Speed Gun Accuracy

[Smity42]

I disagree john

I hate chronic speeders as much as the next guy, but I would much rather drivers be looking where they are going and concentrating on what they are doing, rather than spending 95% of their time staring at the speedo to make sure they don't go 1km over the limit.

If someone is clocked doing 63 in a 60 zone, in my opionion they are more than likely doing the right thing and intending to be doing the speed limit. On the other hand if someone is doing 70+ in a 60 zone, they are definitely speeding and the cops can and should go to town on them.

Another step the "great" state of QLD is taking to make drivers less responsible rather than more responsible

[skins]

Its a bit underhanded how they are reducing the tolerance and not informing the public what it is. It's all well and good to do that if every car in the state has cruise control, a digital speedo and a calibration certificate stating the date and what it was calibrated at. Then you would be able to say with 99% accuracy that x car was going at x speed. I like how they are going to bring more "hidden" camera's. If they are stationary we as a driving body would be able to mark them all overtime and have them stored on some database informing everyone where they are.

The one plus side I can see is there will be more people fighting these fines along the lines of show us how these things are calibrated. You want us to be extremely accurate with our speed we want you to do the same. So in a perfect world our speedo's would be calibrated and when you got the speeding ticket it would show on the fine the date of the unit's calibration.

I read a article about speed camera's being implemented in certain states of the usa and they noticed a increase in driver deaths. Due to people concentrating more on there speed then on the road.

[PHT34]

Havent been on for a fews weeks so excuse me if i mention something already said .....

You wont get them on the accuracy of the gun, but its the operating proceedures of the officer and calibration of the gun ....

A couple of years ago hubby got done and we knew we werent going nearly that fast cause we were in a pack of cars, it wasnt until we moved across 4 lanes to get ready to exit that an officer who couldnt even see us reckoned we were doing like 145 or something stupid anyway, to which we were doing 100 cause there were cars infront of us .....

it cost us several thousand dollars hiring a solicitor who deals in speeding offences and many weeks of investigation in courts and documents, but in the end he got off.

They have to operate the guns in a certian manner eg. the distance we were away from the gun meant the officer was suposed to be using a try-pod as your hand cannot stabalise the gun over a certain distance and 1mm in hand movement can through the beam off onto something else, so half the time when you see them leaving on their window with the gun or sitting the car it may not be correct. this is all info they wont tell you you have to search for it. also the machines have to be re-calibrated using a set system every time the officer signs it out in the morning from the station, these documents have to be correct, the officer has to have the correct accredication to operate that version of the machine, if there are 4 versions, then they need to have been trained in them all ....

the list goes on .....

unless you have the cash and know your in with a shot, dont bother, it was alot of work! they settled hubby's dispute out of court when they realised we had all the info. if a case goes to court then anyone can find out the info but if the police dont take it to court it means you have something they dont want everyone else knowing .....

[Smity42]

It's all well and good to do that if every car in the state has cruise control, a digital speedo and a calibration certificate stating the date and what it was calibrated at. Then you would be able to say with 99% accuracy that x car was going at x speed.

Cruise contral doesn't hold a particularly steady speed anyway, especially older units.

I read a article about speed camera's being implemented in certain states of the usa and they noticed a increase in driver deaths. Due to people concentrating more on there speed then on the road.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit. I read a similar article on a study in europe where they relaxed a lot of the road rules (ie red light = stop sign) and the number of accidents were reduced, because drivers were paying more attention to what they (and everyone around them) were doing.

[pear]

some interesting info - may be a little out of date...

http://www.delonixradar.com.au/queensland/#radarlaser

[skins]

Wouldn't surprise me one bit. I read a similar article on a study in europe where they relaxed a lot of the road rules (ie red light = stop sign) and the number of accidents were reduced, because drivers were paying more attention to what they (and everyone around them) were doing.

Would be interesting to see the results here if it wasnt revenue raising. Was funny how they put all the success on lowering the death toll on the roads to effective speed control. Surely car safety like airbags, sips, abs etc didn't help but they wouldnt say that.

