I have just received a 'Notice of Intended Prosecution' by Sussex Police for doing 36mph in a 30mph speed limit on the A22 in Halland, East Sussex. It was on the way home from a weekend at the seaside in a hired classic VW campervan (!).

It looks like I am going to get 3 points and be fined £100. I might be offered the chance to go on a speed awareness course instead.

So do I just take it on the chin or try to challenge it?

The information sheet the police included with the letter includes the astonishing statements (to me, at least) 'all devices used are Home Office Type Approved which the law presumes to be accurate' and 'we are not required to provide a copy of the calibration certificate'.

Does anyone know of anyone who has successfully challenged a speed camera?

If you think that you were speeding, then just take it on the chin - if you appeal and fail you'll end up seriously out of pocket. Even if you win, you'll spend a fair bit on legal fees and loads of out of pocket expenses (e.g. taking days off to attend court).

The speeding awareness course isn't so bad (I did one a while back) and although it'll cost roughly the same as the fine, you don't get the points.

I'd have taken the course if it were an option. My speeding (85 in a 70) didn't give me the choice, but thankfully the three points made absolutely no difference to my insurance.

First thing to check is did it get to you within 14days of the offence? Or assuming its come via hire company, did they get the notice to them within 14 days.

[Edited on 17-9-16 by loggyboy]

I did the speed awareness course a few years ago, and found it quite useful,
as, for me anyway, since passing my tests in 1977, I have had no refresher training what so ever since

it was helped, by the guy who took it, was a very good speaker and helpful
were as a m8 of mine went to one and had the "women from hell" who preached not encouraged

steve

What would be the basis of appeal?
I wouldn't try challenging the law itself or the calibration bit. Unless you have found something that says otherwise. (the police can try it on)

Best defence could be if the speedo was inaccurate, though tricky to prove, or some medical emergency. Lying is not clever in court though....

Hi all
Got done recently 71mph in a 50mph on the motorway. Didn't even know I was speeding, £185 fine and 6 points no option of course.

36 in a 30 i would hope you get offered the course and if you do get the offer take it

The wife got done at 42 in a 30 and she was offered the course but that was cleveland constabulary

Fingers crosses for you

Sussex are particularly tight on drivers, I used to live in Wadhurst, occasionally they would effectively have roadblocks at each end catching drunk drivers etc.

Just pay up, I got caught on the new section of the M23, it has a steep drop now where everyone speeds up and they set up cameras on a bridge happily catching people all day long...

Speeding is speeding, they had guns around my village in Hampshire today at the edge of the 30mph zone, a long straight road.

Not sure what reason you have to try and wriggle out of it ? Best to pay up or take the offer of the course and don't do it again

Thanks all - there is no specific reason I have to appeal, I just wondered whether anyone had done it.

The notice took 41 days to reach me. I have no idea when the hire company received it.

I do not know if the speedometer in the campervan is accurate - it is a 1978 VW so it's anyone's guess.

Equally, I have absolutely no idea whether the camera is accurate, when it was calibrated, who operates it, when they were trained, etc.

I have no points at the moment, so I will just put this down to experience. And I will remember not to take my eyes off my speedometer next time I drive through Sussex...

I have just been caught in Canterbury on Pin Hill.
40 in a 30.. apparently it's a really popular camera.

I was offered a course which cost £87 or 3 points and £100 fine. I chose the course.

Hopefully Sussex offer you a similar choice

[Edited on 17/9/16 by gaz_gaz]

quote:

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Originally posted by softfeet
And I will remember not to take my eyes off my speedometer next time I drive through Sussex...

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I find myself concentrating on the speedo way too much when in England, so many damn cameras and a few times I've had people doing daft stuff almost catch me out because I was too focused on not drifting above. This is partly why I love my 370Z with the speed limit function - just set and forget.

I've set my satnav to beep when I go over the speed limit - it seems to keep quiet if I'm 1 or 2 over the limit, beeps after a few seconds if I'm 3 or 4 above, and immediately if higher. It's not 100% reliable because the satnav doesn't show the correct speed limit on every road, but it's good for 99.9% of the time.

I do try not to speed, but it's a useful backup.

[Edited on 18/9/16 by David Jenkins]

I was caught in West Sussex at 37 in a 30 and did the course. It was £60 at the time. The course was quite good with about 2 hours of class time then the rest spent driving around in the instructors car. Learnt quite a lot but I don't think my driving has changed...

If the NIP took 41 days to reach you then you might want to look into how long it took to be received by the hire company. I guess they must have passed on your details at some point so maybe worth just asking them if they can confirm when they received the NIP.

Apart from that procedural issue, if the 14 day NIP receipt period was complied with then I'd say pay up unless you are likely to lose your licence as a result in which case you should get specialist advice.

I had a clean licence for about 10 years and then got done for 72MPH in a 50MPH motorway zone and then 4 months later got done for a traffic light offence. The speeding was fair enough although in my opinion there is no good reason why that section of the M74 is 50MPH. I actually asked the police and they said it's because local people have a tendency to walk across motorway! Let Darwin sort 'em out I say!

The traffic light offence was a bit more annoying because quite honestly it came down to a judgement call over whether it was safer to stop at the amber light or continue through it. It was in a 50MPH zone and was at a roundabout with 3 lanes so my focus was mainly on lane discipline as this is a roundabout notorious for people not following the correct lane. The last thing you want to do is an emergency stop when people are all looking in their side mirrors. I never saw a red light at all but I can't guarantee that the tail of my car wasn't still straddling the threshold when the red light came on. In any case there wasn't much point in arguing with the 3 police officers in the traffic car although I did try to appeal to their humanity when I mentioned the reason for me being dressed in black was that I was on my way to the funeral of my cousin at the time. Not interested. I looked into challenging the conviction but after some research I discovered just how "grey" the law is in the area of traffic lights. Virtually no chance of overturning the verdict.

The good news is that I now have a clean license again because the speeding offence in Sep 2012 and the TL offence in Feb 2013 have both expired. If you're a generally lawful driver then you'll soon lose those points and it won't really matter. If you can keep at 6 points or below then many insurance companies won't punish you too much either.

Cheers,
Craig