50mph for your van on a single carriageway road. Even a Ford Transit Connect (postman pat van) is subject to the lower limits. If it’s any consolation, most people don’t know.

Re the 14 day rule,the police have to send the NIP to the registered keeper within 14 days.
So,if the car/van is registered in your name you should receive it directly to your address within the allowed time.However,if its a company vehicle,the NIP will go to the registered keeper,who then have up to 28 days (iirc) to return it,filled in,with the drivers details.They (police) will then send a NIP to you,the driver.

OP – where was the van? Driven to GT from the Burgh many times (via Howgate) and never seen it

South of entrance to Glenrath Farm. Or in other words the long straight after Leadburn. There’s some chicken sheds opposite.

Didn’t know that about vans, so this thread has some use besides fighting 😉

mboy – so you’re agreeing with me then.

Aye the van was there Thursday lunchtime this week. There are some timing blobs on the road just at the layby. Around Grid Ref NT243529

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/speedmanagement/vanspeedlimits

Link to the speed limits.

Check the NIP to see if there is anything about taking a speed awareness course,it costs about £80 plus the day off work instead of the £60 fine but you won’t get the points on your license.

some will be dead accurate, and some over-read by as much as 10%.

I did some experiments with my two Hondas, comparing speedo readings with GPS. One closely matched the GPS, the other was about 10% lower.

Never having had a van, I didn’t know there were different limits. Interesting.

I was always led to believe,that if your van is white, then the speed limit is 90mph

I used to work in the Magistrates and had to deal with this kind of stuff day in, day out. Anything you do to be awkward (asking for calibration, don’t know who was driving etc) will most likely work against you, best thing you can do is send an accompanying letter querying why you are being penalised for such a small infringement. Be polite and act a bit upset about being ‘in trouble with the law’ (even though you know it’s minor and no copper will ever speak to you about it let alone cart you off to jail!)

They will then explain, if applicable, the rule regarding being in a van, and most likely, due to the circumstance offer you the awareness course which leaves you to pay costs for the course, but no points on your licence.

I’m sure all the folk posting about speedo’s reading over etc are right – but all thinking GPS is accurate? It’s not. Or rather you can’t say it is without information on the errors, the constellation of satellites in use and the filtering algorithm in use by the satnav software. GPS is no-where near as good as most people think, even very, very expensive DGPS systems. It’s a lot of clever filtering and fitting algorithms that make tom-toms and the like seem as good as they are. For average speed over a reasonable distance the GPS will be very good however. But to get a better idea what your speedo reads, you’re probably just better getting a stopwatch and using the blobs on the road like the police. (disclaimer: i don’t know what algorithms etc tom-toms use, it’s probably a trade secret. But i have worked with processing data gps systems etc before).

Oh, and all the people debating it – the issue was he was in a van, so was done for being 11mph over – more like 20% not 10.

I must admit i never knew about the lower limits for vans, was aware for minibuses and the like, but i suppose the OP was doing 11mph over the limit so not a minor infraction.

waynekerr
I was always led to believe,that if your van is white, then the speed limit is 90mph

Wrong. There is no limit for white vans.

Wrong. There is no limit for white vans

Again incorrect, all white vans are limited to the speed of the car infront, at which they are flashing their headlights!!!

“but all thinking GPS is accurate”

I think you can assume consistency in how the system and device works from run to run. Although it depends on the number and relative velocity of the satellites at the time, but if you do a few runs and eliminate the peaks and troughs this variation is small compared with what you are measuring.

Comparing all the runs, my Civic was consistency close to the GPS reading, while my Accord was consistently and noticably below, about 5mph below at 50mph.

Sadly for us, radar guns are very accurate at measuring your approach velocity, assuming they don’t get jammed.how radar guns work

There is also the old “sorry, it’s a company vehicle, it could have been any one of 5 drivers driving that day, so without a photo of the driver I couldn’t tell you who it was” excuse… Seen that one work for a lot of people!

That doesnt work anymore AFAIK as you have to keep a drivers log ? and if no one admits to the offence then the MD would be prosecuted.
That isnt going to happen is it ?

We have to have a drivers log in each works vehicle. (NHS trust) Not sure if this is the law or just our organisation’s way of managing ‘unclaimed’ speeding and parking fines.

“I think you can assume consistency in how the system and device works from run to run.”

That’s precisely what you can’t assume (unless it’s in the same place at a similar time, with a similar view of the sky). As I said it depends on the constellation of satellites in use. The accuracy varies along different planes dependant on this.

