Is it a criminal offense to break the speed limit?

Whatever. I started this thread saying that I admitted fault in the speeding but my whole point has been that if discretion were used which it never is, they could easily forego the points and just fine me. That would still be enough to make me think twice about speeding. But oh no, still people have to come on here with their dogma and say, in so many words, "YOU ARE AN IRRESPONSIBLE DRIVER, YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU GET!" Get off your high horses.

And if it's not ok to insult, perhaps you should go back and delete jed's insult to other drivers he calls 'tossers' unless you support double standards

Sorry, I apologise for the insults. I just cannot stand people like him that wag their moral finger at others as though they're gods gift to driving. I've obviously learned my lesson since I'm now going to get 3 points and will have to be more careful from now on, but this place seems to be riddled with members who like to make others feel like criminals.

Danny; 'Mr.I'm the perfect text book driver.'

I'm far from being the perfect text book driver, just careful and observant.

 

'When I grow up I want to be like you'

Thats your problem though isn't it Danny? You obviously haven't grown up have you? And if you were more like me, you wouldn't be on here telling us all youv'e just been caught speeding, would you?

 

Conniff; Ok, there might not be a minimum speed limit, but you wouldn't go on a motorway and, under normal driving conditions, travel at 30 or 35mph would you? It would be unsafe to do so.

Don't patronise me (EDIT). You're making out I'm some incredibly irresponsible driver just because I did 60 in a 50 at 2am. Because you do 60K a year (EDIT), you think it's your place to put others down.

There can be many reasons why a motorway has a restricted speed limit at night.

Approaching an accident or incident.

Setting out road works. (lots of work on motorways takes place on a night for obvious reasons.)

Clearing the road after roadworks.

Clearing debris after an incident like a HGV puncture etc.

Police car chase.

I could go on......

I drive 50 to 60 thousand miles a year, at night and during the day, and I have seen allsorts of incidents. Experience tells me that there is a reason to be cautious if there is reduced limit up ahead. So, for you to say that the restrictions could easily be changed after 10pm just goes to show that you have not got a clue what you are talking about.

I dont mean to be confrontational, but crap driving is a particular hate of mine, and there are plenty of crap drivers on the road today.

Mr.I'm the perfect text book driver. When I grow up I want to be like you

whilst Danny may not be getting the responses he desires in terms of is there any way of the offence not standing, which none of us can help him with, I would say he is getting a great deal of sympathetic support regarding the stupidity and dogma with which speed limits/cameras are used which are not related to safety but revenue.

Hear, hear. Yes, whilst I sarcastically said that I think half of the judges and police post here, there are also, thank god, some people here that agree with me.

You say limits are there for a reason, except you don't take into account that those limits need not apply at certain times of day and are only kept in force because THE POLICE WANT TO MAKE MONEY!

I'm convinced half of the countrys policeforce and court judges post here. All the pillars of society that like to slap someones wrist at any opportunity however petty

OF COURSE IT'S A MONEY MAKING RACKET. AND THERE IS NO DISCRETION USED OTHERWISE THEY WOULD MAKE NO MONEY ESPECIALLY SINCE MOST PEOPLE NOW HAVE SAT NAV SPEED CAMERA DATABASES TO WARN THEM. AWWWWWWW, POOR POLICE.

Did you think that the speed limit does not apply at 2am and the cameras would be switched off?

Actually, I didn't take the liberty, I just didn't slow down sufficiently because I hadn't paid enough attention to the temporary speed restriction. Anyway, I've been through many of those temp restrictions at varying speeds with cameras measuring your average speed from one point to the next and never been done so it's easy to think they're just fake pieces of crap which never actually record anything.

then you deserve the points and fine..

Yes, thanks officer.

just a question! if you knew the (Temp) speed limit was 50mph with average speed cameras in place then why proceed to drive 10mph over that limit?

Because it was 2am and I took the liberty.

rubish

..is how you spelled that word.

