Speeding Fine

[Bikeman78]

Assume you're driving at 30mph and something - a child following a ball - blocks your path, and you brake and stop just before the obstruction. Assume instead that you were driving at 40mph, obviously you wouldn't stop in time, so what would your speed have been at your previous stopping point?
"Simple" logic says 10mph.
Reality is 30mph.
If you take this away then you've learned something - I did.

I suppose at the higher speed you will have travelled a considerably greater distance before your foot gets to the brake, and then it will take longer to stop from that point as well.

 

[jfollows]

I suppose at the higher speed you will have travelled a considerably greater distance before your foot gets to the brake, and then it will take longer to stop from that point as well.

Yes, that's exactly right, and then if you model something like a constant energy reduction through braking (which isn't real, but might work as the basis of a model) then you'll get an answer. It's not something "intuitive" but the reality helps highlight the danger of driving at 40mph in a 30mph zone; to me this is more important than imposing 20mph limits everywhere except that the result of these is that people continue to break the limit but by less and therefore tend to drive at lower speeds.
The exact calculation leads to differential equations and is not something anyone should expect to be able to calculate! I’ve tried and ended up with answers in line with the approximation.

 

[Snow1964]

I suppose at the higher speed you will have travelled a considerably greater distance before your foot gets to the brake, and then it will take longer to stop from that point as well.

The thinking time is about the same whatever the speed, if you are doing 40mph then it is 4/3 of 30mph distance.

The deceleration curve isn't linear though. The courses try and simplify this bit saying if going 40mph will still be travelling at x at point where a car at 30mph will stop.

They try and avoid the concept that those with premium tyres with decent tread depth will stop lot quicker than those that buy cheap tyres and have less than 3mm of tread. If you ever read tyre review tests will know in wet those with quality tyres can stop in about 60-70% of distance of those with budget tyres.

Sadly even in fatal accidents, the quality of the vehicles involved is rarely mentioned. Presumably doesn't look good to report a person died after being hit by a car when driver had saved £50 buying cheap tyres rather than the best.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

For completeness, since I began this thread here is an update.
Today I did my Speed Awareness Course. I chose the classroom version not Zoom as it was only a couple of miles from home and I went on the bus.

There were two ‘instructors’. Both of them were driving instructors by profession. There were 19 ‘pupils’. I thought at 72 I’d probably be the oldest there. No chance. Must have been 5 or 6 older than me. The youngest was about 45-50. I’d guess most younger choose the Zoom version.

To be honest I thought it extremely worthwhile. I certainly learnt something and think everyone else did too. It began with a slideshow showing views of five different roads. We had to write down what we thought the speed limit was on each road. Sounds easy, but apart from the motorway which everyone agreed on, there was a split of answers for each of the others. At the end we had another slideshow with different roads. This time everyone got them all correct.

At no time were we made to feel guilty about speeding. It was constructive, educational and at the same time good fun. There was plenty of interaction between everyone. I’m not sure how a Zoom presentation could have got the information across.

I've booked the classroom version too. In a weird kind of way I'm actually looking forward to it

 

[dangie]

I've booked the classroom version too. In a weird kind of way I'm actually looking forward to it

To be fair it's not going to be the best 3 hours of your life...... but..... As the 'teacher' said at the start, "you obviously don't want to be here but what were the choices? Pay a £100 fine and have 3 points on your licence plus higher car insurance, or go to court and argue your case which you have little chance of winning and it'll cost you much more. Or do this course, hopefully learn something and walk away without a blemish on your licence." No contest really.

 

[MattA7]

Out of curiosity how do foreign drivers keep the the speed limit in the uk given most non UK/US speedometers are metric only and how do the revenue cameras deal with non UK reg plates.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

To be fair it's not going to be the best 3 hours of your life...... but..... As the 'teacher' said at the start, "you obviously don't want to be here but what were the choices? Pay a £100 fine and have 3 points on your licence plus higher car insurance, or go to court and argue your case which you have little chance of winning and it'll cost you much more. Or do this course, hopefully learn something and walk away without a blemish on your licence." No contest really.

Actually, it could be...compared to the alternatives. I have had a clean licence for many years + many years' protected no-claims which I'm proud of. Still a bit miffed that it was done "on the sly" in a 20 zone (i.e. back of a car camera job in the evening) but it's easy to fall into complacency when you've been used to a main road being 30mph. A "refresher" will certainly prove useful to me

 

[Eyersey468]

Assume you're driving at 30mph and something - a child following a ball - blocks your path, and you brake and stop just before the obstruction. Assume instead that you were driving at 40mph, obviously you wouldn't stop in time, so what would your speed have been at your previous stopping point?
"Simple" logic says 10mph.
Reality is 30mph.
If you take this away then you've learned something - I did.

