calibrated speedometers
Discussion
Pontoneer, unfortunately I need to make you aware of an individual who has intruded into this post and is most definitely not welcome. I make it a rule never to respond to this individual. The poster known as pitmansboots is actually Steve Callaghan, the ex boss of an infamous camera partnership. I will waste no more words on him but suggest you Google his name and pay particular attention to the court appearance where he claimed to be an "expert" witness.
To clarify:- This post is not about speed cameras, mobile or otherwise, but as the subject has arisen I will address it. I have no knowledge or experience of a traffic offence being prosecuted in Scotland without corroboration. Clearly the statute in the law that permits speed cameras to be used overrides this principle, and this is the only exception I am aware of. I still stand by what I stated earlier, and that is I have no idea why this statute was permitted in Scotland other than the fact it suited the government to introduce these devices for fiscal reasons.
There are numerous incidents of substantial discrepancies in procedure,i.e. operator error; absolutely no evidence on the video of the operator, I use that word deliberately because few of them now are even police officers, forming a prior opinion of speed, but simply targetting every vehicle; the blatant refusal of the prosecution, whether it be in Scotland or England, to supply unedited video evidence; the many and varied problems with the devices resulting in gross inaccuracies, etc, etc. The list of problems is endless, but that's the way it is.
The issues surrounding the calibrated speedometer is of course completely separate from, and is the whole point of, this thread.
Hope that is clear enough.
J
To clarify:- This post is not about speed cameras, mobile or otherwise, but as the subject has arisen I will address it. I have no knowledge or experience of a traffic offence being prosecuted in Scotland without corroboration. Clearly the statute in the law that permits speed cameras to be used overrides this principle, and this is the only exception I am aware of. I still stand by what I stated earlier, and that is I have no idea why this statute was permitted in Scotland other than the fact it suited the government to introduce these devices for fiscal reasons.
There are numerous incidents of substantial discrepancies in procedure,i.e. operator error; absolutely no evidence on the video of the operator, I use that word deliberately because few of them now are even police officers, forming a prior opinion of speed, but simply targetting every vehicle; the blatant refusal of the prosecution, whether it be in Scotland or England, to supply unedited video evidence; the many and varied problems with the devices resulting in gross inaccuracies, etc, etc. The list of problems is endless, but that's the way it is.
The issues surrounding the calibrated speedometer is of course completely separate from, and is the whole point of, this thread.
Hope that is clear enough.
J
Cat said:
Jith said:
I have never come across a case in Scotland where there was prosecution of a traffic offence without corroboration. I don't think the Fiscal would go to court with that.
Cases do proceed on the evidence of a single witness in Scotland. There is legislation (eg s21 RTOA) which explicitly removes the requirement for corroboration in certain limited cases. Cat
J
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