speeding ticket

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Mad Scientist
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#565348 6-Jan-2012 13:55

John2010:
Ezzie: ...Its one of the things that they take very very seriously. Speeding is speeding and there is not any excuse you can use to get out of it. I imagine the only one would be something like the officer was not certified to use the speed detection equipment - but they arent allowed to issue speeding tickets if they dont have the certification so again thats unlikely to happen.

Or if the speed detection equipment has made an error, unfortunately very hard for the poor old motorist to prove but the police radars, both the moving (especially for same lane traffic) and side angle (cameras), are not the super reliable and sophisticated things the police seem to want us to think they are.

For the following keep in mind that I have a professional background in radar.

The most common error I see is an operational one where side angle radars in vans are parked well back from the side of the road but are not parallel to the road. They seem very slack at this and the angles I have seen mean that one can easily while driving at 100km/hr get a ticket from a speed camera in the holiday periods if the up to 104 km/hr tolerance is implemented in the camera radars.

I had not had a speeding ticket for at least 25 years but last year received one where the moving radar (i.e. in a police vehicle) had pretty obviously made a big error. I had to take it to court to get rid of it which suceeded as it was plain to most anyone except the police that it was extremely unlikely that anyone would have (or even could have) driven at the claimed speed under the circumstances. It also turned out that the officer had lied in his notes and also omitted information in them that would have pointed to a radar error being quite likely - again pretty obvious his notes did not match the circumstances.

So those contribute, among other observations, to my having a very poor opinion of the NZ polices' road policing and I suspect strongly that errors are frequent (I have seen estimates of up to 30% radar speed infringements being in error in other countries and NZ appears to have less sophisticated policies regarding radar operation than those countries).

Becasue of knowing radars are not super reliable I have for many years braked urgently to well below the speed limit while going past a speed camera or a police vehicle, often to the consternation of those following behind as they have to leap on their brakes too.

+1.

spoke to a police officer once and he displayed absolute disgust from the 'traffic division' guys when I asked about what he thought

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#565362 6-Jan-2012 14:21

joker97:

+1.

spoke to a police officer once and he displayed absolute disgust from the 'traffic division' guys when I asked about what he thought

An interesting comment - they may not be the only ones with concerns, I don't want to get into any details as to who and where from but for the one I took to court I was contacted by phone about 5 times by a public official outside of the police force and who I would have thought ordinarily would not have done so. I had never had anything to do with them before but they and where they come from I now hold in very high regard.

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#565581 6-Jan-2012 23:06

I haven't had a lot of speeding tickets but all of them I was doing over speed limit so I accepted I was wrong and paid what was due. Interesting reading in letters to editors lately those that were disgusted that they wouldn't get their extra 5kmph allowance and called it revenue gathering, simple stick to law or accept you may get caught and pay up.

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#565647 7-Jan-2012 08:38

John2010:

The most common error I see is an operational one where side angle radars in vans are parked well back from the side of the road but are not parallel to the road. They seem very slack at this and the angles I have seen mean that one can easily while driving at 100km/hr get a ticket from a speed camera in the holiday periods if the up to 104 km/hr tolerance is implemented in the camera radars.

The Police refuse to be engaged in court cases where the accuracy of their setup is challenged. They will waive tickets rather than end up in court if you push the point of mobile camera accuracy and threaten court action, probably because having to defend the mobile camera setup would give far too much away and probably end up with the court system bogged down for years as everybody who gets a ticket tries the same thing.

When you have to factor in consine calculations to get the true speed a very small error in the vehicle setup (easy when the vehicle is not located right next to the road) will result in speeds higher than the vehicle is actually doing.

Fixed cameras don't have this issue so challenging them is futile.

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#565733 7-Jan-2012 12:35

jeffnz:...Interesting reading in letters to editors lately those that were disgusted that they wouldn't get their extra 5kmph allowance and called it revenue gathering, simple stick to law or accept you may get caught and pay up.

4km/hr "allowance" actually i.e. exceeding 104 km/hr.

The problem is if this is implemented in side angle radars (i.e. speed cameras) and I don't know if it is (I have also been told the old % rule is still used) then many innocent people will be ticketed for sure. I do not know what the post 2009 side angle radars are calibrated to but the ones before (which may still be in service too?) were for speeds exceeding 101km/hr -4km/hr to +1km/hr and I suspect the current ones are no different. That in scientific terms is way inaccurate.