To give a (very) simplified example, imagine all the satellites are in a line, and the only method used for position is triangulation. You get very low error in one axis (across the line), and very high in the other (along the line).

am i correct in thinking that the lower speed limits i.e. van limits are valid for a nissan navara pick up?

Yep, it’s designed as a commercial / goods vehicle, not a car.
As is the Dispatch.

Remember the police only have to SEND the NIP within 14 days you do NOT have to receive it within 14 days .. and it goes to the registered keeper.

Maybe its an urban myth but I thought there was a bit of leeway to allow for speedometers that aren’t exact.

Spedo’s can read incorrectly.. but spedos have to be calibrated to only read fast within tolerance.
A speedo cannot read slow.. i.e if you are travelling at 60mph, your speedo cannot read anything below 60mph, it can however read above 60mph (infact anything over up to 15%.
This info is as per the kit car Single Vehicle Approval compliancy.

So, you actually have no excuse if your speedo is wrong.

I got done by a private speed camera van in a 50.. mighty annoyed as it was parked in a hard shoulder on a dual carriage way, but I didn’t have the piece of mind to go back and get a photo of it(illegally parked?)
Anyway, I believe they sell their fines to the police, so its in their interest to sell every speeding offense whether it be +1mph or more.
Private speed camera vans are worse that static speed cameras, they don’t make considered judgment and they ALWAYS have film. 😮

Private speed cameras?

Post on here: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&f=10&mid=70159

I’d also question when the camera in question was last calibrated. Basically if I was getting fecked for the sake of 1mph I’d want to know that ALL their equipment and procedures were spot on first. I don’t believe in the arguement above that it gets peoples backs up when its a citizens right to know that he is being prosecuted fairly. Sorry if that creates more administration for you poor deary’s.

hora, keep up! He was driving a van, therefore he’s been done for 11mph over the legal speed limit, not 1mph.

Steve, I passed that van too last Saturday, about 8:30ish. A car coming the other way flashed their lights to warn me (also illegal) but as it was I caught up with a guy doing 50mph so was well under.

Ah, oops. Well in that case he should be prosecuted for driving a van too slow TBH 8)

Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking the law in the eyes of the law.

Vans 70mph,
Lories/lgvs, 56
coaches 65,

Lorries and coaches not allowed in the 3 or 4 lane of motorways as well.

Project – can we have that in English this time?

project is Judge Dredd

You cannot use ignorance of a law as an excuse for breaking that law.

So you could drive the wrong way down a road and plead you did not know it was illegal because you had no insight of that law.

lgv= large goods vehicle

Coach, a bus with high backed seats, not used on stage carrige works usually.

Project – What the hell are you talking about?

Jesus…so in my new Berlingo (notice how I had to put “new” in there?…cock!!), I’m limited to 50 on a normal road and 60 on a DC…****, why didn’t anyone tell me that before???!!!!

Yeah, I know it’s my responsibility, but you’d have thought someone in the dealership or one of my smartarse, know-it-all “mates” (having a rethink on each and every one of them now) who know it’s my first van after years of using an estate for work would have told me…”you do realise now Mr. Darcy, that you need to reconsider the speeds at which you’re driving”.

Thank **** for STW!!

Deadlydarcy – check what it is registered as. This is a grey area that can lead to two identical vehicles being subject to two different speed limits. These smaller vans can be registered as car-derived vans or commercial vehicles….

Looks like I’ll be paying the fine then. At least a few us are now a bit wiser after the event.

I think only things like fiesta or Clio vans are subject to normal speed limits. I’m so glad I read this thread.

Me too now i’ll be driving my White van slowly now, where the Fusing Hell was a letter through the post or ought advising me of such. 👿

DeadlyDarcy it all depends on what its taxed as, my Kia Sedona weighs more empty than a Citroen Dispatch is bigger overall but is not limited to the speed limits.

A Berlingo has a maximum weight under 2 tonnes,

A Dispatch has a maximum weight of 2.6 Tonnes

Any commercial vehicle which has a maximum weight of over two tonnes is subject to the restrictions below.

50mph on A roads
60mph on dual carriageways.

More info here

http://www.smartdriving.co.uk/Driving/DefensiveDriving/Speed/UK_Speed_limits.html

Me too now i’ll be driving my White van slowly now, where the Fusing Hell was a letter through the post or ought advising me of such.

Did you not have to learn the HC to pass your test? Or do you need your hand holding at everything you do?