Diesel

So I roll off from 60 to 40 as I approach my first daily Gatso. Suddenly a Yam R1 hammers it past me at well over a ton, flat out, accelerating. No flashes. Nothing! Nada!

Just as well there were no shops/schools/junctions/houses/zebra crossings/nurseries/geese at the spot - come to think of it what was the camera doing there at all

[I'm not trying it tomorrow morning though ]

Sith

Top Gear found 175mph and the camera doesn't register........

Jaybird-UK

or it was an empty gatso?

Councils often buy more instalations than they camera units for and rotate them. A good radar detector will confirm one of these dummy cameras.

I believe 5th gear outrun a gatso on tv, the speed is around 150mph+ IIRC, the camera still works but you are simply out of its focal range by the time the shutter goes off.

Diesel

Nah this one definitely bleeps on my detector when I'm in the Scoob...

Ray_li

Next time look back to see if the flash is in the top right hand window of the gatso

MattN

What happens if a bike or other is going so fast it is out of focal range but you are not and are now in range when the camera flashes - do you get busted for someone elses speeding???

Jaybird-UK

No, the road markings show the distance you traveled between the two photo's and prove the speed you were travelling at.

Audi-Boy

I have been wondering what things to blow up with my new pyrotechnic hobby, and the best was to beat a gatso IS TO BLOW IT UP! (anyone agree? )

Thats a cool idea, hell I'm even gunna film it

Diesel

Ray

Dracoro

Either a) your detector is faulty (i.e. detecting non-functioning gatsos or b) the gatso is faulty and not triggering off when it should.

vindaloo

You'll need a liquid for best results. To avoid condensation when a camera is "visiting", two holes are exposed in the back of the Shatso.

J.

Audi-Boy

Need a liquid. What kind of liquid?

No, I'm talking about a good thick piece of 22mil copper filled with acetone peroxcide!

Trust me, the shatso will be just about use for scrap (if you can find any of it)

Ray_li

Whats that for?

Diesel

Because, Ray, you seem to be suggesting I get a speeding ticket!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tiggs

i think even a R1 goes slower than radar (what with radar having the speed of light on its side)

-=Buzz=-

AFAIK the limit for a speed camera is 156 mph.

Thats the reason limiters are set to 155, or did everyone just think that was a number they picked out of the air?

It would of course have been socially irresponsible for Top Gear to demonstrate that fact, because then eveyone with a car that is capable of that speed would have started shouting about them Government interfering with their cars and enforcing limiters just to persecute them etc etc.

Jerome

Er, where did you get that from? I was under the impression German cars are limited to 250kph (155mph) to appease the powerful Green Party in Germany.

Sith

Top Gear tested at 160 and the camera caught the car.

Ray_li

No. Im saying they some times have a camera and some time they dont. if there is a flash unit in it that means there is a camera.

-=Buzz=-

Jerome - as far as I know the only things limited on the continent to appease the "lobbyists" were motorcycles, which the manufacturers "agreed" to limit to a certain bhp and speed... and then ignored that anyway May have done it to cars too... but I don't know.

And I don't remember TG testing at 160 - I think if you check they didn't. They tested well below 156 and then well above. I was watching this particular programme, and that would have blown my "belief" out of the water... but it didn't.

As for where I got it from, I'm not sure - it's just something I've always understood to be true and can't remember exactly why. I'm sure one of the motoring mags, maybe even one of the bike mags, did this test years ago, and that was the figure they found. I think that's where it came from.

If anyone can show me I'm wrong, I'll be happy to have learned my one thing for today

And anyway, moot point for me - my A4 TDi won't do 156

-=Buzz=-

From the Top Gear website :

I thank you

Now, to me a proper test would have been at the limit of say an M5 whish is restricted to 155, and then they could have increased it slowly with the TVR... but they would never do it that way. And they could easily have found and shown the exact speed if they'd wanted to.

IMO they chose the TVR at that speed for exactly the reason I said - so that they wouldn't show that limited cars are limited to just 1 mph below the camera threshold. That would have been another prong for the anti-speed camera brigade to have used to argue "it's just about money". Wouldn't it??

And after all the BBC is partly controlled by the government, isn't it.

Tiggs

yeah...cause cars are limited to make sure all those ppl at 155 still get caught

-=Buzz=-

why else then?

Come on the Mr Tigwell, enlighten me

PS How's your fence? Infested by children still? Or did you burn the tree down

I don't think I'll ever forget that.

SJ_Skyline

-=Buzz=-

Come on then, what's YOUR theory? As I said, if you can show me I'm wrong then great, I'll be happy about it.

If not.... well then you don't know any better so why deride a theory? Can't you formulate one of your own?

SJ_Skyline

[QUOTE=-=Buzz=-]Come on then, what's YOUR theory? As I said, if you can show me I'm wrong then great, I'll be happy about it.[QUOTE]


GATSO's work on a speed sensor, an object passing through a defined field of view has a specific speed. Like any sensor it can have an upper range and a lower range, it all depends on how the unit is set up - typically speed limit + 2 or 3 + 10% as the lower range and an arbitary figure for the top range - 155 as many of the german cars have this as the limiter and lets face it, every 3rd car I see on the raod is BMW with a defective indicator (and driver).

WHERE have you seen a fixed camera where you can safely do more than 160 past it?

and if you do answer that question with a location I would hazard that no place on the road is safe to do 160.


All IMHO of course

-=Buzz=-

aha.. right.

I wouldn't think there are many places you could "safely" do that speed, for a give definition of safe of course (except maybe on the M1 through some roadworks where only one lane or the hard shoulder were coned off, where they often do have fixed cameras - you could do it there at about 3 am I suppose, but then SOME idiot would argue it was dangerous.. again, all in their opinion )

I can't and don't dispute what you say, but my point still stands - I understand that speed cameras stop detecting at 156 mph. Lots of fast cars are limited to 155 mph. So maybe they set the upper limit to 156, as I believe. If that's true then I'm still correct, but my argument for why it is set to 156 becomes reversed.. it's set at 156 so that it DOES catch BMW M5 drivers at any speed they can achieve. And Jag drivers, Aston Martin drivers etc. etc.

Wouldn't that make sense?

I'm enjoying this - a sensible conversation! WOW! RTM NOW!!! RTM RTM OMFGBBQETCETC.

SJ_Skyline

y'know, I think we may actually be arguing the same point here!

at meself!

Maybe they should have set the threshold at 200+... oh well, we don't make the rules, we are just persecuted by them I guess!

Dapster

Manufacturers who limit cars do it out of a gentlemans agreement to appease the lobbyists - I don't know where the 155 came from but these cars are not individually calibrated when they leave the factory are they? Every wheel/tyre/transmission option will effect the true speed, as will the weather/temp conditions, road surface, slope etc. Most mags ran the Audi RS6 press cars over 170 despite them being "limited" to 155 - so the 155 limit will be nothing other than approximate.

Leslie

Bit like the Subaru BHP claims then!

I heard that 137 mph was the limit for a Gatso to measure. Easy on an R1.

Les