Disputing a speeding fine

Marquis de carabas

wailim_2002 wrote: »

Hi Lads,

What do you think of a €80 fine and 2 points for 109Km/Hr in a 100Km/Hr zone on the Arklow bypass? The location of the VAN was 200m from where the dual carriageway converges to a 2 lane road with bi-directional traffic.

I have asked a number of friends and no-one has ever got caught below what most people see as the 10% rule.

This was a gatzo van and the snap was at 10.30pm when the road was deserted.

I would be a whole lot more comfortable paying this if it had been 111Km/Hr because then I'd accept the tolerance of my speedo and the camera itself did not conspire to have me caught unfairly.

I did a bit of research and can find no Irish guidelines regarding enforcement tolerances.

In the UK according to ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) site:

the rule is 10% + 2mph or 3mph depending on the speed limit and this is because the regulations for speedometers for older cars did not require them to be more than 10% accurate.

As a result in the UK on that site, the closest UK speed limit of 60MPH they suggest Fixed Penalty at 68MPH. (10% + 2MPH)

If you apply that formula to 100KM zone it would be 110 + 3 = 113Km/Hr!!!!

I will probably pay this and try to forget about it but I have lost a lot of respect for the Gardai over this!

First of all was it a Gatso van or one of the new privately operated ones?

If its a privately operated one then everyone over the limit gets recorded and someone in an office decides.

Second the way the laws work if you were doing 101 km/hr in a 100 zone you'd still be likely convicted in court. I've heard it argued successfully before. They're limits not the speed you'd be expected to be driving on.

The N11 between wicklow and arklow have seen a number of bad accidents in recent years. Im happy that its getting some attention at least.

wailim_2002

Tails142 wrote: »

Your speedometer in general over reads by about ten percent, you will see this if you have a gps.

If your speedometer says your doing 100 km/hr your actually only doing about 91 which is what a speed gun would read.

so the speed gun/van said you were doing 109 which means the speedometer on your car was showing about 120 km/hr.

Sorry this is not correct. Agreed it may well be what you found in your car, but you cannot say what way my speedometer reads! .. and this is my point!

I had a Vauxhall like that and I had a ford focus that was the other way around completely! Obviously the way you describe it is preferable because its safer but it does highlight my point that speedos are not accurate. Does nobody see the issue at all?

I may have been in my car doing 99Kph or 101Kph and got done for doing 109Kph without ever intending that!!! I don't know how accurate my current car is because I no longer have standalone GPS - I find google navigation perfect for when I need it but there doesnt seem to be an option to show current speed.

Anyway you should get that looked at .. seriously!

Consider that if your speedometer reading was another couple of % out you could get done for dangerous driving for going too slow on a motorway :eek:. You may think you are doing 100 Kph and you may like driving at that, but in actual fact you are only doing 91Kph. So if you slow down another bit or if your problem deteriorates you will be below the minimum 80Kph limit.

And while were on it if your car is showing 100K miles on it, it has actually travelled just 91K miles so you are also doing yourself out of pocket in terms of resale value.

If we need to be this accurate then NCT should be verifying SPEEDOs are within 9%.... impossible I say

wailim_2002

Marquis de carabas wrote: »

First of all was it a Gatso van or one of the new privately operated ones?

If its a privately operated one then everyone over the limit gets recorded and someone in an office decides.

Second the way the laws work if you were doing 101 km/hr in a 100 zone you'd still be likely convicted in court. I've heard it argued successfully before. They're limits not the speed you'd be expected to be driving on.

The N11 between wicklow and arklow have seen a number of bad accidents in recent years. Im happy that its getting some attention at least.

I agree 100% with everything you said here. Fair play to you for stating this and in the way you have done.

Road Safety is the paramount goal and I have no problem in general. I did say had I it been 111kph I would have been angry with myself but would accept it no question. However now I am angry with myself but also feel unfairly treated. The UK guidlines in my case would have been 113kph not 109kph... for the reasons I tried to make and another poster more or less inadvertently confirmed .. SPEEDOS are not this accurate. I might well have been showing 99kph at the time :mad:

Paulw

wailim_2002 wrote: »

Road Safety is the paramount goal and I have no problem in general. I did say had I it been 111kph I would have been angry with myself but would accept it no question. However now I am angry with myself but also feel unfairly treated. The UK guidlines in my case would have been 113kph not 109kph... for the reasons I tried to make and another poster more or less inadvertently confirmed .. SPEEDOS are not this accurate. I might well have been showing 99kph at the time :mad:

So, you're saying that your speedo was showing you doing under 110kph when you were caught doing 109kph by the van?