Why did you write to Warwickshire Police when you were on the M4? The M4 doesnt go anywhere near Warwickshire. Did you mean the M40?

Yes, my typing mistake, I actually meant junction 4 of the M6, not M4. Doh!

pat I think you mis-read Danny's post. He didn't say they allow HIGHER speed limits on country roads, but that the speed limits on country roads are far more dangerous than the 60 he was doing on the motorway under the circumstances he was driving under.

Correct. Though I can see how my sentence could be misinterpreted to mean higher speeds than 60.

No they haven't and there are official TRRL figures to prove this. In fact, their research shows an increase in accidents where cameras are used to enforce a temp 50 mph m-way limit.

 

 

 

There is no discretion within the law. This is not the fault of those enforcing it. You had no chance whatsoever of paying a fine and not getting points - the law mandates penalty points for speeding.

 

Actually, they don't. On single carriagway country roads the highest possible speed limit is 60 mph.

Well even 60mph on a single carriageway country road still has to carry way more potential accident risk than a wide 3 lane motorway with hardly any traffic on it at 2am.

Danny54, you are making that same old mistake that many people do; you have based your thoughts on logic and the assumption that the cameras and speed limit had something to do with safety on that road. Big mistake!

 

Now rethink the problem and substitute the word "revenue" where you had used "safety" and I think you will realise there is no way you were ever going to get off with this.

Lol, completely agree.

Ok, I DO think that the increase of speed cameras has decreased road accidents and I generally do feel safer on the roads. But discretion needs to be used instead of blanket fining and giving points to everyone without taking into acount individual cases. Yes, on the whole, it is a money making racket.

So I got caught on the M4 doing 60 (probably from those average speed cameras) in a temporary 50mph section at 2am, no traffic, wide lanes, clear as anything, ABSOLUTELY no danger to myself or anyone whatsoever. Wrote a very polite letter to warwickshire police admitting my fault and asking them to consider a fixed penalty without points bearing in mind how clear the road was but that I leave it entirely in their hands. Of course, they ignored the letter and I've to send £60 and my lovely clean licence to get 3 points. I mean seriously, what is it with these authorities, don't they EVER use discretion? They just bulldoze their way to get their money even when they KNOW there was no danger. It's not like I was doing 80 or 90 which would have been fair cop, and it's not like I was doing 10 mph over the limit in a narrow built up area. It was SIXTY on a goddamn motorway. If you drive on country roads, they allow speed limits FAR more dangerous than what I did. One person who was more angry at this than even me reckoned I should complain to my local MP. But I doubt I have a cat in hells chance of getting anywhere do I?

Yes, date the letter a day or two ago then just appeal for the best reason you can think of and they could fail to realise and re offer you the discount.

Yeah. Well, if they don't let me off paying the ticket completely, I'd like to think they might offer me the discount again, but I suspect they'll probably expect me to cough up the full £100 since I'm now technically into the second half of the total 28 day period. Dating the letter a couple of days ago suggests to them that I posted the appeal within the 14 day period, but that it was delayed by the royal mail, giving me a better chance of getting another 14 day discount. That's what you mean right? Devious. I like it

You could try appealing using any old excuse ASAP even if it fails the Council are more than likely daft enough not to realise and re-offer the discountif you get rejected.

Yeah, but, I'd still have to pay online before midnight tonight, yes? Otherwise I'd definitely be after the 14th day. You mean pay and then appeal, right?

Oh, I see what you mean. Appeal against the ticket itself as opposed to the 14 day time limit and then maybe get another reduction offer. Yep, good idea.

Damn, misunderstanding on my part regarding allowed time on my recent pcn ( see other threads).

