Speeding ticket overturned: GPS more accurate than radar

[14-7]

Interesting story on Yahoo news:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/vdunet/20080719/ttc-teena...

Sounds a bit odd though as the GPS device only records events every 30 seconds so surely it would have been possible that he was exceeding the limit in that period?

[mattikake]

Dang! Too slow! (me that is)

Maybe his car was incapable of speeding up more then 17mph in 30secs?

I was just going to post this. Shocking really. Makes you wonder just how many people get nicked for this stuff who were never speeding at all.

What gets me most, is that anyone with a working brain is going to be able to tell that someone doing 45, is doing roughly that speed. 62 is considerably and visibly faster, especially for someone experienced in detecting over-zealous speeding. But the crime is the police officer persues the case anyway.

Personally I think he should be de-balled with a spoon.

Edited by mattikake on Sunday 20th July 19:11

[EU_Foreigner]

I got one of those community support letters last week, I was doing 42 on the GPS. They sent me a letter stating 46 in a 40 zone, so I know they are not telling the truth.

As there is no case for me to answer, I have just put it in the shredder, but it does concern me that when I know I am right, you can still get done by those laser guns.

[Russ35]

It all depends on the GPS logger.

I use a Garmin Forerunner 301 (its really for fitness use), but I sometimes use it when I'm out in the TVR.

I can then then download the data into some Garmin software, but I use Memory Map as it is better. You can then see your exact route overlaid on OS maps. I've just exported the data for a drive I did last Sunday. Left the house at about 8:40am and got home at 7:15pm. Actually driving time was 6hr 15mins, GPS was turned off whenever we had a stop (Settle, Richmond and near Rippon).

Opening the datafile there are 3749 transactions that show Longitude, Latitude, Altitude, Time, Speed, Direction.

i.e. 54.017263 -1.570298 89.1 1215967210 30.28 205.1

Reading the help file the speed and Direction are calculated from adjacent transactions. I tried changing some speed values, then re-imported this data back into Memory Map, then exported it again. The speeds were back to their original values.

The time is held as a long number which I think is the number of seconds since 0h 6-Jan-1980, i.e. 1215972939 which from a web site converts to 7/13/2008 6:15:39 PM then allowing for BST gives the time I got home.

Those 3749 transactions range from 2second intervals to 8seconds.

[tribbles]

My GPS unit often isn't very reliable (I think it needs a better antenna).

When driving on a tree-lined route at a constant indicated 40, it'll quite happily range from around 22 to 35.

And once on the M25, I was doing an indicated 70 and it decided to go from 65 to 109 (just after the M40 FWICR). I'm glad that wasn't logged!

[14-7]

It did happen in the US though so anything is possible!

[jimmyb]

Ive had a long standing belief that no speed camera other than maybe specs is accurate due to vibration.If you numberplate is resonating at a certain frequency when you are targeted then the reading will presumably come out as false as it depends on the signal bouncing back of a solid object not a moving object.

[Accelebrate]

Reminds me of an insurance policy Norwich union tried to push on me recently, it worked out about £20 cheaper than my renewal to start with, they would fit a GPS tracker to my car (which required drilling a huge hole in the dash) which would monitor my driving habits. If I drove after 11pm and before 7am I'd be charged £1 a mile! Presumably they'd also know when and where I was speeding and would then either charge me for this at renewal time or withdraw my insurance. Funnily enough I said no, and I'm not surprised to see they've recently withdrawn the scheme...

http://www.easier.com/view/Finance/Insurance/Car/a...