In that case, your car may have been modified (non-factory fitted wheels, or other modification), which can effect the reading of your speedo.

By default, the manufacturer will configure the speedo to read more than your actual speed. I can't find it right now, but I believe it's a standard that all vehicles comply with.

Unfortunately, doing 109 or 113 makes no difference to the law, since the speed limit is 100kph. Both 109 and 113 are above that limit, and the mechanism in the van will trigger at any speed above 100kph.

Marquis de carabas

wailim_2002 wrote: »

I agree 100% with everything you said here. Fair play to you for stating this and in the way you have done.

Road Safety is the paramount goal and I have no problem in general. I did say had I it been 111kph I would have been angry with myself but would accept it no question. However now I am angry with myself but also feel unfairly treated. The UK guidlines in my case would have been 113kph not 109kph... for the reasons I tried to make and another poster more or less inadvertently confirmed .. SPEEDOS are not this accurate. I might well have been showing 99kph at the time :mad:

Agreed and I'd be the first to accept that it isn't always easy to maintain a constant speed and mistakes happen.

I'd much prefer more guards on the roads but with cuts in numbers and budgets I know that's not going to happen so the vans are the best that can be hoped for.

Its much easier for a person in an office to make a cold calculated decision to prosecute where a guard might have cautioned or advised you but that's the way we are heading.

You can be annoyed about it and you can fight it but I think it might just be one of those things you'll have to put down to having a bad day.

wailim_2002

Paulw wrote: »

So, you're saying that your speedo was showing you doing under 110kph when you were caught doing 109kph by the van?

In that case, your car may have been modified (non-factory fitted wheels, or other modification), which can effect the reading of your speedo.

By default, the manufacturer will configure the speedo to read more than your actual speed. I can't find it right now, but I believe it's a standard that all vehicles comply with.

Unfortunately, doing 109 or 113 makes no difference to the law, since the speed limit is 100kph. Both 109 and 113 are above that limit, and the mechanism in the van will trigger at any speed above 100kph.

I agree with most of what you say but the middle bit is not correct. Older vehicles had to be accurate to +/-10%. Newer vehicles must comply with a much smaller accuracy according to EU regulation. Check the link I forwarded earlier to the Association of Chief Police Officers (UK reference)

There is no accord between manufactures to under-report. They make them as accurate as the need to be in regulation. There is no guarantee that two Ford Focus or two Opel Astras read the same speed under test conditions. You might rightly feel like suing your car manufacturer if you were pulled over for doing 79Kph on the motorway when you thought you were doing 88Kph.... Yes / No?? So they make them as accurate as they can (if no regulation) or as accurate as they must be (if regulation exists).. in this way they can never be sued.

PS: My car is 10 years old and through no fault of mine it has 16" wheels and normal profile tyres whereas I am pretty sure it originally had 15" and normal profile. I have no doubt this is a contributory factor so you are right there!

Victor

wailim_2002 wrote: »

I may have been in my car doing 99Kph or 101Kph and got done for doing 109Kph without ever intending that!!!

No, the devices used in prosecutions are quite accurate.

Consider that if your speedometer reading was another couple of % out you could get done for dangerous driving for going too slow on a motorway :eek:. You may think you are doing 100 Kph and you may like driving at that, but in actual fact you are only doing 91Kph. So if you slow down another bit or if your problem deteriorates you will be below the minimum 80Kph limit.

There is no minimum speed limit in Ireland. Vehicles on motorways need to be capable of 50km/h, but there is no requirement to do that speed (other than the general requirement to keep up with traffic). Trucks are subject to 80km/h speed limit. In the event of an incident, the port tunnel (a motorway) can have a maximum speed limit of 50km/h.

And while were on it if your car is showing 100K miles on it, it has actually travelled just 91K miles so you are also doing yourself out of pocket in terms of resale value.

Speedometers and odometers are two different things.

Paulw

wailim_2002 wrote: »

I agree with most of what you say but the middle bit is not correct. Older vehicles had to be accurate to +/-10%. Newer vehicles must comply with a much smaller accuracy according to EU regulation. Check the link I forwarded earlier to the Association of Chief Police Officers (UK reference)

There is no accord between manufactures to under-report. They make them as accurate as the need to be in regulation. There is no guarantee that two Ford Focus or two Opel Astras read the same speed under test conditions. You might rightly feel like suing your car manufacturer if you were pulled over for doing 79Kph on the motorway when you thought you were doing 88Kph.... Yes / No?? So they make them as accurate as they can (if no regulation) or as accurate as they must be (if regulation exists).. in this way they can never be sued.

