Bye Bye, I'm goin' Daaahn

Some of you might remember I commented this year that I wasn't giving in to
all this speeding intimidation from plod. I acknowledged that with 20 years
of points free licence a day would come.....

So I was heading North yesterday and on a bit of the M74 before turning off.
One had made respectable process thus far but I'm always extra careful on
that bloody road after having to skip the country in the 90's waiting to see
how a certain matter panned out.

I see Plod up ahead parked on the hard shoulder with a rear facing camera on
the roof, there is lots of traffic doing 80's and I pull in behind a middle
lane car and tuck up nice and close, passing plod by. 2 mins later I see
the blues in my mirrors and I let the cunts pull me over. Gosh how fortunate
I made the Ducati all legal and in my name before Pithivier...

So they come over all serious and tell me they timed me between two shadows
on the road cast by the bridge. A bike in heavy fast moving traffic obscured
by a vehicle in front and they could time me accurately in a rear facing
camera. Yeah rock on boys. The tally? 94 mph and over the fixed penalty
limit for that road. Utter cunts, that's an indicated 102 on the ST, like I
would pass plod at that speed. I was on 85 max, more like 80 which is what I
usually pass them at.

Then the fun starts. Of course they have clocked my Jockanese accent and
assumed they had me cold. They had already asked for my driving licence and
i had declined to produce it. Passenger asks "why has your bike got an NI
number plate". Because it is an NI bike. And so we go through the loop, yes
I live in Holywood, yes I have a NI licence and not a GB one. Yes I'm on my
way back to NI.

So control comes back on the radio and tells matey that they can't access my
details and matey will have to write to PSNI for all confirmations. I choose
my moment to tell them that as an NI citizen they can't serve fixed
penalties on me anyway, had they chosen that route (which they had already
declined) but importantly *GB points can't be served on an NI licence*. And
the devil came into me, deeply and I heard myself say, and excuse the
extreme irony, "that all being part of the point of 40 years of war".

Matey could barely reply through his clenched teeth and I couldn't really
make out his words. The driver chipped in at this point and invited me to
leave the car and get on my way. I was pleased to give them the full Termi
effect of the Ducati as I departed, but not before I took a good 5 minutes
to put my kit on.

So, cold comfort, they didn't show me a video of my offence. Do the FOAK
think that means the have no video?
Do we think they will go through all the trouble and pursue it?
Who is the Brief/Expert witness of choice in the UK ATM for disputing such a
charge.

I am never going back to a fucking GB licence. EVER.

 

Hog wrote:

Genuine LoL

--
Dan L

Too much time to think, too little to do.


http://thebikeshed.spaces.live.com/

2002 Triumph Sprint RS 955i (Soon to be gone)
1996 Kawasaki ZR1100 Zephyr (Gone, but not forgotten)

BOTAFOT #140 (KotL 2005/6/7/8)
X-FOT#000
DIAABTCOD #26
BOMB#18 (slow)
OMF#11

 

<Snip>

Well done, you. Nice one

"I know my rights. Now **** off."

 

Tax discs were harmonised then the process seemed to halt. I believe the
Shinners didn't like the idea of UK licence harmonisation. I'm realising
that they have their uses.

 

If it was VASCAR (timed between two points) then there
will be no video evidence unless they had in-car camera
running at the time.

Having been done by it myself, on a similarly increased
figure, I've always wondered what the accuracy of such
a system is, and what there is to stop the operator
pressing the buttons a tad early to increase the
calculated speed.

It sounds like they realised they were on a hiding to
nothing, and as you weren't exactly a good little citizen
who was willing to take his punishment, probably proved
to be more paperwork than it was worth.

Well done that man!

 

Sounds like they were just winding you up. I'm sure any expert witness
would piss all over them if they used shadows as their timing points.

Ali G Hog: Wait a minute, come on, is it because I is white ?

When I got pulled over they sat me in the car replayed the video and
stated that I would be taken to court.

