BS: M4 drivers beware !

Subject: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 10:32 AM

A Caution to those UK Catters who use the M4 Motorway, and take a lax view of the 70mph speed limit.

Both directions of the M4 between Theal (J12) and Membury Services are now fitted with the SPECS speed camara's.

These identify Registration Numbers, and time you between two points.

Speeding tickets are issued by computer.

This is an optical system and needs no "flash" or Radar. It is on 24/365.

Information circulating from "reliable sources" suggest that the computer is geared up to prosecute if the average speed exceeds 78mph.

Be warned ! Or better still don't speed.

Gareth - who's licence is still clean despite an unfortunate icident in the Forest of Dean involving a stray sheep some years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Arnie
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 03:34 PM

Gareth - thanks for the warning. My sister and brother-in-law will be coming down from Bristol in their Beemer this weekend. Knowing how he drives, I think I'll give him a bell and warn him to slow down at J12!

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 03:38 PM

If he drives a BMW tell him not to tailgate red cars with a towball. The drivers don't like it. BIG TIME.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 04:49 PM

No - Arnie -If he's comming from Bistol he needs to slow down well before J12 - likw when he passes Membery

Gareth!

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 05:32 PM

Bugger that - the last time I drove along the M4 at any point, I was bloody lucky to make it as fast as 45mph!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Dead Horse
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 06:14 PM

"Gareth - who's licence is still clean despite an unfortunate incident in the Forest of Dean involving a stray sheep some years ago."
But do you still have to register your movements with the local police and/or shepherds?
WARNING Some of those sheep lie about their age..........

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 06:57 PM

Dead Sheep don't talk !

And they don't half do a lot of damage to yer car in the process.

I was merely trying to give her the "Kiss of Life"

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Peace
Date: 06 Nov 03 - 08:29 PM

So much for virgin wool. You have ruined an industry.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 12:16 PM

Dead Sheep don't talk !
But they do make some nice roasting joints, chops, casseroles, shepherd's pies etc.

Mind you when I was about 13, I once cycled down a 1 in 4 hill, over a humpback bridge and hit a cow. The cow didn't seem to notice, but I ended up rather bruised and having to carry a bike with buckled front wheel and forks nearly seven miles home.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 12:27 PM

Take it you've stayed away from bikes and cows ever since Dave!!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Raedwulf
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 02:11 PM

This from a friend who works for Qinetiq:

Total urban myth, I'm afraid. Has been circulating for several months now but been given a recent revival.

Check out the official Thames Valley Police web site where you will find a categoric statement that the cameras on those M4 gantries are for traffic flow monitoring (and checking whether the signs are working!) and are not speed cameras of any variety. There are apparently other sites confirming this too, possibly including the manufacturer's!

SPECS cameras may be found in the M6 roadworks at Warrington and Knutsford (24), in Gloucestershire (Podsmead Road, Symour Road and Tuffley Avenue (12)), A616 Stocksbridge in S Yorkshire (14), Notts: A46 Cropwell Bishop, A52 Bingham, A610 Nuthill Road, B6004 Arnold Road, A6514 Notts Ring Road, Edwards Lane Arnold (60); and Northants A43 Lumbertubs way (8). But not on the M4.

However note there *are* apparently cameras (normal variety) in the road works at the M4/A34 junction @ Newbury. Apparently they are also fond of using speed camera vans on motorway bridges on the M4 in Wales. Near Magor services.

(We have a vehicles newsgroup on our intranet - it's a great source of info sometimes!)

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gareth
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 02:45 PM

Interesting - Raedwulf - The E-Mail message I requoted came from a source I would normally classify as impecable.

Yet the Thames Valley Police site is adement that these are not specs camera's.

If I have mislead anybody I appologise.

I can confirm the Magor "Tranny Vans" _ There have been a number of fatals on this stretch where the lanes get intersting on the M48/M4 Junction.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gray D
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 08:21 PM

Dave Bryant

Cycling whilst carrying forks is extremely unwise unless they are stored safely in secure panniers. If you avoid cycling with forks then you will not need to carry them home as well as buckled front wheels.

