The camera never lies - or does it?
Discussion
The camera never lies - or does it?
by Matt Dickinson
Tuesday 06 January 2004
A DRIVER has had a speeding penalty overturned after he used safety camera film to prove he did not break the law.
Portland town deputy mayor Kris Haskins was amazed when he received a fixed penalty notice telling him he had sped along at 51mph in a 30mph zone near Wareham.
The notice told him to pay a £60 fine within 28 days or face prosecution.
But Mr Haskins was so sure of his innocence he demanded to see the film from the camera showing the evidence.
After a six-week battle with the Dorset Speed Camera Partnership, he finally got hold of the film and managed to prove he was driving at 13.42 miles per hour - less than half the speed limit and only a quarter as fast as the camera claimed.
Embarrassed traffic officials were forced to cancel his penalty notice nearly three months after the original `offence'.
Mr Haskins, of East Weare Road, Portland, said his experience has left him wondering how many other drivers have been penalised for speeding, only to have been a victim of a similar error.
He said: "The notices do not give you any information about the possibility of checking film from the camera - they just tell you to pay up or else.
"I am worried how many more people have been caught like this and are actually innocent."
The Dorset Speed Camera Partnership - which operates the county's cameras from its base at police headquarters in Winfrith - revealed in December that 23,733 drivers had been fined in the eight months to March 2003, raising more than £1.4million.
A spokesman for the partnership confirmed that Mr Haskins had received a speeding penalty.
The spokesman said: "Once the driver had been identified, he requested a photograph of the offence. The partnership reviewed the photograph and concluded the driver had not committed an offence.
"The safety camera had projected a reflected image of the vehicle in question which triggered the safety camera's radar.
"It recorded the vehicle as travelling at 51 mph, when in fact it was travelling at 14 mph and so no further action was taken.
"We would again like to apologise for any inconvenience we have caused the driver."
News link here: www.thisisweymouth.co.uk/dorset/weymouth/news/WEYMOUTH_NEWS_NEWS0.html
It does make you wonder, How many convictons are safe. Atb Derek
by Matt Dickinson
Tuesday 06 January 2004
A DRIVER has had a speeding penalty overturned after he used safety camera film to prove he did not break the law.
Portland town deputy mayor Kris Haskins was amazed when he received a fixed penalty notice telling him he had sped along at 51mph in a 30mph zone near Wareham.
The notice told him to pay a £60 fine within 28 days or face prosecution.
But Mr Haskins was so sure of his innocence he demanded to see the film from the camera showing the evidence.
After a six-week battle with the Dorset Speed Camera Partnership, he finally got hold of the film and managed to prove he was driving at 13.42 miles per hour - less than half the speed limit and only a quarter as fast as the camera claimed.
Embarrassed traffic officials were forced to cancel his penalty notice nearly three months after the original `offence'.
Mr Haskins, of East Weare Road, Portland, said his experience has left him wondering how many other drivers have been penalised for speeding, only to have been a victim of a similar error.
He said: "The notices do not give you any information about the possibility of checking film from the camera - they just tell you to pay up or else.
"I am worried how many more people have been caught like this and are actually innocent."
The Dorset Speed Camera Partnership - which operates the county's cameras from its base at police headquarters in Winfrith - revealed in December that 23,733 drivers had been fined in the eight months to March 2003, raising more than £1.4million.
A spokesman for the partnership confirmed that Mr Haskins had received a speeding penalty.
The spokesman said: "Once the driver had been identified, he requested a photograph of the offence. The partnership reviewed the photograph and concluded the driver had not committed an offence.
"The safety camera had projected a reflected image of the vehicle in question which triggered the safety camera's radar.
"It recorded the vehicle as travelling at 51 mph, when in fact it was travelling at 14 mph and so no further action was taken.
"We would again like to apologise for any inconvenience we have caused the driver."
News link here: www.thisisweymouth.co.uk/dorset/weymouth/news/WEYMOUTH_NEWS_NEWS0.html
It does make you wonder, How many convictons are safe. Atb Derek
Winnebago Nut said:I posted at the same time. I like the quote, "The safety camera had projected a reflected image of the vehicle in question which triggered the safety camera's radar." Now can someone whose physics is better than mine explain how a camera can project an image? If this is the case that 'scameras' are inventing offences, I think we should be told
The camera never lies - or does it?
by Matt Dickinson
Tuesday 06 January 2004
A DRIVER has had a speeding penalty overturned after he used safety camera film to prove he did not break the law.
Portland town deputy mayor Kris Haskins was amazed when he received a fixed penalty notice telling him he had sped along at 51mph in a 30mph zone near Wareham.
The notice told him to pay a £60 fine within 28 days or face prosecution.
But Mr Haskins was so sure of his innocence he demanded to see the film from the camera showing the evidence.
After a six-week battle with the Dorset Speed Camera Partnership, he finally got hold of the film and managed to prove he was driving at 13.42 miles per hour - less than half the speed limit and only a quarter as fast as the camera claimed.
Embarrassed traffic officials were forced to cancel his penalty notice nearly three months after the original `offence'.
Mr Haskins, of East Weare Road, Portland, said his experience has left him wondering how many other drivers have been penalised for speeding, only to have been a victim of a similar error.
He said: "The notices do not give you any information about the possibility of checking film from the camera - they just tell you to pay up or else.
"I am worried how many more people have been caught like this and are actually innocent."
