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mark_sp
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gatso

Post by mark_sp »

Just had a worrying experience with one of the many local speed cameras, in fact this is the second time in recent weeks that this has happened.
I'm travelling past the camera (away from the camera) at a sedate speed as another vehicle on the opposite side of the road travelling in the opposite direction (towards the camera) passes through the beam at a highly illegal speed and the camera fires.
The first time it happened I was not too concerned as I had passed the road markings but this time I was right in the middle of them. As a gut reaction I immediately checked my speed and it was a tad under 30.
I was under the impression that these things were only activated if you were driving away from them or do they now work in both directions ?
Anyway I've got this horrible feeling that the other drivers speed may be associated with my car ?
Mark
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benj
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Post by benj »

who knows, youl prob get done and lose you licence and put in jail while your house gets robbed by a thousand robbers
allmond
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Post by allmond »

A lot work both ways now, but if the other guy was the one speeding, he'll get the paperwork......Assuming there was a film in it in the first place!
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Post by wheeler »

as far as im aware the cameras can be triggered in both directions but you can only get fined if it gets the back of the car as it is illegal to do somone with flash photograpy from the front.i would imagine they can tell the difference between a vehicle coming towards & away.
what i always wondered was what would happen if somone overtook you on the motorway past a camera over the limit just as they past you ???
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Post by Homer »

A live gatso will only flash at a car's rear but the dummy ones have a cheap speed sensor which can't tell a positive speed from a negative one so flash at oncoming cars as well. They are also not as accurate and are often set with the threshold nearer the speed limit than it would be with a live camera. A good idea which benefits road safety? you decide.
Genuine forward facing cameras use an infra-red flash which you should not be able to see but some people have reported seeing a bright purple light.
Lots of info on speed cameras at www.abd.org.uk and www.safespeed.org.uk
Oops, links fixed.
allmond
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Post by allmond »

They work both ways...honest.
"Illegal to do someone with flash photography from the front." Never heard that one before!
Jamie
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Post by wheeler »

have you or someone you know been done forward facing GATSO camera recently ? I am led to believe (from a usually reliable source) that it is illegal to prosecute for speeding using a forward facing camera with FLASH photograpy. ie you can still get done with the newer Truvelo cameras which use an infra red 'flash' which you cant (or at least should not) see.
i think its a safety issue,two very bright flashes directly into a drivers eyes a night is not really a good idea is it ? they are supposed to help prevent accidents after all.
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Post by alan s »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by wheeler</i>

i think its a safety issue,two very bright flashes directly into a drivers eyes a night is not really a good idea is it ? they are supposed to help prevent accidents after all.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
No, No, No, No....since when have they been there to prevent accidents?
The only accidents they prevent is the Governments budget accidentally going into deficit.
I take great delight in sending submissions to Government inquiries on Road Safety and making constant reference to their "Treasury Based road safety initiatives." It's even better when you have to appear personally; you can actually see them twitch each time you say it, and you know something? I've never had one brave enough to publicly contradict me, possibly due to the fact that I stay constantly armed with the statistics that prove they do just the opposite and they know it!![}:)][}:)][:D]
Alan S [;)]
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Post by cducklin »

It is highly unlikely that a gatso (square lens units) on the other side of the road flashing at you going towards it will have any action unless you are doing something EXTREMELY silly which shows on the photos.
Truelelos which have the round lens units & face your vehicle on the nearside will take speed but not visibly flash.
There are gatsos which are able to be changed direction but these will only do the rear of vehicles going away.
There are some double headed gatsos with 2 units for each direction so you troll up at 40 in a 30 ( Not advised kids!) see the gatso pointing towards you for the opposing flow & then get flashed by the other unit when you pass it[V]
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Post by Dave Burns »

I can't understand all the bitching about these things and how they are only there to create revenue for this or that, at the end of the day they are in a speed restricted zone, that zone has restrictions for a good reason, speed kills, all the motorist has to do is observe the speed limit and there is no problem.
The selfish rubbishers that can't moderate their speed can have as much money taken from them as the coppers can squeeze out of them as far as I'm concerned.
I was witness to a four year old girl hit by a vehicle some twenty odd years ago, I don't ever want to see anything like that again, and I sure as hell don't want to do it.
Most have got kids or had kids and now grown up, so why the bloody selfishness, allways wanting to keep the welly down instead of going that bit steadier and giving yourself and other folk a chance, are people like that so stupid that they don't understand this life is only one way, throw it away early and thats it, gone, nobody is coming back for a second shot at it.
Dave
alan s
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Post by alan s »

