per second the camera records at will allow you to calculate the speed.
This is correct, as an ex-police officer who was trained on speed enforcement laser devices, we had guides and boundaries where we were given “officer discretion”. The old devices such as radar had tolerances, but the LT20.20 lasers were super accurate when calibrated and used properly. The other thing is generally when tracking people’s speed you are at an angle to the vehicle which gives you some speed back. The laser could also detect if the vehicle had a laser jammer/disruptor, although not one recommended for court the driver could be done for perverting the course of justice. Usually a road side surrender of the jamming device stops any further action.
@@seanfein3783 in fairness when they are not used properly the inaccuracy is to the drivers advantage, they don’t say you are doing 100mph when you are only doing 70mph. Usually you don’t get a reading or you get an error. You have to hit the drivers licence plate as it’s flat and the laser bounces back, if you hit the grill or bonnet the laser bounces upwards or does not bounce back, then you get an error. Plus as we are off to the side of the road or on a bridge, the angle takes mph off the reading, again to the drivers advantage. That is why people often say, they clocked me at 80, but I was doing 85.
@@Dazuk2023 good? If you are a van driver that is not aware of this and you get caught doing 79 mph, you are 19mph over the limit as opposed to 9mph, so you will incur bigger penalties!
@@freelegal Why 95? That has nothing to do with vans not being allowed to travel at the same speed as cars and other large suvs or buses full of people.
@kwood1493 true but most vans nowadays rival cars in power so why are we forced to drive at such low speeds on motorways when conditions are good. Idiots crash at any speed like I've seen first hand but we shouldn't all be dragged down to the lowest common denominator. Serious crash drivers at fault retest before allowed back on the road,don't grind the country to a halt!
I'm very paranoid about staying within the limit and in return for my dilligance, I end up being the slowest car on the road with someone driving on my rear bumper 90% of the time. Vehicles have the potential to be dangerous and so wether they agree with them or not, I wish more people would stay within the limits. That said I'd feel bad for anyone who trys to follow the law, but get punished for minor/accidental infringements due to a lack of tolerance, especially when others routinely seem to get away with it. On the similar subject I've got some other road gripes to air. Everythings being centralized/moved into larger towns/cities, Modern life forces people to own/have access to cars, yet it costs a fortune to insure them and roads/parking can barely handle them in places. You have to get your car checked yearly to make sure its roadworthy, but theres plenty of roads full of potholes that are hardly carworthy. Also how often do people see signage (especially speed signs) that are overgrown, faded or dirty?
Speeding does increase your insurance. My wife has 2 endorsements (1 due to go off this year) 1 for speeding and 1 for going through a red light (i was in the car for the latter) and i told her to contest it and not to admit as there is NO WAY the officer whose excuse was "i counted the time between you going through your light and our light going to amber" to which at this roundabout he can't see her light and his light wasn't amber yet. As a result i've had to take my wife off the insurance for my car (through Institute of Advanced Motorists) because her 2 endorsements would have added £300 per year to my insurance, when normally it would add about £50. My insurance went up by 70% last year.
their recorded speed of 32Mph is likely to have been displayed at about 38 on your speedo. Your speedo reports a higher speed than actual with a large margin of error, and their devices report actual with a small error margin.
The speed they report will be the minimum possible speed allowing for device error, so if they report you were doing 32, your actual speed was more likely 34-35.
All car speedometers are set to read slightly over the actual speed hence, a speedo indicated 30mph is more akin to perhaps 28mph .. as a guide. I have a device in my car that shows my GPS speed which tells me in my car in a 50mph speed area with SPECS average speed camera's that when the GPS speed shows 50mph, the car speedo is showing 53mph. In these situatuions i set my cruise control to 55mph on my GPS speed and have never had a ticket for speeding. I use the same approach for regular motorway speeds. I dont understand those people that race between cameras on the motorway at higher speed than allowable then brake heavily when approaching the camera, only to speed up again thereafter.
I always understood this was an enforcement guide to allow for allow for both speedometer calibration error and police apparatus device tolerance. Even with the greater accuracy of modern cars, drivers should never assume their speedometer is accurate or the police will apply the figures this guide......
In Ireland if go 1k above the speed limit and are caught by a mobile speed camera, you will be reported to the police. I’m a hgv driver and so in work I may only travel around a speed of 80kmh on an R road, what you refer to as an A road, or 90 on a road with a M category which is posted as 120kmh, some are posted as 100kmp so they fall into the previous category. A fellow driver was caught at 83 on an R road and received a fine. People don’t understand speed limits, so good video.
I’m frequently found travelling at speeds daily in excess of 120mph. And worst of all? I don’t have tax, insurance or an MOT 😳❤️ Killed at least 3 birds too.
If stopped for speeding. I, immediately, when approached, turned my engine and music off and got out of the car.I adopted a , friendly approach and I never made excuses and was apologetic, and that demeanour, definitely, helped me .. The turning point was 19 years ago around Trafalgar Circus(the old traffic system) when I was already on 9 points and just one ticket or 3 points away from a ruinous ban. I did an outrageous manoeuvre, spotted by a police helicopter and then 2 Officers stopped me. I spoke "1-to1" with the Male Officer who let me know EXACTLY what he thought.I explained my situation and promised to change. He told me to "XXXX Off" and 19 years later NO POINTS at all after driving 80,000 miles in and around London.
I did a speed awareness course a few years ago, yes I was guilty as charged, and we each had to say what we’d done and where. The guy next to me was really hacked off because he had been done, in a 30 limit, for doing 31mph. As BBB says, guidance not law!
Hand held devices are inaccurate as the arm can move. Our friend literally worked for the police and held a camera in our front garden - and not at a tree trunk and the tree was "moving" at three miles an hour. If these speed limits were genuinely road safety and not money making, speeds would be shown clearly. They have speed minors going into roundabouts. Speed limit changed from 40 to 30, and roadworks with cubes everywhere and traffic merging. Put speed limits exiting roundabouts. Also don't tell people to count lampposts to work out what the speed is - routinely done in "speed awareness courses." Sometimes it is 30 with no lampposts, country road with no houses/drives and the only sign grown into a hedge! It looks like the fifty road! PUT BANDS ACROSS ROAD TO NOTIFY SPEED ZONES. None of us want to speed so make it CLEAR WHAT THE SPEED IS! 😠
It's all just so abstracted from road safety which should be looking where you're going, instead you need to be looking off the road onto verges where faded and obscured speed signs are and looking back at the speedometer.
When I was working traffic enforcement (in Australia) I was in the office at the end of a shift when a group of motorcycle Police came in and they were all laughing about something that had happened. I found out later that they had been having a competition in which they waited at the bottom of a hill and dared each other to pull over and book a driver for the lowest speed. From memory the winner wrote out a ticket for 65 km/h in a 60 zone. The tolerance at the time was 20% of the limit, 10 for driver error and 10 for speedo error, and so although they were not breaching any legislation they were breaching departmental rules...................... Just for interest, the manufacturer of speed cameras here states in their operating manual that the technology must be given a 2% tolerance for error.
Why does your cars speedometer not come into this in court ? I thought all speedo’s where under clocked and not calibrated accurately and why motorway cops are the only ones allowed to pace you as their cars speedo’s are calibrated
Could you perhaps do a video on the legality/authority of the private company mobile speed camera vans which are cropping up. It may be a misconception that these vans need to be operated by the police or with the authority of the police through road safety partnerships.
Especially considering speedos read slow, so if you’re doing 77 or 79 on your gps, it’ll be more like 85 on the clock, so you’d be flying past other road users.
I was told many years ago that the old mechanical speedos were adjusted to show 10% below the actual speed. If you approach one of these speed information boards, it always shows 10% below the speed indicated on the dashboard. Many times I have accounted for this and driven at a speed which is shown to be, ie:30mph, 33mph but today I have smart cruise and set it to the roadside sign speed. My car knows what the speed limit is and displays it in the HUD so I have no excuse for speeding. Many people seem to be aware of the manufacturers built in 10% adjustment (even my car!) so there is really no excuse for speeding. A policeman once told me that they use the roadside mile markers to check the accuracy of their speedos which I have done and found it to be a very good calibration of your speedo.
Many years ago I was clocked at 32 in a 30 and given a ticket and points due to an inaccurate speedometer in the car. Quite a few years later I was clocked at 104 on the motorway and given some very strict words of “advice” and let go, but I did sob quite a bit, beg for forgiveness and call the nice man sir.
The biggest myth is that Police Officers know the law that they are trying to enforce.
That's as maybe...but, they know more than the majority of civvies. The golden rule...don't speed ...no problem 🚓🚓
@LG-kl3co you should know the law you are enforcing, both the letter and the spirit of said legislation
@@LG-kl3co yes, live by other people rules !
You would be surprised.You obviously dont watch the right things on TH-cam.Many are as thick as planks.I often wonder how they get into the force.@@LG-kl3co
They don't need to know. They just make accusations, then they have the might of the system against you.
My friend got a ticket for going 22 mph in a 20 mph zone, yet the road recently used to be a 30mph limit. It's comical.
A similar thing happened to me. It was my very first speeding ticket. It was 2am on a road with zero traffic. So annoying. The funny thing is that all my friends and family are always telling me off for driving too slow so thought it was hilarious! 🤦♀️
I know a few who got stung that way.
