I know this classed as perverting the course of justice, but a good old flash of oncoming headlamps always slows me down.

[Edited by RUFocused - 9/2/2003 11:03:24 PM]

Don't we all get irritated at the mobile speedtraps that suddenly seem to appear out of nowhere around that time of the year in South-Wales ?
No problems with road safety, but sadly we all know the speedtraps are set up there at that time of the year to raise cash. If they wanted to make people slow down (and serve road safety), then just put enough police cars at clearly visible places so people slow down right away. Hiding a camera in a white van and then letting people race up and down the country and sending them a bill 4 weeks later does not serve road safety AT ALL.

I propose to set up a project whereby we ask people to phone or text through the positions of the mobile speedtraps to a central point and then broadcast them back out.

This could happen via radio for instance (in Belgium it is e.g. customary that the police gives the places it will check to national radio and newspapers, this to ensure people slow down)(which is better for road safety since the purpose is to make people drive more slowly).

Another way of broadcasting the news would be via sms. Just as there is a service to receive the rally updates on your mobile, the same service could be used to broadcast places police has set up mobile speed traps.
This would also add real value to the existing SMS service. Currently, you only pay for information that is "nice-to-have". Helping avoiding speedtraps also saves you money !

Anybody any thoughts how this could be put in action ?

Brilliant idea, but I'm not sure about the legalities?

I agree. The legal technicalities behind that may pose a threat to the local bobbies and then the five-o might take it the wrong way!

However, I totally agree with you on how the fuzz handle their road safety/speed regulations!

Wise up local bobbies!! Prevent people from doing the speed, not letting them do it and make your money out of it!

Legally there is no problem at all.

The law says you are not allowed to prohibit a policeman to perform his duty. That is why laserjammers are said to be illegal since it is legal to pick up light signals, but illegal to stop a policeman getting a reading of your speed.

No law however states you cannot tell where speedtraps are located.

Otherwise systems like the Geodesy GPS, telling you where all the fixed cameras are, would be illegal as would be all the websites listing the "hotspots" and radardetectors should be illegal too since they also tell you where the speedtraps are...

In fact, police should be happy we tell everybody ! They only need to position themselves at a certain spot for 20 mins to ensure everybody slows down in that place for the rest of the day. That's what I call efficient for road safety. (and if the police is unhappy about it, doesn't that show they're after the money rather than saving people's lives ?)

right guys, there is a website that will give you details of all the camera places. They aint just there at rally times, they are sumwhere all of the time and it stinks. Any way heres the address: http://www.checkyourspeed.org.uk/

and click on english and then camera search and ull get all of the sites!

Cheers

Kie

on a local radio station here in the midlands the other day, i am sure i heard them on the traffic news saying watch out for the speed cameras on the blah blah blah, so may be some local radio station might take up the offer........ i think last years radio was called something like dragon fm !!!!!

Dragon FM would indeed be a first thought (since I doubt Radio 5 would be interested).

Anybody knows who the organisation is that also sends the text messages to your mobile with stage news and results ?

I don't think this is technically perverting the course of justice since... nothing has come to justice yet (it would be if you got nicked and then were giving false names etc).

I would see it as an effort to reduce speeding BEFORE it happens and reduce the statistics telling afterwards "X thousand rally spectators have been caught for speeding this year again" (giving us a bad name).

We just might want to deal carefully with asking only to make anouncements of the road on which a speedtrap is (or will be put, in case authorities collaborate). There aren't that many main roads around that corner of the woods and if you end up every day with knowing there is or might be a speedtrap "somewhere" on each road... The result will be zero and people will just continue driving as usual (and get done as usual).

Look, it's really simple - just assume there will be a speed camera round the corner and stick to the limit - it's not hard is it? :) That's what we did (we were in an Impreza but we managed ;) ) and didn't get done once.

Anyway the police use radar traps and move around a bit. We heard about them on our scanner but have a detector in the car anyway :D

I'm tempting fate now but in 26 years of driving like Ari Vatanen.....not one point.
As the Lady says just be mindful that there could well be a camera about. A radar detector is of great use and you don't have to spend a fortune on a fancy one. I got a Snooper on here for £75.
Drive carefully now!

best for local traffic news on the weekdays (swansea area) is the wave 96.4fm. weekdays(cardiff) red dragon or vibe 101fm.

i live next to a police station and from talking to some of the cops , they have cancelled a lot of police leave (all in traffic) so be prepared for lots of cops!

it will be easier not to speed this year! easier on wallet and licence!

Everyone could get CB Radios and could tell each other wher the old bill is hideing.

..........Just like the Truckers!

EEHHHH..........no thanks!

What if.....

We drive how we like and if any of us get caught then we don't pay up!!

They can't send us all to jail can they :-)

Another tip is never be 1st in the outside lane speeding or not, if so pull in and wait to jump out behind someone, then push them to go faster. If youve got a snooper and it goes off it will be the car in front that it`s caught.

Nice tip!

I would imagine that works well.

Does anybody know if police scanners are any good/Legal to have/Use?

I tend to play the "follow someone else" game regularly. It works well.

Word of warning though: it used to be said that if you followed somebody within less than 100 feet on the motorway and he got caught by a Gatso, you wouldn't because the machine could not react quick enough. Rubbish ! It can...

CB's used to be very popular in France. Channel 19 was purely dedicated to broadcasting speedtraps. On scanners, the ones you can broadcast with are illegal for sure, but no clue on state of play in the UK on only scanning devices.

Still haven't found out who's the organisation sending the text messages with rally updates. Anybody ??