The man in Madux's post was lucky to get off if he admitted doing 85 IMO! Strange world where you can admit 85 and be acquitted and you can get 3 points and £60 for doing 35 in a 30! However, good luck to anyone who can beat what is jokingly known as "The System".
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That article says the guy was being followed at 100mph - the likelehood of that being incorrect is probably less than of a mobile speed camera being wrong, IMHO.
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So if he can prove that his car couldnt do the speed they say they recorded him at, is he then going to claim their equipment was not accurate?
He is essentially trying to make liars out of the police yes? Im guessing that while he was obviously breaking the limit, they dont have any firm proof of by how much if he disproves them, taking it down to the police having a 'best guess'?
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Wonder if he'll "detune" his car before he takes it to the circuit?
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It has to be said, the chances of a guy in a knackered old 405 getting it up to 100mph in a 30mph limt, must be pretty limited. Ditto the police are a bit foolish by claiming a nice round number of 100mph. Had they just gone for 80mph then guy would be banned and cursing his luck.
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I'm guessing what may have happened is that the Police had to do 100mph for a stretch to catch up, indicating that the 405 was actually doing around 80 or so.
It'll be a shame if this guy does get off on a technicality, because there's no way he was doing anything like sane and reasonable speeds, that's seems very clear.
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You just wonder how much of a bonehead you have to be before this seems like a good idea to pursue.
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hope he beats the system.
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There is a problem with VASCAR. It has been shown it is subject to interference and speed calculations can be wrong. Makes you wonder what is wrong with this country when all the speed measuring devices aren't allowable in evidence as they haven't been approved by the home secretary. Still people get prosecuted on technicalities by instruments that are technically illegal!!
Scotland: Police Halt Use of VASCAR Over Accuracy Concern
The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in Scotland issued a memo Tuesday recommending that VASCAR not be used to issue speeding tickets to motorists. Although the "Vehicle Average Speed Computer and Recorder" is a thirty-five-year-old technology and has been replaced in some areas by radar and laser speed guns, it is still commonly used in the UK and the US. "Until such time that the matter has been fully investigated, a memo has been sent to officers asking them to use alternative speed detection equipment," Strathclyde Police Chief Inspector Andy Orr told the Aberdeen Press and Journal newspaper. VASCAR estimates speed by calculating the amount of time it takes for a vehicle to pass a given distance. The police officer operating the machine flips a switch when a vehicle passes a given point and then flips it again when the vehicle passes a second point. The machine then displays a speed on a small readout. Because the device appeared to depend more upon the skill of the operator to produce a reliable estimate, UK police authorities never required Home Office Approval or accuracy testing for the device. Instead, the VASCAR manufacturer insisted that the "quartz crystal" performed a self-test allowing the device to establish itself as an accurate instrument for measuring speed. That did not turn out to be the case for UK officials who recently uncovered reliability problems while working to integrate the speed detector with new digital radios and automated number plate recognition (ANPR) systems. The same officials had already known about the possibility for radio frequency interference. A 2002 ACPO test registered interference any time a radio or cell phone was used within six-and-a-half feet of the VASCAR machine. "There is a potential risk of interference to Traffic Law Enforcement Devices (TLED) such as VASCAR from Airwave Radios and GSM phones," a Devon and Cornwall Constabulary memo dated August 19, 2008 explained. "Officers should not operate a TLED from within a vehicle in the presence of a GSM phone or Airwave radio that is switched on, unless a 'Transmit Inhibit' system has been enabled. Failure to do so may compromise the integrity of any relevant prosecutions." Now Scottish officials fear the possibility that lawyers will seize upon the unreliability of the technology to undermine past prosecutions and force refunds.
Source: Speed-trap device may be faulty, say police (Aberdeen Press and Journal (Scotland), 2/4/2009)
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I remember a case from the paper quite a few years ago in which a Skoda driver was timed at around 100mph, and contended in court, amid general hilarity, that his car couldn't go that fast.
I don't remember whether he got away with it - magistrates can be kind when sufficiently amused - but a good example of the Skoda Estelle 130 in proper tune could certainly do 100 four up, and a fairly mildly tweaked one could nudge 120.
The fact that most examples in this country weren't in proper tune, combined with all the ignorant Jasper Carrott hee-hawing 'Skoda jokes', made people in general underrate the car's real capacity. To the great advantage of the eccentrics who liked the thing.
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Lud
I am going to call your skoda estelle "robin hood". Like all good folk or fairy tales, the passage of time has exagerated its fine points, giving it mystic abilities even, yet starting to forget its bad deeds.
