Man disproved police speed claim
Discussion
bbc said:
Man disproved police speed claim
Prosecutors dropped the speed charge after seeing the evidence. A man accused of driving at 115mph on a motorway had the charges dropped when he proved his car was not capable of reaching such a speed.
Steve Lucas, of St Helens, Merseyside, commissioned an independent speed survey from experts, whose evidence led a court to drop the speeding charge.
Law student Lucas, 20, was charged after driving his 1.2 litre Fiat Punto on the M62 in West Yorkshire. He agreed he reached 85mph, but said the 115mph claim was "laughable".
If he had been convicted, Lucas faced a six-month driving ban and a fine of up to £2,500.
He commissioned an independent traffic consultant to put the car through its paces at Bruntingthorpe test track in Leicestershire, where it showed a top speed of just 104mph.
Prosecutors at Pontefract Magistrates' Court dropped the speeding charge when they saw the expert evidence.
Mr Lucas pleaded guilty to a separate charge of driving without due care and attention, for which he received three penalty points and a £40 fine.
Following the case he said: "I was happy to put my hands up and admit that I was driving at 85mph.
"But the idea that my car could go 115mph was laughable. I decided to fight it on principle."
'Defence costs'
His solicitor, Sean Joyce, said drivers who feel they have been treated unfairly in this way should "stand up and challenge" the police.
He said: "There are hundreds of thousands of speeding tickets issued every year in this country and the vast majority of motorists simply lie down and accept it.
"This case shows that, if people feel strongly, as Mr Lucas did, that the police are wrong, they should stand up and challenge them in the courts.
"If they are successful, they can make an application for their defence costs to be reimbursed."
The speed for the attempted conviction or the "proven" speed?
There's a chap featured in this months top gear who will "prove" how fast your car goes.. With Datron timing gear and an independant witness @ Brunters...
Could this attempted conviction be off the back of mistaken identity? An incorrect plate? Or badly calibrated speed detection equipment?
slinky
There's a chap featured in this months top gear who will "prove" how fast your car goes.. With Datron timing gear and an independant witness @ Brunters...
Could this attempted conviction be off the back of mistaken identity? An incorrect plate? Or badly calibrated speed detection equipment?
slinky
slinky said:I doubt it, he did afterall put his hand up to the lesser charge, so he must have accepted that it was indeed him. The only option left is......
Could this attempted conviction be off the back of mistaken identity? An incorrect plate?
slinky said:....a little worrying!
badly calibrated speed detection equipment?
I dont know what FIAT say the top speed of a 1.2 Punto is, but lets assume its 98mph or something like that, and the tester got it up to 104mph. All on the level of course. We all know that with the high gearing of modern cars, on very long downhill straights you can get another 15-20 mph showing on the speedo which would be impossible on the level, it just wouldnt pull the revs. But with his foot hard down and nailed to the floor, I dont doubt he may well have been doing 115mph, although his own speedo may have been reading higher. Good man for fighting it though.
He could of course genuinely have been doing 85mph
, me, cynical? never!
He could of course genuinely have been doing 85mph
, me, cynical? never!Luckily he was able to show the claimed speed was impossible. But he'd been reported at substantially over his actual speed. The vast majority of people, in cars that are quite capable of getting to license busting speeds, would have been absolutely stuffed at this point (ragardless of how slowly they were going, or how safely). I *know* its going to happen to me eventually, just a matter of when ... 
mattd said:
why did he get charged with driving without due care and attention surly as he proved the measuring device was inaccurate so how can they prove he was even speeding.
does this mean that every one that drives over 85mph on the motorway is driving without due care ?
The article did this this was a separate charge, and gives no other details about it. It's quite possible he did something silly whilst being observed by the police and their super accurate speed measuring equipement.
PetrolTed said:
My car is capable of 165mph according to the manufacturers yet at Brunters I only had enough room to get up to 155mph...
Indeed, i ran out of road at a smidge over 140 at Brunters...lack of road & mechanical sympathy prevented further thrashing...
Fair play to this guy though, but he should have gone for broke rather than copping for a lesser charge.
When I went to court re police said 106 to 112 but when they pulled me said 106-118, I pointed out that it was physically impossible for the police to have gone from a standing start to the point they claimed and followed me for a speed check, volenteered I was speeding said 96 clerk asked mags if this mattered and they said no, got 6 points, I should have thought of carelessness as a defence, but did prove I couldnt have done that speed
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