I objected to 20mph limits in part of my town, and learned that 20 mph tends to result in speeds of 25mph. At the time istr 20mph limits were not enforced, but I guess that's changed
The Greed of a Corrupt Money Laundering Corporation..... when everyone realises it's only there to make money for them lawyers and the Corrupt Corporations currently known as A GOVT!
I'd simply go state to a judiciary that its within the combined margin of error for the speedometer and the radar and you like it to be dismissed. No legislature with any credibility will allow it to stand, its simply revenue gathering through false means.
What a place we live in, where speeding is more policed than knife crime !!!
Those committing knife crime don’t have money for paying fines. Seems like the tax office, they only investigate what makes them the most money.
Those committing real crimes don't usually pay fines. The war on the motorist is to raise revenue. Pure and simple theft by state sanctioned road pirates.
Well there were over 1600 road fatalities last year and 244 knife deaths. So I’ll let you work that one out
It's almost as though it's easier to detect a speeding vehicle than someone hiding a knife
@@julianlawrence-ball2279 but are all those deaths down to speeding ?
Having been a traffic officer for 25years the 10% was always there because that’s the tolerance Speedo manufacturers have to comply with when they make their instruments.
Police patrol cars needed specially made speedos that had to be accurate to within 2%. These were checked and certified and the had to be checked every week against a measured half mile with a stopwatch that had to be checked itself and certified every six months.
Records of all these checks had to be made in case they were asked for in court.
Usually the speedos in cars measure under the speed limits as can be seen when you have a sat nav in the vehicle, they always show a slower speed then the actual speedometer in the car.
Good point - that's always been my understanding too.
@@SittaCarolinensis Mine too.
As a traffic officer, may I ask you a question, mate.:
What does it mean when the police sends someone a "conditional offer"?
And if the police say they've taken "unspecified action" against a driver you've reported, what's that mean?
And do "warning letters" mean anything or go on record?
Kind regards.
Back in the 90s I got zapped fair & square doing 72mph in a 30 as a young & dumb new driver only months into having passed the test thinking I was the business in my crappy Escort. They were hiding in a car park & speed guns at the ready. That wave of panic set in knowing i'd just been zapped. By this point I was a good 200m away from them & wondering if I should just keep going as I could have easily got away but no, I turned around at the roundabout & went back. I was praised for coming back on my own & only received 3 points & a £60 fine to my surprise. I took this good fortune seriously & never did it again & have never been stopped or had any fines since. I guess when you reach a certain age when your brain has finished fully developing it starts to dawn on you just how dangerous some of your actions were, not only to yourself but to everyone around you.
@@SittaCarolinensis All the cars I have had the speedometer reads faster than actual road speed speed. The amount will alter as the tyres wear. Think of all legal problems if it was the other way round.
The biggest problem here is the insurance scam. Your penalty points only stay on your licence for 3 years. Your insurance company will penalise you for 5 years even though legally you no longer have points on your licence.
Insurers will also increase your premiums if you have had an accident which wasn't your fault, even if the other driver was held 100% liable and the claim was paid in full, because they are greedy b4st4rds.
@@rickconstant6106
Wait until you have a hit and run then have to put it down as a fault claim every year when it was not your fault at all. There is no hit and run option when renewing, it is a fault claim against you! Winds me up every time.
While points automatically expire after 3 years, habits don't.
@@TonyRule oh so your one of these holier than thou I never speed self righteous I'm more virtuous than the rest types then !🤔🤔
@@granite676 *you're
Not at all. Just pointing out the reasoning. Luckily, I don't live somewhere with compulsory insurance.
Hi Daniel, I wondered if you could do a video about an incident that occurred to me last weekend. I took a damaged “Bag for life” back to M&S and asked for a replacement. I was told, “We don’t do that anymore.” What is your opinion about this? When M&S sold the bag they clearly and loudly stated that it would be replaced free of charge once it was worn out. The bag actually has the following statement written on it: “When it’s worn out, just pick another design and we’ll replace your bag for free.” Are M&S obliged by law to provide a free bag?
Pretty sure they are. They’ve created a contract by saying they will replace that bag so any bag they produce that says this they will have to replace. If they replace it with one that doesn’t have the wording then they can wriggle out of it but it’s there in writing
Contract law or Advertising Standards Authority. They cannot change a contract unilaterally, and they've mislead you with their advertising.
It really says a lot about how pervasive this myth is that you have to keep on putting out videos about it.
I got points and a fine for doing 32mph in a 30mph limit. I was going downhill and was literally 2mph over the limit!!! I said on a hill it's often difficult to realise you are a mile or two over, unless you are constantly looking at the speedo, and in that case you're not concentrating on the road. I was told that people should drive around 3 to 4mph under the speed limit at all times, to avoid getting caught speeding!
It's blatantly obvious that being prosecuted for going 2mph above the limit is just a way to get more revenue out of drivers.
No way did that happen
Personally if that's true bloody bad luck mate. Cruel not exactly speedster!! 💨
@@ThatAnnoyingStepdad My dad got done for doing 32 in a 30 last month. Very unlucky. So yes, this probably did happen.
Speedos read high to make sure that if you are going the speed limit you are actually under by a few mph. So to do 32 in a 30 your speedo would be showing 35+
@@tooshlong Unlikely. Can you provide evidence/proof?
I'm in S.Scotland. Got a speeding ticket just before covid. First and last in my life.
In a rural area, moving uphill from a crossroads in a 30mph area I was pulled over for speeding. I was surprised learn my 1 litre vehicle was even capable of speeding within 20 seconds of a standing uphill start. 42mph? Seriously? I was almost proud.
Also threatened with a charge of failing to stop when ordered. A charge that vanished when my carcam showed an officer stepping from behind a bush and wildly waving his arms rather than offering a proper stop signal.
OK... Went straight into the local copshop next day to pay the fine - to find a minor riot going on. The young civilian female clerk (no support for her anywhere arround) had her booth closed and locked - afraid to come out. What on earth was going on? The place was full of angry small business people complaining they'd been ambushed while simply trying to earn a living. I and a couple of other calmer guys managed to calm the situation, and the young lady opened her desk to accept the ticketed fines.
BUT...
After the first motorist paid his fine for speeding at 42mph, he was followed by another - clocked at 42mph. And another - clocked at 42mph. I asked everyone in the room to show me their tickets. Every single one of us - 20+ people - had been clocked at 42mph !!!!!!!
I paid up, but I haven't been civil to police since. They're nothing to do with law and order - just an income generating RACKET!!
Was this with a speedgun? It is easily done especially if the tuning fork or other calibration device gives a reading of 42 mph. Even facing the speedgun into an air vent of a vehicle can give a reading............ You get a gold star for knowing about proper hand signals. Even knowing which hand they used can be important as some rules say that the right hand must be raised.
@@johnvienta7622
No idea. But either way, in my book it was still a con.
Got worse recently. All of my small town now restricted to 20mph. Can anyone explain to me how the environment is protected by everyone driving around in 3rd gear? Or how pedestrians are safer, given delayed and impatient drivers?
This is a complete lie and I know it's a lie because fines are paid at sheriff courts! 😂
Furthermore the ticket would never have been valid because by law in Scotland an police officer must always be visible, they can't legally hide because that's entrapment and an offence.
@@jackwaycombe Ha - ha, You're searching for 'logic' which isn't an ingredient I'm afraid .
why did you pay when you clearly had 20+ people that had also been wronged. That is the exact clout you need to get what you want.
With all safety car features, good brakes, tyres etc motorway speed limit should be 80-90. 70 mph is too low
Without all these safety car features, good brakes, tyres etc motorway speed limits did not exist until 1965. 👍
Currently about half my longer journeys are held up at some point or other by some idiot who has failed to drive safely on the road, the mk1 human has not changed, hence the speed limit needs to stay where it is, or perhaps on many roads reduced, for instance non motorway standard duel carriageways.
@@roberthardy3090 What they need to do is ban those who do not know how to drive on a motorway from them and then up the speed limit so those that know how to use a motorway can get from A to B !!!
@@cpyart Who are these super drivers? Do we just allow self certification? Perhaps cars need to test the drivers state of awareness and drive you into a sand trap if they decide you are no longer aware enough to qualify. The reality is that very few are willing to question the quality of their driving and we lose far more time in holdups caused by failures of concentration than ever we could gain by an increase in the speed limit. Though are you contemplating increasing the HGV speed limit too? Otherwise there would be even greater speed differentials on our very crowded motorways and the consequence would be rising accident rates and even slower journey times.
@@roberthardy3090 If the speed limits were raised for all vehicles, then these journeys would take less time. This would also mean less people on the road overall. If you slow down all the traffic and make journey times longer, then you will create massive amounts of congestion. Speed has never caused any accidents, they are all caused by careless, reckless or dangerous drivers. You know the sort because they crash. Now if you removed these from motorways along with those who use phones, rely on electronic devices for directions because they don't even know where they are going and those who hog lanes, motorways would work as they were designed to do. Slowing vehicles down, leaving them on the roads for longer amongst the congestion that would be caused will just lead to the possibility of accidents. It's all quite simple. Trucks could do 80 at nights when the motorways are quieter and this would most likely lead to less trucks on the motorways during the day. Trucks and cars should be separated where possible because when they come together at 50 it's not nice.
Husband at the wheel (wife beside him) is doing about 77 mph in a 70 mph zone, when he is stopped by traffic enforcement. “You were doing 77 in a 70 zone” says the police officer. “No, I wasn’t - more like 71” replies the husband - “It was definitely 77 from the reading I have here” says the officer. “You’re device must be wrong, it was definitely only about 71” comes the further response from the husband when his wife suddenly leans over to the officer and says: “Oh, don’t mind him, he always gets a bit argumentative when he’s had a few drinks… “ 😜 !!!!!
