If you were wondering...

On my way to work yesterday afternoon I spotted a bloke on a gixxer 750 who
had 4 out of 5 characters on his number plate covered by his rego label.
I only saw this because he took off so slowly that I had to back off the
throttle in my car to let him get out of my way because he filtered to the
front at the lights and stole the lane I wanted to merge into. It had me
thinking... if you can't beat a 21 year old Commodore off the mark from a
standing start on a 750cc sportsbike, you probably cover your plate to avoid
being identified due to the shame of riding like such a pussy, rather than
anything to do with tolls or speed cameras.

Nev..
'03 ZX12R
'02 CBR1100XX

 

They're introducing 'Hoon" laws over here to take care of you drugged-up
thrillseekers in old cars.

 

if you drive that souped up commodore like you ride then its no wonder he
couldnt get away

 

I've tried. I just canna do it, cap'n.

---
Cheers

PeterC [aka MildThing]
'81 Suzuki GS450-s
'87 BMW K100RT

www.dmcsc.org.au

 

Zebee,

You need to visit Victoria more often then. The camera fixed to the
front of the car parked on the edge of the road just snaps happily
away and doesn't care if you are doing "slightly more than the bus" or
not (at least if you are pulled over you can discuss the issue).

Regards


Steve

 

Discuss it with the magistrate if you're not happy. There has already been at
least one case of a magistrate overturning a speed camera infringement. One
driver successfully argued that he was being tailgated by a 4WD and
accelerated in order to maintain a safe distance between his car and the 4WD
behind him and the camera caught him while he was accelerating.

Nev..
'03 ZX12R
'02 CBR1100XX

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 11 Feb 2004 15:38:01 +1100

depends which state. The original poster was in NSW, where fixed speed
cameras are clearly labelled, and speedtraps generally aren't that
common in the suburbs. at least not that I've seen.

Vic is a lot nastier in that respect.

Zebee

 

yes it does... most cops who have pulled me becuase of my excessively
mucky

There's something here that isn't necessarily being considered.

I've been pulled over for doing 40 over the limit before. I was very polite,
honest (I didn't make a bullshit story about why I was speeding), and my
rego label wasn't covered. I got a fine for doing "Less than 15kmh over the
limit."

Somehow, I don't think that would have happened had my rego label been
covered.

Another time I rode past a hair-dryer (the one where they wave you in and
book you, not the ones where they take a snappy-hap and mail you the cost of
getting the photos developed (incidentally, I wonder how much extra they
charge for enlargements)) and the guy just shook his head at me, at which I
backed right off, and he waved me through. I did notice in my mirror,
however, that he had a good look at my plate. (I was kinda expecting a
ticket in the mail.) In hindsite though, I don't think he was so much
writing down my plate so he could mail me his overtime sheet as much as
checking that it wasn't covered.

Now, I know you can say, "well, if they chased me then, I'd just take off,
and they wouldn't catch me", but, speaking as someone what has done a runna,
it's not worth it. Ever. You might be faster, but there is more than one of
them, and they will just radio you ahead, and you will get screwed even more
royally. (I had six charges all up, lost license for 3 years (down to 18
months on appeal), got a $3000 fine, and still can't get insurance for a few
more years.)

And if it really is just for the tolls, seriously, you're basically ripping
the rest of the community off. The toll on the bridge (and the other roads
etc) pays for the cost of building them and maintaining them. The result if
enough motorcycles do it, is that we'll get front plates, or transponders,
or something like that. If your eway doesn't work, get one of the passes.
Don't use it as an excuse to rip the general community off. (Besides,
there's a 1800 (or is it 1300) number to ring if your toll thingy doesn't
work.

 

"Zebee Johnstone" wrote

As is WA. We don't have no stinking fixed speed cameras here. Just the ones
in the bushes. They do have a thank you sign 200 metres past the camera.

I saw a new "Encouragement" sign today. Where there was a sign saying "Local
Police are now targeting speeding" it says "Local Police are now targeting
Drivers who refuse to learn to slow down".