100mph 4 up in an estelle - even a 130, is the stuff of marvel comics.
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I'm not really exaggerating AE, honestly. Or hardly.
A good example in proper tune would go over a hundred on a motorway downslope and hold a hundred or a bit more on the flat until it came to a serious upslope. Like a 1.2 Punto without the refinement or gross understeer. A heavy load in the car lowered it a bit, especially at the front, and noticeably improved the aerodynamics, although what in the context one must laughingly call acceleration, er, suffered still further. It wasn't quite delivering full power in top at that speed - a whisker over 4,000 rpm - and continued to gather speed with a willing whoop and holler when you floored it down a slight incline. But a really steep motorway hill, with a bad head wind, could spoil the fun a bit sometimes.
It's all in the driving really, and I suppose flat-out motoring in a cheap rear-engined Czech car isn't everyone's cup of tea. Perhaps it wouldn't even be mine now. But it used to be... you're quite sensible about most things but here I am afraid you have been influenced by the tiresome Carrott, and perhaps by a brush with a dead-rough Estelle or two. There were certainly lots about, but even the rough ones I had went better than most people would have expected. Made a hell of a lot of Surrey Beemers and Audis look silly, and uphill too.
Momentum, AE, momentum...
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I watched a couple of policemen demonstrating their VASCAR at an open day at Goodwood once. 900 and 1000cc bikes were coming round a corner and accelerating hard up the straight.
Plod explained that he pressed button A when the bike came into view then button B (or whatever) when the bike passed him.
"Look" he said, "That last one was doing 80mph. I bet he would swear blind that he was doing 120"
I said the bike probably was. Plod gave me a funny look.
I explained that the bike might have come around the corner at 40 and accelerated to 120 - this would make his average speed 80mph.
"Sorry" he said. "He was only doing 80. It says so here."
Worrying.
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>>but a good example of the Skoda Estelle 130 in proper tune could certainly do 100 four up
My daughter had one, and I would say I kept it in good tune, but I think this would be 'pushing it'. Maybe, downhill, with a good tailwind.
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Worrying indeed as VASCAR stands for Visual Average Speed Computer and Recorder , the emphasis being on Average!
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Teabelly wrote above "There is a problem with VASCAR ...........
Vascar checked out by scientists and found OK. The ban imposed in Scotland lifted by ACPO.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7869217.stm
dvd
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How does the fitting of the equipment in the photo in DVD's link fit in with a requirement not to obstruct the view thru the windscreen - as with satnavs for example?
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How does the fitting of the equipment in the photo in DVD's link fit in with a requirement not to obstruct the view thru the windscreen - as with satnavs for example?
It looks to me that the picture is take from low down and the screen in question seems artificially higher.
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Their speed measuring equipment is meant to be accurate.
I was caught speeding (my one and only time) in a 60 mph limit by a police officer in car parked in a road to the side and was given a fixed penalty notice. He had timed me between a roadside tree and a field gate as I approached the side road, using a manually operated electronic form of stop watch mounted on the dash of his car. The device proceeded to calculate my average speed to two places of decimals!
Edited by L'escargot on 14/02/2009 at 08:05
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In the mid 1960's I worked with a lad who was prosecuted for doing 42 mph in a 30 zone on his motorbike.
The case was that the police had a speed trap on the far side of a set of traffic lights and clocked him when he set off from a red light. He was able to prove, from manufacturer's data that his bike could not have reached 42 mph from rest to the speed trap.
In court, the Inspector prosecuting, said that even if the bike had not been doing 42 mph, it must have been speeding and my collegue was convicted.
The above event was over 40 years ago and the injustice of it still rankles with me.
Edited by Spospe on 14/02/2009 at 15:02
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Knock Hill is not representative of the the road at Corpach on the A830 which I know well. The outcome of the Knock Hill test will not stand in court. Even a test at Machrihanish Campbeltown, airfield which can be made available would most probably prove the car can do 100mph but many measurements would be needed to prove the car could not reach that speed in the distance travelled on the A830. Engineers will be needed to ensure the car has not been remapped to slow it down and a whole load of stuff including fuel samples, that is going to cost seriuos money. Machrihanish airfield main runway is not totally flat but a run in either direction will resolve the average max speed. I suspect it will come out at way over 100 mph. Regards Peter
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I doubt if it will come to this.
Remember the driver's lawyer that 'proved' the throttle could be affected by external signals, thus explaining why they drove their automatic into whatever it was they hit!
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This isn't the first time such an attempt has been made. IIRC at least one motorist succeeded in proving his car couldn't reach the alleged speed.
Edited by Stuartli on 15/02/2009 at 00:14
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