When you watch cop shows, any evidence the cops have is admmissible in court if it has been obtained illegally. Is this a real life scenario?
There is a local haunt for a certain copper who probably makes a fair amount of money for the policemans ball. Its 2 lanes each way, and a clearway. So they park on the footpath. Not just a grassy area, but a concrete footpath. I am almost certain that it is illegal to park on a footpath in NSW. Therefore, my reckoning is that this is illegally obtained evidence.
I've never been caught on speed camera, havent been caught speeding since about 1989. So I have no real reason to complain.... but if I had the money to waste on a top lawyer I reckon I'd knock it back a gear and fly past with a finger raised.
Police vehicles and equipment can be "illegally" parked for the purpose of traffic management, enforcement or surveillance. By laws created for just that reason.
Successful contests have been in regard to placement of speed detection advice where it is not visible from the road or where the surveillance area of a portable camera is not marked.
ive heard that all mobile speed camera's in nsw have to have a valid and up to date certificate of calibration, which must be renewed every six months,
and ive heard it takes a full day to calibrate the speed cameras and concequently 75odd% of highway patrol vehicles do not have an up to date certificate,
your within your rights to be able to view the certificate on demand if u have been caught, if its out of date the ticket is invalid. and u can ask the copper to politely shove it.
thats wat ive heard of a highway patrol friend of mine anyway.
How come we always seem to pick on the cops if they are parked somewhere to manage traffic. If we drive to the road rules there isn't anything to wory about or did we only obey them to get our licence. How many `have been annoyed by the driver in front dangling his arm out of the window? Or the newer vehicles driving with the so-called fog lights on all of the time! All of these attract a fine but hear the driver gripe when he's pulled over and booked. I seem to remember in the news recently a woman was double parked at a school and when a cop pulled up behind her to move her on she abused him and wondered why she was arrested! Maybe a bit over the top but if she'd shut her mouth and moved, nothing would have happened, especially if she hadn't double parked in the first place.
Hopefully it isn't her child who gets knocked due to poor vision with a double parked vehicle somewhere and is she going to complain when the emergency vehicles park all over the road to save her kid!!
[ Edited on 11/2/2006 by 1500S ]
HotRodMatt wrote:Police vehicles and equipment can be "illegally" parked for the purpose of traffic management, enforcement or surveillance. By laws created for just that reason.
Successful contests have been in regard to placement of speed detection advice where it is not visible from the road or where the surveillance area of a portable camera is not marked.
what about in victoria, where our speed cameras are privately operated, therefore the vehicle is not a police car?
Click the Beetle
berlin wrote:ive heard that all mobile speed camera's in nsw have to have a valid and up to date certificate of calibration, which must be renewed every six months,
and ive heard it takes a full day to calibrate the speed cameras and concequently 75odd% of highway patrol vehicles do not have an up to date certificate,
your within your rights to be able to view the certificate on demand if u have been caught, if its out of date the ticket is invalid. and u can ask the copper to politely shove it.
Not exactly true. Only once you have elected to have the matter heard at court can you can make application to subpoena all records i.e. radar calibration, ticket entry, ICV (in car video) etc - to assist your defense at court. What some may not realise is a hwp cop does not just rely on the radar to give a speeding ticket. Their primary tool is their observation/estimatation for your speed. They are trained to estimate speed to within in couple of klm and, all NSW HWP cars have in car video which records everything. contesting of speeding fines at local court have dropped over 80% since the introduction of this if the in car video.
[ Edited on 11/2/2006 by bat69 ]
White Knuckle Racing Team [/i]
"Drive it like dirt"
You can always do what one guy did here... take photos of the cop as he books you.... you get a $130 fine for speeding, he gets an $800 fine for failing to adhere to OHS guidelines 😀
"Mr Writer, why don't you tell it like it is? Why don't you tell it like it REALLY is?" - stereophonics
1500S wrote:How come we always seem to pick on the cops if they are parked somewhere to manage traffic. If we drive to the road rules there isn't anything to wory about or did we only obey them to get our licence.