I haven't been on a course but one thing I was told by someone that has is if you are doing 31mph instead of 30 you are still doing 8mph at the point the car would stop at 30.

 

[dangie]

I haven't been on a course but one thing I was told by someone that has is if you are doing 31mph instead of 30 you are still doing 8mph at the point the car would stop at 30.

Yes that is what we were told on my course. I can’t remember what speeds you’d be doing at impact if your initial speeds were higher but it certainly brought the potential effect of speeding home.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Out of curiosity how do foreign drivers keep the the speed limit in the uk given most non UK/US speedometers are metric only and how do the revenue cameras deal with non UK reg plates.

Easy, we change the speedometer Okay, I have the digital cockpit in my Seat, so this is a non-issue to change measurements.

But analogue is easy. 50km/h is more or less 30mph, 65km/h is ~40mph, 80km/h is ~50mph, 95km/h is ~60mph and 110km/h is ~70mph.

It's not much of an issue at all, as if you stick to these numbers, then you won't get fined due to the margin of error on the speedo.

 

[dangie]

From the BBC:
‘Musician Noel Gallagher must pay more than £1,000 for failing to tell police who was driving his Range Rover.
The 56-year-old former Oasis star, who cannot drive, was also handed six penalty points.’

It says that Gallagher took driving lessons back in the 1990’s but hasn’t bothered since. Assuming he didn’t renew his Provisional License, how can you get penalty points if you don’t have a licence?

Noel Gallagher fined for refusing to name driver

The former Oasis star, who cannot drive, would not reveal who was speeding in his Range Rover.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[jfollows]

From the BBC:
‘Musician Noel Gallagher must pay more than £1,000 for failing to tell police who was driving his Range Rover.
The 56-year-old former Oasis star, who cannot drive, was also handed six penalty points.’

It says that Gallagher took driving lessons back in the 1990’s but hasn’t bothered since. Assuming he didn’t renew his Provisional License, how can you get penalty points if you don’t have a licence?

Noel Gallagher fined for refusing to name driver

The former Oasis star, who cannot drive, would not reveal who was speeding in his Range Rover.

www.bbc.co.uk

If you're the registered keeper of the car, in other words you're the person named on the V5C document, and when you're sent something like a notice of intended prosecution for speeding you don't name the driver of the car at the time and place when/where the speeding was alleged. Six points and a fine.
Obviously there's no licence per se to apply the points to, but I think they create a "ghost licence" against which the points are recorded which will be transferred to a real licence in due course if such a thing ever exists.

 

[DM352]

Out of curiosity how do foreign drivers keep the the speed limit in the uk given most non UK/US speedometers are metric only and how do the revenue cameras deal with non UK reg plate

Dorking to Leatherhead still has cyclepaths on one side all the way, both sides some of the way.
A nice cyclist on one of them warned me about a speed trap hiding round the corner trying to catch people accelerating after going through the fixed camera. Its a ridiculous 50 limit on a dual carriageway. Everyone knew it was ridiculous so it was barely observed at all. Instead of recognising this sign of their mistake they made it average speed cameras for most of it. Painful and makes lane changing more dangerous.

I remember that van doing a spot of fishing between the bushes at Box hill on the A24 before the dreaded average cameras appeared. I miss the days it used to be 70mph north (cycle route and singled road was the south side). South of Dorking the same squeeky wheels reduced the dual carriageway limit from 70 though I just put my trust in Waze as road was built for 70. Only time speed limit was reasonable was entering Worthing with all the amazing local drivers.

 

[Lucan]

To be fair it's not going to be the best 3 hours of your life...... but..... As the 'teacher' said at the start, "you obviously don't want to be here but what were the choices?

I quite enjoyed the course, especially when the teacher got it wrong (said at 20 mph you go a mile in two minutes) and I corrected him. I also wound him up when I made the perfectly true comment that around my way (rural) many of the speed limit signs are hidden in hedges and the council do nothing about it - in fact the hedge-cutting guys stop a few yards short of any post in the hedge. He seemed to take that as a personal insult and even threatened to throw me out.

I was there because I was doing 26 where the 30 limit had been reduced to 20 since I was last there, with scant signage. Quite conservative of me, I thought, for a road with open fields on both sides. This was several years ago before the present mass 20mph down-ratings. I learned nothing from the course or the entire experience (it was all the usual stopping distance stuff that is in the Highway Code, don't need a course for that) except that I need to be more aware of poor signage.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Ironic that some of the main roads in South East London have been reduced to 20mph, yet you can still go up a residential side street and do 30mph. The signs are there...

