Posted on 12/28/2007 5:46:26 PM PST by Stoat
Digital speed cameras which capture drivers smoking or eating at the wheel are being introduced nationwide in a new move to hammer motorists.
Drivers will also face fines, bans and even jail for infringements such as driving without a seatbelt, using a hand-held mobile phone or overtaking across double white lines.
The hi-tech DVD cameras, which have instant playback, will also be used to provide photographic evidence against those eating sandwiches or rolling-up cigarettes at the wheel.
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The DVD camera snapped a driver apparently steering by his feet
These are now considered serious offences under new guidelines drawn up for prosecutors.
The development will massively increase the number of fines and prosecutions against normally law-abiding drivers for relatively minor offences.
As well as being fined £60 and given three points on their licences, motorists now face two years in jail if their actions are considered to have been a factor in dangerous driving.
Virtually every police force in England, Wales and Scotland is now equipped with the new digital cameras. They were given Home Office approval in April but are quietly being rolled out nationwide.
More than 100 have been sold. The manufacturers have said their order book is full until next April.
The DVD cameras can operate as conventional speed traps. But thanks to the instant playback, they also double up to photograph motorists flouting laws other than speeding.
Set up by a police officer on sites such as motorway bridges, they constantly scan the cars and can digitally record drivers behind the wheel committing a vast array of minor traffic offences.
Crucially the new technology, called Concept, allows officers to play back the footage to locate, view and capture the offence instantly.
Photographs taken using the device show how effective it is, capturing pictures such as a man apparently steering his Renault with his bare feet and the driver of an Alfa Romeo with a mobile phone clamped to his ear.
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This driver was pictured with a mobile phone clamped to his ear
The device is made and sold by Tele-Traffic UK whose chief executive, Jon Bond, is a former police chief superintendent in charge of speed cameras in Warwickshire.
He said: "It is the first camera to record offences other than speeding and give an instant playback.
"If the camera is being used for speed enforcement, but the police officer spots another driving offence being committed - or even thinks he saw something - he can play it back in a second. The offences are easily and quickly detectable."
Mr Bond, whose Warwick-based company employs 20, added: "At present, officers can record an offence such as driving with a mobile phone clamped to their ear or without a seatbelt but would then have to look through perhaps two hours of tape in order to find it again.
"Concept means that those operating the camera can digitally log everything. They are linked to the team in the back office who can instantly find the offence, see the proof and send out a penalty charge notice to the car's registeredowner.
"This will cut down massively on the amount of time police officers have to spend on paperwork and so speed up prosecutions. The days of the police having to chase after people who are infringing the law in these ways are gone. That will make the roads a safer place."
The Concept digital DVD technology costs £17,750. But police forces who already use Tele-Traffic's existing analogue (non-digital) system, can upgrade for a fraction of that price.
Smoking at the wheel was recently included in the Highway Code as something which courts can consider as a factor when police accuse drivers of failing to have proper control of their vehicle.
More than 300,000 drivers a day are still illegally using hand-held phones at the wheel, recent government figures revealed.
The penalties for using a handheld phone while driving, which was outlawed in 2003, were increased in February this year from a £30 fine to £60, plus three penalty points.
Under new sentencing rules, motorists using hand-held mobile phones could be jailed for two years and be disqualified if this was an aggravating factor in dangerous driving.
Those who kill while using a mobile face 14 years behind bars, under a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.
Last October, Mr Bond and his Tele-Traffic team were under fire after admitting to undercover reporters posing as customers that speed cameras were a "scam" and that setting up cameras in new areas was the equivalent of having "a blank chequebook" that would result in "bucketfuls" of cash.
Self-styled Captain Gatso of the campaign group Motorists Against Detection said: "This is yet another example of the Big Brother surveillance society where there's no escape from the cameras."
“Perhaps geographicaclly, but certainly not the people. And the people are what make up the tenor of a country. Sadly, many Brits I run into are whiny and demanding, wanten their rights!”