Theo

 

X-No-archive: yes
paulh wrote;

Is it? Are there reports in the news of this happening or something?
Doesn't this cause an outrage among the general "law abiding" public?
There was a report of bikes evading speed cameras [no front plate] up here
and it was front-page colour photos plus several pages of outrage and weeks
of letters.
Do your police/public servants just grin, shake their heads and write it
off?
~

Yeah OK; the original poster was from NSW where they paint them white and
put them up on poles with large warning signs before them.
Clem

 

And you posted that to try and stoke the flames of what has been a fairly
tepid week on aus.moto...

 

Court rules speeding saves life
http://carpoint.ninemsn.com.au/news/blankstory.asp?ID=5511

-sanbar

 

stick...

....and, since you put your plate's crud-encrusted condition in the context
of Melbourne's hidden speed cameras, consider that, in Sydney, where UB
posts from, even when I was last living there a year ago now, either the
traffic-policing regime or just some plain cultural pressures had led to
considerable numbers of vehicles, most of them bearing obvious signs of
recent panelbeating bodges (ie. auction yard reanimator jobs, you'd think)
getting about_without_any_plates_whatsoever_. People see those, think "This
guy can just smash into me, then **** off. The cops aren't gonna give a
****. They'll tell me to tell my insurance company." and other, similar,
thoughts.

I doubt the situation would've changed for the better since I've been gone.

In a place like Sydney, covering your plate is something you do to make you
unidentifiable not to the unreasonable authorities, but to other members of
the public. It generates additional social hostility in a place which
already has a well above-average quantity of it floating about.

 

Intact Kneeslider wrote:

Hey how tepid is it when Clem killfiles you?

 

Sounds like "bum"....


Postman Pat

 

paulh is of the opinion:

The funny thing is, they still catch absolute shiteloads of people with
them, even being signposted to hell and beyond.

Coming back from the inner city yesterday, I went past the one on the
princes highway just south of President Ave (I think that's the name of it,
the road that joins the princes hwy with The Boulevarde at Sans Souci)
heading south, and as I was approaching the camera, I was watching the
flashlight in the other direction. I was sure it was malfunctioning, as it
seemed to be flashing almost constantly (two flashes per car, remember).
But it wasn't, because someone finally saw the signs and slowed down, so
there was a break in the traffic (flashing stops), then more cars go through
(at a reasonable speed, no more flashing).

Now, that camera is by no means new, and I live 150km away and *I* know it's
there, so I really do have to wonder at the observational skills of some
people. Scary really. If they don't look out for things which are
definitely going to cause them manifest harm, what's the chances of their
looking out for motorcycles, which, when all's said and done, very rarely
come out ahead in any hot, steamy bike-on-car action (funny, I haven't seen
a spam advertising pictures of that yet).

But anyway, back to the point, I truly don't think that Victoria needs to
camouflage it's cameras. Stick them out in the open - then you can have
even more of a laugh when people *still* get caught by them. Hmm, here's a
though - double the points/fine/both/institute mandatory flogging for
getting caught by a fully signposted, blazingly obvious fixed speed camera,
since if you got caught you were (a) speeding, and (b) not driving with due
care, since you failed to see three (or more) very large signs, two big
boxes on poles, *and* the trap lines on the road.

- Matt
GT750 and proud!

 

Boom, boom, boom, lets go back to my room......

Hammo

 

Discuss it with the magistrate if you're not happy. There has already
been at

To be fair though, in that particular case the "offender" was an ex-cop with
an otherwise clean record.

I wonder how well it would have gone had it been someone else?

The legal theory is that your record etc is not supposed to have any
bearing, not is your profession etc. It's supposed to be only the facts, and
only the facts as they can be conclusively proved.

(Ie, in the case above, it can be conclusively proved that the "offender"
was travelling over the limit, but it cannot be conclusively proved that he
wasn't doing it to escape the four-wheel-drive-of-death, so in theory he
should be let off.)

But it's like lots of those things. If you get pulled by a cop, and go to
court, it will be 100% your word vs the cops word. Guess which way the case
will go.

 

But this discussion is about the inability to explain to the camera the reason
why you were speeding at the time you were caught...

Nev..
'03 ZX12R
'02 CBR1100XX

 

But this discussion is about the inability to explain to the camera the
reason

Yes, but the camera is just a tool. The explaning needs to happen to the
magistrate. (Ie, there is still someone to do the explaining to.)