Managed motorway speeding question:

How is ‘occasion’ defined here?

There was an article in the local paper a couple of years ago about a woman who’d managed to pick up a totting-up ban by speeding through the same camera four times in one day. (Which I can’t argue with, that’s just driving without due care.)

That would be four occasions, each one being a definable point in time that can be separated from the other three. It’s a little confusing because it also refers to occasions in the context of being convicted on different occasions, which, for example, might be that at your first hearing you plead guilty to speeding (thereby convicted of it), but deny being on your phone, and are later convicted of that at a trial. Make sense?

Surely it would need to be argued in court to define how silly it is?

Being charged twice for passing two speeding cameras a mile apart, I’d agree that would be silly. If they were 10 miles apart, then it would be difficult to argue that your speed just ‘crept up’. 50 miles apart and I reckon you’re shit out of luck.

Being charged twice for passing two speeding cameras a mile apart, I’d agree that would be silly.

I dunno, once may be a momentary lapse of judgement, twice a mile apart is probably habitual speeding (and also either contemptuous or DWDC if you got flashed).

To answer the original question- hopefully no hardworking motorway contractors get killed.

I dunno, once may be a momentary lapse of judgement, twice a mile apart is probably habitual speeding

At motorway speeds, that could be the distance required to overtake a handful of cars. Or even one. I’m not sure that equates to habitual speeding. If I were the judge, I think I could be lenient on that one!

What I meant when I said it’ll get silly, is that if you say speeding at point A is an offence and speeding at point B is a separate offence, rather than a continuation of the same offence, you must either define a distance at which the offence is over and a new one starts, or say that the first offence is over once they go below the limit, and the new one starts when they go over it again (which is what it is).

If you do neither you’ll end up with nonsense like a seperate offence occurring every few metres, every foot, every inch?

If you can say for definite that the speeding ceased and then started again, you can prosecute for two, if you can’t seperate them with a period of lawfulness, you’ve just got one. I assume the burden of proof in this scenario lies with the prosecution.

Notwithstanding of course, that to tell the beak ‘actually I was doing over 70 for many miles m’lord, so you can only do me for speeding once’ might be counter productive 🙂

You’ve not quite got the hang of “average” yet then?

You, however seem to have mastered the ability to be condescending and patronising to people on the internet you’ve never met 😉

Snappy comeback.

.

Well worth the wait I thought

So, if I were to drive down the motorway with a Gatling gun attached to my roof, so long as I keep the trigger depressed, I can only be held accountable for the first indiscriminate slaying that I make…interesting. When’s the next Labour party conference?

I believe this was tested in court many years ago in a case involving a tv celebrity who ran multiple cameras on a single stretch of road at a speed which suggested they were unlikely to have slowed below the limit in between.

The outcome was iirc multiple fines and points.

However a quick Google search suggests you might have a chance in court and it would turn on the facts of the case according to the first law firm link I followed.

Best not to speed through them then it won’t matter 😛

So, if I were to drive down the motorway with a Gatling gun attached to my roof, so long as I keep the trigger depressed, I can only be held accountable for the first indiscriminate slaying that I make…interesting. When’s the next Labour party conference?

Obviously you know that’s not what would happen, but in case you don’t know why, in his case, it comes down to whether it could be proven that he had exceeded the speed limit more than once. Sometimes it can, sometimes it can’t. In your case, it would come down to whether it could be proven that you had killed each victim, which I suspect it could.

Cops running speed awareness course told us average speed cameras aren’t used for fines / revenue. They are there for safety first just working as a deterrent and rarely, if ever are fines issued. GATSOs likewise are rarely issuing fines, though we’ll see if the supposedly now active M25 ones are actually issuing them (noting that a lot of the gantries don’t actually have a GATSO despite the lines on the ground). They said the vast majority of the revenue comes from mobile units. I think everyone on my course, including myself, got nabbed by mobile units.

I noticed this weekend, driving from Scotland to Essex and back, that observance of the 50mph limits on the M1 and M6 and basically everywhere was pretty good.

When these overhead speed gantries are showing the NSL sign, or appear to be switched off and unlit, then are the speed cameras mounted behind these signs still turned on?

In other words if you go past the said signs late at night at for example 95mph (a perfectly safe speed for light traffic conditions and good weather), then would you still end up with a ticket from these cameras in this situation?

So its an average between cameras? or an average between the first and last camera on the stretch of motorway?

Is this actually stated anywhere in the rules?

It depends agent007 – the earlier versions of the HADECS specs only enabled the cameras when the variable speed limit was set lower than the default speed limit – so if sign was off or displaying NSL, camera was disabled. The more recent versions of the HADECS spec has closed this down so the cameras are enabled at all times.

Another thought – as the question refers specifically to Managed Motorways (or Smart Motorways as they are now officially known), this would imply variable speed limits. So… knowing that they tend to taper the limit down, let’s say you are approaching congestion, get flashed whilst the limit is NSL, get flashed when the limit has dropped to 60mph, and again when the limit has dropped again to 50mph and you haven’t adjusted your speed at all… What then?

So its an average between cameras? or an average between the first and last camera on the stretch of motorway?

It’s an average between cameras. Otherwise you could whack down the motorway at Mach 1 so long as you stopped for lunch halfway down.

When these overhead speed gantries are showing the NSL sign, or appear to be switched off and unlit, then are the speed cameras mounted behind these signs still turned on?

I believe they’re off; however, I’ve never been brave enough to test that theory.

The more recent versions of the HADECS spec has closed this down so the cameras are enabled at all times.

Oh yeah, so it has. http://www.speedcamerasuk.com/hadecs-3.htm

I’d missed that, cheers.

If you go to court it seems like you could argue that 100 miles of constant speeding = one offence. However, if the judge/magistrate deemed that one offence to be severe enough, they could still presumably disqualify you and fine you £2500, as that’s within the maximum sentencing?

HADECS aren’t everywhere. On the M25 they’re only along the Kent stretch. The ones on the M25 that were more recently “switched on” are GATSOs along the Surrey stretch. They’ve been there for years but not active at all until now. You can see them every few gantries but also easier to see which ones don’t have them. Have to look for GATSO shaped boxes the other side of the variable speed signs, or sometimes they’re the same gantry as the one on the opposite carriageway. Not painted yellow though. Grey boxes, one for each lane.

The issue will be if you trigger camera 1, drop under the trigger speed for camera 2 and then trigger camera 3.

That could be 2 incidents.

I remember speaking to a policeman officer friend of mine who mentioned the average speed cameras for roadworks were managed camera to camera and not through the entire section so multiple offences could be committed. I’ve never looked in to this though.