 

[Jamesrob637]

What defines speeding? I can often put on (very) short bursts at well over 70 when I overtake, yet once I've slowed down, the car(s) I've roared past then retake me. So is it my burst that might land me in trouble, or the other drivers going consistently slightly over the limit?

17 years no points this year One claim a few years back that came to nought.

 

[jfollows]

What defines speeding? I can often put on (very) short bursts at well over 70 when I overtake, yet once I've slowed down, the car(s) I've roared past then retake me. So is it my burst that might land me in trouble, or the other drivers going consistently slightly over the limit?

17 years no points this year One claim a few years back that came to nought.

In terms of the law, exceeding the speed limit by 0.01mph is speeding and breaking the law.
In reality, you will only be prosecuted if you are subject to an instantaneous reading of speed limit + 10% +2mph, so 57mph in a 50mph limit, 79mph in a 70mph limit. This is to cater for inaccuracies of various sorts.
It's also the case that your speedometer is required to over-read the speed you're travelling, if it shows a lower speed than you're actually travelling then it's also illegal (so don't change your tyres without realising this).
So if you're not exceeding an indicated 80mph in a 70mph limit you're unlikely to be prosecuted, even though you will be speeding.
EDIT And exceeding the limit "in order to overtake" isn't an excuse, if you're caught doing so you'll be prosecuted, it makes no difference. If you can't overtake without speeding, then you shouldn't, in the eyes of the law anyway.
FURTHER EDIT Driving since 1979, 2x3 points for speeding, last one on 5/5/05, subsequently 1x course in lieu of points in around 2011. Points were for driving at 70mph in a 60mph limit and driving at 85mph in a 70mph limit. Course was for 57mph in a 50mph limit.
I think most people on courses are for exceeding 30mph limits, not for higher speed infringements. They were on mine, anyway.
There are posts above talking about different guidelines for prosecution; +10%+3mph and +0% for example. Neither is used today to my knowledge.
Nowadays I tend to drive at up to an indicated 80mph on motorways, with no recorded transgressions for almost 20 years. In the 1990s I’d drive at up to an indicated 100mph and never had a ticket, but that was before speed cameras on motorways.

 

[MotCO]

In terms of the law, exceeding the speed limit by 0.01mph is speeding and breaking the law.
In reality, you will only be prosecuted if you are subject to an instantaneous reading of speed limit + 10% +2mph, so 57mph in a 50mph limit, 79mph in a 70mph limit. This is to cater for inaccuracies of various sorts.
It's also the case that your speedometer is required to over-read the speed you're travelling, if it shows a lower speed than you're actually travelling then it's also illegal (so don't change your tyres without realising this).
So if you're not exceeding an indicated 80mph in a 70mph limit you're unlikely to be prosecuted, even though you will be speeding.
EDIT And exceeding the limit "in order to overtake" isn't an excuse, if you're caught doing so you'll be prosecuted, it makes no difference. If you can't overtake without speeding, then you shouldn't, in the eyes of the law anyway.
FURTHER EDIT Driving since 1979, 2x3 points for speeding, last one on 5/5/05, subsequently 1x course in lieu of points in around 2011. Points were for driving at 70mph in a 60mph limit and driving at 85mph in a 70mph limit. Course was for 57mph in a 50mph limit.
I think most people on courses are for exceeding 30mph limits, not for higher speed infringements. They were on mine, anyway.
There are posts above talking about different guidelines for prosecution; +10%+3mph and +0% for example. Neither is used today to my knowledge.

Is there also a requirement for the speeding to be for a certain distance? I thought that used to be the case, but obviously speeding cameras can only identify speeding for that split second.

 

[jfollows]

Is there also a requirement for the speeding to be for a certain distance? I thought that used to be the case, but obviously speeding cameras can only identify speeding for that split second.

No distance requirement that I know of, instantaneous speed as long as you’re clearly in the appropriate zone is enough. There used to have to be road markings proving time over distance as well, but I don’t think that applies with the latest technology, eg motorway variable speed limit cameras.
Accelerating into an increased speed limit zone before passing the sign is unwise today.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is there also a requirement for the speeding to be for a certain distance? I thought that used to be the case, but obviously speeding cameras can only identify speeding for that split second.

Average speed cameras, such as those on yellow gantries for roadworks, time you between successive cameras, and work out your average speed over the intermediate distance. That‘s supposed to deal with the problem of people tanking along then slowing down when passing camera sites…

 

[jfollows]

Average speed cameras, such as those on yellow gantries for roadworks, time you between successive cameras, and work out your average speed over the intermediate distance. That‘s supposed to deal with the problem of people tanking along then slowing down when passing camera sites…

Good point.
I am often amused by people who speed but slow down for these cameras, since they clearly don’t understand the concept.
Seems to happen less often now than it used to. The wierd 50mph on the M60 clockwise approaching Stockport (wierd because it’s not mirrored in the other direction) seems well observed now.
Oh, and some of these measure instantaneous speeds at the same time, I believe. So you can get caught either way.
(EDIT I recall that the first incarnation of average speed cameras couldn’t cope if you changed lane between the camera pairs. That issue was fixed long ago!)

