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Expert Fitting Service


Banned!

LATEST UPDATE MARCH 2010

This seams to have died a death at the moment and it looks like theyare not doing anything.

Well not quite, but it looks as though they are going to try to ban the use of Radar Detectors with a harsh penalty if you still use one and all other devices that inform in any way are to be banned. Don't panic just yet, they have been on about this for a long time and as yet every time they tried they have failed.

Wording from the DOT.

Thank you for your email about speed camera detectors.

Excessive or inappropriate speed is a factor in many road accidents. Analysis of casualty statistics in Great Britain has shown excessive speed to be a contributory factor in 28% of all collisions that result in a fatality. It is essential for the safety of all road users that the police can undertake speed enforcement to identify people who speed, in particular in covert operations.

It is for this reason that we propose to prohibit devices that prevent or interfere with this police activity. Clause 17 of the Road Safety Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to prohibit the fitting of, or the use of vehicles carrying, speed assessment equipment detection devices. It defines such devices as a device one or more of whose purposes is to interfere with or detect the operation of equipment used to assess the speed of motor vehicles.

The precise details of which devices would be prohibited will be set out in supplementary secondary legislation. This will be done following full consultation with interested people. It is not intended to prohibit Global Positioning Systems which usefully give drivers information on the location of published camera sites.


Lesley Reed
Road Safety Division
Department For Transport
2/11 Great Minster House


16th July 2004

Speed camera detectors to be banned

Devices which detect speed cameras are to be banned, the Government has revealed.

The Department for Transport said it would seek to ban the dashboard devices as soon as possible because of fears motorists were using them to break speed limits without being caught.

Thousands of drivers have installed the detectors after a huge rise in the number of speed camera penalties.

They have already been banned in many European countries including France and Ireland.

A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: "We are aware of the problem and as soon as a legislative opportunity becomes available we will seek to make these devices illegal."

Road safety groups welcomed the announcement. Rob Gifford of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety told The Times: "This is a long overdue closing of a legal loophole.

"Speed camera detectors should not be needed by law-abiding drivers."

Transport minister David Jamieson yesterday said he was happy for people to know where the cameras were. But he did not want information to be passed on revealing whether or not they were switched on.

He told a Commons committee: "If there is a map showing where they are, then I think that's a good idea, because people will then be very careful in that area."

He also ruled out random breath-testing and said there were no plans to lower the legal drink-drive limit.

Wednesday 30th June 2004

Ban For Speed Camera Spotters?

Speed camera detectors could be made illegal in the UK. Auto Express has learned that the Government is looking at ways of banning laser detectors as they can give away the position of mobile speed traps.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport explained: "The police have the right to carry out covert surveillance. Devices that detect the signal given off by a mobile speed camera can give this away, and this could be seen to affect the police's ability to do their job properly." But he added: "We have no problem with those systems which only use GPS satellite technology."

Such gadgets, known as locators, are deemed acceptable as they can only tell drivers where fixed cameras are - and this information already exists in the public domain. In addition, Gatsos are designed to slow motorists at accident hotspots, and GPS systems help warn drivers that they're nearing a high-risk location.

Many European countries - including France - have already banned all detectors, but a similar move by the UK authorities could give weight to the argument that Gatsos are no more than a way of raising revenue.

Laser Jammer in Court

Dear Steve ,

I have just been convicted at Sheffield Crown Court for having a laser jammer on my car. The charge was " attempting to pervert the course of justice "
I finished up with a £5000.00 fine + 12 months driving ban + £1000.00 cost.

Please contact me if you want the details --- you need to warn everyone with a laser jammer that the first conviction has been achieved by the CPS / Police and it is likely that they will now pursue this course of action.
Best regards
(Details Supplied)

From the GUARDIAN

Driver who deflected speed guns guilty of perverting justice

£ Motorist denied fitting laser-busting device
£ Businessman is 'first to be convicted' over equipment

Martin Wainwright
Friday August 31, 2007
The Guardian

A businessman who had a speed gun "zapper" fitted to his Range Rover and then denied knowledge of it to police was fined £5,000 yesterday and banned from driving for a year.
John Eady, 61, who had been close to losing his licence for repeated speeding offences, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice. He denied knowing that the £350 transponder had been attached to the luxury 4x4, but a jury at Doncaster crown court decided that he was not telling the truth.

