news: for immediate release
According to the Times today, The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) will send a crack defence team to prosecute drivers who dare to challenge their speeding fine.
Safe Speed says that ACPO is merely upping their bluff. The biggest bluff of all is that the resources do not exist to prosecute every speeding case. If drivers stopped accepting fixed penalties the system would collapse in weeks.
This is the real reason for the ever increasing 'bluff and bluster' tactics - they need to force us into paying fixed penalties because neither the courts nor the CPS can possibly cope with much of an increase in cases.
Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said:
"This action by ACPO is a dirty trick - they are attempting to put access to justice beyond the pocket of ordinary drivers. They are effectively saying - 'you are guilty because we never make mistakes'. But the newspapers are full of Police mistakes, and, to make matters worse, one of the key pieces of police prosecution equipment is downright dodgy. So dodgy, in fact, that it has been christened the 'dodgyscope' by Internet users."
According to The Times {verbatim quote}:
{Mr Hughes said: "I respect competent lawyers who go through the evidence on behalf of their client. My job is to make sure the prosecution case is as robust as the defence."
He criticised anticamera groups such as Safe Speed and the Association of British Drivers, which encourage drivers to challenge speeding tickets.
"What these groups have done is encourage people to believe that there is something inherently wrong with enforcing the law."}
Paul Smith replied: "What is wrong, Mr Hughes, is the overzealous application of a law that simply isn't up to the job. You are damaging confidence in the justice system, the Police / public relationship and road safety itself. You can't even comply with the speed limit yourself, because you recently had 6 driving licence points for speeding."
"We encourage drivers to investigate the case against them. I would go as far as to say that MOST speeding cases are DEFECTIVE on the prosecution side. If you dig deep enough a fatal defect is quite likely to emerge. If you know you were not speeding according to law, or you do not know who the driver was at the time of the alleged offence then you are likely to have a winnable case."
"The whole thing has become a petty war of technicalities with ACPO and the Police throwing ever increasing resources against an increasingly untrusting public. In this ridiculous war road safety has been forgotten. Mr Hughes may well claim that the law is on his side but however much he may bleat about the law the fact is that millions upon millions of speeding prosecutions are not saving lives on the road. It isn't 'the law' that matters most here, Mr Hughes, it's the number of roads fatalities. You should know better."
Motorist's Prosecution Checklist:
* The speed limit must be correctly signed in accordance with the regulations (Folly Bottom, Wylye, North Wales, Cleveland, Starcross and others)
* A speed limit order must apply correctly to the location in question. (Lincolnshire, London, North Wales and others)
* The paperwork must be correct and in accordance with all laws and regulations. (Dorset, Cleveland)
* The paperwork must be delivered on time
* The Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) cannot be served by second class post. (South Wales)
* Papers to issue a summons must be laid within 6 months of the date of alleged offence.
* The equipment must be calibrated correctly.
* The operator must use the equipment in accordance with rules and guidelines.
* The operator must form a prior opinion of speed in excess of a speed limit.
* Arguably only a Police constable is qualified to form a prior opinion of speed in excess of a posted speed limit.
* Communications equipment must be switched off while measurements of speed are taken (including the operator's mobile phone).
* The site must be suitable (restrictions include near power lines)
* The equipment must be working properly.
* Evidence must be disclosed to the defence 7 days before the trial on request or it becomes inadmissible.
* If you don't know who the driver was at the time of the alleged offence you may well have a statutory defence in RTOA1988 S172(4) as amended
* The court must be impartial (And since the Magistrate's Court Service are usually a camera partnership member it is far from clear that the court has the required degree of impartiality.)
* The process must not breach your Human Rights (A 'right to silence' case is ongoing awaiting verdict at the ECHR at Strasbourg.)
* In the case of Gatso fixed speed cameras the transit of the calibration marks in the two photographs must match the speed recorded by the radar speed meter.
* The prosecution must turn up in court with the correct paperwork.
* Witness statements cannot be signed by machine. (North Wales)
* The LTI20.20 (common laser speed meter used in virtually all mobile speed camera vans) is subject to various operating anomalies, notably 'slip effect'.
A failure in any of these areas will usually be fatal to a prosecution case.
Notes for editors
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The Times today:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1826722.ece
About Safe Speed
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The Safe Speed road safety campaign is primarily the work of engineer-turned road safety analyst Paul Smith.
Since setting up Safe Speed in 2001, Paul Smith, 51, an advanced motorist and road safety enthusiast, and a professional engineer of 25 years UK experience, has carried out over 20,000 hours working on the campaign with well over 5,000 of those hours researching the overall effects of speed camera policy on UK road safety. In addition to those 20,000 hours, Paul has funded to campaign to the tune of £10,000.
We believe that this is more work in more detail than anything carried out by any other organisation. Paul's surprising conclusion is that overall speed cameras make our roads more dangerous. Paul has identified and reported a number of major flaws and false assumptions in the claims made for speed cameras, and the whole "speed kills" system of road safety.
The inescapable conclusion is that we should urgently return to the excellent road safety policies that gave us in the UK the safest roads in the World in the first place. Far from saving lives, speed cameras are a dangerous distraction.
Safe Speed does not campaign against speed limits or appropriate enforcement of motoring laws, but argues vigorously that automated speed enforcement is neither safe nor appropriate.
Safe Speed is very slimly funded by voluntary contributions to the web site.
We are urgently seeking improved funding.
The Safe Speed web site contains more than 350,000 words of road safety analysis and information. We are seeking publishers for 'the book of the web site'.
It has turned out to be quite an amazing story and there are opportunities for journalists and broadcasters to explore how all this came about, what it means, and where road safety has gone so badly wrong.
Contact Safe Speed
================
description: Safe Speed road safety campaign
web: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/
email: psmith@safespeed.org.uk
telephone: > 01862 893030 < href="http://www.safespeed.org.uk/prindex.html">http://www.safespeed.org.uk/prindex.html
Recent press releases (since November 2004) are automatically and
immediately
uploaded to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR
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Scrap Speed Cameras Petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapcam
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Paul Smith is back in North Scotland and the
phones are being 'looked at'. You can reach him
on 07799 045553. With luck the main phones and
ISDN will be repaired shortly (Still waiting).
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