😂😂
😂😂
Reminds me a story given to me by a police officer: guy gets stopped squarely over the speed limit and when stopped gives this as an excuse: I didn't realise how fast I was going because I was on the phone (no hands free kit present in the car)... To which the officer replied: "Let's just pretend I didn't hear that"!
@@regisdumoulin 😊
As funny as this sounds It reminds me of the time I had to tell my passenger ( my wife) to shut up, after she said something to the police officer, that had stopped me.
In the early 1990s, in another job, we used to be chauffered about in traffic cars, the big "Jam sandwich" things. I was told by the driver, a traffic officer, that they had tolerances that they worked to as the everday motorist didn't have a calibrated speedo. Whilst doing this job, the police driver asked me if it was okay to pop home to his house, he'd forgotten his sandwiches. It was coming up to lunch time. So, I said I didn't mind. We travelled along the A38, dual carriageway, topping out at 130 plus MPH. All to get his sarnies. It was quite frightening. It was at this point that I finally and definitely realised that it was one rule for us mortals, another rule for them.
Almost every time you see a Police car with lights on around 10pm it's not going to an incident, it's to get to the takeway before it closes...
Wow that story is so good... Even though there is zero truth in it
@@terencej72where do take aways shut at ten?
@@davewright9312 Believe what you want, not asking for approval for facts. This was working out of DOT Agaton Fort, Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall Police, driving along the A38 from St Budeaux to Plympton. True facts. Dangerous, illegal, abuse of position. With regards to your other trolling farther down, takeaways, yes, many do close at 10pm or before. Again, in Plymouth, this was quite common. Only in clubland were they open longer.
Anyone who’s used a satnav will know that most car speedos overread by around 10%
Not only satnavs, there are plenty of radar road signs on the side of the road that show your speed when approaching and all those that I pass are always a few mph below the speed my speedo shows. However, the question is which are the most accurate, speedos or road signs compared to actual speed cameras that are used by the police or on gantries above the motorway for example?
@@macroman54 The radar/laser devices used by the police are required to be regularly calibrated.
Static cameras operate in a way that doesn’t require regular calibration because all they measure is the time taken to travel between 2 fixed points.
It is a statutory requirement for all car speedometers to display a faster speed than that at which you are actually travelling, so yes it is built into the car,
I believe it's a legal requirement for speedos to overread. I think it's just in the US where they're required to read the correct speed, but in Europe they will overread.
Modern speedos are highly accurate. I regularly pass the signs that tell one the speed one is doing (in green if one's at or below the limit), and the speedos on my motorbike and my car are within 1 mph of the speed indicated by the signs.
I think you'll find , driving at 88 mph in a stainless steel car does nothing more than get you a speeding fine.
Marty Mcfly and Dr Brown are full of shite
well played sir. hahaha
You got ahead of me on that one. I didn't notice til I posted. Perhaps you were more succesful than I, and are in the future somewhere?
Someone didn’t fill his Fusion 2000 unit!
If, however, you are in a stainless steel truck, you will be in a Tesla. That would get you widely mocked.
@@timg1246 🤣
Last year the cost of a speed awarness course in the South West was £100. I got cought doing 32 in a 30 zone by average speed cameras. They must have caught a lot of cars at almost the same time as I was in a stream of traffic and was not aware I was speeding, we were all going at the same speed to keep our distance. Yes technically its speeding but still rather annoying.
Years ago I got 2 tickets in a week for accidently crossing a bus lane to turn off a road to where I used to live .
not knowing thay had just installed a new camera system .a few months later thay changed the exit off because the bus lane exit was to near the exit into the road I was going into
but thay still wanted the fine to be paid .I recently gave up driving its just another way the driver being hit with government taxes parking or fuel bills or general maintenance of the vehicles the joys gone out of it completely now
Really?! Was that on a major road/duel carriageway? I drive a vehicle restricted to 56mph, I'm always going through the average camera's at full speed on 50's, I didnt even think those "average" ones where really catching people, I don't know anyone in real life who's got caught with the average camera
"Rather annoying". Yes, being stolen from by scumbag road pirates is "rather annoying".
@@marksargent2440I've been through loads of average speed check areas while speeding (I drive for a living), and not once have I been popped.
@@drbennyboombatz9195 It was on a dual carrigeway where they have closed one carriageway off for the best part of a mile, its been like it for over ten years, no one knows why. The speeding letter that came by post stated that I was caught by the average speed cameras on that stretch. I cant remember the exact wording but it did say average speed cameras.
From a novel...
"Jeez! Do you always drive at 90mph?"
"Only when I'm not in a hurry."
I admit nothibg, but I miss empty roads...
I've just spent a few days in the bottom bit of the island of Ireland where you can do 120kms (75mph) on empty motorways - like England's motorways in the 1970s. I still did only 65mph out sheer habit...
I drive regularly in Germany, where motorists and people in general are treated as adults... no nanny state there.
@@alanmon2690 ?!? You did under the limit? Nobody drives under the limit. About 85-90 is normal on UK motorways
@@alanmon2690 A couple of decades back, Italy raised the speed limit on motorways, resulted in a noticeable reduction in accidents. We governed lorries after a lunatic tried to kill everyone in his path. Resulted in 10% more lorries involved in accidents. Then an influx in foreign drivers raised that number again.
There is a stretch of road near me that is about 2 miles of straight, flat, good visibility road with no cameras or obvious hazards. Drivers have been known to put their foot down there . . .
Home office guidance is a funny one. I know this as I own firearms. Most forces abide by it to the letter some will invent their own extra stringent policies and others will ignore it completely. It's really a lottery.
Why on earth does this persist?
I disagree with many of the limits but I know if I’m anywhere in excess of them I risk points.
My biggest annoyance is that many speed limit signs are hidden in hedgerows and trees with visitors to the area unable to see them, yet just around the corner is a police Christmas fund van with high tech equipment to catch them.
Now that’s despicable I my eyes.
I wonder if that would be an argument in court, the signs being hidden. I follow the speed limits, but I'm only human and occasionally get a bit unsure if a road is, say, 30 or 40 mph.
I think your comment about the police Christmas fund is daft because that's OBVIOUSLY not what it is but I totally agree with your comment about signs. Where I live a road has recently changed from 70 to 50 and the council has put average cameras up, the sign is barely visible and there are no repeaters. That's b/s!
@@jaysee2213 I’ll admit, I was being facetious with the Christmas fund comment, but, in fact, all we know is that this cash goes into the consolidated fund.
What is then passed out via the appropriation act is far less scrutinised so it’s not impossible that it does pay for some ridiculous things.
And your comment re the signs is spot on.
If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d say it was intentional.
Change the speed limit and hide the signs.
Also, if you think about it, it’s almost like a game where human play against a computer armed with a camera which never loses.
I’d agree with anyone who said, ‘Well it’s you in charge of a vehicle’, but how many times do drivers tailgate, potentially taking your attention away for a second, for example.
That could be the second where you lose.
All cars should have the option of a gps speed device which chimes if you hit or exceed the limit.
My Volvo had it and I found it very useful on roads I didn’t know. 👍
@@goodyeoman4534 I think I read somewhere that it has actually happened where exactly this has been argued in court and won.
Not a common defence, though. 👍
@@BionicRusty modern cars have things like that more and more which is very useful I would think, especially when somewhere unfamiliar since councils (certainly Bradford) are very poor at putting up repeaters. Maybe one day I can afford a car with such systems......when those cars are old and there is something better available to more affluent drivers lol
The biggest myth is that we have a fair legal system
NEVER expect fairness in a court of law. The winner is the one that makes the best word soup.
Our whole system is corrupt.
Justice and law are not related
Wow, so edgy.
only if you are top 1% and can afford top drawer Brief/Barrister.
I was stopped on the way to a pre booked MOT , “officer “ said “where’s your tax ?” I said I didn’t need it as mot booked , he said I did and don’t argue or he’ll nick me ! The head of traffic in Hereford also thought the same 😵💫
I wrote to the chief c¥ntstubble suggesting he get them retrained as toilet attendants
You sound revolting
I always understood that this tolerance came from when speedometers were of an analog so subject to an inbuilt error of design and construction outlined in the old construction and use regulations but certainly not something to be relied on...
They estimate your speed based on the outer diameter of the tyre, so it'll be affected by things like temperature and load. I would use GPS but I've been using two GPS devices and they differ by a couple of MPH!
Regardless of the rules or the law, On the motorway people are usually moving at around 80mph (speedo indicated). In fact, I'd argue that 80mph is the more appropriate speed for motorway travel. I would feel much safer at this speed because I would be keeping with the flow of everyone else. At 70mph, there is often a lot of people overtaking or following close behind which feels less safe. I have tested this beside police with no blue lights, they too are usually moving around 80 and they don't care if you're doing that speed. Speed cameras are a different story, reducing speed in these areas is easy because everyone else does too.
If everyone traveled at 70 then it would be a lot safer and you don't get the concertina effect. But people are stupid and selfish in this country.
