Police are to use a new Speed Gun

kilozulu1 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 28, 2004 Posts: 2

Being in a similar line of work (and not yet in the RTA, but come July hopefully will be) our GATSO 'mistakes' get written off but only after a mountain of paperwork and lots of bowing and scraping to local Police Forces (who to be fair are ok with it).

This is what led me to believe that there might be a similar thing in place.

Just another one of lifes great mysteries I suppose.

DRP · Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 5:54 pm Post subject:

Hi All.
Read this revue when it came out & that luck is on my side for once. I asked my brother who was in the States to get me the latest Radar detector.
It is a Cobra XRS 9400, which detects 11 bands. There are 5 Radar (X,K,Ka,VG2 & Spectre1). 4 Laser (LT1 20-20,Ultra Lyte, Prolaser & Prolaser lll), which should cover this new beast. Also 2 emergency bands. It was purchased from a high street electrical chain store, not a specialist store.
My tip to anyone that wants one get someone that is going on Holiday to the states to pick one up for them. As £75 is a lot cheaper than what Argos is asking, for something similar.
But the best option is don’t SPEED. These units only give you warnings that a laser gun is being used, which if you are the first person that they point it at, it’s all too late, YOU WILL GET BOOKED. Thumbs Up

www.cobra.com
Regards.
DRP

bagmans911 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 31

I do not know about the Cobra, the Bell Euro 550 works great, however they all fail for Laser guns as it only takes 0.3 sec to get an accurate speed, with very small 'scatter' they are also extremely difficult to detect if not targeting your vehicle. Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive a few runs against an LTI 20.20 laser gun and check warnings/accuracies, all it proved was that at close range the detector failed to pick up any signal, and that my GPS speed was spot on whilst my Speedo over reads by 4mph!! On my third and final run the warning received would not have given 'significant' time to do anything about it! Similar runs against RADAR guns proved completely different, lots of warning and plenty of time to 'wake up' before they would have been able to get an accurate reading.

Unfortunately some people think that all people who have detectors habitually speed!? I suppose they also assume that everyone with a gun is a killer??? I actually found I drive slower with a detector than without? Strange it must be that ignorance is bliss!
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timtim · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 7:52 am Post subject:

bagmans911 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 26, 2004 Posts: 31

For your information,
Speed was a significant factor in 7.3% of accidents.
The largest factor was inattention or failing to asses the path of an oncoming vehicle at 10.7%.

Norway has increased its motorway speed limits whilst realising a reduction in accidents!
Obviously speed kills, but poor driving is the major factor, and while police set hidden traps, sit on bridges with laser guns they are not policing our roads, tailgating, poor lane discipline and reckless/drink driving is on the increase, as are road deaths!

'On Motorways, 57% of cars exceed the 70mph limit, 20% exceed 80mph.
On 30mph roads, 58% of cars exceed the 30mph limit, 25% exceed 35mph.
On single carriageway roads, 70% of HGVs exceed the 40mph HGV limit.
Department for Transport figures for 2003'
"The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable individual should be considered legal."
'Establishing Speed Limits - A Case of Majority Rule', Arizona Department of Transportation, 1999

"Exceeding the speed limit related to just 60 collisions per year out of a total of 1,900 collisions in the Durham area — that’s about 3%."

Whilst my license is clean I do not preach the righteous 'don't speed' I merely highlight that speed cameras and hidden vans are not working to make our roads safer, more motorists drive without insurance and cameras can't catch them!
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IPAQ 3970, Fortuna Clip-on BT, TT3, Lexar 32X 256mb SD card.

Fuego · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 9:00 pm Post subject:

And there's always the argument that motorists are often distracted looking for police cars, hidden camera vans, gatsos, and a whole myriad of other "ambushes" and that in itself creates inattention to oncoming traffic and road conditions.

timtim · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 10:09 pm Post subject:

Fuego · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 11:01 pm Post subject:

If you have to religously watch your speed to stay under ridiculous limits, then you're distracted. On most 30 mph roads, if you're the one doing 30 mph or less, then you're the one with a tail of 20 cars behind you.

The average speed on most 30 mph roads is around 35 mph. Some Gatsos are set to trigger at more than 33 mph.

As for selective observation; it's called driver workload. There is only so much you can concentrate on before your attention starts to become diluted. Yes, you'll see "other stuff" too, but you may misjudge situations if you have not spent enough time analysing them. Nobody said anything about "only looking for cameras or whatever". Where did you get that from? Selective reading?