PS: My car is 10 years old and through no fault of mine it has 16" wheels and normal profile tyres whereas I am pretty sure it originally had 15" and normal profile. I have no doubt this is a contributory factor so you are right there!

From wikipedia (I don't always trust this source) - with the UNECE regulation and the EC Directives, the speedometer must never show an indicated speed less than the actual speed. However it differs slightly from them in specifying that for all actual speeds between 25 mph and 70 mph (or the vehicles' maximum speed if it is lower than this), the indicated speed must not exceed 110% of the actual speed, plus 6.25 mph. - eg if your speed is 50mph, then the speedo must show speeds between 50mph and 61mpg, but never a speed slower than 50mph (using mph from the guide info.

So, your car speedo must always indicate a speed greater than the actual speed of the vehicle. The only way your vehicle will show a speed less than you are travelling is when there has been a modification (non-factory).

If you were actually doing 80kph, and your speedo showed you doing 75kph, then you can certainly take the manufacturer to court, but only if there have been no modifications to your car. Since car companies would never want that, they always set it faster, so doing 80kph should show on your speedo are (normally) 85+kph.

wailim_2002

Paulw wrote: »

From wikipedia (I don't always trust this source) - with the UNECE regulation and the EC Directives, the speedometer must never show an indicated speed less than the actual speed. However it differs slightly from them in specifying that for all actual speeds between 25 mph and 70 mph (or the vehicles' maximum speed if it is lower than this), the indicated speed must not exceed 110% of the actual speed, plus 6.25 mph. - eg if your speed is 50mph, then the speedo must show speeds between 50mph and 61mpg, but never a speed slower than 50mph (using mph from the guide info.

So, your car speedo must always indicate a speed greater than the actual speed of the vehicle. The only way your vehicle will show a speed less than you are travelling is when there has been a modification (non-factory).

If you were actually doing 80kph, and your speedo showed you doing 75kph, then you can certainly take the manufacturer to court, but only if there have been no modifications to your car. Since car companies would never want that, they always set it faster, so doing 80kph should show on your speedo are (normally) 85+kph.

I am quoting the British Police official web site. I'd quote our own if they had similar guidelines. You are quoting an unregulated but sometimes useful source.

However while some of it may be accurate, whats missing there is from when? As you know EU is always making things like emissions, safety etc stricter and stricter... and this is GOOD. But its no use using Todays regulation and applying it to a 10 year old or 20 year old car.

If NCT did that for some of the things they check, you wouldn't be able to drive a 5 year old car here

TMC99

There is actually a standard applied for approval at an EU level.

• The indicated speed must never be less than the actual speed, i.e. it should not be possible to inadvertently speed because of an incorrect speedometer reading.
• The indicated speed must not be more than 110 percent of the true speed plus 4 km/h at specified test speeds. For example, at 80 km/h, the indicated speed must be no more than 92 km/h.

Thats from a 1975 EU directive

wailim_2002

Victor wrote: »

No, the devices used in prosecutions are quite accurate.
There is no minimum speed limit in Ireland. Vehicles on motorways need to be capable of 50km/h, but there is no requirement to do that speed (other than the general requirement to keep up with traffic). Trucks are subject to 80km/h speed limit. In the event of an incident, the port tunnel (a motorway) can have a maximum speed limit of 50km/h.
Speedometers and odometers are two different things.

Victor - maybe my point was not well made. I meant according to my speedometer I may have been doing 99 - 101Kph but actually doing 109Kph and totally oblivious to that fact... what other way would I know? Certainly at 10.30pm not many other cars to judge my own speed against.

But on that point... how accurate are they? What if on that day the gatzo van hit a pothole in our glorious roads and the detector was damaged? If its over-reading the speed by as little as 1% or 2% and my car is under-reporting by 4% or 5% ... thats it... I'm screwed despite sticking with my speedometer.

In most [agreed not all] but very definitely most... the speedo and odo are driven by the same device... either the vehicle speed sensor in the gearbox or in most modern cars by the ECU which averages the speed of the front wheels as told by the pulses it obtains from the ABS brake rings... sorry but this is one of my jobs

Paulw

wailim_2002 wrote: »

I am quoting the British Police official web site. I'd quote our own if they had similar guidelines. You are quoting an unregulated but sometimes useful source.

But, those are only guidelines.