And where do you ‘run into’ these Brits?
Sadly, many Brits I run into think exactly the same about Americans..........
“Actually, to be culturally correct, its the index finger and the middle finger extended, but with the hand in the reverse direction of the US traditional 60s peace sign....:)”
Yep, the old ‘f**k you’ sign going back to the 1300s I think, its the sign the English archers would give the French before going in to battle against them!!!
Now being used to Brit cars and there layout, I spotted the ashtray straight away. Its to the left and just below the gear shift (in the picture).
My car has an ashtray (not that I use it), and it wasn’t listed in the accessories when I bought it...........
http://www.speedcam.co.uk/index2.htm
Winnie Mandela would be proud of some of the tactics displayed on that web page!
I don't know why drivers over there don't use some electrician's tape and convert a single letter on their license plate to another letter. The letters are very 'rectilinear' so it's easy to convert "F"->"E", "P"->"R", "H"->"A", "T"->"I", "L"->"C", etc.
The odds of being stopped by a traffic cop in the UK are very, very low, so license plate doctoring is worth the risk when you consider that those damn speed cameras are everywhere. You can be tooling around in remotest parts of Scotland and still find the friggin things.
“..........Its to the left and just below the gear shift (in the picture).
My car has an ashtray (not that I use it), and it wasnt listed in the accessories when I bought it...........”
Apologies, to the right, used to driving right hand drive!!!
“Perhaps geographicaclly, but certainly not the people. And the people are what make up the tenor of a country. Sadly, many Brits I run into are whiny and demanding, wanten their rights!
Boring louts.”
My experiences in rural england and wales are fairly limited, but rural scotland has some very nice people. I found people in wales quite friendly (mainly ciao, cellan, etc that area) as well.
Liberalism gone a muck.
haha so true.. we are sure loving it here :)
I think everybody's seen those mobile speed radar signs like the one above. The cops tow them around to different places and they carry license plates on the back and now many of them are equipped with cameras that take pictures of the plates of speeding cars and send tickets in the mail.
Not too long ago, a couple of teenagers swiped the license place on one of those and proceeded to drive by it repeatedly at high rates of speed. The result was that police department received dozens of speeding tickets in the mail.
I thought that was hilarious.
Went back to look. You’re right.
Orwell must have been the first time-traveler; what he wrote as a caution these guys took as a blueprint.
We must be channeling old George; I posted before I read.
“What’s to prevent malicious license plate obscurations?”
Obsequious anal osculations...
Other “Freepers” don’t understand that most “Freepers” are sick and tired of having nibby noses stuck right in the middle of everything they’re doing, right, wrong or indifferent - we’re not machines.
This thread is about encroaching surveillance and increasing control which definitely treatens liberty.
You don’t fix mistakes by making it impossible to take actions.
Consider how life in these United States will be be if and when we're ruled by the triumverate of Hillary, Reid and Pelosi.
The Big Sister Eye will be watching us through a special television set within the friendly confines of our own homes.
Everyone will have an embedded chip in the forehead, even the family goldfish.
Leni
((((snicker))))
Sorry about that :-)
Glad to hear it :-)
Things here at the stoat cave aren't too bad I suppose....anyway I've found that, generally speaking, complaining about things accomplishes little except awarding the complainer with a reputation as a complainer :-)
As long as I'm able to get through each day without sustaining serious injury and without being arrested, I suppose that it's been a good day :-)
hehe!
Agreed. At this point I still have trouble believing that a majority of the American people are stupid enough to put the Clintons back in the White House, but I remain gravely concerned about vote fraud. One thing that the Clintons and their Socialist minions do extremely well is corruption on a grand scale, and things were far too close for comfort with the recent squeakers involving Kerry and Gore. Leftist vote fraud made those races close, and with the Clintons on the ticket the Dem Fraud Machine will redouble it's efforts. I hope that we are all strong, alert and tenacious enough to resist the forthcoming assault from within.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
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