one of my mates has been pulled by the police on a motorway- but i reckon they are outside of their rights do him.

he was on a slip road between motorway junctions were the limit is 70mph- everyone knows you dont get done under 80mph and the police have to give you 10% in case your speedo is faulty, so you should be fine up to 90mph ish.

anyway he gets pulled as he joined the new bit of motorway and the cop tells him hes got to take some papers and stuff to his local police- i thought there was some europe law that says you cant put yourself at the scene of a crime- was the cop allowed to ask him if he was driving? im not sure.

also the cop says he was speeding through the slip road corner where the speed limit is not 70???

my mate says the only sign he saw on the whole road was the 40 degrees sign for the bend and the normal road sign saying which the next towns were- can he arguee that he didnt know about the speed?

this **** country doesnt allow people to do anything- it sucks.

J

 

Well... it is still 70 & the 10% only goes one way (the way that if 70 is on the clock you're actually doing 63) so they are entirely within their rights. And the 'human rights' thing about not being able to convict yourself I don't think is relevant here as he wasn't.
I'd have thought that the slip road corner is 70 - it would seem a bit weird if it weren't - but I don't believe that this gives the driver 'the right' to drive at 70. It's 70 if conditions allow, which they may not have done...
It's all a bit hazy though, and this is just my opinion (with the odd fact) on the blurb provided Always tricky, these things

 

ACPO guidelines are that drivers should be given 10% + 2MPH, so the police will 'probably' turn a blind eye to anything under 80MPH. Ploughing along at 90MPH is asking for trouble, especiialy in the vicinity of a police car (marked or unmarked) is stupid and asking for trouble.

Was your mate issued with a Fixed Panlty Notice or a producer?

 

J which bit do you want answering? Sorry mate but its a bit confusing.

Quote i thought there was some europe law that says you cant put yourself at the scene of a crime- was the cop allowed to ask him if he was driving? im not sure. Does this bit mean he got an HO/RT 1 producer If this is the case then yes he/she is.

As for the speed limit thing. ACPO gidelines state you are allowed 10% + 2mph for speedo inaccuracy so in a 70 mph limit you will normally be fine up to 77mph, 90mph is pushing your luck a bit especially if you have a Police car behind you. I'd go back and check to see if there was an end of motorway regulations sign, or a specific speed limit sign.

Nathan..

 

Damn I was a bit slow there

 

I thought the allowance margin was more down to possible inaccuracy of the police kit rather than the drivers?

And the human rights issue is to do with getting caught on a camera i.e. its against your rights to incriminate yourself. If they pull you over then they are incriminating you as the police officer has identified you.

If the speed limit was 70mph (which on a motorway slip road it must be to allow you to gain enough speed to join safely, then I cant see the issue - and no police officer is gonna get that wrong so I think it may not have actually been a slip road as such.

AFAIK if the speed limit is 70mph then the police cant fine you for speeding if you keep at that speed or below no matter what the conditions.

 

What is it exactly that the police have done wrong? Stop your mate for speding by the sound of things.

 

Simon.

No the 10% + 2 is for speedo innacuracy. Every instrument is regually tested. Vascar has to be calibrated manually every week and self tests itself. The LTI and Unipar laser guns are accurate to within 0.0001 mph or something ridiculous like that AFAIK. These are also checked agianst a calibrated speedo in the car which itself is tested most shifts.

If you can make sense of what I've written above then good luck.

Nathan..

 

The ACPO guideline is indeed 10%+2mph, making the accepted limit 79 mph on a motorway, although generally it seems to be 80 mph. This is partly due to type approval rules which put limits on accepted speedometer inaccuracy. I got fed up trying to estimate speedo accuracy in my cars and bought a GPS unit.

As for the legal question, the 'human rights' thing is really to do with the right not to incriminate yourself whenthere is no direct evidence of you being the culprit, i.e. it has been argued that you don't have to reply to an NIP, 'cause it beholds you to admitting you were the culprit. If you are sitting in the driving seat when the cops catch you up then it doesn't apply.

As for accuracy of VASCAR/Radar/Laser: VASCAR is simply a stopwatch, and its only limit on accuracy is the reaction time of the operator. I saw sight of a big report once which measured the tolerance due to this as around 1-2 mph at 70 mph over a quarter-mile. The tolerance varies due to speed of car and distance over which the timeis measured, which is why there are minimum limits for measurement. Radar and laser are both accurate, provided they are used correctly. Both can be sensitive to vibration during use, particularly hand-held laser.

 

Difficult to have very much sympathy for the original post as stated I'm afraid. Also I quote:

"this **** country doesnt allow people to do anything- it sucks."

Response in the same vein: if you don't like it - leave ! Didn't various Z-list "celebrities" like Paul Daniels & Frank Bruno threaten (promise !) leave if Labour got in ? Well, we're still waiting...

