New talivan location on A40

[IanReid]

Tony, Will and the boys have found a new place to go. It's down at the end of Lonely... sorry that's a song, it is actually at the old favourite location of the Target roundabout. Only this time they are not in the underpass, on what has become the de facto hard shoulder, they have now taken to parking on the flyover. They sit with van parked over the E/B carriageway. The thing is when you are coming into town, there is no way you can see it, you will be done and never know it. This is also a good vantage point to get you going out of town too, and again they're hard to spot going this way because you come round a curve in the road before you can see them. Yesterday they had loads of police bikes there and were pulling bikers.

You have been warned. The gloves are off methinks.

[tonyrec]

Will is no longer on the Talivan and someone new has taking over from him.

To be honest here (as i always am), that is a good place to site the van because people come over there at silly speeds and really take the piss.

The A40 is by far and away the stretch of road that causes us the most accidents..fatalities are very frequent.

As you know, im not a fan of the Talivans but at this location and this road iam 100% behind it because the statistics show that it is both needed and more importantly...... justified.

[number 46]

Sneaky, I suppose you can't see the signs on the van either with it in that position.I use this route to work so will have to be even more careful.Remember statistics told Nixon he was winning the Vietnam war in the 70's !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sandman]

incidentally - what technology do talivans use to catch motorists - is it Laser - gatso??? Do they take one or 2 photo's ??? What evidence would be presented in court to support theri allegations??

[will crash]

Yes it was me on the A40 Target r`bout yesterday and this morning in the camera van. We are targetting motorcyclists filtering at speed between lines of traffic primarily due to the abnormal number of fatal accidents. We are not targetting cars at the moment.
The technology is Lastec Laser with video and printer. The offending bikes are stopped by Police bikes further down the road and spoken to etc.
I have to say that the standard of riding is somewhat appalling by a high percentage of motorcyclists.
Anyway only two days to go then back to normal traffic policing as I`m leaving the Gatso unit.

[number 46]

What's the main cause of the accidents whist filtering? Perhaps car drivers not checking their mirrors, not indicating and then changing lanes with no regard to other road users to gain an extra car length in slow moving traffic.

[will crash]

Inappropriate use of speed by bikers and by other road users not checking their mirrors.
Intrestingly 100% of Police bikers I spoke to said that they would not filter at the speed that these bikes filter at.
I am really only looking for bikes travelling between cars/lorries at speeds of at least 20MPH higher than the surrounding traffic.
I do have a rather lovely picture of a biker this morning filtering 25MPH higher than traffic around him with no hands on the handlebars.
Still we could just do nothing.......

[number 46]

Well it wasn't me this morning as I took the train(beers after work)!!!I'd never filter with no hands on the bars!!By filtering I am assuming you mean travelling in between lanes of slow or stationary traffic, I tend to do this for most of the journey in, mostly in 1st gear so not a great speed, I've never seen a accident and most of the bikes are like me travelling around 20-30mph. However in lighter traffic I do sometimes undertake people who sit in the outside lane. There is an argument for you doing nothing as most of the nutter bikers are increasing the risks by there own action, should be they be protected from themselves?

[supermono]

I don't understand. Why would you need a talivan when a policeman on the bridge would be able to spot the dangerous filterers?

[Nightmare]

probably as much cos with no 'evidence' at all you'll just get mouthfuls of abuse out of stopped bikers...?

[craigw]

Hi Will,

Interesting stuff. As a biker myself I still marvel at some actions that other riders take.

As a driver I noticed that when I was travelling towrds a safety camera van on a bridge in Wales my Snooper S5 showed no warnings at all, maybe the laser wasnt being directed towards me ?

[Yoda954]

will crash said:

I do have a rather lovely picture of a biker this morning filtering 25MPH higher than traffic around him with no hands on the handlebars.

Wasn't me either

There was a thread on the bikers section - admittedly for M'ways, but other roads were mentioned too: www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=53822&f=74&h=0

[will crash]

The Laser that I use takes 0.3 seconds to aquire the target, hence it emitts a pulse for a short period of time, your detector may have a problem picking this up.
There are other issues to consider with speeding, filtering bikers.
I along with the Bike Safe Team have had loads of feedback from other bikers who have suffered from aggresive filtering they have reported incidents of tailgaiting,abuse and dangerous riding
It`s not all about speed, we are just using the speed technology for WDC/WRC offences.