I'm pretty sure I'm never going back to a GB license when I'm caught
next time too ;-)

 

They couldn't use shadows for VASCAR. They have to use two *fixed* points
that are at a calibrated distance, hence the white blobs of paint on roads.

They were either on a wind-up as Donald suggests or hoping that Hog would
roll over when under caution and admit he had committed the offence.

 

Moody plate? Bad idea. You only have to get stopped or come off the bike for
the weight of the P{lod to fall heavily on you. Now a *broken* plate is an
entriely different thing altogether. So long as you let Plod know the plate
was in one piece and all there when you set off on the bike, they either
can't, or ewon't do anything other than give you a correction notice and a
Plod station to take your bike to when a new plate has been fitted.

And before you tell me I'm talking bollocks, I've been pulled for a broken
plate twice and I've stil got a pristine clean license and no criminal
record.

Goes without saying really.

You'd probably have to pass the NI test too.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

When the CB250RS went in for MOT it had a cracked plate and I asked them
to fit a new one. It came home with a subtle change of one letter, they
had ordered it incorrectly and nobody noticed.
So - If I had also not noticed eventually what would that mean ?.

 

Actually, no. VASCAR can be connected to the (calibrated)
odometer so that the car can drive over the same distance
and use this to calculate the average speed. It's basically
a stop watch and a distance measuring device in one unit;
measure the time it takes the target to travel a certain
distance (eg, between two bridges) and then measure the
same distance as the police car travels it, following the
target vehicle behind.

 

More common than you may think. Some 15 years ago, Yamaha's test fleet
was mostly on incorect plates because the guy who made up their number
plates was dyslexic. Honest.

If you can convince Plod it's an honest mistake, you should be OK.

 

Seems to be some conflicting info on using shadows as timing points.
This one seems to show them using it.
http://www.pepipoo.com/VASCAR.htm

 

I understand how Vascar works. The white blobs was given as an example.
Fixed bridges can be used, obviously. My point is that the *shadows* from
these bridges are not fixed and any claim that they have been used as
reference points would be very quickly dismissed by a competent brief.

 

In a pursuit the shadow would be a reference point as it could be used in
conjucntion with the calibrated speedo/odometer in the car. In Hog's case
the car was static and they used a stopwatch/VASCAR to time him travelling
between shadows. The question I would ask is how do they know how far apart
the shadows are? What time interval has elapsed since they last measured
the distance? What were the cloud movements in this time interval etc etc.

 

<bad form but to clarify>

as reference points from a fixed observation point as in Hog's case

 

The only new bike I bought had one digit transposed - I ran around on
that for months until stopped by Plod who took some covincing I wasn't
Donald Dunbar of Dumbarton, or somesuch. Turned out the real DD of D
hadn't noticed either that his bike had the wrong plate.

 

As a point of pedantry though, if the rays of light coming from the sun can
be considered to be parallel then the shadows that the bridges cast will be
a fixed distance apart. They won't be at a fixed point on the ground.

--
Malc

Rusted and ropy.
Dog-eared old copy.
Vintage and classic,
or just plain Jurassic:
all words to describe me.

 

See my other reply, the shadows will be the same distance apart as the
bridges are.

--
Malc

Rusted and ropy.
Dog-eared old copy.
Vintage and classic,
or just plain Jurassic:
all words to describe me.

 

Only if the bridges are the same height.

 

I'm fairly sure that would only be the case if the bridges were on the
part of the Earth closest to the sun, & the bridges were directly in
line with the sun. Everywhere else, the distance between the shadows, &
the size of the shadows (which also affects the space between them)
will change as the sun moves. Think what the shadows of those two
bridges will look like when the sun's just above the horizon, compared
to when it's at its highest point in the sky.

--
Krusty

'03 Tiger 955i
'02 MV Senna (for sale) '96 Tiger (for sale)
'79 Fantic Hiro 250 (for sale) '81 Corvette (for sale)