I note that you only seem to have carried home your forks and your buckled front wheel. What happened to the rest of the bike?

Gray D

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 06:25 AM

Dave Bryant -

Careful what you say - even the walls have ears - and Shepherds Spies.

Cue songs - "I talk to the trees but they don't listen to me" so says the "Whispering Grass"

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gray D
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:13 AM

No, my mistake, he does say he carried the bike as well.

I'm still worried about those forks, though. I mean, what kind of forks were they? Your standard table variety would only present a problem if one was foolish enough to have them in one's pocket whilst cycling, and goodness knows we've all seen enough safety films about that, but if they were pitch or garden forks then who knows the havoc that could have ensued?

Carrying forks whilst cycling, I really can't recommend it.

Worried of the Mudcat

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:44 AM

Plus the forks are not as good as spoons for changing tyres.

Never possessed a tyre lever yet that was as good as mothers best dessert spoons.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Hrothgar
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 11:35 PM

Then again, Liz, the tyre lever owners don't belt as hard as mothers do when they catch you using them!

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: nickp
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 03:57 AM

I expect I'll treat the possible SPECS system there as real although fortunately I don't go along that stretch too often. Better safe than penalised. There has been an increased in fixed and mobile cameras round my way (Somerset)... someone must be short in their budget and trying to make it up (says he, cynically)

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: GUEST,Skipjack K8
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 06:31 AM

Gareth, old love, I'm a bit interested in this SPECS business.

About a decade back, these funny new boxes apperaed on the A14 dual carriageway between Huntingdon and Cambridge. They face towards the oncoming cars, and have a lens (presumably) and an infra-red eye. There are usually three white lines marked on the road in very close sucession.

I was given to believe that they time vehicles over a certain distance, and prosecute the speedy on that basis, as you have described above. But from Raedwulf's precise inventory, they appear to be dummies.

Also, I have seen two about a mile apart on the northbound carriageway of the A1, approaching the Gonerby Moor roundabout near Grantham, but they do not appear above either.

My interest is academic, as the fanny magnet beloved of Noreen quickly racked up 9 points for me, and now I have a nice sedate pipe-and-slippers Peugeot 406 hearse, and more importantly I re-educated myself as to how I approached driving and realised the utter stupidity of assuming journey time should be based on a world record basis.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: nickp
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 06:40 AM

Check out this web site which, although also advertising radar detectors etc, does identify the different types of camera and also has a database of where they are. Now of course I wouldn't advocate speeding or anything illegal like that would I............

speed cameras UK

As for whether anything is actually operational I suppose the best guess is that it could be and try not to get caught. Fore-warned is fore-armed.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: jacqui.c
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 06:54 AM

Skipjack

I can confirm that the cameras on the northbound AI are indeed speed cameras and are active as I got caught there a year ago and got a further three points to add to the three I picked up at the Beeston camera on the AI three years ago.

They were very sneaky with those cameras near Grantham, you go past the one and it lulls you into a false sense of security so you don't expect to have another one quite so close. I now treat that bit of road with a lot of respect - those things can get quite costly!

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 07:25 AM

When I got home with my bike I had to fork out quite a bit of cash to sort it out, which was rather "turning the knife in the wound" after the long walk home. These day's spoon-fed kids would have either dumped the bike and expected to be bought a new one when they got home or rung up home on the mobile phone and waited to be picked up in the 4x4. They get it all an a plate.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 08:00 AM

Better yet turn of at Chievely and go by the A4 instead(you can pick up the M4 again off the Bath road. The scenery (including Silbury and The White Horse at Calne) is much prettier and the heavy trucking non-existent.

Since there is little advantage in travelling in excess of the speed limit why do it?

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: fiddler
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 08:46 AM

This is why I drive a lndrover now!

Slower than the Citroen but fast enought o equal the speed limit if you want. Great on Muddy festivals too!