With regards to the insurance companies. As insurance is obligatory, you, as a driver, must have one, the insurers, especially in this country, taking every opportunity to rise a premium to astronomical levels and finding every, even smallest excuse not to pay out any claim. They are like a mafia protected by law, always inventing the ways to not pay out but charge as much as they please. Excess, which is an invention to get rid of small (up to £500) claims that drivers should sort out between themselves, no claim bonus discount, which is nothing less than warning to not to make any claims or else. They charge more and give you less or nothing at all. Pay up or face a prosecution, don't expect anything in return. Other European countries aren't much better, but UK is the worst one. You can't even drive your friend car, because you are not added to the policy. It's not a case in many European countries.
Exactly! I find the way how insurance companies proceed as a scam. They have the full freedom to ask more and more money and to offer very little to nothing when they are asked. It's a nonsense but it's default practice to be bumped by a guilty third party and the next year premium to raise. I get it's the punishment to be in the way of an incompetent or irresponsible driver.
@@monikel A few years back I was involved in a minor 'non-fault' road traffic collision(I needed to present a case to the civil court as the other driver invented a spurious allegation about me being in the wrong lane on a roundabout ! My case was successful). When my insurance renewal arrived the premium had increased substantially. I challenged my insurance company (a well known one that advertises a lot on commercil tv). The explanation I was given for the rise was that statistically, drivers involved in an accident will be involved in another within five years. Hows that for getting blood (£s) out of a stone. ' Insurance company' translates into 'legalised highwayman (sorry, person).
Having been a police officer for 30+ years I believe I am able to share my opinion with some benefit of experience. And that is on both sides of the system!.
In terms of 10% +2. Yes, this is only guidance, not legislation. However, most police officers who have stopped you to discuss your manner of driving will apply this rule. This will not be the case if you are being processed by a Speed Camera system. The administration team who manage the Speed Awareness or Safety Camera Partnership units apply a strict enforcement policy. I have knowledge of Awareness Courses being offered at 2mph over Speed limits.
Best advice is to drive legally.
In terms of tolerance. There has always been a requirement for corroboration of Speed offences. This is the evidence of two constables, or if acting alone by evidence from a calibrated speedometer or other device. It is accepted that a vehicles speedometer would not be calibrated and is likely to be inaccurate.
Isn't it strange how all the speed cameras in Birmingham where switched off over 20 years ago because of faulty data.
And as my ex-police buddy said, the outcome might depend on whether a driver fails the attitude test.
It's a two way street. Police parked on double yellow lines in a covert location using laser guns in a low accident area does absolutely nothing to convince me about fair policing. Shooting fish in a barrel purely for commercial gain.
A former Labour MP did that exact thing in 2017 because she thought it would "look bad if when she was caught speeding".....lets just say no longer an MP
The Labour MP you are thinking of is probably Fiona Onasanya (was MP for Peterborough), convicted of colluding with her brother to avoid speeding tickets and thus perverting the course of justice.
But then again, it is likely that such things have happened more than once to more than one party.
Lib Dem Chris Huhne & his wife Vicky Price were sent to prison for perverting the course of justice over a speeding ticket in 2013 (he left the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition Government in 2013, but the ticket was from 2003!).
Bound to be more I have forgotten over the years.
[There is no, afaik, "alleged" about the two cases I have named - the outcomes are what the Courts decided.]
Politicians tend not to overly comment on such things, because we can all name scandals involving all the main parties over the last 30-40 years. Folks in Glass Houses, usually involve do not throw as many stones.
It was a Lib-Dem MP, Chris Huhne, who was in the coalition Government. He has his then wife (VIcky Pryce) take the points, as he would have been banned under the totting up process.
Both he and his wife were found guilty of perverting the course of justice and sent to prison, each for eight months.
I remember that. Another famous case was Lib Dem politician Chris Huhne. His wife claimed she was driving to take his points and fine, and eventually both were convicted of perverting the course of justice and given custodial sentences.
You are correct. I was a young policeman in early 1980s when this policy came in. It began as a suggestion from the Magistrates Courts in N. Ireland. It became a police policy. We had no radar guns and relied on our own police car speedometer to follow a speeder. We needed to calibrate our own cars, fitted with 'Smiths' clock over a standard 1/4 mile to gain accuracy.
The 10% rule was introduced because most Speedos were not accurate and the Courts wanted to ensure fairness at that time.
I was in court recently for a speeding ticket from a camera in a 20mph but i wasn't actually speeding i was doing 17 mph i was able to prove my actual speed with the road markings and math it was pretty stressful when i knew i hadn't done anything wrong
I did a speed awareness course once and the majority of people there had been doing 36 in a 30 limit including me on a road that used to be 40 for me
Yeah I got done at 39 due to the van I was in (for work) was new and accelerated a little faster than I was used to. It was the same on my course. People done for just a few mph over 30 or 40, within what they thought was the 10%+2 rule.
I try and sit just under the limit these days as that course gave me some interesting insight into just how much difference 1mph can make in the event of a collision with a person or other vehicle, in spite of what most petrol heads seem to think.
It’s a revenue mill.
It's all just a money-making scam. They're farming us.
There's a road near you that used to be 40, just for you? Nice.
I've done a speed awareness course for 34 mph, at 4am on a two lane in either direction single carriageway that was once 60mph limit.
In my local Police area the safety awareness course is exactly the same amount as the fine would be, so only a fool would not take the course if offered as they would save the points on their license
Can you imagine heading to Scotland, downhill from Shap, and the vehicle has increased speed to 80mph because of that. 4am in the morning, hardly any traffic around and I still got ticketed. A case of quotas being filled if ever there was!
We all know speeding is the least of our worries on the roads with inattentive drivers being at the top while police do very very little to deal with that.
well said
Standards are appalling. It seems most drivers don't even understand or are incapable of keeping left.
@@ChrisLee-yr7tz What does incapable of keeping left mean? Going slow in the left lane???
@petebusch9069 The fact you don't know is worrying!
You should always be in the left most lane unless overtaking.
Too many just drive in lane 2 or 3 when 1 or 2 are clear respectively.
@@ChrisLee-yr7tz Going to the left as fast as safe to do so, allows for people to safety come through at max speed in lane 3 .
At least keep 1 lane of our Autobahns to be used as intended .
I just came back from the Isle of Man where I was allowed to go 140mph+ on national speed limit roads.
you legally could have done 200+mph in IOM and the police would have been fine with that.
@@cloudbasenirvana isn't it awesome. I could only manage about 140 on my naked bike. If only the mainland was the same!
and the fixed cameras cannot register those speeds ;)
Over the Mountain on the unrestricted one way stretch from the Gooseneck to the Creg. You can still get pulled by the Police. The IOM Police. They notice the difference with being quick and safe, and fast and reckless.
I visit friends on the Island a few times a year and take my bike over. Always best to do the Mountain when the TT isn't on. A much more pleasant experience without the TT traffic on the best stretch of Road in the World..
Wrong, you'll end up in the Jurdy Hilton and your licence will be gone with 3 days. Only the mountain road is unrestricted when one way only, going through Kirkmicheal at over 30 mph you'll get nicked.
My dad was caught doing 60 in a 50 zone. Dual carriageway, no pedestrians. He had a clean licence for over 50 years, but still got points and a fine. No offer of a speed awareness course.
Some regions do not partake in the speed awareness course.
@@bobstirling6885 Or just the fact of 20% over the limit, means they ticket no matter.
I got the offer of a "speed awareness course" But they still wanted me to pay a fine....so I have to waste an entire day AND still get fined?.... I said gimme the 3 points thanks very much.
My time is more valuable than sitting in a room being patronised about how speeding decaptitates children everytime I go above 30mph.
Well You certainly don't get the point @@John.AR.Activism
@@John.AR.Activismyou might have learned something. Just a thought
Got caught coming off the moors at Whitby, from NSL to 30mph I passed the sign at 35mph as I was decelerating, tax van was hidden round the corner catching tourists. Sneaky.
Nothing to do with safety
Whilst technically, you can't complain if you speed and get fined, I do question what is more dangerous:
Doing 80mph on an empty motorway, in good weather, when you have a modern car. Or doing 60mph in the overtaking lane or middle-lane hogging or dangerously undertaking, weaving in and out of traffic or tailgating? I have seen all of the above so many times, and sometimes in front of police cars, which have done F-all about it.
Plenty of motorways where doing 90mph is safe and appropriate, especially late at night when the road is practically empty.
There is an added factor, I use accurate GPS based speed measuring and every vehicle I have ever driven by design over reads the true speed (analogue or digital read outs) so at an indicated 70mph your almost certainly doing closer to 67-68mph, whilst the police measuring your speed are using calibrated, correctly reading devices. You generally have a little more leeway than you think, which is not a bad thing really.
Exactly. I have three vehicles that all have digital speedometers. There is a 30 limit near me with a digital speed check on the sign post. When I pass it at an indicated 30 mph on all three vehicles the speed device reads 28mph - and 38 at 40 mph.
"whilst the police measuring your speed are using calibrated, correctly reading devices. " I'm not convinced by that - I hope it's true, but I know that alcohol in blood/urine tests were not properly calibrated some years ago, so I would not be surprised if the same applied to speed measurement. If you drive at the same pace and get a passenger to watch the speed on the satnav, it will keep changing, not by much, but it will change.
GPS is not necessarily accurate, it uses an algorithm to smooth out the very zig zag track that the gps measurements yield then plot them to the mapped road and estimate the distance covered and hence speed. Modern digital speedometers are likely more accurate, but slightly over estimate to allow for variation and progressive tyre wear. My car is generally about 3% over the speed reported by radar signs, those also probably vary in accuracy.