The judge, Jacqueline Davies, said: "I am also satisfied that you took deliberate action in acquiring this equipment with a view to avoiding further points."
A four-day trial heard that the transponder had appeared to deflect a handheld police "laser gun" during a routine speed check in June last year. Eady, from Sheffield, who runs a laboratory equipment firm and drove some 140,000 miles a year, was targeted when he seemed to be ignoring a 40mph zone. A traffic officer aimed the speed gun, but it failed to register and showed an error message. Eady was traced to his home and police found the device, which may be legally used to open garages or gates.

The court heard that his garage was used for storage and had no automatic system to connect with the zapper.

Eady claimed the device must have been fitted by mistake when other changes were made to the Range Rover.

After the sentence and an order to pay £1,000 legal costs, he continued to deny wrongdoing. "I didn't know the thing was fitted," he said. "The guy who did the thing stood up in court and said he couldn't remember me asking him to fit it. "This whole thing has been a witch-hunt. It's as though it was a murder trial just for having a little thing on the car.

"I am going to have to employ somebody to drive me for work, which is going to be very expensive as I work very long hours. It's crazy. I don't mind paying my dues, although I still don't admit I knew the thing was on."

The judge told Eady she had taken into account his previous good character.

South Yorkshire chief constable, Meredydd Hughes, believed Eady was the first person to be convicted for using such a device. "The judge has sent a clear signal that these devices are wholly unlawful; their use will be regarded as a serious matter," he said. "Roads policing officers throughout the country have been briefed on how to detect the devices in action and the appropriate steps to be taken to ensure the successful prosecution of the dangerous law-breakers who use them."


July 16, 2004

The Times


End of the road for motorists who use in-car technology to beat speed cameras
By Ben Webster

DEVICES which detect or jam speed cameras are to be banned because of concerns that drivers are exploiting them to drive over the speed limit without fear of being caught.

More than 100,000 drivers have installed the devices and
dozens of companies supply them. The market is growing
rapidly in response to the huge rise in speed camera penalties.

Two million tickets were issued last year and police expect to hand out three million this year.

The Government plans to include the ban in a forthcoming
road safety Bill. The penalty for carrying a device in a
vehicle has yet to be determined but the maximum fine is
likely to be £1,000 and drivers will also have up to six
points added to their licences.

A Department for Transport document outlining the proposed ban states that it will prohibit the carriage of devices that either actively inhibit the proper function of a speed camera or detect the presence of functioning speed cameras (as opposed to dummy housings).

Devices that use satellite-positioning systems to give
drivers early warning of a speed camera will remain legal.

Ministers believe there is no problem with drivers simply being reminded of an approaching camera, which should be highly visible anyway under rules introduced two years ago.

The ban will instead focus on devices which tell drivers
whether or not a yellow speed camera housing contains a live camera.

Many housings are dummies because police forces have only a limited number of cameras that they rotate in their enforcement sites. Drivers are able to speed past many camera housings because their detectors fail to bleep or flash, indicating that the housings are empty.

Ministers also want to prevent drivers from evading
detection by police officers armed with speed guns. Most forces supplement their fixed cameras with mobile enforcement as an extra deterrent.

The ban would bring Britain into line with several other
European countries which have outlawed camera detectors, including France, Belgium, Greece, Austria, Turkey, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ireland and Norway. In Luxembourg the maximum penalty is a prison sentence of between eight days and three years. The Republic of Ireland also deals harshly with offenders and a six-month prison sentence is possible.

Until 1999, the devices were believed to be illegal in Britain under the 1948 Wireless and Telegraphy Act. But a test case established that radar and laser detectors were not covered by the Act because they did not interfere with
the signal.

Road safety groups welcomed the plans for a ban, saying it
would stop drivers from believing they could speed with
impunity.