The other cameras that caused a stir are all the traffice flow ones on dual carriage ways etc - the one which feed traffice master and similar systems - folk pay good money so they can be aware of the traffic hold ups ensure that they stay within the law and get plenty of tickets too, eventually you can build up a set of happy familes or snap cards - NOT - I love these urban myths but slower traffic means more nice peeple in the world and less angry drivers accidents and stuff - fortunately you can't put speed bumps on a motorway. I ramble as usual....

A

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: GUEST,Skipjack K8
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 10:16 AM

Thanks, Nick, that was a thundering good read. It seems the beasties I refer to are Truvelo cameras, not SPECS, and they do not measure speed between cameras after all.

Jacqui, have a look at the 'accident blackspots' link on that site, for Lincolnshire. It claims there that the cameras to which we both refer are not powered as 'the Police are waiting for electricity to be supplied'!

It solved another mystery, and proves I'm not the reformed traffic bore I describe above. I was on the way back from a gig in Leeds about a month back, at 1.30am, in the roadworks on the eastbound M180, when I set off a double flash in the GATSO camera that I was driving towards. I must've topped 60mph in a 50 zone, and I was almost asleep behind the wheel. I spent the first fortnight waiting for the buff envelope to drop onto the mat, but am I right in believing Nick's site's assertion that they cannot convict on the basis of driving towards GATSO cameras in excess of the speed limit?

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Lanfranc
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 10:24 AM

I despise speed cameras almost as much as I do any "traffic calming" measures. There is one at the point where the southbound M11 acquires a 50mph limit just before the junction with the North Circular A406.

Despite its reputation as the most profitable such installation in the count(r)y, I still regularly see it triggered off by drivers with insufficient wit to recognise that a camera warning sign, a 50mph sign, a bright yellow camera box and white painted stripes on the road might be an indication that a little slowing down would be in order.

As to speed humps, of whatever design, they cause more problems than they cure, as those who live beside roads where they are installed, ambulance drivers and anyone with a small car with little ground clearance will confirm. Perhaps they are one reason why you see so many inadequate drivers in unsuitable all-terrain vehicles in cities these days.

Must go and return my hobby-horse to the local Morris dealer.

Alan

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 01:26 PM

Urban myth or not, I like the story of the boys swinging a tin can on a length of string in front of a static speed camera.
The speed of revolution of the can, and its reflectivity were enough to cause the camera to flash -repeatedly. One quick way to use up the film supply!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: sapper_82
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 09:20 AM

To Dave Bryant:-

Dead Sheep don't talk !
But they do make some nice roasting joints, chops, casseroles, shepherd's pies etc.

One of the signalmen at Blea Moor box on the Settle Carlisle used to regularly supliment his freezer with bits of sheep that had been hit by one of the trains.
He said it was very rare not to get something usable from such incidents!

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 04:49 PM

I've been trying very hard not to notice this thread. Whereas speed camera housings used to be inconspicuous to keep drivers guessing along a whole route, they are now generally yellow so drivers can spot them easily, and used at sites or routes with accident records, with advance signing so drivers will know there is a speed camera. Cameras are used at motorway road works because members of the workforce have unfortunately been killed by speeding drivers.

Good to know that even dummy camera housings have their uses if they wake up sleeping drivers like Skipjack.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 05:15 AM

Kitty - I don't think that they wake up sleeping policemen though.

When I was working on Teeside, quite a few of the workers at ICI drove in over the moors. It was not unusual for them to carry a plastic sack in the back - just in case. One of my colleagues had a brother who was a butcher and people were always asking for his services in converting a road-kill into what we would now call a freezer pack. In those days home freezers were virtually unheard of, so everyone would be offered cheap lamb, mutton, or sometimes even venison.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: jacqui.c
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 06:21 AM

Skipjack

Believe me, a year ago the camera closest to the roundabout was active 'cause I saw the flash as I went past and got the ticket later. As far as driving toward the pesky things - I got caught by the Beeston one and, because my car had been driven by three different drivers over that section, queried who could be summonsed. I got a lovely picture of me in the driver's seat for my pains and had to pay up. I think it used to be that the ones that caught the rear of the car could be in doubt as they were unable to prove who the driver was.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Blackcatter
Date: 12 Nov 03 - 11:38 AM

We have signs in Florida along the roadway around constructions sites that say: Please drive carefully, my daddy works here.

