hedgehog

Quick question for anyone who might have been heading north on the M1 just before Woodall Services on Thursday morning:

I'm hearing some reports that some of the illuminated signs were on showing 40mph because there was supposed to be a queue ahead. Upon passing the signs most drivers slowed down a little but certainly not to 40mph as they could see the road to be clear. Lurking just past the signs was a scamera van.

The reports I hear indicate that there was some pretty panic stricken emergency braking once the van was spotted. Clearly a useful contribution to road safety.

Can anyone confirm this report? Does anyone know if those particular illuminated signs happen to have a red circle around them, like you would see around the number on a conventional speed sign?

It is currently my belief that the speed shown on such signs is not enforceable however there have been cases in the past where motorists have been fined for perfectly legal actions and the scamers have then refused to contact them to return the cash. It might represent an interesting new revenue stream of doing people even when they were acting perfectly legally in the hope of getting their money without them putting up a fight. With this in mind I'm interested in getting some information on what is going on.

juan

Is Woodhall services the one somewhere near jn 30?

Was going up M1 on Friday morning, been stuck behind some cheese in the outside lane who just would not shift over for the last 10 miles or so!! so had started to get closer and was concentrating more on him so didn't see the flipping camera van parked up on the hard shoulder with cop car right behind it until it was too late. It was quite busy which blocked the view until 100 yards or so to go.
Camera van on hard shoulder - gits. Not seen that before.
Probably within range at varying speeds (80-95). Certainly not aware of a 40 limit in progress or else everyone would have been in trouble.

Bit gutted but my own fault. Saw a mate in traffic on Saturday and mentioned it to him. He said that he had not heard of that before and it could have been a number plate recognition van which would then do a check on all the cars for lack of ins / road tax / stolen etc.
He said these vans had 2 large cutouts on the rear doors so they could cover more lanes of traffic. It did have these 2 large cutouts as opposed to the usual small one on a noirmal camera van. He also said it would probably have said what it was used for on the side, but I was too busy being annoyed with myself to notice and it was quite congested so I had to concentrate on the road. At least the git who wouldn't move over will have got a ticket too if thats its purpose.

Anyone else got any info?

MattW

Stopping

You MUST NOT stop on the carriageway, hard shoulder, slip road, central reservation or verge except in an emergency, or when told to do so by the police, an emergency sign or by flashing red light signals.
Laws MT(E&W)R regs 7(1), 9 & 10 & MT(S)R regs 6(1), 8 & 9

hedgehog

I know what you are saying MattW but most laws have a clause somewhere on their first page that says words to the effect of "except law enforcement agencies in the course of their business." Thus the scamers would claim that they are off the hook.

Thanks for the info Juan, the chap who passed it on to me was pretty sure it was a speed camera van and not an ANPR van. The van you saw may well have been a number plate recognition one as it had a police car with it. The police car is used to follow any vehicles that the number plate recognition flags as dodgy so, hopefully, you haven't been done for speeding.

What is of particular interest in the initial situation I described is the possibility for the camera vans to tow their own temporary speed limit along behind them hence allowing them to entrap even more motorists. It certainly looked like something similar to this was taking place on the M1 but perhaps the 40 signs were just a coincidence and the cameras in the van were set for 70+ Perhaps the operator of the overhead speed limit signs spotted the camera van and decided to save a few motorists their licenses??

juan

Yes it had a highly marked cop car right behind it, there was also another one a mile up the road also parked on the hard shoulder. Both these were not typical motorway cop cars but more your striped up Vectras if memory / observation was not failing me. Couldn't take in too much as eyes must remain on the road when its busy really.

The squad cars could have been supplying donuts to the hardworkers in the van I guess

Guess I'll find out its purpose in the next 14 days

andymar00

Wouldn't they still need to have the speed camera signs before the van not sure of distance before but sure thats what the law says. when you see vans on normal roads ther are always fixed signs before or have they been put up on M1 now, i know they are on M25 and M6

juan

Not sure but pretty sure there weren't any signs.
I thought it was the rule that you were notified before either fixed cameras or areas where mobile ones operate, but then saw mention of a van on a bridge around jn 15 of M1 so thought maybe they don't need to after all.

hedgehog

Most of the "laws" on signs and visibility are merely guidelines and are often ignored in the dash to get your cash out of your wallet. As you can see a guideline that can be ignored at will is worse than no guideline at all.

Petem95

Ive seen a fair few "Highways Agency" white van's with cameras on tripods outside them checking tax disks - there were some on motorway bridges on the M5 last week causing the traffic to brake suddenly. Shouldnt be a problem unless you dodge road tax.