Good point. My digital speedometer shows 74mph when I'm actually doing 70mph - according to GPS which I understand is more accurate.
GPS speed in my experience matches exactly the same as the speed signs you sometimes see.
I drive with a 2 mph buffer on what the GPS speed gives. I've yet to see a speeding ticket. I drive to 110% of the speed limit. So highway I drive at 75, to give the 2 mph buffer of 77mph.
Every driver is a criminal offender...according to the Law.
Everyone in the UK is a criminal because the state wants to extort money.
@@xTerminatorAndy
Exactly. Men thinking they are gods...
No-one is punished for Original Sin but the plods love to punish.
Why?
No, that's simply not true.
Just like every household watches or records live tv and uses bbc iplayer, according to tv licensing.
8:02 An SP30 driving offence is a code used to denote a specific driving offence in the UK, specifically “Exceeding statutory speed limit on a public road”. It is not specific to speeding in a 30mph limit.
Exactly, sadly I know this all too well. 😔
I know someone that did 105mph on a motorway, and was summonsed to court and won, because he was driving someone who was stabbed in a service fuel station and had to rush to the nearest A&E. It was documented at the service station the stabbing happened, and an ambulance was not able to get there for nearly an hour.
Voided Insurance. How mad this world is run by satan
@viking_nephilim8883 That must have been a long time ago. Today it would be more like 4 hours 😀
I'm fairly sure you can break most laws if it's proportionate, i.e. it's to preserve life or prevent a serious crime from taking place. I'm not sure of the technicalities of it, perhaps BBB could make a video about this?
If you are reported for an offence, on the road or anywhere else, the police have to answer two questions with a "yes" before they pass the file to the CPS.
Those questions are (1) is there enough endurance to be at least 50% sure if a conviction; and (2) is it in the public interest to prosecute
It's on (2) that you'd get off driving someone to hospital in a genuine emergency.
Then, assuming the police get the double-yes, then once the CPS get the file they consider the same two questions again.
Fair enough. But if he'd caused an accident and killed someone, what then? Also worth pointing out that an ambulance wouldn't drive that fast to the hospital, but ofc they'd be able to give treatment while on the way.
Full disclosure. I am a retired police officer and former forensic road crash investigator. I have dealt with too many fatal crashes that could possibly have been avoided, which had involved excessive, or inappropriate, speed. Consequently, I have a vested interest in road safety.
Back then (pre 2012), there was an EU directive that applied to speedometer accuracy. It may or may not still apply in the UK, I don’t know. I’m long since retired.
In those days, the requirement for speedometer manufacturers did not permit a speedometer to display a speed lower than that being driven, but allowed a tolerance of not more than 10% +2.5mph above the actual speed travelled. This should not be confused with the guideline 10% +2mph tolerance for speeding prosecutions . Then EU directive ensured that speedometers would be relatively accurate, but that any inaccuracy would err on the side of safety. In other words, and at the theoretical extremes of the EU directive’s tolerance, a vehicles’s speedometer displaying, e.g., 70mph could be travelling no faster than 70mph, but could however, at the lower extreme, have been travelling as slow as a little over 61mph. With that in mind, someone booked for speeding at e.g., 79mph on a 70mph limit motorway (guidelines of speed limit plus 10% +2), would have had a speedometer displaying anything between 79mph and 89.4mph, so no excuse for not knowing.
There are countless reasons for exceeding the speed limit, but no excuses.
It is possible that the prosecution guidance of 10% + 2 was put in place to prevent the courts being over-run with speeders, and had/has nothing to do with speedometer inaccuracy, since that is already accounted for.
We have a set of lights with 50 signs the other side. So a natural thing is to increase dpeed as you see them. But a camera is set right there, largest hotspot in area for tickets, not put there on purpose of course
I've done 10s of thousands of miles with the cruise set at 77mph on my satnav (80 on the speedo) and have never had a ticket... touch wood.
not a good idea if youre involved in an accident and you end up killing someone, if evidence is found that you intentially broke the speed limit you'll be in some deep deep trouble.
@@freelegal 70mph + 10% + 2 = 79mph
@@TheGroovesRus indeed - brain fart.
the 10% 'rule' comes from the 60/70s when vehicle speedos read 10% over, to protect manufacturers from court cases.
They still do.
I remember a modern (2010's) "Traffic Cop" show that had a delivery of new traffic officers cars. They followed the engineer that prepped the fleet, who described how they remove the offset from the speedo (taking the unit out, programming on the bench).
I've also owned a few cars without the offset, where others have been wildly over reading.
I can imagine the wake-up some people get when they are used to sitting at 78 on the speedo, not realising they were barely 69-70, then try it in a new car getting "their first ticket in 50 years".
While the speed on a GPS is a guide, it's pretty much the value to assume is absolute max before a ticket.
This is not entirely accurate I believe, and not a dig as there may have been some similar, but more general tolerance a long time ago. The 10% +2 guidance didn't come in until after the Road Traffic Regs 1984 (with S89 Speeding offences). The NPCC (formerly ACPO) issued guidance on speeding and levels of tolerance to allow police officers and forces with finite resources to focus on the worst offenders. Following the introduction of the Human Rights Act 'Proportionality' was added to the guidance. Vehicle speedos have never been allowed to understate true speed for a very long time and unless accurately calibrated or linked to a tacho they will always overstate true speed, typically by 5-10%, but it varies between manufactures. Even today modern speedos read over up to 10%.
The amended Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 permits the use of speedometers that meet either the requirements of EC Council Directive 75/443 (as amended by Directive 97/39) or UNECE Regulation 39.[11]
The Motor Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2001[12] permits single vehicles to be approved. As with the UNECE regulation and the EC Directives, the speedometer must never show an indicated speed less than the actual speed. This protects manufacturers because if you drive at the limit on your speedo you will always be under it at true speed, so no need for the extra tolerance as manufactures made their speedos over-read way before the 70's to avoid such liability.
For all actual speeds between 25 mph and 70 mph (or the vehicles’ maximum speed if it is lower than this), the indicated speed must not exceed 110% of the actual speed, plus 6.25 mph.
For example, if the vehicle is actually travelling at 50 mph, the speedometer must not show more than 61.25 mph or less than 50 mph. The last time I checked this was the up to date legislation, can't guarantee it hasn't changed.
If as a driver you prefer to use a GPS device to monitor and regulate your speed like many motorists now do then this would be perfectly acceptable in my view. The speed the GPS unit is travelling at is mathematically worked out on the fly and is very accurate. Some modern vehicles now use a combination of the factory fitted GPS unit and mechanical/electronic speed measurement devices on the vehicle to increase speed accuracy further, sometimes down to one or two MPH but it will still overstate due to the regulations, even if it's by just 1mph.
If a vehicle’s speedo display is showing 30mph the true speed of the vehicle will actually be somewhere around 27 to 29mph. On a road where there is a 70mph limit in place and a speedo is showing 70mph the true speed of the vehicle is going to be between 64 to 68mph as a general rule but it varies from vehicle to vehicle, manufacturer to manufacturer. My own vehicle is actually travelling at 64mph true speed when my speedo is showing dead on 70mph. It is out by quite a bit but still perfectly fine within the regulations. This is why other drivers might come past you on motorways or overtake you on single carriageways because you might be driving at 64mph true speed with 70 indicated, but the other driver is travelling at 70mph because they are using a calibrated speedo (traffic police cars) or GPS speed.
We can all go a little bit over the limit on our speedo reading and still be within the speed limit. It also means if nobody went beyond the posted speed limit using the vehicle’s speedo display then no driver would ever exceed the limit risking a speeding conviction and penalty points or disqualification. Never forget what penalty points ultimately add up to though; Bicycles…
The implementation of this guidance has recently changed amongst a number of forces with "prosecution" starting at the 10%+2mph (so a ticket for 79mph) whereas they used to enforce from 1mph above (so they wouldn't generally ticket anything less than 80mph). It of course remains the case that it is down to officer's discretion as to whether to issue a ticket, the last conversation I had was with two officers who had been following me in an unmarked Volvo, they had seen speeds up to 90mph but liked my driving and after a quick check of the car and a nice chat we all went out separate ways NFA...
I follow the police guidance, that’s incorrect.
SP30 does NOT mean speeding in a 30! Big Oops there.
Someone doing the speed limit whilst not paying attention is many times more dangerous than someone who is speeding and paying attention.
Interestiing.
Someone with a gun is more dangerous than someone with a knife.
A large dog is more dangerous than a small cat.
@@JHJHJHJHJH A big cat is more dangerous than a small dog 😂
That's why the accident figures don't go down. The safer you feel the less you pay attention to the game in hand. I've just been watching the Isle of Mann TT. speed doesn't kill, it's stopping quickly.
a stupid analogy but as you clearly missed the point it doesn’t surprise.
Since the new 20 mph speed limit was introduced in Wales I’ve seen the worst two accidents ever in my locality. People are so busy watching their speedometer as it’s so easy to exceed this ridiculous restriction or they are having a look at the surroundings due to travelling so damned slowly. According to police statistics 12% of accidents in the U.K. are attributed to speed, so that leaves an awful lot that are caused by other issues.
@@JHJHJHJHJH you need to go back to accurate analogy school 😂😂😂
The Welsh police are far less tolerant when it comes to variance
Nope, they all state they follow the NPCC guidance which is the numbers here.
@@simonrook5743 Then there may well be a difference between what they say and what they do. The Welsh police are quite well know for being strict.
