Lose your license by the speed trap:
The boss of a speed camera firm has been banned from driving for six months after admitting speeding at more than 100mph on a 70mph road in Suffolk.
Tom Riall, 49, is a chief executive of Serco, which has provided more than 5,000 speed cameras in the UK.
har-de-har. Sucker.
I got caught doing 36mph in a 30 zone last year and was offered 3 points on my license/£60 fine or an afternoon at a ‘Speed Awareness’ course. I opted for the latter but was disappointed to find it had nothing to do with drugs. Instead, me and 10 other lucky bastards got ‘re-educated’ on the dangers of driving fast. Still, at least my license is still clean. I am not a fast driver, especially in urban areas and was caught at the bottom of a hill where a 60mph limit changes to a 30, which stinks of ‘easy money’ and made me feel like a cash cow. The governments own figures cite speeding as the reason for only 6% of accidents (drivers under the influence or those in knackered old cars are the real problem) so I think I have a right to feel aggrieved. A local council (Swindon) voted to remove all their speed cameras, which was a real coup and, so far, the accident rate hasn’t suffered. Placing them at accident black-spots, near schools, etc. is fine, and no-one would disagree with this, but in the last few years they have been used to generate revenue for the police, and have little to do with road safety. Some people think that cameras make the problem worse as drivers brake hard when they see them and this can cause accidents.
Do they have cameras like this in the US or is it still the old stereotypical redneck cop with a hand-help speed gun catching people from ‘back East’ their flash BMW’s and Mercedes-Benzes? :)
36mph in a 30
wow. that’s pretty strict!
oh we have cameras (and speed traps, and plenty of cops with speed guns). not as many cameras as the UK, probably, but what we have are used for much the same reason.
Yeh, it’s strict but the golden rule over here has always been that when driving in urban areas never exceed the speed limit by more than 10%. However, I was caught with a ‘mobile’ camera (basically a bloke in the back of a van, probably on commission and most likely sexually frsutrated) and after talking to others on the dumb course, my poxy 36mph was the lowest. I’ll wager that fixed cameras are set to go off at 40mph. So I was pretty unlucky really. You are only offered the oh-so-patronising course if you were doing less than 40mph and you don’t get a second chance unless it’s been 3 years since you were last caught. Having points on your license isn’t a biggie until they accumulate – you have 12 points before you lose your license and minor speeding is worth 3 (plus the fine). I don’t think it affects your insurance costs either, as, to be frank, everyone speeds at some point. I read once that 85% of UK drivers have had points for speeding at one time or another which is staggering – what a bunch of degenerate savages we must be!
On motorways however, where the limit is 70mph, you’d be VERY unlucky to get flashed between 70 and 85mph. Bear in mind that, as in the US I expect, there is only an upper limit on motorway speeds because of the 1973 energy crisis! :)