I don't know if this has been mentioned here but i thought i'd bring it to everyones attention. A bloke was fined 425 (or something near that) pounds for flashing someone coming in the opposite direction on the road, warning him there was a mobile speed camera. Now, i'm sorry but what the dick is that all about? For those of us who are in the UK, arnt we being told that speed camera's are not for making money and they are to get people to slow down? Well wasnt this guy doing EXACTLY THAT. Telling someone to slow down. You cant have that both ways. Either the law is wrong or speed camera's are wrong. All he was doing was telling this person to slow down and not commit an offense, it's like fining a parole officer for telling an ex con not to commit a crime. I'm sorry but this man now has a criminal record, if i was him i'd take this all the way up to the supreme courts if i had to because he has basically got a criminal record for telling someone not to commit a crime. Speed camera's are they to make money and after this it's obvious.
It's completely stupid. Loads of drivers flash to warn people of speed cameras, particularly lorry drivers because the last thing you want is a load of lorries braking suddenly. We can just hope that even though they fined him and everything they will see it as a mistake and won't catch anyone else for doing it in the future.
Legally, they have NO grounds what so ever to fine him. Evertime I see a mobile camera i'll flash people coming the other way, like everyone else does, and i'm waiting for the day a copper tells me ive broken the law and i'm going to be fined. I'll ask him, point me to which law i've broken, exactly which law. And he'll mumble and um and err and tell me i'm being dishonest or some ********. Does anyone have any info on what grounds they actually fined him on? legal grounds. EDIT: i found on bbc that they found him guilty of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of her duties. Sorry but what? So by the same token if two police officers were walking down the street patroling, if you see a man about to throw a brick through a shop window and you tell him to think twice about doing that and the fact that there are two coppers walking up the street you'd be fined for that as well? How are you doing anything but stopping someone from commiting an offence which can only be a good thing. They fined this man on the grounds of, he beat the speed camera to the punch, which is NOT legally wrong. What is this country coming to.
Can i just add as well, he was found guilty of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of their duties. If you are driving below or at the speed limit, by their reasoning arnt you stopping other drivers from exceeding the limit and thus preventing the police from doing their duty? And how can the police prove the oncoming drivers were exceeding the limit? They cant prove he has prevented them from catching anyone.
Sometimes the laws in this country are a joke. I warn people about speed camara's all the time and I'm not about to stop doing it either.
Neither will I. Speed camera's are there to make money and it seems like this copper had had a bad day and he had knocked him one back from hitting his targets.
1. Speed cameras are there to enforce the speed limit. The idea that they are somehow supplementing the coffers of the government or police force is a myth. Last year speed cameras generated about £104 million in fines. £90 million went back into road safety schemes (not just more cameras but barriers and infrastructure that saves your neck when your car careens out of control, safe crossing infrastructure, speed bumps on school roads etc.) and to pay operating costs for the cameras and the supposing legal system. About £30 million went to the Treasury --a piddling amount by their standards. 2. The police may argue that by revealing their speed trap to other motorists you are indeed obstructing them in the course of their duty. To stick with the brick thrower analogy: man wants to throw a brick through a window. You point out to him that he'd better not, as there are two bobbies on the beat just around the corner, heading this way. The man desists --but only until the bobbies have passed. In the clear now, he lobs his brick through the window. See the point? By warning him about the cops you have not prevented an offense; you have merely prevented him from being caught in the act by the police. Similarly, by warning other motorists about speed traps you are not stopping them from speeding --they just speed up again once they have passed the speed trap-- you are just stopping them from getting caught speeding. Hence the police would argue that you are obstructing them in the course of their duties.
Thats all well and good nexxo but for everything in your post to count, you would have to prove that said oncoming traffic, WAS speeding, which you will not do. And speed camera's don't prevent speeding... Maybe my example was bad, i typed it in a hurry, but all this man was doing was warning them of a speed camera, where is the rant about GPS speed camera locators, i have one on my tomtom. The fact of the matter is the man did not break any laws. I refer you to this: I understand my brick throwing example wasnt a good one, in that situation you are indeed stopping him from being caught but is it your responibility to decide what this man does afterwards? I don't know if your a driver but if you are you will have certainly broken the speed limit at some point for whatever reason. You are simply warning him not to do the deed and letting him know if you do there are two cops round the corner and you will get caught. Are you going to follow this man around for the rest of his life. And most people speed up anyway after they pass a speed camera anyway, making them pointless, the static ones i mean, they become ineffective. This i think sums up speed camera's in a nut shell. 'I'll say it again. They do not catch anyone. It is a camera, all it does it take a photo of an image. People approaching a speed camera may choose to slow down, they may chose to ignore it, they may not even know it's there. They do not prevent people speeding. That only happens when people make a conscious decision to slow down. Speed cameras may help in the fight against speeding drivers, but they do not prevent anything any more than CCTV does not stop crime.'
At 170mph a speed camara wont see you so maybe we should speed up just joking Actually where I live they are removing the fixed speed camaras because none of the money goes to local gov it all gose to central gov, yet the local gov has to pay for the upkeep of them.