The Dorset Speed Camera Partnership - which operates the county's cameras from its base at police headquarters in Winfrith - revealed in December that 23,733 drivers had been fined in the eight months to March 2003, raising more than £1.4million.
A spokesman for the partnership confirmed that Mr Haskins had received a speeding penalty.
The spokesman said: "Once the driver had been identified, he requested a photograph of the offence. The partnership reviewed the photograph and concluded the driver had not committed an offence.
"The safety camera had projected a reflected image of the vehicle in question which triggered the safety camera's radar.
"It recorded the vehicle as travelling at 51 mph, when in fact it was travelling at 14 mph and so no further action was taken.
"We would again like to apologise for any inconvenience we have caused the driver."
News link here: www.thisisweymouth.co.uk/dorset/weymouth/news/WEYMOUTH_NEWS_NEWS0.html
It does make you wonder, How many convictons are safe. Atb Derek
- Streaky
Isn't the point that regardless of any ghost image or whatever the camera takes two pictures so that the twonks in the ticket office can corroborate the "measured" speed. Which is how the chap proved his innocence.
So why didn't they pick this up? The system didn't work properly just as the case with the infamous flatback lorry in a traffic queue @ 12mph.
Or the Glasgow electric milk float regularly caught hooning on the M25.
or.......
:devilsadvocate mode = on:
Presumably they must have known they had two pictures or else they would have processed two separate offences ~ a second apart.
Ref Gwent constabulary vs ToTH
:d-a mode =off:
In order to be accepted a system has to be seen to be accurate, fair, impartial, necessary plus competently enforced and administered.
The current situation with electronic enforcement meets none of those criteria in my most humble opinion.
FiF
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Wednesday 7th January 09:33
So why didn't they pick this up? The system didn't work properly just as the case with the infamous flatback lorry in a traffic queue @ 12mph.
Or the Glasgow electric milk float regularly caught hooning on the M25.
or.......
:devilsadvocate mode = on:
Presumably they must have known they had two pictures or else they would have processed two separate offences ~ a second apart.
Ref Gwent constabulary vs ToTH
:d-a mode =off:
In order to be accepted a system has to be seen to be accurate, fair, impartial, necessary plus competently enforced and administered.
The current situation with electronic enforcement meets none of those criteria in my most humble opinion.
FiF
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Wednesday 7th January 09:33
Surely there are two aspects to a radar speed camera: the speed detector (probably a Doppler effect device) and the photographic camera - film or digital. The camera does not emit anything - it receives the light from its subject; light provided by an electronic flash gun. The camera takes two pictures at a known time interval so that, when compared with the road markings, the speed of the target vehicle can be confirmed by calculation. If the volume of throughput of events is large, the operators are likely to stop bothering to double check what the radar speed detector tells them.
The Doppler device (if the Gatso uses Doppler effect), similar to a microwave security detector that was made by the company I worked for in the eighties, sends out a very high frequency radio signal (10.582GHz if "X" Band) which is reflected back from everything, moving or static, with a strength proportional to (a) the echoing area of the reflective target, and (b) the inverse square of the distance. If the target is moving, the reflected signal frequency is raised or lowered according to the Doppler effect and the detector is able to measure the frequency shift, and to compare this with the known change in frequency per mile per hour of the target. If the shift exceeds a set limit the camera is triggered and the frequency computed out to give a target velocity. Now, and this is important, if the signal is re-reflected from one target onwards (or backwards) to another (large) target moving in the opposite direction (a bus or a furniture van, say, with a very large radar target area), it's not inconceivable that the two Doppler shifts could be added together to give a sum of the two and to make the speed of the principal target seem much greater than it actually is. In order for this to happen, a very unlikely (but not impossible) set of conditions must obtain. Statistically, though, it will happen from time to time.
The Doppler device (if the Gatso uses Doppler effect), similar to a microwave security detector that was made by the company I worked for in the eighties, sends out a very high frequency radio signal (10.582GHz if "X" Band) which is reflected back from everything, moving or static, with a strength proportional to (a) the echoing area of the reflective target, and (b) the inverse square of the distance. If the target is moving, the reflected signal frequency is raised or lowered according to the Doppler effect and the detector is able to measure the frequency shift, and to compare this with the known change in frequency per mile per hour of the target. If the shift exceeds a set limit the camera is triggered and the frequency computed out to give a target velocity. Now, and this is important, if the signal is re-reflected from one target onwards (or backwards) to another (large) target moving in the opposite direction (a bus or a furniture van, say, with a very large radar target area), it's not inconceivable that the two Doppler shifts could be added together to give a sum of the two and to make the speed of the principal target seem much greater than it actually is. In order for this to happen, a very unlikely (but not impossible) set of conditions must obtain. Statistically, though, it will happen from time to time.
deltaf said:
And why havent the reporters who covered this story picked up on what the scamera partnership said?
All they ever say is how MUCH CASH THEY MAKE! and how many drivers theyve screwed! They NEVER put any emaphasis on how many lives theyve saved! EVER!
Thats because the murdering scum havn't saved any lives. We need to develop a culture of having a go at these twats in everyday conversation. Bit like when the Yanks called Vietnam vets "Baby Killer"
streaky said:No - they record a visible light image, they project a radar signature that if you stood behind it with radar-eyes(TM) would give you an image.
Camera's emit radar - and hence can project a radar image. Just because you don't have radar-eyes(TM) doesn't mean it can't
I have just checked extensively, 'cameras' do not project an image, they record one
All clear now???
J
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