Speed Camera Detectors and You!
Speed Camera Detectors and You!
By now you are probably quite aware that your government is conspiring against you on the road of the UK. You’ve seen the steel posts with the boxes on top, and you’ve wondered what in the world those could be. Those, my friends, are the speed cameras that are checking to make sure you are going the proper speed limit. If not, they are quite happy to issue you a nice-sized fee for your mistake! Perhaps many of you have felt this pain already and are wondering what you can do to fight this road guardianship!
The truth is that putting up some kind of defense against speed cameras is not wrong. After all, the government publically lists all of the places speed cameras are located so that you can see in advance where they are. But what if you are driving in an unfamiliar area? What if you are just tying to be careful where you are driving and perhaps put your foot on the pedal just a bit too hard? It has happened to all of us and that doesn’t mean you are deserving of an expensive ticket.
Your first and best line of defense against this onslaught is to purchase a speed camera detector. In the simplest sense, a speed camera detector forewarns you in the even that there is a speed camera near by, and this is done in a variety of ways. But before we get into that, let’s talk about the types of speed cameras and what techniques are used to catch you speeding. After all, you must know your enemy in order to defeat them!
Speed camera sit on the sides or above roads all through the UK, and this display is only going to grow in time. The most popular speed camera is the laser gun otherwise called the Gatso. This popular item “pings” passing vehicles with a burst of laser light. The laser light hits off of the vehicle and returns to the speed camera. The return signal help determine just how fast you are going. A similar device uses radar waves to the same effect. Gatso speed cameras are not only used as stationary devices, but also carried by mobile police units so they will never be in the same place twice.
Another method for speed cameras is to use “loops” in the road. This can be done by placing two loops some distance apart. When a vehicle runs over the loops, the rate at which the loops are “struck” can tell the speed camera the vehicle’s rate of speed and then snap a picture of the vehicle for processing later! This amounts to a little bill that will come to you in the mail later on. The final method that is most popularly used is based on sheer photographic evidence. A speed camera takes a picture of a passing vehicle at one spot, and then again later down the road. The difference in the date and time stamps between the two pictures is the rate of speed the vehicle was going. That is all the evidence the police need for spotting you a ticket, points off your license and a hefty fine
Of course there are ways to fight this fine. You can argue that you weren’t speeding, that you weren’t driving at the time, there was not a sign posted with the speed limit, or that wasn’t your vehicle in the incident. That is all well and good, but wouldn’t it be better if you simply were not cited to begin with? You can do this through the use of your own personal speed camera detector.
Speed camera detectors work in many ways. Some work by sensing radar or laser speed cameras and can warn you when you are a safe distance away so that you can begin slowing down. Other speed camera detectors work using a combination of GPS and public database information to warn you whenever you are near a speed camera. The best devices are ones that have a combination of all of these. After all, you need to be able to detect the mobile speed traps as well. With the GPS option, your speed camera detector will even tell you if you are going the speed limit regardless of whether or not you are near a speed camera!
And the future of these devices looks promising. Very soon you will have a single device that will be your phone, your personal organizer, your navigation device and speed trap detector! In this way you will become very close to our speed camera detector and it will become more like a constant companion than a piece of technology.
But how does this affect you from a legal standpoint? You’ll be happy to know that speed camera detectors are perfectly legal in the UK—aside from the radar jammers which may soon be outlawed—and you can purchase one with a completely safe conscience. And keep in mind that your government is not entirely innocent in this. After all, speed cameras seem to be more like a reason to generate revenue for the government than to actually make the roads safer. On the other hand, the government has also gone out of their way to publically post the positions of all speed cameras across the nation, so you really have no excuse for being caught!
You have every obligation to protect yourself legally from this type of “watchdog” mentality, and a speed camera detector is the way to go about it. Don’t leave your fate in the hands of really bad advice (such as changing lanes will help you avoid detection near a speed camera) and get a surefire device for protecting yourself.