The nature of speed cameras is that most people have no idea that they have gone through one and so when the ticket arrives a week or two later their situation is at large as they have no idea what their speed was at the time. Then on top of that, as has been mentioned, there is the cosine effect when the radar vehicle is incorrectly aligned and as I have said my observation is that is frequently so for ones that are parked back from the side of the road.

So we have the possibility of 1km/hr of the 4km/hr tolerance being taken by the radar calibration leaving only 3 km/hr tolerance for cosine effect which from my observations is frequently lost due to radar vehicle misalignment and assuming the radar is in calibration (which must be flakey for equipment that is calibrated only within 5% accuracy).

I know the manufacturer's calibration for the moving vehicle radars in NZ and they have difficulties too, especially in the same lane case, but for them, of course, any cosine error is to the motorist's advantage.

So it is very easy to say "stick to the law" but in fact that does not hold water. As a personal view I think a 10km/hr tolerance is probably a fair one and allows for a little speed drift, the inaccuracy of the police equipment, the possibility of over acceleration during overtaking, etc.

But I accept that some are of the view that regardless of circumstances the letter of the law is to be applied and too bad if innocent people get ticketed. Invariably I have found that people of that view regard the posted speeds as being "safe" not understanding that they are arbitrary and are always unsafe. I do not know the statistics for NZ but in other countries it seems common that the majority of speed related road deaths are at speeds less than the posted limit.

EDITS: Typos (well some of them anyway

)

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#565833 7-Jan-2012 17:47

John2010:
jeffnz:...Interesting reading in letters to editors lately those that were disgusted that they wouldn't get their extra 5kmph allowance and called it revenue gathering, simple stick to law or accept you may get caught and pay up.

4km/hr "allowance" actually i.e. exceeding 104 km/hr.

The problem is if this is implemented in side angle radars (i.e. speed cameras) and I don't know if it is (I have also been told the old % rule is still used) then many innocent people will be ticketed for sure. I do not know what the post 2009 side angle radars are calibrated to but the ones before (which may still be in service too?) were for speeds exceeding 101km/hr -4km/hr to +1km/hr and I suspect the current ones are no different. That in scientific terms is way inaccurate.

The nature of speed cameras is that most people have no idea that they have gone through one and so when the ticket arrives a week or two later their situation is at large as they have no idea what their speed was at the time. Then on top of that, as has been mentioned, there is the cosine effect when the radar vehicle is incorrectly aligned and as I have said my observation is that is frequently so for ones that are parked back from the side of the road.

So we have the possibility of 1km/hr of the 4km/hr tolerance being taken by the radar calibration leaving only 3 km/hr tolerance for cosine effect which from my observations is frequently lost due to radar vehicle misalignment and assuming the radar is in calibration (which must be flakey for equipment that is calibrated only within 5% accuracy).

I know the manufacturer's calibration for the moving vehicle radars in NZ and they have difficulties too, especially in the same lane case, but for them, of course, any cosine error is to the motorist's advantage.

So it is very easy to say "stick to the law" but in fact that does not hold water. As a personal view I think a 10km/hr tolerance is probably a fair one and allows for a little speed drift, the inaccuracy of the police equipment, the possibility of over acceleration during overtaking, etc.

But I accept that some are of the view that regardless of circumstances the letter of the law is to be applied and too bad if innocent people get ticketed. Invariably I have found that people of that view regard the posted speeds as being "safe" not understanding that they are arbitrary and are always unsafe. I do not know the statistics for NZ but in other countries it seems common that the majority of speed related road deaths are at speeds less than the posted limit.

EDITS: Typos (well some of them anyway )

thanks for all that very interesting, I was, however, talking about ones issued by officers as Op was talking about.

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#565935 7-Jan-2012 22:51

jeffnz: thanks for all that very interesting, I was, however, talking about ones issued by officers as Op was talking about.

Well I am not sure that the OP has even said that his was a radar detected offence (he could have been followed or else by laser). But assuming as you are that it was a mobile radar then as I said, but you seem to have not understood, the mobile radars used by officers in their vehicles have their difficulties too. In fact they have greater ones.

So the same issue applies, innocent people will be ticketed with the 4km/hr "allowance".