@@tomhollins5303 I have never seen any evidence of them taking action below the guidance limits, and I have seen a LOT of NIPs.
@@simonrook5743 Saying and doing are two different things 😊
I no longer go to Wales to spend my money. 😂
What frustrates me is that we seem to have a very good system to catch people out who have a momentarily lapse of concentration, do 35 in a 30 and they are bang to rights. But those who drive recklessly, dangerously, use phones etc etc are still able to go relatively unchecked because that requires man power and/or new technology which costs money. I was running yesterday and running past a queue of traffic counted 8 people obviously on phones. We have to have speed limits or it would be the wild west out there but we need to have far more focus on more dangerous driving habits than we actually do
I always get nervous passing police cars at 77, when they're doing 75
Especially in a 30 zone!
@@stephenmatura1086😂😂
Don’t do it then.
The law doesn’t apply to them, but they’ll soon apply it to you.
😂😂😂
@@ghostinthemachine76 What makes you think that the law does not apply to constables ?
Could you please discuss the approach of registering a vehicle to a company with multiple directors/employees and having the company fail to nominate the driver (and so pay the fine, but no points since no licence). Apparently people do this but I would have though it would be more widespread if it worked and would have been stopped somehow by now.
It’s worth remembering that our speed limits were set when cars were less safe and usually had drum brakes, no airbags, no crumple zones, no ABS etc. Maybe it’s time to update the speed limits.
Yeah, they have upgraded to 20...
Better ability to go and stop coupled with lower consequences for a crash and lower visibility due to thicker A pillars mean cars are capable of generating more sudden changes for other roads users to account for. And most of these changes don't help pedestrians, parents, kids or cyclists, only car occupants.
So it's more important than ever to design car dashboards with fully tactile& audible feedback so that the driver doesn't have to take their eyes off the road like for instance you would have to for a touch screen... Oh, we're doomed
The speed limits were also set when we knew less about the way the severity of pedestrian injuries depends on speeds.
That's why we did indeed update speed limits, deliberately reducing many 30 zones to 20.
I'm so glad you support this sensible change, which is designed to save lives and reduce life changing injuries
@@trueriver1950Sadly the failure to demand better pedestrian protection design of suvs has increased the risk of even 20mph collisions with vulnerable road users.
unfortunately humans haven't been upgraded, so despite cars being faster and safer doesn't make the people driving them any better at doing so, if anything it encourages people to drive faster and more recklessly.
I have more points than rangers on my driving license .. 12 … they tried to take it off me .. but I explained that I’d need to pay off 5 people in my small biz .. so they let me keep it. The judge actually said ‘could you not run your biz and take your stock on the bus?’ To which I replied ‘are you being serious? Have you tried taking a pallet of stock on a bus, infact have you ever been on a bus’
Didn’t go down well in the courtroom 😜
I believe there is a tolerance built into the speedometer of your car such that the speedometer will always read higher than the actual speed of the vehicle. This is to stop an alleged speeder citing that the speedometer showed they were not speeding and therefore it is the car manufacturer to blame. Manufacturer's will always calibrate lower for this reason to allow for a tolerance.
I agree with you. those speed indicators checks found in certain areas always tell me I am slower than the speed limit and I get a big Smile or Thank You from it!
I think that may have been true of mechanical speedos in the past, now they probably have to agree with how fast any GPS-equipped or cellular tech says you're going, which should be spot on, except during very harsh acceleration, and even then nearly everything has accelerometers in it now.
@@trs4u my car with a digital dash is always over the gps speed. I think it still holds true that manufacturers dont want to be sued so err on the side of caution.
@@darrin2382 That sounds like it's the wrong way round? Surely over-reporting speed would mean you're less likely to break a limit? I've got to confess to be talking from a "that must be how that works" point of view and not actually knowing. Deliberately skewing meter readings is a rum idea any way one looks at it? I think my previous car (old Focus) was way over on the speedo versus gps, and almost spot-on in my current car (recent Focus).
@@trs4u yes thats the one :p
Additionally, double the speed limit will get you an automatic ban in court but national speed limits and motorways are less than double, 100 on a motorway will get you a ban for example.
The speed limits here were set in the 1960’s. Modern vehicles are vastly superior and infinitely safer than they were then. New speed limits are appropriate, I’d suggest:
20mph around schools and colleges.
35mph on Main roads in the city. Maybe even 40mph.
60mph in the single carriageway ‘country’ roads.
90mph on motorways.
Vehicles may have improved, but humans haven't yet evolved to be safely hit at higher speeds.
@@glenn1534Then drive safely. Just a bit faster. 90mph on a motorway is a breeze. If you can’t handle it you don’t have to drive at that speed.
@@dougieranger Again, human reactions haven't evolved. It'd lead to more deaths. The benefits aren't worth the risks.
@@glenn1534We’ll likely never know anyway. 🤷🏻♂️
@@dougieranger Take a look at your average driver then ask yourself “Do I want them travelling at 90mph anywhere near me, my friends and family?”? 😉
My very best advice is to regularly check (self calibrate) your vehicles speedometer against 2 GPS based sat-navs and note the indicated speed at the actual speeds, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70mph.
Then whenever possible set your vehicles cruise control to stay with the actual limit or a couple of mph above actual.
You will expose yourself far less often to be caught speeding.
Also use the satnav to give you a fairly accurate arrival time, therefore taking the guess work out of what speed you need to do to ensure you arrive on time.
You will also save a significant amount of fuel on your journeys too.
What would the Police do if I drove at 25 in a 30 zone?
Nothing.
There, that was fairly simple to answer. 🙄
@@andrewknight665 Good then thats what I'll do when one is behind Me, I don't think I'd get a mile before they pulled Me over to have a "friendly" chat
Your speedometer is underrated by about 10%. The satnav gives a lower figure than the reading on the speedometer and will be far more accurate. Try those automated warning signs that give the speed and you will see this in action. Manufacturers are prohibited from under-reporting a vehicle's speed so they go for the cautious side. That is not an excuse to speed more that if you are going over the speed limit and getting caught your speedometer will have been reading well over the maximum speed for the road if you hit that 10% tolerance you think you have.
A lot of people are delusional, I got a ticket for going 22 in a 20mph, I had to sit a speed awareness course which happened during the pandemic
WTH! The vultures probably had nothing better to do!!!
35 in a 30 for me
@@goodyeoman4534 35 on a 30 maybe 🤔 justified as if one rounds off 35 it’s near 40, however, 22 on 20 is somewhat far fetched!
@@shabanatasleem3532 I felt hard done by
It's true that the 10% + 2 discretion is police guidance and not law. However, a barrister who specialises in motoring law, practising for 20+ years, has NEVER seen a NIP for 10%+1 and under. Many people will tell you that they received courses or FPN's for "31 in a 30 mate, ridiculous", especially those on the actual courses, but I'm willing to bet it's extremely rare, to the point of being virtually zero. There may be times when a traffic police officer pulls someone for only just above the limit and does issue a ticket, but that may be due to the speed being inappropriate to the conditions, or generally bad driving/attitude, and the speeding ticket is an easy win for them, rather than without due care/dangerous etc.
In fairness even though it's over the speed limit every one knows 80mph is a good sensible speed on a motorway
Depending on traffic density and conditions
If this became allowable, idiots would go that bit further maybe 90 mph. Must admit it’s frustrating late night/early morning when there is nothing else on the road.
I have no problem maintaing an indicated 75mph on motorways (72mph actual), in my opinion there's a serious lack of driving skills in the UK. I've held a clean driving licence for 61 years and have driven many hundreds of thousands of miles here and overseas. I tend to feel safest on roads in countries where there are far fewer restrictions. German Autobahns are a prime example, along wigh derestricted Autostradas in Italy. Driving standards are far better outside the UK, particularly in countries where the driving test is more rigorous than ours.
There is a difficulty in trying to enforce 20 mph limits in as much as there is no specification for any degree of accuracy at all for vehicle speedometers at that speed .
The construction and use regulations only specify accuracy of vehicle speedometers from 25 mph upwards ; therefore , in the eyes of the law , drivers have no approved device for allowing them to know , with any degree of accuracy when they are travelling at , above or below 20 mph , until they reach a speed of 25 mph , at which point their instrument could lawfully be indicating as high as 27.5mph .
No conviction for exceeding 20 mph is safe , until that speed has been exceeded by a significant margin , and certainly speeds below 25 mph should not be prosecuted since instrumentation is not required to accurately indicate any speeds below 25 mph .
I was clocked at 42mph by police in a 30mph village. Got away with a "speeding awareness course" which I did whilst drunk 😂
These pervasive myths are why when driving licences expire, they should actually expire and require a theory refresher test that (a) addresses common myths like this (b) special emphasis on changes in the Highway Code in the last 10 years. Most drivers never crack open the highway code ever again after passing their driving test, and this could have been 40+ years ago.
An elderly neighbour of mine was prosecuted for 31 in a 30 zone.
The newly installed speeding camera (or more accurately the operators of same) became notorious locally for prosecuting any discretion over 30 - so much for "device tolerance". Maybe it was possible to challenge this but then you would have to go to court and you risk a larger fine and 4 points instead of 3. Go figure🙂
I had a police officer told me when stopping me for speeding on a motorway that he would not have bothered with me if i was doing 80 mph, letting me know that was his cut of point, cross it and you get stopped
We have seen 70 mph on motorways for 60 yrs or so and cars can stop an awful lot quicker nowadays, the limit should be 80 mph, it should be raised but they wont want to lose their money on the fines
So how fast were you doing lol….