Ok, yes, I certainly have left it till the last minute, (slap my wrist) but my intention was to pay in the 14 day period at the 50% reduced rate of £50. I just went online to pay it and it's saying £100. Re-reading my ticket, it says the reduction is:

"before the end of the period of 14 days beginning with the date on which the penalty chanrge notice was served". I took that to mean 14 days FROM the 3rd of june (that's the issue date of the pcn) which I figured would be till before midnight on the 17th june, ie, by tonight. But I guess they meant 14 calendar days including the 3rd, ie, before midnight on the 16th, yesterday. Is there anything I can do about this in regards to my misunderstanding? I know some of you will say it's obvious, but surely it can be also seen as perhaps a little vague? It doesn't say "before the end of 14 CALENDAR days" so anyone could assume it meant 14 days FROM.

I could pay online now so that they know I paid on the date I always thought was within the reduced period and have a case to maybe get a refund?

My council will treat this in much the same way as a petition I'm afraid.

Yeah, I was gonna say something similar. If a petition is no good, then it needs personalised individual letters rather than everyone signing one templated letter.

Ok, thanks a lot.

Bernie, you've got a point there. I will suggest it to some residents here. Not sure how many will bother to write their own letter but it's worth a shot. Perhaps if people wrote their own letters AND if I did a petition, together, that might carry some more weight. I found out that one of my local shops near me which is actually situated right where the double yellows are, did actually receive notice. But as far as I can tell, no residents did, or at least, I don't recall getting anything and neither do one or two other people around here. I spoke to someone before the weekend from the highways department of my council and I said I wasn't aware of receiving any formal notice in advance of these lines being painted. He said you should normally get something, and I said never mind 'should', please find out if you DID. He was gonna call me back but hasn't done as yet. Al27, what does TRO stand for? Traffic Road Order?

Having spoken to a handful of people in my street about new double yellow lines recently painted, they, like me, are extremely unhappy about it. A couple of us suggested putting a petition together so I said I'd try and compose one, print it out, and then get as many people in the street to sign it. We might also try and get a local councillor involved to back us up. Anyway since I've never put a petition together, can anyone give me pointers? Can I find a template somewhere which gives me an idea of how to structure my words? I suppose it would start with something like " We the undersigned have put together a petition for..." or something like that? Dunno if this is even the right forum to be asking?

I don't what you expect mate. You come on here, confess lying and cheating yet are surprised when people don't condone it!

I was just meeting sarcasm with sarcasm. And this thread was simply me asking further advice about my proposed action, hence why I'm going to just pay the fine.

Anyway, with all due respect, you gave me advice after you KNEW I was going to try it on with them. I clearly stated that I had parked there and then I went on to say that I was going to make the excuse of a breakdown, showing you my drafted letters which have now been deleted by the bot only because my link led to dubious sites. So the question is, why did you do that instead of just saying you don't condone it in the first place? Or didn't you read my posts properly?

I'm currently waiting for the council to phone me back as I put it to them that I did not receive any advance notice through my door or see any public notice of these yellow lines to be painted. Other people in my street are also not happy and we're putting a petition together to get rid of them.

Ah well, I'll just go ahead and pay the £50 fine.

Why stop at a parking fine you could make a false claim for housing benefit whilst down the town hall or maybe in your world you can convince yourself your 'crime' is justified?

Maybe in your world you can convince yourself you're a comedian.

Since posting my other thread:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences/202752-can-i-challenge-badly.html

about being ticketed on a double yellow and getting great replies from members here, I've been bombarded with new replies from holier than thou members of another forum (not a consumer forum, and I posted there before I posted my thread here) saying I have dubious moral boundaries, and that it's a terrible thing to try and defraud the council by saying my car broke down, and conspiring with my mechanic to write me a note saying he replaced my starter motor. They say I'm taking a huge risk and could even go to prison. My mechanic has now written me a note and he was happy to do so. My take is that they're being over dramatic and that I don't care about it from a moral stance. What do you think? Am I really taking a huge risk? And should I feel so terrible about trying to get them to drop the £50 PCN through not entirely honest means when MP's are defrauding the public left right and centre? Who's to prove my car HADN'T broken down, especially with my mechanic putting it in writing?