Fuego · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 11:09 pm Post subject:

As an aside, it's also logical to conclude from your line of reasoning, that if people stop, they will have no accidents at all. There is no magic slower speed at which accidents are completely averted, short of being at a standstill. Let's face it, traffic and roads are dangerous places.

There will always be accidents so long as human error is a factor. So that 7%, or whatever it is may not actually drop significantly, simply by cutting current road speeds in half.

Moreover, one would have to look carefully at how that 7% was made up before being able to reach firm conclusions. If 50% of that 7% was drivers doing over 60 mph in a 30 zone, especially where road conditions are against it, then that's not the extent of speeding that I'm talking about.

timtim · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 11:55 pm Post subject:

If you're in the right gear, it really isn't difficult to maintain a constant speed, and a driver won't be distracted frequently looking at the speedo. Why do other driver's opinions matter so much, and does it matter if there's a line of cars behind you?

I'm going to have to put my cards on the table now, and fess up that in a previous job incarnation I was a class 1 advanced police driver. I only say this to pont out that all the way through training, I was never taught that there was such a thing as driver workload, or that attention can become diluted. A driver observes everything in a scene, and learns to prioritise.

Roads are not inherently dangerous places. As you say human error is most certainly a factor, but I repeat it must be the case that if people drove slower, they would have more time to react and any collision would have less harmful consequences.

Of course if people stop there will be no accidents at all, but pratcicality should come before scoring cheap debating points (that's one too, I know)

To close this one, this is a quote taken from a web site for an advanced driving company, run by class 1 Police drivers. The thread is similar to the one on this site, namely regarding speed cameras and the like.

I don't quite understand why the level of hysteria and panic has reached such a high level among the motoring population. You would have thought that the amount of fear that speed detection devices strike into the heart of the motorist that these things were firing live bullets! The answer is quite simple. Try looking at that dial on your instrument panel a few times and act appropriately to the information it is giving you in conjunction with your surroundings. Where's the problem?
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It seems I don't know anything after all

Fuego · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 1:48 am Post subject:

I guess automatics don't count then ;)

Other driver's opinions, when they are behind you, matter little, but you can be sure that if there is a line of twenty cars behind you that three or four will be trying to overtake and not always in the safest of circumstances.

There is a balance to be struck there.

But the real question is, what is the definition of "speeding" in the context that this board often refers to it?

Is it breaking the speed limit, or driving faster than is safer for the current road conditions, surrounding environment, traffic density and vehicle integrity?

If you're talking the former, then clearly I, for one, am wasting my time in this discussion, as I started by saying that some speed limits need to be raised and some need to be lowered, in accordance with modern day vehicle capabilities and population density.

russgunn · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 1:33 pm Post subject:

FYI laser diffusers are only illegal if they are switched on. The law on this may change soon though. Also, with regards to speeding police vehicles, contrary to what we may believe they are allowed to speed in order to get to an emergency. "They only need to have their blue lights activated when being caught by a safety camera to become exempt from prosecution or fines". "They are then taken out of the system". The words of the Bedforshire and Luton Casualty Reduction Partnership I may add!

pko · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 2:07 pm Post subject:

A really simple solution is to put a sticker over one of the letters/numbers on the plate so it looks as though it's blown up off the road and become stuck there. Should a woodentop, sorry police officer, bother to stop you, bearing in mind he'll have to get out of his car, all you need to say is sorry officer, thanks for pointing it out, & remove it. The worst case scenario is a non endorsable fixed penalty ticket,

Darren · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 2:10 pm Post subject:

That would serve no purpose whatsoever, a quick PNC lookup using the letters and numbers they could distinguish would throw up a list of possibles which would quickly be narrowed down to your vehicle and if there was any suspicion that the deception was deliberate you'd be looking at a further offence to answer to Sad

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Darren Griffin

russgunn · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 2:15 pm Post subject:

Or just make sure you get pulled over by a thick nonce of an officer. I was lucky enough to get stopped by one of these last year for undertaking at 90mph due to 'I don't know where my mirrors are' woman in her Vauxhall Nova doing 45mph in the overtaking lane of the A6. He said I'd be in court within 6 weeks for serious dangerous driving, possible short term loss of license and severe fine. Nothing has happened even over a year later. The more officers like this using these new cameras the better! "How do I switch it on?" "Damn, I dropped it off the bridge again"

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