hedgehog

The cameras that Mr. Edgar checked (his gear is accurate to 1/100 second) would have given a speed of 37.8mph for a vehicle actually travelling at 30mph.

Assuming your speedo was out by 10%, as they often are, if you had 30mph on the clock then your actual speed was 27mph and the GATSO speed would be 34mph. Now the ACPO guidelines say that you have 10% +2mph but, in truth, there have been regular cases of people done for less than 35mph.

So, the error that Mr. Edgar is seeing could easily land you with 3 points for driving within the limit.

Good to see you've already determined the outcome of the show trial Pete, Stalin would be proud of you, as would that nice Mr. Hitler as well.

pslewis

How did he test them? How did he know what readings they were firing at? How did he conduct the tests? Which lab did he test them in? Witnesses? Analogue reports or digital?

Too many questions ... no answers as yet

And your example of a 37.8mph for a car travelling at 30mph would indicate a 26% error on the plus side only - assuming a + and - tolerance then we are talking a error of +/- 52%! IMPOSSIBLE!

Case dismissed!

Pete

Diesel

In order for one to walk like a man Pete, one first needs to remove the government's **** from one's ****.

This is exactly what this chap is trying to do, best of luck to him, and may we all sit more comfortably afterwards! Still, feel free to roll over meantime, like the REAL man you are, honey

D

GCollier

Maybe some Gatso's are miscalibrated, who knows, it would be interesting to find out. Almost as interesting as reading some of the paranoid ramblings and big-brother conspiracy theories on these threads

Gary.

pslewis

Thats an intelligent response

Pete

StickyMicky

ill sling him a tenner as well

i hope this dontate thing works out, i will be famous for saying it first
and if it doesnt work out, im sure all the news people will like it anyway

Jiggerypokery

Gordon Brown's school of maths? How can you take +26% and come up with +/- 52%

You assume the spread is weighted evenly around the centre 30mph. What Mr Edgar has found is a positive skew. For example, mean reading for 30mph = 37.8mph, +/- X%. (X != 26 )

Leslie

I remember PSL blubbering when he thought he had been caught by a copper with a speed cam on a road which had had its speed limit reduced.

What's sauce for the goose PSL...................!

Les

Buckrogers

Who's £BILLIONS? Ours, not tony's.

Smacks of "Justice"...

When will tony "walk like a man"? After all, he is the one that stood up in the House of Commons and said, "Iraq has WMD and could launch them within 45 mins, let's go to war". It's about time he took a walk, round the M25 during rush hour.

Pete, your posts are riddle with poo. Please retreat back to stone you crawled out from.

If the chap needs support, we should all get behind him and help him out with cash if needed. Camera's are there to enforce the law, not function outside the law.

hedgehog

Ok, I stand corrected on one point, it wasn't every Gatso that he tested which demonstrated the error as I had previously believed.

In truth 80% of Gatsos that Mr. Edgar tested had the error but each and every one of them made the vehicle appear to be travelling faster than it actually was. The average error he saw was indeed 26% so, of course, some cameras were worse than this and some better.

Out there somewhere there is someone trying to work out how to keep their house, look after their kids and keep out of the gutter because over the last few months they have driven, within the speed limit, past a camera on 4 occasions and have just lost their license and job. Mr. Edgar is working to allow them to put their life back together. Pete and the administration are working to deny that a problem exists and to screw the common working man over. When you think of the roots of the Labour party and how they, and the unions from which the party formed, fought for justice for the working man you can see that with people like Pete about it was all in vain. New Labour Pete with his Stalinist Show Trials.

pslewis

I will ask AGAIN ..... how did he test them??

The authorities wouldn't let him remove them for Lab reports!

You all give your money to some conman if you want ......

You're all barmy!!