[Isola]

I disagree john

I hate chronic speeders as much as the next guy, but I would much rather drivers be looking where they are going and concentrating on what they are doing, rather than spending 95% of their time staring at the speedo to make sure they don't go 1km over the limit.

If someone is clocked doing 63 in a 60 zone, in my opionion they are more than likely doing the right thing and intending to be doing the speed limit. On the other hand if someone is doing 70+ in a 60 zone, they are definitely speeding and the cops can and should go to town on them.

Another step the "great" state of QLD is taking to make drivers less responsible rather than more responsible

Have you not noticed that I look at my speedo every 5 seconds or so? I do the same with my mirrors. But did we drive off the cliff? Or hit an oncomming car? Nope. I know I'm giving humanity a lot of credit with this... but I'm sure people can learn to glimpse at their speedo and learn how to maintain speed.

Really though, if people are that useless that they CAN'T monitor the instruments in their car for fear of hitting something/someone... they really should hand their licence back in.

I also like that this will stop alot of those +10% people. You know the ones. 55 in a 50 zone, 66 in a 60 zone, 121 in a 110 zone. Those people annoy the crap out of me.

[Col-GTSX]

If someone is clocked doing 63 in a 60 zone, in my opionion they are more than likely doing the right thing and intending to be doing the speed limit. On the other hand if someone is doing 70+ in a 60 zone, they are definitely speeding and the cops can and should go to town on them.

yeah ill agree with that...

61 in a 60 zone is bullshit...

I don't see it lasting long, people with too much money will start taking the police to court and it will become a huge waste of their time...

Its also quite easy to argue 1kph, its not a unit of measure many can define... Particularly when car manufactures are allowed a 3kph allowance @ 100 to pass ADR approval...

-The other issue is tailgating, how many times have you been doing say 57-58 or so in a 60 zone (quiet back street) and next minute you have some dickhead right up your arse...

[Smity42]

Have you not noticed that I look at my speedo every 5 seconds or so? I do the same with my mirrors. But did we drive off the cliff? Or hit an oncomming car? Nope. I know I'm giving humanity a lot of credit with this... but I'm sure people can learn to glimpse at their speedo and learn how to maintain speed.

Really though, if people are that useless that they CAN'T monitor the instruments in their car for fear of hitting something/someone... they really should hand their licence back in.

Yeah, you are giving humanity in general WAAAY too much credit there . While I agree with you it is a pretty easy task, a lot of people can't drive for sh*t, and I can see a large number of them glaring at the speedo 95% of the time they are driving.

-The other issue is tailgating, how many times have you been doing say 57-58 or so in a 60 zone (quiet back street) and next minute you have some dickhead right up your arse...

I just brake check them

[MSTRshenanigans]

Col: not a big enough fine for cops to care about tailgating

Smitty: Brake check is handy hehehe

Isola: it wont stop them lol

[Col-GTSX]

I just brake check them

Smitty: Brake check is handy hehehe

99 times out of 100 my car is worth ten times theirs tho...

Ive been hit up the back end before doing that also, not advisable...

I do leave my tow bar on all the time tho (shopping center bumper stop)...

[Isola]

a lot of people can't drive for sh*t, and I can see a large number of them glaring at the speedo 95% of the time they are driving.

Natural selection my dear boy

<3 Darwin

Isola: it wont stop them lol

See above

99 times out of 100 my car is worth ten times theirs tho...

This is why I find myself driving at 40kph a lot

[Smity42]

99 times out of 100 my car is worth ten times theirs tho...

Ive been hit up the back end before doing that also, not advisable...

I do leave my tow bar on all the time tho (shopping center bumper stop)...

The old dirty-one probably isn't worth more than many cars on the road, but it is worth more to me. Just gotta us the right technique, I usually go with a quick tap to startle them, then let myself get a bit of ground before sinking the pedal. So far, I haven't been hit .

Of course in the dirty 'coon I just plant it, but its brakes are so cr*p no ones managed to run up the back of it yet either .

Natural selection my dear boy

<3 Darwin

A fair enough point, but what happens when one of the a*seholes runs into my skyline while they are glaring at the speedo?