 

>"this **** country doesn't allow you to do anything"

Yeah, it's crap. I want an STI and I'm not allowed to steal one.

I've heard some convincing arguments in my time, and that ain't one of 'em.

 

Since when did motorway joining roads tell you what degree the corners are???? That was a 40mph limit sign. The slip road between the M42 and M6 that I use everyday is a 35mph limit as it's a 270 degree corner. Funnily enough I've never seen a 270 degree sign

 

Didn't know the speed limit.

Driving with undue care and attention methinks they'll call that!

 

never seen a sign telling you the degree of a bend!!!
several slip roads that have bends in have a speed limit. You sure it wasn't a 40mph sign he saw, in which case he was going well over

p1fanatic
I believe they could do you for dangerous driving or driving without due care and attention in certain conditions e.g. if it was absoultely pishing down so you couldn't even see 5 yards and every other car was crawling along then doing 70 would be nickable I'm sure

[Edited by juan - 2/28/2002 1:30:46 PM]

 

Beat you to it 2 posts up...

 

If you/your mate thinks the 40 sign was showing the degree of the bend, you need to re-take your driving test.
And as everybody has taken the time to explain, the 10%+2mph and 80 mph should be used independently. i.e. if your standard, uncalibrated speedo shows 80, you should be okay at it's pobably over-reading a bit. If you have a properly calibrated speedo and it shows 70, you'll also be okay - ACPO guidelines,etc...
So taking 80 and then the 10%+2 to give 90 doesn't add up.
If he didn't notice the police car, what else would his poor observation skills have missed?

 

darn so you did :-)
must start reading the whole threads and not skimming!


So really he was fckn lucky not to get the book thrown at him.
He should take any punishment on the chin cos like the guy says, he doesn't even understand basic road signs. scary!

[Edited by juan - 2/28/2002 1:33:37 PM]

 

40 degree sign
No wonder there are lots of accidents on the road.
I despair.

 

im pretty sure you'll find its a degrees sign- it sits just a few yards in front of the corner?

 

Unlike some of the people above, I do actually feel that your friend was maybe a bit unlucky. There are far worse crimes commited on the roads day in, day out and it doesn't sound like he was really 'taking the ****'. Just driving like I'm sure 75% of us do
I don't consider myself a criminal but I would accept any punishment given to me, as your mate should. It would appear that most Scooby drivers have those little fishes on the back of the cars and a bible on the dashboard

N.B. I DO NOT speed in built up areas.

J

 

You're having a laugh with the 40 degrees sign comments aren't you?

 

40 degrees wouldn't be the gradient per chance???

 

Not gonna comment on how your m8 has been treated as unless you were there, it sounds like there is room for interpretation on either side.

On the speed limit sign issue, some peeps have it slightly wrong. Often these days you'll see a sign just before a big bend like on a motorway interchange where it's still a Dual Carridgeway and still a 70mph limit. The 40mph (or similar) sign you will notice is inside a square box, usually below a Warning bend sign (Red Triangle). This means it is not a "limit" but a "suggested" speed and is actually aimed at large vehicles (like HGV's). Only signs in a Red Circle are (maximum) speed Limits (technically) and as this is inside a black box, it's advisory (with some exceptions like the electronic motorway signs). I was actually tested on this when doing my "mock" Advanced Car Test (and got it right).

This doesn't mean however, that you couldn't be nicked for say Driving Without Due Care if you took the bend at 70 if in the following Policeman's opinion you were going to fast for the conditions (bend).

One other thing, when you pass that Blue square "Start of Motorway" sign, that is the official start of the motorway and that implies a 70mph limit. Several of my friends who have passed their Advanced Bike tests got pulled up by the IAM examiner for not accelerating to 70 as they passed that sign when joining a motorway from a 50mph Dual Carridgeway (but I didn't 'cos I learn from their mistake )

So going back to your friend, if he had passed a Blue Motorway sign before going round the bend and if there were no other Speed Limit signs saying say 50 (in a Red Circle ( )) then I guess they're just plain 'ol nicking him for 90 in 70 along the slip road itself.....

Hope this helps,

Matt

 

<im pretty sure you'll find its a degrees sign- it sits just a few yards in front of the corner?>

No such sign have a look in the Highway code, you have one dont you?

 

Highway Code?

You expect Sti go fast and his mates to have read the highway code?

Why bother when it's going to be a few years before they can take their driving tests?

 

This has to be a wind-up! Are you related to Bald-Rick by any chance?

BTW, teh guy who suggested it may be a 40 degree gradient - you would barely be able to stand up on a 40 degree gradient, far less drive a car up it or lay a motorwy on it! (Or a 40% gradient come to that)

 

I thought that might explain why he was going so fast