The fact of the matter is that these things if used correctly may have a bearing on road safety, but they're not & as a result they are adding to the road toll not reducing it.
In Victoria in Australia, they have a 3 kph tolerance; think about it app. 1.6 mph over the limit & you're done. If they were in danger zones, good. They're not. They post them in the most benign of locations, one I was shown was on a weekend near a school on a deserted road. The result? Victoria has the highest road toll for 22 years.
New South Wales. Went the same way. An increase of 19% above their worst ever fatality figures. Coincidence? No. Why? Because we are in the middle of a drought so we don't have the hazard of wet roads which you guys may not appreciate. It can be dry for up to 3 months at a stretch so people forget how to drive on wet roads & this causes the problems. Here, it just doesn't rain like it used to & these increases are happening in the dry. Why again? Because people are getting so scared of getting nailed, they are spending all their time concentrating on their speedos & not on their driving. That's not me talking; that's scientific research talking.
Where else are they placing them? On overtaking lanes (remember the majority of our roads are single lane) so you get trapped behind a slow truck or car and when you arrive at a divided stretch of road, called an overtaking lane, they have a speed camera on it so if you go a couple of klms over, usually on a deserted country road, they nab you. Remember that some overtaking lanes are only 500 metres long and to pass a vehicle travelling at 90 KPH it takes 2.3 klms so where do they pass? On the narrow single lane Further up the road which is where the accidents occur & no sign of a radar....and that's not revenue raising AND is in the interests of road safety????
Gimme a break!!
Alan S
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Post by gjb02 »

There is now a massive stretch of the M4 Motorway that uses mean (average)speed measurement devices. These clever little things are mounted in signs and take note of every vehicle registration, and the time it passes. Further on another device will do the same and work out your average speed to complete that distance, it will then do it again and again, until there are no more sensors. So you can theoretically be done for speeding 4 or 5 times in one journey. No more slowing down just before the cameras[:(!] It knows you were doing 110mph for 90% of your distance, and 70mph past the camera. It's somewhere around the Membury services in both directions.
So watch out, they don't flash, they work day or night and deadly accurate.
Big Tonys' Goverment of sycophants are watching you!!
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Post by tomsheppard »

I was nearly blinded by a truvelo earlier this year in the dark.
Situated on the brow of a hill, this was damn dangerous. Infra red? If so I am a Martian!
Dave Burns
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Post by Dave Burns »

Well being from the UK I'm only concerned how these things are implemented and used here, I haven't seen any writings where their presence has not caused a reduction in personal injury or death, and certainly have not seen any claiming a rise in same because of their presence.
How they are used in other countries, and why motorists of those countries are capable of pushing the death toll up when they see a gatso is their affair, but the people of those countries should bear in mind what is going on in other countries when they participate on such sites, because their argument for or against speed cameras or any other such serious issues may not be relevant.
I'm not pro speed camera or anti speed camera, I can regulate my vehicles speed to remain within the law, some can't and they are the reason these things exist and will be the ones paying the fines, and rightly so.

Dave
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 010503.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/2999847.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shro ... 037753.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2422527.stm
alan s
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Post by alan s »

Dave,
The point that the pro-revenue raisers always miss is the fact that these things are not being targetted at dangerous drivers; they are used against the average safe motorist who accidentally slips a couple of MPH over the limit for any reason.
I was talking to some people from Victoria who had driven for 35 years without a blemish & withing 12 months have racked up 3 speeding tickets & NONE over 5 MPH over the limit. That's not addressing a safety concern; that's addressing budget issues.
In contrast, I was in Sydney a while back & a guy I know was taking me out to his place on a major highway. The whole line of traffic was flying merrily along at about 100 - 110kph when all of a sudden they slowed to around 60KPH (the speed limit), pointed to a camera & said "Ya got these up your way?" as he accellerated, along with the rest of the traffic to around 100 again. As he said, the only people they catch are strangers, so where's the safety incentive in that? The ones in the know only slow down for 100 metres then speed up again. Incidentally, it was just around a bend on a 4 or 6 lane freeway where accidents are almost unheard of.
Here's a couple of recent reports; one by a car magazine & one by a scientist so these aren't Government funded research projects slanted to give the answers the Governments want to hear to justify their greed & stupidity.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/Sci_Tech/story_52381.asp
http://carpoint.ninemsn.com.au/clubhous ... sp?ID=4679
Nobody will ever convince me that better driver education & a copper in a patrol car is not a bigger deterrant than a box hidden on a pole or in the back of a plain van. The true reason is, that all governments are so cash strapped and so top heavy with a public service that seems to spend its life finding ways of expanding further and thereby spending more money (commonly referred to as Empire Building) and politically it's incompatable to raise taxes any further particularly when you have such overly generous wages paid to many of these politicians and their offsiders.
Unfortunately, the motoring public isn't an organised group so are an easy target for these vultures as they can claim the old "well, if you didn't speed you wouldn't get caught" argument whilst still supporting car makers showing the advantages of their super quick cars in their commercials. If all else fails, then they go & lower the speed limits but as they say.......it's all in the interests of road safety; when they should be saying; it's all in the interests of my re-election safety.
If they were to pull these tax scams on the aged, a particular group of foreigners, disabled, union members or whoever you wish to name, they would terf them out of office at the next elections, but what are their chances with motorists? They've got away with milking us for taxes for years, petrol, road, registration, you name it and got away with it & whilst there are still some motorists thinking they're doing the right thing, they'll keep on doing it for their benefit & our detriment.
Alan S
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