Pete

warrenm2

Your blatent misreading/not even reading of the original story and subsequent wind ups are becoming REALLY BORING now. Heres the original link again for you to get your carer to read to you again. Dont let the facts get in the way of your delusions eh? http://www.pistonheads.com/news/defa...p?storyId=9689

PSLEWIS - The end result of care in the community

Buckrogers

For pete, the troll:

"
After receiving his summons, Edgar became suspicious of the accuracy of the Gatso-based evidence and developed a laser aligned, optically triggered digital timer that measures to an accuracy within 1/100th of a second the time lapse between the two flashes produced by a Gatso speed camera.
"

I know reading so much is difficult at your age...

pslewis

Yes, ok, I went away and did some research - he measured the time between the flashes.

Was his gear calibrated I wonder?

Interesting argument nonetheless and I will be interested to see if he can prove anything (beyond all doubt).

He is, however, a boffin!! and these need a Government Health Warning - they sometimes miss the wood for the trees if you get my meaning (they can see the detail fine - its the wider points they miss) like, for example, the time the flash takes to travel to the measuring machine and the time to process that information within the device.

Remember that the target vehicle doesn't have to process anything, it is passive - the camera shutter remains open and catches the 2 flashes reflected off the car (time delay again)

Mr Elgas machine didn't fire a flash back to the gatso - which is the time it takes the image to be reflected from the vehicle (and thats whats measured!)

I just find his case flawed, sorry lads - you'll just have to pay up or slow down!

Pete

fast bloke

Like that boffin Dr Kelly you mean? Just cos he knew there was no WMD's he should have shut up cos he couldn'y see the big picture??? Fortunately Hutton wasn't a boffin and was easily able to see the wood for the trees apparently.

What about Dyke and Gilligan - should they have had their careers ended for not being able to see that Dr Kelly was just a boffin. Maybe I shouldn't post this - you never know - I may end up commiting suicide by cutting myself into 104 discreet pieces..... well that is as likely as the Kelly suicide theory

warrenm2

MY GOD !!!! IS this an apology and acknowlegment that the great pslewis got something wrong?!

Depending on what measuring equipment was actually used, it would probably been certified by the manufacturer. Most scientific instruments are. Also depends on the retesting regime defined by the manufacturer as well, may never need recalibration....

You've not had scientific training pete have you? or at least you were asleep at the time if you did. The radar detector (using doppler effect) determines if the car is speeding, activating the camera which triggers two exposures 500ms apart. The premeasured marks on the road give the distance the car has travelled.... Any delay between the radar recognising the car as over its preset limit and the camera triggering isnt relavent - its not part of the measuring process, the measurement takes place in the timing of the 500ms and the distance the car travels.... hence the problem....
nope its two separate exposures 500 ms apart... are you implying that the reflection off the car is in someway involved in the measurement? you dont realise then its just a normal camera flash to illuminate the target to get a nice clear picture?
Im afraid your idea of the process and basic grasp of physics is the thing at fault here pete.

Mark B.Eng(Hons) Liverpool - whats your qualification?

fast bloke

Mark - You can't question Pete's qualifications - he is a nuclear phycisisisisisist apparently - much like Homer

Lum

I don't have much to contribute to this thread, but someone /please/ find a way to contact the guy so I can bung a few notes his way.
And pass this on to the ABD as well as all the motoring forums.They already have pleanty of donations to send his way and have backed similar attempts in the past.

RR

I hope he wins. And i am more than happy to put a £10 in the pot.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

pslewis, I wouldn't normally bother explaining this, but for your benefit (and anyone else who isn't aware):

- its trivially easy to engineer an electronic device that can time two events 500ms apart with an error measured in microseconds.

- the crystal in a cheap digital watch is accurate to 5 parts per million or better. Work out the error over half a second.

- therefore, an error of even 1%, let alone the huge errors being alleged, can only be deliberate

- the same rule applies to the measuring device used. Even if it's not calibrated, that doesn't mean it's not extremely accurate. The outcome of the case may change, but there will only be a new one straight afterward when someone else comes along with the results of a calibrated measuring device that the courts can't dismiss as inadmissible.

