Thread: Speeding fine

I'm not a police officer.

I don't always obey speed limits, in fact where I deem it safe to do so I rarely do. No I don't flog everywhere at 100 mph, but 10% on a long highway journey will get me there an hour or even two earlier, or more realistically get me there at the same time, with an hour or two break on the way.

I have a firmly held belief that no matter how well hidden the officer, no matter how unfair the "trap", if you didn't see it coming, you weren't alert enough to be doing the speed you were. (The exception being the cameras disguised as wheelie bins!)

What if the radar chap was a child on a tricycle?

Yep, I'd be a little angry for being caught too. Angry at myself.

I seem to get sprung every five or six years, the last time was on a four lane highway, 80 metres from a 110 zone and I was idly accelerating into the zone. Got busted doing 111. Unfair? Only because I was caught, it was me breaking the law not the copper.

Wouldn't you think they'd stop "trapping" all of us safe drivers and concentrate on the people that are going to have an accident!

I'm a bit curious though, (and I know the roadworks thing is a revenue raiser), what makes you think that an 80 sign means "80 in 100 metres or so", and what about the bloke behind you who took 150 metres to slow down?? Where is the limit drawn?

I'm a bit curious about how good your brakes are though, in 100 metres or so, you seemed to have slowed from 80 kph to 81kph??

Sorry, cop it sweet!


P

Originally Posted by Rossluck

Last week I was booked for speeding for the first time since I was an idiot hoon in my teen years. Initially I took it well, knowing as we all do that technically we could be pinged every time we drive. But when I returned to the scene of the crime and saw the slimy trap that had been set I became increasingly annoyed.

Basically, a long and highway quality road with an 80km limit rounded a bend where a roadworks sign quite suddenly reduced it to 60km. My truck is only small, but even at 4.5 tonnes loaded you tend when driving to allow the exhaust brakes to slow it from 80km to 60km.

You've guessed the rest. The speed gun was set to catch drivers in the first 100 metres or so of the 60 zone. I was booked for doing 81 kph, and was fined $250.00 and lost some points (don't know how many).

I should quickly add that there were NO roadworks or any sign of roadworkers, I haven't seen roadworks there ever, and it was 7:00 AM and little traffic.

This happens all of the time, as we all know, but it is revenue collecting like this that is surely what gives the traffic police such a bad name. If the trap had been just 200 metre further on, so that people had a chance to adjust, then it'd be a fair cop (sorry), but to catch people as they slow is just a quick way of reaching the daily "expectation" tally - a pat on the back for the officer, and the books brought up to date.

I can imagine the "technical" replies from police officers who participate in this forum. Don't waste your time, these traps stink.:mad:

yep wont try to justify it.......learn to drive or open your eyes

May be wrong, but I think I recall a story here in Victoria not too long ago about a ship load of people being booked for the same thing (speeding in a restricted roadworks zone).

From what I remember, they all got off because by law the have to have a sign stating that there is a speed camera operating in the temporarily speed reduced zone?...which of course they didn't..

Ahhh stuff it, I will waste some breath.

We have a court system. You can plead not guilty if you are innocent.

If the police were not acting in accordance with the operating system, the standard operating procedures for the instrument that they were using, then they have not complied and the matter will be withdrawn.

Your post is so typical of how people respond to being booked. At first they accept it, why, cause they know they were doing wrong. Then they sit down and go over and over it in there head until they was wronged.

So lets have a look at your argument

Basically, a long and highway quality road with an 80km limit rounded a bend where a roadworks sign quite suddenly reduced it to 60km. My truck is only small, but even at 4.5 tonnes loaded you tend when driving to allow the exhaust brakes to slow it from 80km to 60km.

So you come around a corner on a highway quality road and see a 60 sign and use your exhaust brakes to slow down. In a truck. You saw the sign but decided not to use the normal brake but let the exhaust brakes slow you slowly down.

And what is it, a highway or some mountain switchback in france. Long highways dont suddenly have corners so tight that you cant see 100m in front.

You've guessed the rest. The speed gun was set to catch drivers in the first 100 metres or so of the 60 zone. I was booked for doing 81 kph

So the cop was using a laser or radar. They dont set them they decide for themself what speed to stop at. Even if they were to set it 20k over is very reasonable.

I should quickly add that there were NO roadworks or any sign of roadworkers, I haven't seen roadworks there ever, and it was 7:00 AM and little traffic.

Do you think maybe at 7am they were setting up, getting ready for work. You saw the sign, end of story.

This happens all of the time, as we all know, but it is revenue collecting like this that is surely what gives the traffic police such a bad name. If the trap had been just 200 metre further on, so that people had a chance to adjust, then it'd be a fair cop (sorry), but to catch people as they slow is just a quick way of reaching the daily "expectation" tally - a pat on the back for the officer, and the books brought up to date.

When I was doing traffic work the expectation was that you would issue at least 6 infringements or cautions per day. Six, I could find six morons in half an hour! The tally is crap. Everyone who gets booked thinks they are part of a tally, revenue collecting scheme.