The thing about speed limits is that people will always pinch a bit extra, so if you raise it to 80 mph, it will become normal to drive at 90. Car braking systems may be better now, but the limiting factor is the nut holding the steering wheel.
It’s 83mph on the continent, 85mph in the US and 75mph in Japan. We’re behind the times.
It's more likely that it will be a camera than a copper.They are telling us that they intend to withdraw the 10% + 2 threshold.
How does 80 mean 90 if it's raised to 80 with no tolerance above that ?.
When I was a kid in Australia speed limits were "recommended" limits. So you would not necessarily get fined for doing say 10 Km/h over. There is absolutely no proof that any speed limit is not safe or otherwise. They eventually dropped the recommended bit, not for safety as they try and use as an excuse, but because they realised they could screw a lot of revenue out of motorists.
I have a special hack to avoid speeding fines. I look at the speed limit, and keep my vehicle speed at or below it. Never fails!
I've tried that one as well! Got to say it seems to work 🤔😱👍🏻👍🏻
Except thats not fail proof. Missing signs and bad traffic orders make that technique impossible.
Pavlov has a lot to answer for! Regards
@@plugus_maximus There is truth in this.
There's a road near where I live that's a notorious 'speed trap' of sorts. The speed limit signage is poor and the appearance of the road/area suggests a higher speed limit than the cameras themselves enforce.
I know multiple people who are quite religious about staying under the speed limit who have been 'caught' on that road. When I got 'caught' on it myself and took a speed awareness course there were a fair number of people in the room who said they were 'caught' on that road too.
The problem is that contesting the speeding offence is too risky for the average person to want to do (by design), and all the police have to do is point at the speed limit sign that _technically_ exists, even though it's evidently easy for drivers to miss.
Police just convince themselves that that particular road is a magical area that makes non-speeders suddenly speed and that they are doing the lord's work by 'catching' them.
I would be genuinely interested to know how many people who have taken speed awareness courses had to do so because they actually made a conscious decision to break the speed limit, as opposed to simply not knowing they were breaking the speed limit at the time.
Your wifes boyfriend must be proud
They hold us in utter contempt! Just remember that.
The rule is pretty simple, it is written into the highway code, Rule 124 "You MUST NOT exceed the maximum speed limits for the road and for your vehicle (see the speed limits table). The presence of street lights generally means that there is a 30 mph (48 km/h) speed limit unless otherwise specified."
Any further guidance is to allow for human error, such as over-acceleration, changes in gradient etc. Not as any form of "you legally can go over the speed limit".
The change of gradient thing is rubbish. I did a speed awareness course 2 months ago, 3 people were on that because fo changes in gradient.
Unless the council has applied for a traffic enforcement notice, 20mph zones are unenforceable.
@@eyesodd Links for proof to this please. My brother is in the police, he says you're talking boll*cks
@@eyesodd This does not change that you (if you are a license holder) have agreed to follow the highway code at all times you are driving a motor vehicle, and have therefore agreed to follow the speed limit at all times.
@@DAFPvnk Indeed, you'll notice the Highway Code shows the limits starting at 30mph direct quote "A speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h), or 20mph (32km/h) in Wales, generally applies to all roads with street lights (excluding motorways) unless signs show otherwise."
As I've said the standard limit is 30, if councils want to make it 20 they need to apply for a traffic regulation order and it be clearly sign posted.
My local council website goes further and says this :" A legal and self-enforceable 20mph zone requires traffic calming features such as:
road humps
speed cushions
road closures
one-way systems
pedestrian refuge islands and road narrowing to be introduced at the appropriate distance."
Which most twenties zones don't actually qualify for, so again are they enforceable if they aren't legal by their own rules?
And just to add to the confusion, the speedo on your can does not read the actual vehicle speed, as this is derived from the gearbox speed and doesn't take account of tyre wear and pressures etc.
As no OEM wants to be dragged into court as one of their vehicles was speeding, all the speedo's will read higher than the actual speed.
Where i worked the speedo was set to read 2km/hr -0%/+10% of the actual speed.
I’m not sure if this is still the case, but with regards to your speedometer it can be a maximum of 10% out and still MOT compliant. I think this is where people get confused about the 10% above the speed limit. The +2 is the actual leeway that you are given, because if your speedometer is 10% out and you drive at 77mph indicated you’ll actually be driving at nearly 85mph.
Speedometers are not an MOT item. However, they do fall under the vehicle instrumentation construction and use regs. These state that a speedometer must be accurate up to 30mph.
Over 30 different manufacturers vary in accuracy. If you were to compare the cheap Veglia instrumentation found in a bottom end Fiat vs say, something in a Mercedes or something similar, their higher speed accuracy will be very different.
Calibration tolerance on speedometers is required by legislation to be within +0%/-10% of actual speed, and has been for decades.
Guaranteeing 0% tolerance is impossible in a mass production environment, so speedos in all modern cars are calibrated around -5% +/-5% by design. This means your speedo always under-reads by a few mph. You can check this in your car by comparing your speedo to gps speed with a phone app, or by timing yourself driving at a steady speed over a known distance.
The only way a modern car will be under-reporting its actual speed is if there is a fault somewhere, or you have modified your drive gearing or wheel size.
@@peterthomson127That's the nearest to the correct comment I've seen. It can display up to 110% +6.25 mph, but never display under the actual speed, Which is a huge tolerance, as you say manufacturers always display over to be safe.
This is on new tyres also, worn tyres will make the indicated speed greater also.
In my defence I’m referring back to what I had learned about 35yrs ago, so may have gotten a few things muddled over time, but thanks for clarifying.
I drive below the speed limit to make sure. My speedometer reads high so I am never sure what speed I am actually going so want to be on the safe side. Which pisses every body else off because they all want to speed. The other issue about being fussy about a couple of kph or mph over is what, do you want us constantly looking down at our speedometers rather than out the windshield for traffic? That is a lot more dangerous than a bit of speeding.
I don’t intentionally break speed limits, but I was once fined for speeding. For quite a while afterwards I was so paranoid I would spend half my time driving looking at the speedometer rather than the road. I became an objectively less safe driver. This is why there needs to be some tolerance, the law needs to make things more safe, not less safe.
I fully agree - I've driven over 750k miles in 30 years & in Wales now with all the 20 limits I'm more focussed on my speedo than what's in front of me.
Well, you'd be a safer driver if you were able to keep to the speed limit while also keeping your eyes on the road. Maybe additional training would help you?
@@terryboland3816 wouldn’t that be a perfect world, where everybody can be trained to never misjudge their actions.
My point wasn’t whether or not my ticket was deserved, which is why I didn’t specify the details, it’s that a zero tolerance approach would have a cost that may not outweigh the benefits. Eg. how many lives would be saved if people were driving at 20 whilst constantly watching the speedometer compared to driving between 17-23 and watching the road?
@@Monkey-fv2km So you're arguing against any speed limits. I prefer a system where signs say what the speed limit is and drivers are trained to be able to judge their speed so they can drive safely while keeping their eyes on the road.
@@terryboland3816 well, I would prefer a world where no accidents happen, no one makes mistakes and no one has a bad intention.
Also a world where people are able to correctly read TH-cam comments, but until that magical time I will try to make the best of an imperfect situation.
For those old enough to remember from around the 60/70's police vehicles had a secondary speedometer installed on their dashboards that were calibrated regularly to ensure there accuracy because vehicle installed speedometers were not that accurate, hence a leeway of 10% was generally allowed in fairness to drivers when accused of speeding (something that you do not see now days, fairness I mean)
Speed check vans always operate in a dip, never on the top of a hill, this tells you how much tolerance they have.
No they don't. There's two locations near to me where the vans park at the top of long hills
I set my car cruise control to 80mph and that comes to about 76mph on my satnav. Been doing that for years and never got a ticket so I'm inclined to keep doing so.
I rarely get overtaken at that speed but I have seen someone do that once and a camera flashed them, so I'm cutting it close.
I think it is worth mentioning that while this is likely relevant to an isolated speeding only offence, if you are involved in a road traffic collision and it is proven that you are breaking the speed limit, all other things be in equal you are highly likely to be apportioned more of the blame. Imagine a crash with a pedestrian as a simple example. If you’re doing 24mph, a speed camera may not photograph you however, if a collision investigator proves you were doing 24mph in a 20mph and you injure someone….you’ll likely end up in some difficulty in court.
Also, SP30 isn’t just speeding in a 30 - it’s the standard conviction code for a normal speeding offence.
Adios!
How can an inspector prove retrospectively accurate speed when even devices designed to capture speed of moving vehicles in real time have a 2mph error tolerance?
@@user-Wojciech forensic collision investigators have ways and means. Including interrogating vehicle computers which often store speeds of collisions certainly if airbags are deployed. EVEN IF the true speed was 20, but the car thought it was going 24 and that was what would have been displayed on the dashboard to the driver…it’s not a good look in the eyes of a magistrate (or worse).
@@user-Wojciech cctv footage. You look at where the car was at each video frame and go and measure the road with a long measuring tape, using the number of frames per second the camera records at will allow you to calculate the speed.
imagine the pedestrian looking before they walked out in the road , oops your still in the sh*t
@@ianrichards4907 have you been to court before?