Rob Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: This is a long overdue closing of a legal loophole.

Speed camera detectors should not be needed by law-abiding drivers: a competent driver is always aware of the speed limit and can assess the speed at which the vehicle is
travelling. I am glad that at last the Government is taking
action.

But the RAC Foundation said that detectors were a useful
tool for high mileage drivers who would risk being sacked if
they lost their licences after getting four speed camera
penalties.

Edmund King, the foundation's director, said: Some fleet
drivers fit these devices for quite legitimate reasons.
When driving 40,000 miles per year it is relatively easy to
stray above certain speed limits, so these devices act as a
reminder to slow down.

Will drivers who have bought these legal devices in good
faith be compensated if they are made illegal to use? A
MORI survey commissioned by the Drivers Technology
Association found that 60 per cent of those who used camera detectors said that they had become safer drivers since purchasing the devices and three quarters said they had become more aware of speed limits.

FLASH GADGETS

* There are 5,000 fixed and mobile camera
sites

* Speed camera fines generate £68 million annually, of
which £54 million is spent on running costs

* The Government claims that speed cameras save 100 lives every year

* The proportion of vehicles speeding excessively (15mph more than the speed limit) has fallen by 80 per cent at fixed camera sites

* However, this drops to 28 per cent at mobile camera
sites

* There are several different types of speed camera:

* Specs, which calculates a car's average speed between two points

* Truvelo, which takes a picture of the front of the car

* Gatso camera, the most common, found all over Britain

* Accident casualties at 743 camera locations have
increased rather than decreased, a new study shows

* This year almost three million speeding penalties are
expected to be issued, up from 260,000 in 1996

* Womens speeding offences have risen by four percentage points in the past five years, yet still constitute only 17 per cent of the total

* The number of traffic police has fallen by 11 per cent
since 1996

* Home Office guidelines state that 15 per cent of
cameras can be placed at places other than accident
blackspots

* The A537 from Macclesfield to Buxton is the most
dangerous road in England. There are no speed cameras on
this road.


July 16, 2004

Sky.com

Clampdown on Gatso detectors

Speed camera detectors which use lasers or radar could be banned by the Government.

The Department for Transport is looking at ways to outlaw these systems because it believes they interfere electronically with the operation of speed cameras.

Both the DfT and the police are also concerned that such systems are being used by illegal street racers to avoid detection.

The DfT gave no indication of how soon the devices could be banned, but said it had been working on plans to outlaw them for some time.

However, a DfT spokesman said there were no plans to ban satellite navigation-based (GPS) detectors which warn motorists of approaching camera sites. 'We don't have any problem with people knowing the location of cameras - that's why they're listed on the internet,' he said.

Laser and radar devices work by detecting the signal that static and mobile cameras use to catch speeding motorists. GPS systems work by comparing a map of camera locations against the car's position, warning drivers if they are approaching a site.

Some systems rely completely on lasers or radar, while others such as Snooper or Road Angel use them in combination with GPS coverage.

 

As I understand it the following may be banned. Radar Detectors and Laser Jammers. GPS is not going to be banned.

The ACTUAL statement from the Department for Transport is:
"The Department for Transport is looking at ways to outlaw these systems because it believes they interfere electronically with the operation of speed cameras"

There is an article on my site called Project 706, in the interferance page.. This explains the problem.


Law Update.

The government and the DETR are looking into banning the use of Radar Detectors, an e-mail seems to confirm this from Phil a reader of the site. Phil sent an e-mail to the Road Safety Division, their reply went as follows:

The Department agrees with you that enforcement is necessary to assist in reducing vehicle speeds. This view is supported by the police. Indeed, the number of speed limit offences dealt with by police action increased by 17% in 1997 (the latest figures available) to 891,000. If you feel that your local police force is not devoting sufficient resources for road traffic law, you may wish to contact them directly to discuss this issue.

Safety (speed and red light) enforcement cameras are proving to be an effective way to reduce traffic speeds in certain circumstances. They do not have an extended or "zonal" effect which one of the reasons we advise they are only placed at sites with a history of speed related accidents. A Home Office commissioned cost benefit analysis of enforcement cameras showed an average 4 mph speed reductions and a 28% accident reduction at speed camera sites.