The law states that if you are above the legal limit then you are committing an offence, and can be prosecuted. Again, the van taking the photo doesn't work on guidelines, only on the black and white. Faster than the limit, or not faster than the limit.

All the van sees is that your vehicle (never mind what your speedo says) is travelling faster than the speed limit, it will take a photo and you get a letter in the post.

If you have an issue with your speedo, it's inaccuracy, then you should take this up with a mechanic, but a judge will not take that in to consideration. Unfortunately, it is up to you to know you are not travelling faster than the indicated speed limit.

You can claim you were only doing 109kph, but the limit is 100kph, and it is up to you to ensure you are not doing more than 100kph.

Victor

wailim_2002 wrote: »

my car is under-reporting by 4% or 5%

That's your responsibility, nobody else's.

In all likelihood, the speedometer was reading more than 109km/h.

Marcusm

wailim_2002 wrote: »

I am quoting the British Police official web site. I'd quote our own if they had similar guidelines. You are quoting an unregulated but sometimes useful source.

Just to be clear, you are quoting the website of the trade union of very senior police officers not that of the police service itself!!

Paarthurnax

Sorry ABOUT resurrecting an old thread! I was caught doing 178km on the motorway and there's a good chance of getting done for dangerous driving, any ideas what I'm likely to face?

beechwood55

Have you any previous penalty points or convictions? I think you might be best to get a solicitor.

One_Of_Shanks

Paarthurnax wrote: »

Sorry ABOUT resurrecting an old thread! I was caught doing 178km on the motorway and there's a good chance of getting done for dangerous driving, any ideas what I'm likely to face?

In a 120 zone, yeah? What did the Guard say when he was talking to you? Did he mention dangerous driving?
Was it a dry day? I think they take weather conditions into account too when it comes to things like this, could be wrong...

Paarthurnax

beechwood55 wrote: »

Have you any previous penalty points or convictions? I think you might be best to get a solicitor.

I have 3 penalty points for speeding and no previous convictions, 20 years+ Full licence, ill get a solicitor on board when I receive my fine or summons.

Paarthurnax

One_Of_Shanks wrote: »

In a 120 zone, yeah? What did the Guard say when he was talking to you? Did he mention dangerous driving?
Was it a dry day? I think they take weather conditions into account too when it comes to things like this, could be wrong...

Guard gave me a dressing down said it was dangerous driving, I was on they way to work weather was fine on a Sunday evening.

hullaballoo

Moderator: do not post content from other sites without referencing your source.

Posts deleted.

Ashbx

OP I think (but don't quote) me, if its actually dangerous driving they will arrest you on the spot. Happened to a friend of mine.

He was doing about the same I think and because it was deemed reckless driving they arrested him immediately. Released him then after an hour or two. Cant remember what the penalty was exactly. It was a first time offence but got a good few penalty points and had pay a couple grand in fines anyway.

So the fact you were not arrested, makes me think it wasn't recorded as dangerous/reckless driving, I think you may just be fined as you would if you were doing 130km or whatever.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

If he gets jail or 20K fine, I would be shocked.

OP, get in contact with a solicitor and prepare early.

nuac

freddublin wrote: »

I love punishment but not from the gards

I was attempting to say that sometimes you need to challenge rules or what you're told. (Don't worry I'l pay the fine).

Mod: Rant deleted

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Paarthurnax

My main concern is if i'll be disqualified from driving, is the a possibility of this? If so for how long!

RustyNut

Did this happen in co kildare by any chance?

ohnonotgmail

RustyNut wrote: »

Did this happen in co kildare by any chance?

Yeah Judge Zaidan isn't keen on people who speed.

http://www.thejournal.ie/speeding-172km-in-120-zone-2829599-Jun2016/

ohnonotgmail

Paarthurnax wrote: »

My main concern is if i'll be disqualified from driving, is the a possibility of this? If so for how long!

if convicted of dangerous driving a one year ban is mandatory

hullaballoo

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Yeah Zaidan isn't keen on people who speed.

http://www.thejournal.ie/speeding-172km-in-120-zone-2829599-Jun2016/

We've had this before but when referring to this judge, can we at least give him something like his proper title please?

jcd5971

hullaballoo wrote:

We've had this before but when referring to this judge, can we at least give him something like his proper title please?

hullaballoo wrote:

We've had this before but when referring to this judge, can we at least give him something like his proper title please?

What's his proper title? He called him judge zaidan or am I missing something?

hullaballoo

The title has been edited in.

We previously had him referred to as JZ of all things.