Caught doing 113mph....pleading not guilty?

[Liokault]

Mike_Mac said:

Greg66 said:

Used your amazing powers of hindsight even more effectively?

Meh! The NG plea seemed a bit strange considering what he got, then I realised he was going for the 70+, which was a bit different. Shoot me!

Main (pertinent) question is how they accepted 70+ vs 113mph though? Did the court accept the speedo wasn't sufficient evidence?

Apparently, the police didn't offer any evidence of 113 other than the officers word. His lawyer said he should continue with the NG thing and go to court to argue it. I think (only had a very brief conversation with him about it) they thought it was 50-50 that he would get off totally.

My colleague via some process tha I don't understand told is lawyer that he didn't want to take it to court, so they agreed that he would accept a guilty plea to 99mph.

Not going to court left his total legal bill at £700 or so. I got the figure wrong from an earlier conversation.

[TTommy]

Liokault said:

Up date for the sake of closure:

Previous court date was just to put a plea in....in this case not guilty.

Adjourned till this week where he got 6 points on his license and a £550 fine. Quite a result as he was fully expecting a ban.

He was into £2k+ with his lawyer in the summer, not sure what his final bill is.

Wow. £2600+ all for 113mph. What a joke the country is.

[marcusgrant]

Well that was a good result for him

[tapereel]

Liokault said:

Mike_Mac said:

Greg66 said:

Used your amazing powers of hindsight even more effectively?

Meh! The NG plea seemed a bit strange considering what he got, then I realised he was going for the 70+, which was a bit different. Shoot me!

Main (pertinent) question is how they accepted 70+ vs 113mph though? Did the court accept the speedo wasn't sufficient evidence?

Apparently, the police didn't offer any evidence of 113 other than the officers word. His lawyer said he should continue with the NG thing and go to court to argue it. I think (only had a very brief conversation with him about it) they thought it was 50-50 that he would get off totally.

My colleague via some process tha I don't understand told is lawyer that he didn't want to take it to court, so they agreed that he would accept a guilty plea to 99mph.

Not going to court left his total legal bill at £700 or so. I got the figure wrong from an earlier conversation.

The method of speed measurement is not yet fully detailed. If it was a VASCAR reading then I see no reason why it should be bargained down at all. The VASCAR device usually, in fact almost always reads to within less than 1mph of the target speed.
It is a complete myth that these devices, even taking the operator into account, have a significant margin of error, they are spot-on.
If the officers used a speedometer they can be subject to a larger margin but nowhere near 13 or 14mph in 113mph. Lowering speeds by that much is ridiculous and completely without justification.

[anonymous-user]

tapereel said:

If the officers used a speedometer they can be subject to a larger margin but nowhere near 13 or 14mph in 113mph. Lowering speeds by that much is ridiculous and completely without justification.

Well, too bad for you, because that's what happened. Write to someone if you don't like it.

[tapereel]

Greg66 said:

tapereel said:

If the officers used a speedometer they can be subject to a larger margin but nowhere near 13 or 14mph in 113mph. Lowering speeds by that much is ridiculous and completely without justification.

Well, too bad for you, because that's what happened. Write to someone if you don't like it.

I'm not really bothered as the CPS often do accept a guilty plea at a lower speed to save the trial.

I'm just pointing out that even though the CPS do accept lower speeds it doesn't mean there is an inaccuracy in the equipment.

[CoolHands]

Because they didn't have the evidence.

[jith]

tapereel said:

The method of speed measurement is not yet fully detailed. If it was a VASCAR reading then I see no reason why it should be bargained down at all. The VASCAR device usually, in fact almost always reads to within less than 1mph of the target speed.
It is a complete myth that these devices, even taking the operator into account, have a significant margin of error, they are spot-on.
If the officers used a speedometer they can be subject to a larger margin but nowhere near 13 or 14mph in 113mph. Lowering speeds by that much is ridiculous and completely without justification.

Completely inaccurate.

VASCAR is not a detection device, it is a calculation device, manually operated and is highly susceptible to errors. The device itself is highly accurate from the calculation aspect, but as the inputs to give the result are all wholly dependent on operator integrity, it is clearly not reliable as accurate evidence unless accompanied by video. Even then it has to be demonstrated that any effect from parallax error is considered in the final calculation.

Most importantly it must always be remembered that the speed reading on a VASCAR device is not the actual speed of the pursued vehicle, but a calculation of average speed over a distance gleaned from electronic inputs from the police vehicle and manual inputs from the operator. The operator integrity has to be absolute for accuracy.

To claim it reads to within 1 MPH and is always spot on is total nonsense and dangerously misleading.

J