This is why I find myself driving at 40kph a lot

I don't have the patience for that technique

[MSTRshenanigans]

Natural selection my dear boy

<3 Darwin

See above

This is why I find myself driving at 40kph a lot

f**k off Darwin.. idiots kill innocents on top of their stupid selves... and often enough they are the survivor

[Isola]

A fair enough point, but what happens when one of the a*seholes runs into my skyline while they are glaring at the speedo?

True... you do have to pray that they're insured. Or better yet, that their estate will cover the cost

[mad082]

i think you will find that any increase in accidents from increase in speed cameas probably more comes from people driving along, passing a speed camera and then speeding up because they think there won't be another 1 on the same road.

and it isn't exactly hard to keep at the same speed without having to stare at the speedo and occasionally glance at the road. it you need to do this to keep at a set speed then i don't think you are a very good driver. i noticed the other day that i can take off and accelerate to 60kmh without looking at the speedo and be within 2 or 3km/h either way just by the sound of the car and how fast the scenery is going by. it isn't that hard to do, and i'm sure plenty of other people could do the same thing if they wanted to but have never been bored enough to try it, or just do it out of habbit and have never thought about what they are doing.

i think a lot of people probably get booked for speeding because they are going with the flow of traffic rather than even thinking about their speed. i know that i've been in traffic following the flow of traffic and keep the same distance to the car in front of me and looked down and been doing 5 or 10kmh over and then slowed down. another example of the following what others do without taking notice of what is actually happening is when you are at a set of lights and you are in a turning lane and you get the green light but the othe cars still have a red and you take off and the car next to you takes off and gets a few metres before realising that they still have the red because they were day dreaming. this is probably also the cause of a lot of accidents in city traffic as they aren't paying attention to what is going on then are suddenly snapped back to reality but the quickly approaching tail lights of the car in front.

as for the article about reducing the margin, it was originally 10% for back when there were still a lot of cars with speedos reading in MPH and the conversions people were doing in their head from MPH to KPH were generally rounded off a bit and also didn't match up with any of the major marks on the speedo. but now if you were booked for 1kmh over or something like that, you could simply argue that you didn't know what part of the speedo needle was the part to use as the guide of your speed as the needle itself covers a 1 or 2kmh area. also on that topic, with newer cas speedo error, etc, you only really need to worry if you are in a car with tyres that are drastically different to the stock size, such as many 4wd's. i think my brother in law's patol is something like 12kmh out at 100kmh when compared to his GPS. i have compared my speedo to both the GPS as well as having the laptop plugged into the ecu and it is spot on, or maybe 1kmh over at 60kmh. the old van where i used to work though was massively out. it would read 15mph when you were stopped and 30mph at about 60kmh. other times it would read 20mph at 60kmh, but it was a 1954 morris minor panel van, and still ran drum brakes all round (without vaccum assist), so the "2 second rule" for following cars was the "if you can see a car in front of you at all then you are too close" rule, LOL

[Parag0n]

If you've got done by a speed gun you've got almost no chance of winning. Same with the fixed cameras.

[dan_the_man]

Got a speeding fine around 2 weeks ago 81 in a 60 zone, i've been told that the speed guns can be out by up to 3kms...

Is this true as i have been told that the cop has to take that into account when giving you the speeding fine, it said 81 on the gun and if i was doing 80 i would still have one point left and i wouldn't have to go on good behavior he also wrote down that i was on my opens when it clearly says that im a P plater and my car has p plates all over it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

naw you're f**ked. In the future stop doing 20km's over the limit and you should be ok .

[boostn32]

hand held radar guns are not calibrated with proper equipment, they must present a calibration certificate in court to match the serial number on the gun.

also the officer that gave out the fine must attend the court if not the fine is thrown out. you can get out of fines/defects you just need to know the law

and never tell the officer you will take him to court, but at the end of the day you break the law you pay, if only it was the same for when cops

break the law like talking on there phone when driving.

fair is fair rules should apply to everyone not rules for us and rules for them.

[dan_the_man]

fair is fair rules should apply to everyone not rules for us and rules for them.

that's right. we should be allowed to carry and use tazor guns.