Speed camera

D

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Good morning everyone.

Just a quick one. Me and my friend was driving down a 30MPH road yesterday, it was raining and I must have been doing about 29MPH with my friend following behind, however as we went past a speed camera as I looked in my rear view mirror it flashed TWICE to one of us. There was no one on the opposite side of the road either.

The thing is, I have a 53 micra S and have added 16inch alloys, meaning that the speedo will show that I am driving faster than what I actually was, so I probably was actually traveling at 27mph if the truth was known. Plus the cameras are usually set at a few MPH plus a certain percent aren't they?

Any ideas on why the camera flashed?

Thank you, Jamie.
 
Couldn't tell you, altho i would be tempted to get in contact with the council/police to be on the safe side. No point in waiting for the letter to hit the mat! Get it done and out the way.
 
Cameras are known to go off incorrectly. On the news in the south, some guy was flashed when he was only doing 13mph. Pretty daft to be driving that slow, but to prove he was inocent, he went back with a tape measure and a few gadgets and somehow proved his innocence. Being wet, its possible the camera misjudged the position of your car. Even though it flashed, they should be able to see how far your car has travelled between the two photos and tell if you were speeding or not. As you were not, you should be ok!
 
if you know you were going slow, if you get anytihng, then dispute it. You will win.
 
Are you sure your mate in the car behind didn't speed up a bit. If you weren't speeding and you know you weren't speeding then you must contest it. The other thing to remember is that most GATSO models flash whether they have film in them or not. Also the films are finite and run out of images (in busy areas they run out quite quickly), but they still flash even when out of film. And yes, most GATSO's are set with a 10% tolerance (so 33 in a 30) because of calibration issues, and because the police would be even less popupular if people were being done for 31mph all the time. A friend of my mothers, who has never been in trouble with the law, is a professor at a university, drives as slow as anyone I know, is now on the brink of a driving ban after being caught doing 34 in a 30 twice and 35 in a 30 once all inside 18 months...stupid system. The other thing...if you don't receive a Notice of Inteded Prosecution inside 17 days then you have nothing to worry about. They HAVE to inform you within 14 days of your offence otherwise it cannot go to court, however you need to wait 17 days because of the postal system, which is seen as a resonable delay in the eyes of the court.
 
I agree with most of the comments so far except:

if the circumference of the tyres on your larger wheels is larger than the standard ones then you will be traveling FASTER than on the standard ones at the same speedo reading

Conversely if you put tiny wheels & tyres on then you will be stavelling SLOWER than than on the standard ones at the same speedo reading

Standard speedo & wheel & tyre combok keep you on the slower side of the law according to your speedo (mine was about -7% on the speedo now its -10% on my smaller wheel setup)

You can get an idea of your speed based on these assumtions and your wheel and tyre info

what were your original tyres and rims?
what are your new tyres? xxxx/yy R16?

we can do a quick calc.....
 
Thank you for the help guys.

I cant remember the wheel size for the car previously, they were standard micra k12 trim wheels though.

However the new ones are 185/50 R 16 81 V

Thank you, Jamie.
 
If they cant give you a valid calibration certificate for that day you shouldnt have to pay for it. It works for hand held speed cameras as if it hasnt been calibrated in the morning then they cant do you. Its also the same for on the spot exhaust emission tests.

Ryan.
 
If they cant give you a valid calibration certificate for that day you shouldnt have to pay for it. It works for hand held speed cameras as if it hasnt been calibrated in the morning then they cant do you. Its also the same for on the spot exhaust emission tests.

Ryan.

Dont think that applies to Gatso's Ryan, since they are not calibrated daily and dont need to be.

Either way, whenever film is put in a camera, they have to take it out within 2 weeks, otherwise they dont have time to process it and send off the NIP's... So as Arnold said, there is a chance there was no film in it. Depends on the operator of the camera and their budget no doubt.

Some traffic lights near me get film put in quite often, but I really really doubt they get many photos, they're not exactly lights you would bother jumping. Seems like a waste of time.
 
Quite a few gatso's are going digital I believe, and automatically reading the number plates, gathering the data and sending the tickets off automatically.
 
Thank you for the help guys.

I cant remember the wheel size for the car previously, they were standard micra k12 trim wheels though.

However the new ones are 185/50 R 16 81 V

Thank you, Jamie.

Looking at the nissan spec sheets: They (Nissan) fit the same diameter wheels and same tyre profile and aspect ratio as you have fitted yourself.

So, given the fact that nissan could not fit a wheel and tyre combo that would cause the car to go faster than the indicated speed....

....I would say that you're safe as HOUSES (provided your indicated speed was infact 30 and not 300....lol)
 
Thanks guys. It looks like me and my friend are just going to have to give it a couple of weeks and see what happens.

My road angel navigator (that I wasn't using at the time) shows 27mph when I am traveling at 30 mph, so I don't know which one is out as well?

The nismo exhaust is brilliant thanks Ian. Just recently I get a really nice rumble from it and backfire as well, it really is sweet. I hope you are doing well and I hope that your parents are keeping well also. My friend really wants to go back to Rotherham, he liked it, I will have to take the Mrs as well. But this time I will go my way instead of the way my navigator said to go, lol.
 
yeh a lot of them are going digital which is scary because they are half the size or less of the original gatso... can do two things at once e.g. speeding and running a red... they have night mode, zoom and never run out of film... basically maintenance free and v high tech! ********* do not try to avoid the swearing filter *********
 
A lot of Gatso's are now fitted with a digital sytem that will send the data straight to a force HQ and a ticket issued.

If you weren't speeding then it'll be easy to show as the marks on the road are a set distance apart and you'll be able to show that over that X time you travelled Y distance and as such you were doing such and such speed.
 
Well the police/policeman were messing with the Gatso's around the local area today so I assume they were changing the films, so will find out in a couple of days.
 
just so you guys know as no-one has said it i dont think. Every camera that takes an automatic picture, the picture goes past a human eye and then a decision is made, i know this because when i was caught in liverpool in 2005. i had the choice of getting 3 point and £60 fine or £60 fine and driving improment course, on the course i was told about the way they and and the procedure that is implimented
 
Cool, what is the procedure?

Well its been 15 Days and nothing. I knew I wasn't speeding. :suspect: Wonder why it flashed twice then!
 
This happens a fair bit to be honest. I've been driving along and the camera on the other side of the road has gone off without a car in sight. If you're going to get caught on a Gatso you have to be being a bit silly with speed. My speedo is quite innacurate, reads around 10% higher than I am actually going, so you have to be doing at least 40 on the speedo in a 30 to get close to setting one off, (depending on the trigger speed of coarse).
 
As said above, even if it's run out of film, it will flash anyway. Pictures would have been recorded and processed if it had any film left. The only way to guarantee your in the clear is if it doesn't flash.
 
well the speed cameras have a tolerance of about 10% +2 or something so you have to be doing around 33-35MPH before it decides to go off. The new digital ones may be different. I do 30MPH exact on mines through cameras (verifed as 30 on my GPS, stock wheels and tyres) and has never gone off.
 
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