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Got this from the Daily Mail......
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The camaras that DO lie
This is the heart-stopping moment every motorist dreads. As u drive alone the road, a police officer points a laser speed gun towards u. Glancing at the dashboard, u breathe a sigh of relief: the speedometer reveals that ur car is travelling below the 30mph limit. But a month later, a letter drops through ur door. You face a fine for speeding and penalty points on ur licence.
It is claimed u were driving at 41mph - not 28mph. Can that really be true? Staggeringly, the answer may be no.
Motorists accused of driving too fast on Britain's roads insist the real culprit is a laser speed gun offically approved by the Home Office and used by almost every police authority in the country.For the mail has discovered that the LTI20.20.gun is seriously flawed.
In our tests, it wrongly recorded a wall as travelling at 44mph, and empty road scored 33mph, a parked car was clocked as doing 22mph and a bicycle (in reality being ridden at 5mph) rocketed along at an impossible 66mph.
Imported from America, the LTI20.20. is used in nearly 3,500 mobile speed units hidden in police vans or cars and mounted on motorbikes.
Speed traps - nearly half of which now use laser gun technology - reap more than £100million each year in fines.This is shared between the police, the highways Agency, the courts, the Home Office and the local authorities.Ironically,some of the huge sum is used to pay for even police speed reinforcement teams relying on exactly the same laser speed gun at the centre of the mail's investigation.
We subjected the speed gun to rigorous tests.Alarmingly,we discovered it was prone to wildly wide-of-the-mark readings,even when set up according to the police's own guidelines and the manufacturer's handbook.
In other tests, we found the equipment was measuring the speed of overtaking cars instead of the one being targeted.
Today, the mail can expose the scandal of a speed enforcement industry in which the collection of fines is considered paramount - whatever the consequences for innocent drivers caught in the police traps by faulty readings.
In the past nine years, an extraordinary one-in-five drivers has been fined for speeding,despite many protesting their innocence.
Lawyers we spoke to say motorists are now rebelling by refusing to pay the fines and fighting their cases through the courts.
One voicing concern is Barry Culshaw,a southampton solicitorcurrently acting for 15 drivers nationwide, 'they complain of the huge errors' he says 'Drivers say they were within the speed limit and yet the LTI20.20. recorded them doing excessive speed'.
Another disquieting discovery is that vital video film - is often taken at a speed-trap site for use as secondary evidence- is often mysteriously withheld from motorists by the Crown Prosecution Service.
On at least ten occasions the Crown has suddenly dropped the case against a motorist when ordered by the judge to hand over the telling footage.
Michael Morgan, who runs a British website collating complaints against laser speed guns,said: 'the authorities often wriggle rather than release the video,which would expose the laser gun to scrutiny in a court of law.No doubt they fear the enormous consequences,including a clamour for fine refunds and compensation over the loss of licences or even livelihoods'.
Mind how you go!
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The camaras that DO lie
This is the heart-stopping moment every motorist dreads. As u drive alone the road, a police officer points a laser speed gun towards u. Glancing at the dashboard, u breathe a sigh of relief: the speedometer reveals that ur car is travelling below the 30mph limit. But a month later, a letter drops through ur door. You face a fine for speeding and penalty points on ur licence.
It is claimed u were driving at 41mph - not 28mph. Can that really be true? Staggeringly, the answer may be no.
Motorists accused of driving too fast on Britain's roads insist the real culprit is a laser speed gun offically approved by the Home Office and used by almost every police authority in the country.For the mail has discovered that the LTI20.20.gun is seriously flawed.
In our tests, it wrongly recorded a wall as travelling at 44mph, and empty road scored 33mph, a parked car was clocked as doing 22mph and a bicycle (in reality being ridden at 5mph) rocketed along at an impossible 66mph.
Imported from America, the LTI20.20. is used in nearly 3,500 mobile speed units hidden in police vans or cars and mounted on motorbikes.
Speed traps - nearly half of which now use laser gun technology - reap more than £100million each year in fines.This is shared between the police, the highways Agency, the courts, the Home Office and the local authorities.Ironically,some of the huge sum is used to pay for even police speed reinforcement teams relying on exactly the same laser speed gun at the centre of the mail's investigation.
We subjected the speed gun to rigorous tests.Alarmingly,we discovered it was prone to wildly wide-of-the-mark readings,even when set up according to the police's own guidelines and the manufacturer's handbook.
In other tests, we found the equipment was measuring the speed of overtaking cars instead of the one being targeted.
Today, the mail can expose the scandal of a speed enforcement industry in which the collection of fines is considered paramount - whatever the consequences for innocent drivers caught in the police traps by faulty readings.
In the past nine years, an extraordinary one-in-five drivers has been fined for speeding,despite many protesting their innocence.
Lawyers we spoke to say motorists are now rebelling by refusing to pay the fines and fighting their cases through the courts.
One voicing concern is Barry Culshaw,a southampton solicitorcurrently acting for 15 drivers nationwide, 'they complain of the huge errors' he says 'Drivers say they were within the speed limit and yet the LTI20.20. recorded them doing excessive speed'.
Another disquieting discovery is that vital video film - is often taken at a speed-trap site for use as secondary evidence- is often mysteriously withheld from motorists by the Crown Prosecution Service.
On at least ten occasions the Crown has suddenly dropped the case against a motorist when ordered by the judge to hand over the telling footage.
Michael Morgan, who runs a British website collating complaints against laser speed guns,said: 'the authorities often wriggle rather than release the video,which would expose the laser gun to scrutiny in a court of law.No doubt they fear the enormous consequences,including a clamour for fine refunds and compensation over the loss of licences or even livelihoods'.
Mind how you go!
Stella Artois 
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