This is correct, as an ex-police officer who was trained on speed enforcement laser devices, we had guides and boundaries where we were given “officer discretion”. The old devices such as radar had tolerances, but the LT20.20 lasers were super accurate when calibrated and used properly. The other thing is generally when tracking people’s speed you are at an angle to the vehicle which gives you some speed back. The laser could also detect if the vehicle had a laser jammer/disruptor, although not one recommended for court the driver could be done for perverting the course of justice. Usually a road side surrender of the jamming device stops any further action.
‘Used properly’ ..that’s the worrying part when it comes to numpties in uniforms
@@seanfein3783 in fairness when they are not used properly the inaccuracy is to the drivers advantage, they don’t say you are doing 100mph when you are only doing 70mph. Usually you don’t get a reading or you get an error. You have to hit the drivers licence plate as it’s flat and the laser bounces back, if you hit the grill or bonnet the laser bounces upwards or does not bounce back, then you get an error. Plus as we are off to the side of the road or on a bridge, the angle takes mph off the reading, again to the drivers advantage. That is why people often say, they clocked me at 80, but I was doing 85.
Van drivers never seem to know that they are limited to 50mph on single carriage roads and 60mph on daul roads either.
Good it's a stupid law.
@@Dazuk2023 so you're the white van doing 95 in lane 3 on the motorway?
@@Dazuk2023 good? If you are a van driver that is not aware of this and you get caught doing 79 mph, you are 19mph over the limit as opposed to 9mph, so you will incur bigger penalties!
@@freelegal Why 95? That has nothing to do with vans not being allowed to travel at the same speed as cars and other large suvs or buses full of people.
@kwood1493 true but most vans nowadays rival cars in power so why are we forced to drive at such low speeds on motorways when conditions are good. Idiots crash at any speed like I've seen first hand but we shouldn't all be dragged down to the lowest common denominator. Serious crash drivers at fault retest before allowed back on the road,don't grind the country to a halt!
I'm very paranoid about staying within the limit and in return for my dilligance, I end up being the slowest car on the road with someone driving on my rear bumper 90% of the time.
Vehicles have the potential to be dangerous and so wether they agree with them or not, I wish more people would stay within the limits. That said I'd feel bad for anyone who trys to follow the law, but get punished for minor/accidental infringements due to a lack of tolerance, especially when others routinely seem to get away with it.
On the similar subject I've got some other road gripes to air.
Everythings being centralized/moved into larger towns/cities, Modern life forces people to own/have access to cars, yet it costs a fortune to insure them and roads/parking can barely handle them in places.
You have to get your car checked yearly to make sure its roadworthy, but theres plenty of roads full of potholes that are hardly carworthy.
Also how often do people see signage (especially speed signs) that are overgrown, faded or dirty?
SP30 - speeding on a public road. SP50 - speeding on a motorway.
Just goes to show them even barristers don't know every aspect of the law
Spf50: being outside in the sun whilst ginger.
Yep, you’d think he would know this, or do a bit of basic research before stating it!
@@markphillips2076 Sun ? Where ? Not in the UK, that's for sure.
@@scudger99 According to the BBC it's the warmest Spring Everrr! Lol.
Speeding does increase your insurance. My wife has 2 endorsements (1 due to go off this year) 1 for speeding and 1 for going through a red light (i was in the car for the latter) and i told her to contest it and not to admit as there is NO WAY the officer whose excuse was "i counted the time between you going through your light and our light going to amber" to which at this roundabout he can't see her light and his light wasn't amber yet. As a result i've had to take my wife off the insurance for my car (through Institute of Advanced Motorists) because her 2 endorsements would have added £300 per year to my insurance, when normally it would add about £50. My insurance went up by 70% last year.
South Yorkshire still prosecuting/course at 32MPH in a 30MPH. Seems they don't care about ACPO Friend just got 31mph in a 30mph Derbyshire.
their recorded speed of 32Mph is likely to have been displayed at about 38 on your speedo. Your speedo reports a higher speed than actual with a large margin of error, and their devices report actual with a small error margin.
The speed they report will be the minimum possible speed allowing for device error, so if they report you were doing 32, your actual speed was more likely 34-35.
All car speedometers are set to read slightly over the actual speed hence, a speedo indicated 30mph is more akin to perhaps 28mph .. as a guide. I have a device in my car that shows my GPS speed which tells me in my car in a 50mph speed area with SPECS average speed camera's that when the GPS speed shows 50mph, the car speedo is showing 53mph.
In these situatuions i set my cruise control to 55mph on my GPS speed and have never had a ticket for speeding. I use the same approach for regular motorway speeds.
I dont understand those people that race between cameras on the motorway at higher speed than allowable then brake heavily when approaching the camera, only to speed up again thereafter.
I always understood this was an enforcement guide to allow for allow for both speedometer calibration error and police apparatus device tolerance.
Even with the greater accuracy of modern cars, drivers should never assume their speedometer is accurate or the police will apply the figures this guide......
In Ireland if go 1k above the speed limit and are caught by a mobile speed camera, you will be reported to the police. I’m a hgv driver and so in work I may only travel around a speed of 80kmh on an R road, what you refer to as an A road, or 90 on a road with a M category which is posted as 120kmh, some are posted as 100kmp so they fall into the previous category. A fellow driver was caught at 83 on an R road and received a fine. People don’t understand speed limits, so good video.
I’m frequently found travelling at speeds daily in excess of 120mph. And worst of all?
I don’t have tax, insurance or an MOT 😳❤️
Killed at least 3 birds too.
Either you’re superman or an illegal newcomer?
Private pilot ?
Did you pick those birds up in your lorry? A few female hitch-hikers murdered by lorry drivers around my way over the years as well.
Train driver ?
If stopped for speeding. I, immediately, when approached, turned my engine and music off and got out of the car.I adopted a , friendly approach and I never made excuses and was apologetic, and that demeanour, definitely, helped me .. The turning point was 19 years ago around Trafalgar Circus(the old traffic system) when I was already on 9 points and just one ticket or 3 points away from a ruinous ban. I did an outrageous manoeuvre, spotted by a police helicopter and then 2 Officers stopped me. I spoke "1-to1" with the Male Officer who let me know EXACTLY what he thought.I explained my situation and promised to change. He told me to "XXXX Off" and 19 years later NO POINTS at all after driving 80,000 miles in and around London.
It's a limit not a target.
I did a speed awareness course a few years ago, yes I was guilty as charged, and we each had to say what we’d done and where. The guy next to me was really hacked off because he had been done, in a 30 limit, for doing 31mph. As BBB says, guidance not law!
Hand held devices are inaccurate as the arm can move. Our friend literally worked for the police and held a camera in our front garden - and not at a tree trunk and the tree was "moving" at three miles an hour.
If these speed limits were genuinely road safety and not money making, speeds would be shown clearly. They have speed minors going into roundabouts. Speed limit changed from 40 to 30, and roadworks with cubes everywhere and traffic merging. Put speed limits exiting roundabouts. Also don't tell people to count lampposts to work out what the speed is - routinely done in "speed awareness courses." Sometimes it is 30 with no lampposts, country road with no houses/drives and the only sign grown into a hedge! It looks like the fifty road!
PUT BANDS ACROSS ROAD TO NOTIFY SPEED ZONES. None of us want to speed so make it CLEAR WHAT THE SPEED IS! 😠
It's all just so abstracted from road safety which should be looking where you're going, instead you need to be looking off the road onto verges where faded and obscured speed signs are and looking back at the speedometer.
When I was working traffic enforcement (in Australia) I was in the office at the end of a shift when a group of motorcycle Police came in and they were all laughing about something that had happened. I found out later that they had been having a competition in which they waited at the bottom of a hill and dared each other to pull over and book a driver for the lowest speed. From memory the winner wrote out a ticket for 65 km/h in a 60 zone. The tolerance at the time was 20% of the limit, 10 for driver error and 10 for speedo error, and so although they were not breaching any legislation they were breaching departmental rules...................... Just for interest, the manufacturer of speed cameras here states in their operating manual that the technology must be given a 2% tolerance for error.
Why does your cars speedometer not come into this in court ? I thought all speedo’s where under clocked and not calibrated accurately and why motorway cops are the only ones allowed to pace you as their cars speedo’s are calibrated
Could you perhaps do a video on the legality/authority of the private company mobile speed camera vans which are cropping up. It may be a misconception that these vans need to be operated by the police or with the authority of the police through road safety partnerships.
Especially considering speedos read slow, so if you’re doing 77 or 79 on your gps, it’ll be more like 85 on the clock, so you’d be flying past other road users.
I was told many years ago that the old mechanical speedos were adjusted to show 10% below the actual speed. If you approach one of these speed information boards, it always shows 10% below the speed indicated on the dashboard. Many times I have accounted for this and driven at a speed which is shown to be, ie:30mph, 33mph but today I have smart cruise and set it to the roadside sign speed. My car knows what the speed limit is and displays it in the HUD so I have no excuse for speeding. Many people seem to be aware of the manufacturers built in 10% adjustment (even my car!) so there is really no excuse for speeding. A policeman once told me that they use the roadside mile markers to check the accuracy of their speedos which I have done and found it to be a very good calibration of your speedo.
Many years ago I was clocked at 32 in a 30 and given a ticket and points due to an inaccurate speedometer in the car. Quite a few years later I was clocked at 104 on the motorway and given some very strict words of “advice” and let go, but I did sob quite a bit, beg for forgiveness and call the nice man sir.
3 hours into my last speed awareness course and the guy next to me leans over and says 'so when is it ok to do 80 in the uk?'