Cops are given a role to reduce injury on our roads. They are given cars and bikes and radars and all sorts of things to do it. Be great to end the shift and the boss says

"what did you do today constable?"
"nothin boss! nothin at all!"

So summing up, your a professional driver in a 4.5 t truck. You come round a bend and see a 60 sign. How far from it are you before you see it? 100m, 75m, 50m, 30m 20m ? Lets say 50m if you are particularly blind.

Lets say the cop is checking you, against guidelines, as you cross the 60 sign. You cant even reduce your speed to less than the original speed limit in that 50m. Your still exceeding the 80 when youve entered it?

So money where your mouth is. If what you say is true then plead not guilty and put the facts before the court. Let the magistrate determine the facts. Then come back and tell us how you went.

Ill save my breath for explaining the methods of having a caution issued instead.

gasps for breath

dazzler

I sympathise with Rossluck as a sign should have also been placed before the bend so it could have been seen from a distance.

But the fact is there are a lot more vehicles on the road nowadays than there were 40 years ago yet the road toll is actually considerably lower.

So stricter enforcement of the road laws is actually saving lives

Originally Posted by echnidna

So stricter enforcement of the road laws is actually saving lives

You don't think that "shatterproof" glass, side impact protection, seat belts, airbags, crumplezones, better tyres, better suspenson, better brakes, ABS, SIPS, stability control, hot mix bitumen, divided roads, dual lane highways and a myriad other things contribute?

40 years ago cars were dangerous things at much more than 100kph on wide aircraft runways. Now some cars can be safely driven at 250kph (no I don't mean on a typical highway), but the built in dynamic safety is enormous.

Not many roads here are capable of carrying cars at high speed, however suburban speed limits of 50 are now being considered for lowering to 40kph, I guess the next thing is having a bloke with a red flag and a bell walking in front of us as we drive.

P

40 years or so ago I can remember thumping down Dandenong Road, just east of north road, doing 115mph in my 34 Ford and a cortina went past me like I was tied to the fence.

big v8 4speed triple carbs light flywhell, and done by a cortina:eek:

nuff to put a man off hot rods.

I used to do the same to the likes of you, in a Peugeot 404!

Only I could stop!

P

whaddya wanna stop for?

I think some of the responses have tended towards the obvious, Ned Flanders school of driving brilliance and compliance. What I was getting at was this: the area in which the police set the trap is bushland, with no houses, no roadworks, no setting up, no children on bikes, just two police officers hidden in the bush with an electronic gadget and the ambition to rise through the ranks.

I drove into this trap with an impeccable record of thousands and thousands of kilometers driving, no accidents (ever), and no speeding fines for 30 years (just a “no seatbelt” 15 years ago). I rounded a corner, MY EYES WERE OPEN, I saw the situation, but not the trap, and decided to let the truck wind down to the speed limit via the exhaust brakes so that equilibrium could be maintained (corner + momentum + load = unstable). But the trap was set in such a way that I was caught during the wind down.

I accept it, I can afford the fine without crying, I was polite to the police officer. I’ve been around enough to know that I breach traffic regulations every day (it’s impossible not to, no matter how much of a Ned Flanders you are), and I accept the fine on that basis.

But what I was getting at was that this type of trap is what gives the police a bad name. I have a friend who’s a policeman, and while he quite rightly defends the police (who have to scrape people off the road after accidents), he agrees that “we know all the good spots”, and that “if ever the police department ever offers franchises for traffic fines” he’ll be the first to invest.

The simple alternative to the trap that was set for me would have been to station the radar 200 metres up the road to catch the HUNDREDS of people who dangerously ignore roadworks speeding zones and sit on 80 through them, not truck drivers that have assessed the situation and have it under control and are seeking to comply as safely as possible.

as one of those trying to rise through the ranks ross, what a load of crap. You did the wrong thing and got caught accept. I agree 100% with dazzler.

Originally Posted by Dan_574

as one of those trying to rise through the ranks ross, what a load of crap. You did the wrong thing and got caught accept. I agree 100% with dazzler.

As I expected, Sarge.

You don't think that "shatterproof" glass, side impact protection, seat belts, airbags, crumplezones, better tyres, better suspenson, better brakes, ABS, SIPS, stability control, hot mix bitumen, divided roads, dual lane highways and a myriad other things contribute?

Also, it a big way, is the advances in trauma medicine.

Then again, some of the ones who don't die might be better off dead.
There was a prang outside here between a car & a tree about a month ago.
None of the survivors will probably ever lead a normal life again.
One even left bits of his brain on the dashboard.
The causes (my observations only)
speed
possibly oncoming traffic going the opposite direction
slippery road,
steep roadside verges (once the left wheels got over a foot from the bitumen the car couldn't get back on the pavement easily.

The steel sides you see along the sides of some roads probably would have totally prevented such serious injuries.