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Wiltshire Police Safety Camera Partnership M4

March 30th, 2006 • Related • Filed Under
Wiltshire Police Safety Camera Partnership M4 - feature photo

Well this can be seen as a highly debatable subject area, and even to me it has many grey areas which I am unsure upon. I finally got my speeding fine through, thanks go out to Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership. After my court case which I plead guilty to by post… 4 points and a £205 fine.

There is some very interesting information at Safespeed and at abd.org.

The story started on the 24 September 2005 when on my way to a friends wedding in Cirencester in Wiltshire. I could even remember the recent M4 protests that were happening recently at the time over the speed cameras on this road.

M4 Protest in Wiltshire

It started when Wiltshire Safety Camera partnership illegally imposed 5,600 drivers £336,000between them in fines and were made by order of court to refund all the fines given.

Obviously this local company had just lost nearly half a million pounds and had to make it up. But instead of targeting the areas where road injuries and fatalities occur, on local town roads where children and pedestrians are prone to be. They decided to spend the biggest amount of their resources on the M4.

Reasons for this could be the fact that the Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership need local public backing to operate and if they only fined local drivers their backing would sharply drop. So for a quick and easy way to claim back all their money they lost they thought they would target one of the safest roads in Europe the M4.

Anyway enough of the background, whether or not the cameras should be there or not is a matter for the public to decide. The fact of me speeding on the M4 and getting caught by a speed camera is fair and square, however I duly insist that my speeding was not a danger to myself nor other road users and the fact that I honestly believe Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership are there ONLY for revenue generating and not for public safety. If they were there for public safety they wouldn’t be sneaky and use an unmarked van! I was actually following other traffic at the same speed, where the vehicle in front actually instantly slowed down almost causing an accident. So when does a Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership white van with no markings or signage become a road safety device… I have no idea.

If they want to protect road safety I don’t understand why they don’t use marked vehicles and at least target areas which are accident prone.

There Are 8 Responses So Far. »

  1. Pingback by Snooper GPS Speed Camera Detector - Alex Asigno Rants on 4 April 2006:

    [...] Well after my little speeding incident on the M4, and following 4 points and a £205 fine I have started to look into finding the best speed camera detector. I have been looking at the Tom Tom safety camera detector but so far the Snooper and Road Angel speed camera detectors seem the best. The advantage with the Tom Tom speed camera detector is that it can be integrated with my sat nav. Anyone know if there are any other integrated Sat Nav speed camera dectectors? [...]

  2. Comment by TDS on 22 May 2006:

    May we suggest that you purchase one of our devices, this would ensure that you do not fall victim to another of these road safety devices

  3. Comment by Richard Cleal on 6 December 2006:

    Nice to see that Wiltshire are still targetting vehicles by aiming just underneath it. Their instruction manual reads , “One item that should be emphasised here is that it is important to keep a constant aiming point or in other words to keep the ‘red dot’ just above the aiming area of the vehicle for the full 0.3 second measurement period.” or so I am told.

    They hit me (Or rather missed me from over 700M) and when I pointed out to them that they had missed my car, they prosectued me anyway. Thugs, Bullies, Liars the lot of them. I won by the way :o)

  4. Comment by Rupert Boyle on 23 February 2007:

    So which speed camera detector did you purchase in the end and has is proven to be a good investment?

  5. Comment by Nicola on 12 April 2007:

    Is it possible to request footage/clips from these cameras? An accident on M4 on 4th April was apparently caused by driver swerving into outside lane without looking. Can insurance companies or the victims ask for footage?

  6. Comment by Paul Suggitt on 8 September 2007:

    Did you know you can now check online to see if you have any impending speeding tickets coming your way. Have you gone through a camera without realising it? Check here to find out if you have a ticket coming. Its free and easy.. http://www.i-database.co.uk“

  7. Comment by tom on 19 March 2008:

    speed cameras are cash machines

  8. Comment by martin on 5 April 2008:

    just checked both my vehicles on the camera database.
    Both have been speeding and caught on camera at locations where they have not been!?

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