Oh No! Speed Trap

These sites are installed carefully to avoid the valid issues that you mention. In fact it matters not what the axle configuration is as it only needs the front axle to strike the two piezo strips in the correct order within a set time period to activate the camera. The vehicle would have to be at a considerable angle to create a false reading, and even then it would read less than the actual speed of the vehicle (basic trig).
The secondary, white painted, check marks are there to provide the evidence on the photographs just as they are used for Gatso cameras.

On a side note about computer modeling, the rubber tubes that you see laid across the roads, 1m apart, connected to data loggers are used to model traffic flows. The available software is extremely good at recognising differing axle configurations. This enables not just speed to be recorded but also the differing types of vehicles based on their wheelbase, i.e. cycles, motorcycles, cars, LGV's, buses, muliti-axles etc etc.

Sorry, think I'm waffling now.

Originally Posted by SV'dd

The local council traps seem to be more stringent than the police.

Local councils/authorities don't measure speed for enforcement purposes.

So far as I know, both the Police and their Scamera Partnerships use the same criteria in a given Police Force's area.

I got zapped by a scamera van at 40mph in a 30mph limit; galling to know that 1mph less and I'd have got away with it (S Wales Police uses a 39mph threshold in 30mph zones for fixed and mobile cameras ).

I agree that local authorities don't monitor traffic speed for enforcement purposes, they usually use the data to set timing of traffic lights, justify pelican crossings etc.
But Police Forces definitely do use survey data for enforcement purposes.

Although some Police and Camera Partnerships in a given area may use the same threshold to prosecute (personally I doubt it), I can categorically say that they do not all opperate in that way. Fixed and Mobile cameras, as I understand, should always apply the same threshold. But Police Officers carrying out hand held laser device enforcement will almost certainly operate at a different threshold.

On the 1st April this year there were lots of changes to the guidelines governing the operation of safety cameras giving more flexibility to each area to make their own decisions regarding thresholds, signing, visibility etc.
We now are less certain regarding the criteria used when passing through different areas.

I got zapped by a scamera van at 40mph in a 30mph limit; galling to know that 1mph less and I'd have got away with it (S Wales Police uses a 39mph threshold in 30mph zones for fixed and mobile cameras

Don't let the Thames Valley lads get you...I don't know what their threshold is but they did me for 38mph on a 30mph stretch of dual carriageway coming out of Oxford!

just wanna say to those muppets that think its ok to abuse the forward facing cammeras by going through them at speed!

DONT DO IT!

your just going to give the law a reason to find a way of getting us all if you take the p*** just cos we dont have front plates!

that will ruin it for all of us!!!!!!!!

chips in plates! plates on the front..(ok less likly) rearwards facing cammeras net to the forward ones! double sided cameras!

noone needs it!

Very true socommk23....the idiots that fly down our street in their pimped up noisy little cages are going spoil things soon, it won't be long before people get fed up and ask the council to put in speed humps, they've already done it on a street that runs parallel to ours!!
Some people never learn....oops sorry....did I say people?

We get Nippers in there clapped out nova's flying down our street, but mainly after dark. So when do the police come down to do a speed trap? From 9-5... Not much use really.

Originally Posted by RhythmJunkie

Don't let the Thames Valley lads get you...I don't know what their threshold is but they did me for 38mph on a 30mph stretch of dual carriageway coming out of Oxford!

Yep, I know the feeling. those bu**ers are always out every morning. i commute from south oxford round the ringroad, through Thame to Aylesbury. I can guarantee to see one of those vans nearly every morning. I know where they hide now but the limits on that dual carrageway are so low that its real hard not to speed (particularly when late for work!)

Yippee!

Just got back from Scotland and there was no NIP on the doorstep so I must have got away with it.

Still got a clean licence

Tim.