 

[Ediswan]

Is there also a requirement for the speeding to be for a certain distance? I thought that used to be the case, but obviously speeding cameras can only identify speeding for that split second.

In the days when the best technology available was a calibrated speedometer in a police car, I recall a rumour that those police applied an unofficial 1/3 mile test.

 

[richw]

No distance requirement that I know of, instantaneous speed as long as you’re clearly in the appropriate zone is enough. There used to have to be road markings proving time over distance as well, but I don’t think that applies with the latest technology, eg motorway variable speed limit cameras.
Accelerating into an increased speed limit zone before passing the sign is unwise today.

The set up of a police car needs to gather the speed over a distance. You’ll see prosecutions for police car captured speeds are 80mph over 1/2 mile etc

 

[route101]

The M8 and M73 with its 50mph and 60mph sections are widely flouted. There is no cameras.

 

[Jamesrob637]

The set up of a police car needs to gather the speed over a distance. You’ll see prosecutions for police car captured speeds are 80mph over 1/2 mile etc

So very short bursts (primarily to overtake) are fine. It's actually less dangerous to clear a slower (but still relatively fast) car by a couple of hundred metres.

 

[Bald Rick]

So very short bursts (primarily to overtake) are fine. It's actually less dangerous to clear a slower (but still relatively fast) car by a couple of hundred metres.

I wouldnt rely on that as a defence in court.

 

[MotCO]

I wouldnt rely on that as a defence in court.

I wouldn't be surprised if the only way speed used to be calculated was S = D/T i.e Speed = Distance travelled / elapsed time. Therefore there had to be a certain distance travelled which could be accurately timed to prove a speed. Now we have speed guns which can identify speed instantaneously so bursts of overspeeding can now be proven.

 

[Bald Rick]

I wouldn't be surprised if the only way speed used to be calculated was S = D/T i.e Speed = Distance travelled / elapsed time. Therefore there had to be a certain distance travelled which could be accurately timed to prove a speed. Now we have speed guns which can identify speed instantaneously so bursts of overspeeding can now be proven.

Both times Ive been stopped on a speed gun, I have been suitably humble and apologetic and the officers concerned have said words to the effect: “I need a reading for three seconds, and I only got two so be on your way and don’t do it again sonny” (both incidents happened over 25 years ago when I could pass for “sonny” )

 

[Thebaz]

I've been caught twice and received penalties - one was before speed awareness course existed so I just got 3 points but the second time about 10 years later I opted to attend the course, which I found informative. 20 years ago I got caught by a police motorcyclist on the M20 just east of Maidstone doing 98 - I took off my sunglasses and acted contrite , indicated a clear road, that I was late for work and that I was 'looking at the road and not the speedo' and to my great surprise he let me off with a warning! Also been caught twice by stationary cameras in France recently but have never received any follow-ups.

 

[wastedlife]

I've done three speed awareness courses in the last four years, but (touch wood) my licence is currently clean since an incident on the A3 at Putney on what would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday back in 2014.
The "middle" speed awareness course was a special one for smart motorways, which I gather was introduced precisely because people were struggling with them. My brain had been stuck into thinking that whereas the limit might change, they were still not capable of adjusting the trigger speed on the camera. Aside from which, it was the end of Lockdown 3, and there wasn't a lot of traffic on the M3, so why has it gone down to 60 anyway? Result was being pinged at 71 at Lightwater.
The other two courses were stupidity on the Kingston by-pass at Hinchley Wood, a road I've been driving down regularly for over 20 years. Despite the signs, I'd never seen a camera there until April 2019 (47 in a 40, overtaking someone pratting about coming off the Scilly Isles) and then going through the traffic lights at Manor Road at 4:50am on a Saturday at 47 again, still in a 40.
I've actually got two postal deliveries until my licence is completely clear, as there were two camera flashes on the M3 as I went past a gantry, but I'm pretty sure that was for someone going tother way, as the limit was coming down for the closure at J3 - anyway, I was under the trigger speed!

It's quite interesting observing the characters of the participants at these things. This summer we had an older lady who was obviously very bitter about having been done, and consequently argued every point with the presenters - who, actually (as someone who facilitates a lot of training) dealt with her very professionally. There was also some nut case going about still properly masked up, which for some bizarre reason made it hard for him to hear, so there was a kerfuffle while I swapped chairs with this lunatic at his request. Most people just want to get their heads down and get it done.