I'll tell you why I get annoyed about this matter (and also police speeding). I can only assume with a reasonable amount of logic that you are not allowed to park on the footpath for some particular reason.
I'm guessing it hinders vision of people exiting their driveway, I'm guessing it forces pedestrians to step onto the road. So I am not against the law, not against the speed law either. I simply want to know why it is dangerous for me to park on the footpath, but not for someone else. The police are putting public safety at risk. I dont think that iis responsible. Maybe they should put a fixed speed camera there instead, right next to the red light camera to save maintenance costs. The cop can unlooad 2 rolls of film at the same time.
Part 12 of the Australian Road Rules states the restrictions in relation to parking of vehicles on road reserves (roads, paths, nature strips, median strips, etc).
Rule 307 of the ARR gives an exemption to police and emergency vehicles if:
"(a) the driver is taking resonable care; and
(b) it is reasonable that the provision should not apply."
I've been through this with the traffic branch 'cause Mr Plod quite often sits in the median strip of divided roads facing the wrong way. In my opinion they should only be allowed to do this if the radar/laser only works toward the front of the police car.
VW car, VW engine ...... keepin it "real"
35MPG on 101.3kPa
In Victoria they can be booked. Read on
-------------------------------------------------------------
Victorian police will issue a parking ticket to a speed camera operator who allegedly broke the law while booking speeding motorists.
Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon today confirmed a Tenix Solutions camera operator would be booked after allegedly parking his camera car illegally for several hours in a suburban bus stop.
"We will in fact issue a parking ticket with the operator and he will be dealt with by his own organisation," Ms Nixon told reporters today.
"I think he made an inappropriate decision, and some of us do on occasions."
Transport Minister Peter Batchelor said camera operators had to obey the law themselves and the Tenix Solutions operator had made a "bad choice".
The incident is the latest in a series of embarrassing setbacks for the state's speed camera system.
Last month, a Tenix Solutions camera operator who wrongly booked 41 Melbourne motorists for speeding was sacked after he mistakenly set his speed camera to 70kph in an 80kph zone on a suburban road in Melbourne's north-west.
In August, more than 100 drivers had fines refunded after they were caught on an incorrectly set speed camera on the Hume Highway at Somerton, in Melbourne's north.
The beware in Tassie lads.
Cameras are hidden behind bushes, camoflaged inside tinted windowed vans parked for hours on end on the roadside, behind poles, around corners behind fences, you name it.
Down here they disguise them in any way they can.
All in the name of "Law Enforcement". Bah!
A dude sails thru one of these hidden cameras and blithethly speeds on, totally unaware of his misdemeanour to have a bluey in the mail 2 weeks later.
desprite the fact that the dude was doing the wrong thing, this is revenue rasising in its purest form.
Nothing slows you down faster than a cop car on the side of the road or better still, one driving along actually looking for soft-cocked idiots willfully breaking the law on the roads!
However, as mentioned before, obey the laws, and it does not matter much where they hide them.
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
While in Canberra recently I heard a verified story about the Tarago vans they use with the cameras (they park them and come back later to collect). One camera sent out over 70 violations (each over 40km/h over the limit) to the one licence plate.
Pretty funny when the plates were off the camera van! I had to laugh at the creativity of that prank.
yep, exactly what they do here.
just park them on the side of the road and leave them usually.
They are plain vans of different colours and the windows are heavily tinted and the camera peek out from behind black curtains in the back window of the van.
Cewl eh?
L8tr
E
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
I suppose the camera would not get a clear shot if the windscreen was smeared with vaseline.
hehehhee ahhhhh........nope!
Im not a complete idiot, quite a few parts are missing....
I read a similar thing in motor magazine, a two uni students went up to a camera operator and asked if some questions on a study or uni project they were doing. Being bored out of his brain the camera operator was quite happy to have a chat, meanwhile a third student was at the back of the car un screwing the numberplate. A week or so later the police had no less then 10 fines ranging from 7 to 20kms over the limit.
They added on the end of the article that the police would like to hear from anyone who knows the whereabouts of this numberplate. I dont think they found it as funny as some.