- the question hanging over this really is: how do we know the flashes are supposed to be exactly 500ms apart? I've not seen this statement justified anywhere.

Leslie

PSL,

Surely, unless he moves the measuring device between flashes, since each flash travels the same distance to the measuring device, that does not enter the equation. You used that as an example to attempt to denigrate his measurements.

Maybe you are right in what you say about Government boffins not being able to see the woood for the trees PSL, you are supposed to be a Goverment nuclear scientist for goodness sake and you could not even grasp that!

Or what do you really do as a retirement job?

Les

Daryl

Tiggs and PSLewis both shot down in flames in the same thread. Superb

pslewis

Mark B.Eng(Hons) Liverpool - whats your qualification?

You pretentious spotty little oik! Typical of Graduates, thats why I'll always work with the HND men rather than the Graduate 'boys'

Pete

Jiggerypokery

Pete, you have shown yourself to be of below average intelligence, so give it a rest. I don't know why people even bother to explain things to you; you're clearly unable to grasp the simplest of concepts.

StickyMicky

ha ha ha ha
FPMSL

PSL is steaming up

/homer
mmmmmmmmmmm steammmmmmmmm
/homer

Sprint Chief

Another point people may miss out on is the rigour of evidence for proving someone guilty is not the same as the rigour of evidence required to draw an innocent conclusion. This is thanks to habeas corpus - innocent until proven guilty - which our judicial system is based on. Although this government is in the process of trying to undermine this cornerstone, it still applies in all cases for speeding.

When a crime is alleged, the evidence must be beyond reasonable doubt, hence the need for extensive calibration etc.

"All" Mr Elgas needs to do is cast reasonable doubt over the Gatso evidence. Given his background I would be very surprised if he did not take sufficient care with his measurements to ensure they are sufficiently accurate to cast this doubt.

This would be an interesting day in court indeed, and I'd certainly be willing to chip in a few quid. I think speed cameras could have uses but the way this government has relied so heavily on them is blatant "stealth taxation" and their blinkered view on road safety, ignorantly believing that speed is the be all and end all, has resulted in increasing deaths despite increasingly safe cars. Discrediting the gatsos and the way they are used could actually force the government into methods of preventing accidents that actually work.

With regard to the 500ms apart question, I assume this info would be provided if you ask to see the prosecutions evidence, which should both include the photograph, the distance of the gaps between the graduations, the measurement made by the police and the conversion to speed. I can believe getting this info is probably like getting blood out of a stone though!

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Frustration and tenacity, in my case at least - plus I hoped the argument might at least be helpful to others

Andy (Snr professional electronic engineer and BA MEng, Electrical & Information Sciences, Downing College, Univ of Cambridge)

pslewis

His evidence is flawed, his machine wasn't moving like a vehicle - it was fixed.

He can't win and won't win.

Don't know why anyone would want to throw money at a speeder rather than donate it to charity instead! Its a sad world.

Why would the speed cameras worry you?? don't speed and its as if they are NOT there at ALL!

Its simple!

Pete (BSc Engineering Brunel, Senior Specialist Nuclear Physics, PHd Loughbrough, Honours Degree in Leadership Anglia University, HND Electronics, Full Tech Product Design, + other stuff I've forgotten)

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Translation: magistrates are less likely to swallow a line in b*ll*cks from the defendant. As any criminal will tell you, you are far more likely to be let off by a jury than a set of magistrates who have listened to many more lies in court. That's why the advice is always: if innocent, go with the magistrates; if guilty, go with crown court.


M

pslewis

Indeed, he's guilty as hell and just doesn't like it!

Using science to try and baffle - the crown will bring MUCH cleverer scientists to question his evidence and the result of all this?

Cameras will remain, fines will remain, those who speed will hate getting caught, they will moan and whine ................

...... but the fact is theres only ONE way to avoid a fine - DON'T SPEED!!

Pete