We do not have sheep however.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: GUEST,Skipjack K8
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 05:10 AM

Jacqui, I reckon you must mean the Colsterworth roundabout northbound, as there is a GATSO camera about a mile from the r/b. The ones at Gonerby are in your face Truvelo ones. I had a look this morning at 2.30am, on my way back from a cracking session at the Pinkuah Arms, in Pentlow, on the Essex Suffolk border. I was so shagged I had an hour's kip at Cambridge Services, and eventually made it back to Hull9 at 3.35am, and all at 70mph! Running on adrenalin now, and off to Bristol at 1pm this affy.

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 07:04 AM

I read in a newspaper motoring column that you're legaly allowed a speedo accuracy of up to 10% under/over the actual speed of the car. Anyone know if it's true, and how accurate car speedos are? The same piece suggested that (maybe) manufacturers make very accurate speedos that register 10% faster than your real speed to make you think the car performs better.

Er ... oh yes, the point was, how much over speed are you allowed by a speed camera? There must be an allowance for (leagal) speedo inaccuracy, as well as a margin of error fo the camera itself.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 14 Nov 03 - 02:34 PM

Official release from the Highways Agency:

The Highways Agency is carrying out a trial of a new generation of motorway signs - Motorway Signal Mark 4s - on the M4 between junctions 12 at Theale and 14 at Hungerford.

The 36 hi-tech signs display both pictures, known as pictograms, and text.
They can be used to show advisory speed limits and lane closures as well as providing advance information about incidents and road conditions ahead.

The combination of pictures and text can be understood at a glance and helps drivers to prepare and react more quickly to incidents ahead.

The signs are automatically operated using technology to detect slow moving or stationary traffic and can also be manually set by the police from their Kidlington Police Control Room located in Oxfordshire.

Closed Circuit Television Cameras have been mounted on a number of the MS4 signs. These cameras have been installed as part of the evaluation of the pilot, which is scheduled to run until December 2004.

The cameras provide a wide view of the carriageway so that the Highways Agency can see how drivers react to the signs. Images from the cameras will also enable police in their control room to pinpoint where incidents have occurred, enabling them to set the signs more promptly and accurately.

The cameras are in place for evaluation and safety reasons only. They are not speed enforcement cameras, and do not have the technical functionality to be used for recognition of number plates.


Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Nov 03 - 04:21 PM

If I remember my "Home Office" guidlines the speeds for prosecution are _

Speed limit, plus 10% plus 2 mph

Hence 30 limit = 30 + 3 + 2 = 35 miles an hour

70 = 70 + 7 + 2 = 79 mph

Mind you I have known a case of a butty of mine being done for doing 77 mph on the M20 - just out side Maidstone, Kent. And no - there were no roadworks.

The summons spoecifically menntioned that speed.

What was even more interesting was that about 20 mins later I went through the same speed trap in an identicall company issue ASTRA at about 80 mph, and was waved through.

But then John, my butty, was not exactly white.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Nov 03 - 07:48 PM

I am fuming about having been Kodaked on the one-way system in Chatham - waiting for a letter.

I was being really good, driving really slowly on the way to a folk-club, on a deserted section of urban dual carriageway, three lanes wide. If I'd been trying (and had rather more acceleration than my Skoda) I reckon I could have gone through the section at about 85/90 without difficulty. Big flash. Look at speedo and see 40. So really probaby about 37/38. I infer the limit is 30. Shit.

What use to man beast or humanity (or anything apart from revenues) is this stupidity?

Subject: RE: BS: M4 drivers beware !
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 15 Nov 03 - 12:49 PM

Richard, your inference is that there was one big flash. They need two to prove excessive speed, so hopefully it is an old GATSO camera that has run out of film (apparently, they keep single flashing when they're full. Hope this isn't urban myth!) and not talking to the polis by radio signal. Good luck, anyway.