The manufacturer's specification for the mobile radars in general use in NZ is +- 3.2 km/hr when moving and slightly better when stationary. The accuracy is further compromised in the same lane case when moving and is totally inaccurate in the same lane case when the police vehicle is travelling at less than approx 10km/hr slower than the target vehicle due to the small doppler shift. In NZ these radars are used in both the same lane and opposite lane cases and almost always from moving vehicles.

These radars are subject to other environment induced errors as well such as micro-doppler, they do not operate in protected bands, other reflections, etc, etc which can lead to gross errors as I know from my own experience. Some other countries have operational guidelines that reduce the opportunity for these errors to intervene but if NZ has similar guidelines I know from experience that they are not followed.

I'll leave it at that as I suspect it is all of no merit in your eyes.

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#565938 7-Jan-2012 22:59

John2010:
jeffnz: thanks for all that very interesting, I was, however, talking about ones issued by officers as Op was talking about.

Well I am not sure that the OP has even said that his was a radar detected offence (he could have been followed or else by laser). But assuming as you are that it was a mobile radar then as I said, but you seem to have not understood, the mobile radars used by officers in their vehicles have their difficulties too. In fact they have greater ones.

So the same issue applies, innocent people will be ticketed with the 4km/hr "allowance".

The manufacturer's specification for the mobile radars in general use in NZ is +- 3.2 km/hr when moving and slightly better when stationary. The accuracy is further compromised in the same lane case when moving and is totally inaccurate in the same lane case when the police vehicle is travelling at less than approx 10km/hr slower than the target vehicle due to the small doppler shift. In NZ these radars are used in both the same lane and opposite lane cases and almost always from moving vehicles.

These radars are subject to other environment induced errors as well such as micro-doppler, they do not operate in protected bands, other reflections, etc, etc which can lead to gross errors as I know from my own experience. Some other countries have operational guidelines that reduce the opportunity for these errors to intervene but if NZ has similar guidelines I know from experience that they are not followed.

I'll leave it at that as I suspect it is all of no merit in your eyes.

You can suspect all you like my point was and is that if you speed and you know it then why moan about it, that's it in a nutshell. You quoted what I had said and went into something unrelated to my point entirely but did it very well and it is food for thought.

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qwerty7

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#566035 8-Jan-2012 11:18

yes i agree if you do the crime do the time but i do not believe my speed was as high as what was recorded
the officer in his vehicle was infront of me up a hill, some distance away, about 400 meters with an additional rise in the road between us. I never speed it was just a case of wrong place wrong time.

I do not know whether the police vehicle was moving or stationary, i do not know if it was a radar or laser, although i saw the reading on the dash i did not ask for calibration. This is my first offence and i did not want to push it.
Can i ask for such details in the letter? can you write in more than once or is it one chance for consideration then end of story?

I find the talk of 3.2 km/h +/- interesting/concerning considering the difference 1-3 km/h can make when you start climbing up the fine scale. I do not know if these are correct i cant seem to find any such information on the police website but these are from http://www.radardirect.co.nz/techinfo/techinfo.html
SPEEDING FINES:
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by up to 10Km/h $30.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 11 - 15Km/h $80.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 16 - 20Km/h $120.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 21 - 25Km/h $170.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 26 - 30Km/h $230.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 31 - 35Km/h $300.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 36 - 40Km/h $400.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 41 - 45Km/h $510.00
If you are caught exceeding the speed limit by 46 - 50Km/h $630.00

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#566040 8-Jan-2012 11:57

what speed did they say you were doing exactly?

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#566046 8-Jan-2012 12:12

that is irrelevant

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#566118 8-Jan-2012 15:41

qwerty7: that is irrelevant

oh ok I would have thought it was given if you were say only ticketed at under 10kmh over limit then I can understand the tech talk and thoughts of writing in.

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ascroft

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#566144 8-Jan-2012 17:03

Anyway the OP said he wasn't speeding - it was "wrong place wrong time". Surely you can't be fined for that!!

common sense is not very common

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#566159 8-Jan-2012 17:30

I didn't say I wasn't speeding, I said I never speed. They caught me the one time I put my foot down.

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#566202 8-Jan-2012 19:11

qwerty7: I didn't say I wasn't speeding, I said I never speed. They caught me the one time I put my foot down.

Don't think it would matter to them if it was the 'one time'. It would be black and white, either you were or you weren't.

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