On 1 April a new funding mechanism for speed and red light enforcement cameras was introduced. This new system allows the police, local authorities and courts to use some of the revenue from fixed penalty speeding fines to be used to fund new camera operation. This new activity might be additional cameras, placing film in cameras where there was previously none, or lowering the speed thresholds at which point the cameras operate. However, this is only a pilot project designed to prove that the mechanism can be made to work.

The pilots are operating in 8 police force areas and involve partnerships of the local police force, local authorities and magistrates' courts. They will run initially for two years and, if successful, will be made generally available in England, Scotland and Wales.

As I have already explained, safety cameras are most effective at accident blackspots. However, many drivers, when faced with a safety camera will slow down, only to speed up again once past. This is clearly unacceptable. The Department would much rather drivers reduce their speeds voluntarily and consistently whilst on our roads.

In addition, many drivers buy detectors purely to frustrate the safety camera and avoid detection when speeding. There are clear road safety issues here which need to be addressed. This is why we are looking at current legislation to see how we can prohibit the use of camera detectors. However, before we can introduce legislation, we are required to consult organisations which may have an interest in this issue.

I hope this has been helpful.

Ian Edwards...

If you want to send a e-mail to Mr Edwards, saying you either agree or disagree please do so, he does not know I have pasted his mail address here, but I feel Radar Detectors add to road safety... his mail address is Ian_Edwards@detr.gsi.gov.uk, Please be polite to him after all he is only doing his job.

Details of what the DETR are planning.

Draft Statutory Instrument - The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use)
(Amendment) (No) Regulations 2001
Speed Enforcement Detectors

Until January 1998 the use of devices to detect police speed enforcement equipment was considered to be illegal in England, Scotland and Wales under Section 5(b)(i) of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949. However, a judgment by the Queen's Bench Divisional Court found that the Act did not specifically preclude their use. The Government believes that the sole purpose of detection devices is to allow the drivers that intend to speed do so with impunity. It is their aim to reinstate a prohibition of the use of such devices.

During 1999 there were 3,423 people killed and over 320,000 injured on our roads. The Government has set a target of a 40% reduction of deaths and serious injuries by 2010. Research suggests that around one third of these accidents have vehicle speed as a major contributory factor. If the target is to be met, effective speed management will clearly have a major role.

The Speed Policy Review and the Government's Road Safety Strategy set out comprehensive range of policies for managing vehicle speeds. These include engineering measures, as well as publicity and education. However, for those that refuse to comply with speed limits, enforcement will play a part - indeed enforcement has been shown to reduce markedly both vehicle speeds and accidents.

Two draft Statutory Instruments (SIs) have been prepared to prohibit the use of detection devices. Secondary legislation is being used as this provides the most rapid means of creating an offence. In choosing this option some limitations have to be accepted. For example, making SIs under existing powers prevents the setting of penalties specific to a new offence. The penalties that would apply are those already set out under the Act in question.

The first SI, The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use)(Amendment) Regulations, would be made under section 41(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. This would create an offence of using detection devices in a motor vehicle. The offence would attract either a fixed penalty notice (currently £60) with a three point licence endorsement, or a Court can impose a fine up to £1000 with a three to six point licence endorsement.

The second SI, The Wireless Telegraphy Apparatus (Receivers)(Exemption)(Amendment) Regulations, would be made under powers in section 1 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949. This would make it an offence to install or use these devices without a licence. The maximum penalty for this offence would be £5,000 in a Magistrates' Court.

If there is a successful conclusion to the consultation exercise, the SIs will create legislation that will apply in England, Scotland and Wales.

We would welcome comments on the draft SIs, particularly on their scope and the penalties which they would attract. The deadline for comments is 30 March 2001.

Additional copies of this consultation document can be obtained from Ian Edwards, Road Safety, DETR, 2/13 Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DR (Tel: 020 7944 2058).

 


 
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