I regularly commute to work along the A14 from Bury St Edmunds towards Cambridge. Over the past 12 months I 've noticed quite frequently a Suffolk mobile camera van. It's parked on the grass verge inches from the nearside lane on the Eastbound carriageway just before the Rowley Mile service station (that's about 1 mile before the junction with the A142).
It parks up with amber lights flashing presumably so that no one has an excuse to career off the road and hit it!!! It certainly is in a vulnerable position parked on a curve in the road. Anyone not expecting it will see it too late.
Has anyone else spotted it? and is it illegally parked - certainly if you or I parked up there we would be doing so illegally. Finally if the vehicle is parked illegally does that mean any tickets issued are also so void??
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Why not write/call your local police and complain about a badly/dangerously parked vehicle?
Tickets probably not void ... tickets are very rarely void.
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Stop infront of it (assuming there is room, take your camera, walk behind it, take photo, report on telephone, dangerously/illegally parked vehicle (not allowed to park on grass verges). send picture to local plod with a complaint, and CC to the local rag.
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Several factors govern where the casualty reduction vehicles may park.
1. They park to be as visible as possible to oncoming drivers and to give them as much advance warning as road conditions allow that they are entering a fatal & serious crash area and need to check their driving, especially their speed.
2. Wherever possible and practical, vehicles are parked off the road and off footpaths where they do not to obstruct the flow of traffic or pedestrians
3. Operators must park in places where their own health & safety is not compromised.
4. Police vehicles (and the casualty reduction patrols are police vehicles) may park wherever is necessary for the execution of their duties.
5. It is not a traffic violation to park on a grass verge. If it was, then half the people who park outside their own home would be committing an offence!
5. Similarly, it is not an offence to cross a footpath or cycle path (or how would people park in their own driveways?)
And:
There are clear Government requirements covering where and how mobile safety cameras should be placed, and the measures to be taken to ensure drivers are aware of them. The Partnership identifies each mobile patrol location to central Government for approval, and once approval for the site is given, the area is surveyed for the best parking spot to deal with the problem.
You can ask is that this site has been through the approval process.
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if one of these mobile camera vans are parked normaly on the road is it ok to park behind or infront of them to obscure the camera view.
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>. It is not a traffic violation to park on a grass verge. If it was, then half the people who
>park outside their own home would be committing an offence!
I've seen plenty of vehicles on grass verges getting tickets, grass verge is Highway.
>Similarly, it is not an offence to cross a footpath or cycle path
>(or how would people park in their own driveways?)
No but it is an offence to stop/park on a pavement........and 1000's of people do this outside their homes with no tickets issued.
Similarly it is an offence to park within 10m of a junction, millions of people do this with no tickets issued. And in my street and nearby streets they suddenly started ticeting vehicles parked near the main junction even though the yellow line on the road terminated 1m from the junction, and they didn't book the vehicles within 10 m of the lane, if they did then they would have reduced the available parking in this street by 60%.
And now they have stopped ticketing the vehicles within 10m of the junction. As usual the law is not applied evenly and it becomes a lottery as to whether you get booked.
I asked a policeman who was here about ticketing the cars near the junction, I asked "and are you applying this law uniformly through out the whole town/area or just our 5 streets where parking is very limited?" he had no answer except that he was only doing what he was told to do.
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