cops on the A65 - North Yorkshire

I'm afraid my mate generated another easy £60 for the cops and the insurance industry today when he had the misfortune to be zapped with the laser gun on the A65 between Kirkby Lonsdale and Skipton.

He was trying to catch me up as I had more confidence to whip past cars on the twisty bits, so when it opened up to a nice straight he took the opportunity to blast past an annoyingly wide camper-van. Unfortunately for him I'd slowed down as I knew the cops often parked up there and he got clocked doing 85 in a 60.

Cops had no sympathy that he was performing a safe overtake maneouvre...I feel a bit guilty now

For the record there was an un-marked gun-metal grey Golf GTI parked in the lay-by on the dual-carriageway bit...the copper stands hidden behind his car and then steps out to the edge of the road and takes a shot with his laser speed gun at whoever is unfortunate enough to be stuck behind a caravan or whatever and wants to take the chance to get past it on a nice bit of straight road.

Damn filth...

[Wideboy]

unlucky

had you been going faster maybe the you would have been to quick for the piglet

Sadly that bit of the A65 is well known for it. I always back off on the long, straight bits, as tempting as it is to pin the throttle wide open!

I haven't seen the Golf before though, it was an unmarked Impreza last time I spotted them.

Nah...you can't beat them because they radio down to a guy in a marked impreza who stands in the road and waves you down. The unmarked guy then drives down to show you the evidence.

If you meant too fast for the gun then I think top-gear proved that you have to be doing about 190 for a speed gun to not work.

[Wideboy]

well who says you cant try

A particularly useful warning since the this is the bit of road pretty everone will be using to get to the AR07.

Also had a quick spin up to the Austwick campsite - looks good, actually on the other side of the A65 from Austwick (and the pub) so torches would be a good idea.

Mousetrapper

Was he midway / just after overtaking when he got zapped? If so I thought (almost certainly urban myth) there was some sort of defence of briefly breaking the speed limit in the course of an overtake? Eg. Caravan was going at 50mph on a 60mph road, I could have overtaken at 60mph but that would have seen me crawling past on the wrong side of the road with just a 10mph speed differential, therefore I opened the throttle to quickly and safely perform the overtake before settling back down to the national speed limit, your honour.

If you get caught out in the open then I guess, whilst it may well be perfectly safe and within your limits, it's just bad luck and you have to take it on the chin, but mid-overtake I'd have thought you have some defence (though it would likely take a magistrate to decide that, and taking it that far could prove more costly).

How does hiding behind a car and then leaping out to stealth zap improve safety? Surely this is the same argument used to get speed cameras painted bright yellow and not hidden behind trees/road signs etc. If you want to improve safety, you make things visible, if you want to collect revenue you hide in the bushes. Though I suspect this is a political rather than a judicial argument