The guy shouldn't have been fined, but to be fair I've seen a lot worse than some one flashing their lights to warn people. The kids on a housing estate I used to live on (Thamesmead) has a VERY long dual carriageway running through it (Yarton Way). The police used to set up a mobile speed camera about 3/4's of the way down it. At the start of the carriageway theres a bridge crossing the road. The local kids would get 2 big bed sheets write on one in big letters "warning - police speed trap ahead" and on the other "Give Tips Please" then hang them both from the bridge and stand about 12 feet down the road with a bucket. Drivers would see the signs and slow down and threw coins into the bucket of course not everyone did it but it seemed to be worth the kids while as they did it frequently, of course after a while the kids would have to leg it as the police came to investigate why no one was speeding but the kids always seemed to come back after a while.
Someones been watching Top Gear then Plus The highway code states to only flash your headlights to let other road users know that you are there. The police have made up a charge from nothing to obstructing police which the man in question wasn't actually doing. At worst he was actually distracting other drivers, as he said he was "warning other drivers of a hazard" which isn't covered in the highway code, unless you are flashing your hazard lights. Legally, he has done nothing wrong and they had NO evidence to say otherwise. It all boils down to speed camera's, we have been told are there to slow people down and stop accidents, mobile speed camera's arnt actually called that, they are called accident reduction units and they can only be placed at locations where there have been several accidents in the past. Therefore if their primary function is to "reduce accidents" then surely by flashing his lights and potentially slowing down other drivers he is surely helping the cause not being deterimental to it.
So why aren't speed camera detectors banned yet? As they provide exactly the same service. The police are just picking on 1 man and its inexcusable, can't have 1 law for 1 man and 1 law for every tom dick and harry who have a tom tom that kindly tells them of every speed camera/speed trap.
That they do but they don't for speed traps, the ones where the police sit at the side of the road with a speed gun. Sure the blokes in the wrong but the police can't decide who to punish and who not to, it should be no one who everyone they catch. It's like a bleeding pick 'n' mix
Also if it is a mobile trap in a non marked location don't the police have to place a temporary sign within a certain distance to warn drivers as well as post it on a web site. http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consu.../@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_067427.pdf http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/11512.aspx. but this was also posted on the gov web site "The police may also use cameras to enforce speed limits. In this case the rules about cameras being visible do not apply. " So the law may be much more complex than first seems
If I made a sign that said "Stick to the speed limit" and put it a few hundred meters before the camera, would that still be considered the same as flashing my lights? I'd say that at least a very small percentage would see it and slow down a bit, therefore not being caught by the camera. They would also probably end up speeding again after short period of time.
Getting nailed by an unexpected police trap possibly might have an inhibitory effect. I do not agree with the fine, but based on reasons of freedom of speech. You cannot fine someone for effectively pointing a finger at police officers and saying: "Dude, there's police officers over there". Unless, of course, you are thereby wilfully assisting in (not being caught in) the execution of an offence. And that could not be conclusively argued because, as you say, it cannot be proved that the other drivers being warned were speeding. The idea of speed cameras is that they act as a deterrent. Your TomTom is an extention of that (after all, you do slow down, don't you? Job done). The idea of speed traps is that they are mobile and random. Your TomTom isn't going to help you there. The strategy of slowing down and speeding up past the speed monitoring zone does not work when you don't know where that zone is. The idea here is that the deterrent effect is spread to areas where there aren't any speed cameras: that people start minding their speed all the time because you never know... But about responsibility: if you decide to intervene and stop a man from being caught then yes, you also carry some responsibility for the consequences of that intervention, which may include what he is able to do next because he was not caught. By your involvement you've inserted yourself into that man's life, see? There is some truth in the saying that if you save a man's life, you become responsible for it... And yes, I do speed at times. And if I get nailed doing so it's my responsibility and I have to own the consequences. Rather annoyingly they actually do work. Evidence suggests speed is a big factor in road accidents. One study into the effects of reducing a speed limit to 20mph found that accidents of all types fell by 60 per cent. For instance Swindon's council (which was considering getting rod of speed cameras) statistics showed that the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads of Wiltshire and Swindon was down by more than 30 per cent compared to the time before speed cameras were installed. The reduction was even more dramatic for accidents involving children under 16, where there had been a 47.7 per cent fall. And when the areas where the cameras lurk are taken in isolation, the effect on accidents seems even more dramatic. The number of people killed or seriously hurt in road collisions shows a 69 per cent fall. Before the cameras arrived, 19 people were dying on the roads in those areas each year. That is now down to six, while 10 of Swindon's speed camera sites have not had a death or serious injury at all since the cameras were installed. Because the picture they take leads to a hefty fine and points on a licence, which in turn has a negatively reinforcing effect on most drivers' behaviour.
In some area's i do agree speed camera's do help this statistics, some area's, they are excellent and i won't dispute that. What i will dispute is the ones that arn't. And there are alot of them. Most of them infact i would go to say. We could argue about speed camera's all day long though. The point i was trying to make about this man is he didnt actually break any law. I do agree with alot of what you say though esp about tomtom, but then again, as stated previous, we all break the speed limit at some point, intentionally or not.
May or might not, if the police are sat with the speed gun constantly on and picking up car speeds then yes sat navs that are designed to do it will alert you to the fact of a speed trap ahead, the only time it wont help you out if the police are sat there turning it on to check certain cars going past, even then you might get warned about it.
Seeing as you can buy devices that will tell you when mobile speed traps are nearby, I think it is pretty ridiculous. http://www.snooperuk.com/products/snooper_lynx/ as an example, when you see a speed trap, it gets uploaded to a central database.
