...Mobile speed cameras are being used unlawfully It has been questioned whether speed cameras have been lawfully approved, Reference 12. The campaigner, Robbie the Pict, claims speed cameras are illegal because they were not legally ap- proved. This is the same person who challenged the toll charges on the Sky Bridge and won. According to Statutory Instrument 1993/1698 and “The Light Beam Speed Measuring Device Approval 1993” for the LTI 20.20, these approve speed cameras “activated by means of a light beam or beams” and “activated by a vehicle passing through light beams”. Yet laser speed cameras and speed guns, such as the LTI 20.20, • are not activated by emissions from the speed camera, but by the operator pressing a trigger, • do not use light, which is visible electromagnetic waves,but use invisible ultraviolet radiation. • do not use a beam, which is a long narrow line of electromagnetic radiation, but use extremely short pulses of infrared, which are less than 4m in length and up to 1.5m across. • The vehicle does not pass through the infrared emissions,but depends on the vehicle travelling along the line of the infrared pulses, to reflect these pulses back to the speed camera/gun. • The laser speed cameras and speed guns are of a much higher level of technological sophistication than that described in SI 1993/1698, so require a distinctly different and separate Statutory Instrument for this type of instrument, which they do not have. At the time of writing, these issues were being considered by appeal judges, but clearly on five grounds laser speed cameras/guns do not comply with their statutory approval. A Home Office requirement for the approved use of a speed camera is that, other than the speed measurement, there must be an independent means of determ ining the vehicle speed to an accuracy of 10%. In the case of fixed cameras, such as a Gatso, this can take the form of parallel equally spaced white lines across the traffic lane, with two photographs taken with a short time interval. With a mobile speed camera there are unlikely to be any permanent reference marks on the road,from which the speed of the vehicle can be determined and this depends on the speed camera operator to assessing the vehicle speed. If they then consider the vehicle speed is above the limit, then its speed is measured with the speed camera. The question is whether a typical speed camera operator can assess vehicle speed with 10% accuracy, since if not then the speed camera is not being used in an approved manner, so the evidence from it should not be admissible in court. In response to Freedom of Information enquiries, the Home Office claim that a speed camera operator can assess the speed of a vehicle to 10% accuracy, at a distance of 500m, but they have not carried out any tests to show this is possible. Perhaps they know that such tests would show it is not possible. By any reasonable standard it does not seem conceivably possible. It would seem that anyone accused of speeding, from a mobile speed camera, could reasonably ask for evidence that the camera operator can assess vehicle speed to 10% accuracy, at the relevant distance. If this cannot be established then the speed camera was not being used in an approved manner, so the evidence from it should be inadmissible in court. It is proposed that if the Northants police wish to continue using mobile speed cameras then they should carry out tests on their camera operators to verify whether they can assess the speed of vehicles to 10% accuracy, for the relevant conditions. If not, then they should not be allowed to operate the speed cameras, or at very least the speed margin for prosecution, above the speed limit, should be increased to match the accuracy with which the operator can assess vehicle speed. Normally ..........
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 19:30:50 +0000
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