Can you beat the mobile 'Safety' Camera? Bellend
Lab's
finds out..
The 'Speed Camera' has now become the 'Safety Camera'. What a load of
government bollocks.
We tested some speed camera detectors, but in the spirit of government spin
we're calling them:
'Safety camera speed-awareness solutions'.
Let's face it, if you get nicked by a roadside fixed Gatso you deserve it. If
you failed to notice a 10 foot high yellow box the size of a chest of drawers
and 100 feet of stripes on the road you need to think about giving up driving
for the sake of the rest of the public.
In the 70's and 80's radar guns were the weapon of choice. These were crap,
as the beam was so wide you could only use it at short range to ensure you were
targeting the correct vehicle. Some time later
however, laser guns were invented and plod worked out that it's much comfier to sit in the back of a warm van
than use a handheld speed gun out in the cold and rain. The camera van was
born.....
There is a worrying increase in these sneaky vans that park in secluded
locations and zap away at unsuspecting motorists who stray a few MPH above the
limit. Nobody can honestly say that they have never strayed over the limit
ever. Even the sad plod in the 'safety' camera van. The plods use only one
method of speed detection in these vans, the laser gun coupled to a video
recorder and stills printer. It's accurate to incredible distances (see below)
and can lock on to and record the speed of your car in a third of a second.
Forget radar guns, they haven't been used for years, so a radar detector's about
as much use as a desk fan on the moon.
A quick scan of the internet shows hundreds of detectors that claim to detect
lasers, but are they any use?
Here's a quick impartial test of three of the commonest gadgets.
Lasers in action:
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| Me getting nicked at 100mph by a laser speed
gun in 2000. Five points, £380 and a telling off. Fair cop. |
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Another nicking. At the M4 toll booths
the limit comes down from 70 to 50. Of course this being an accident blackspot where hundreds of lives have been lost, a speed-tax van sits over
the toll booths to nick people who haven't slowed down enough. This is of
course necessary to protect any school children who may be crossing the
motorway. |
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| Possible protection measures
and how they fare against one of these.... |
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| Road Angel. Runs on GPS for fixed locations but
has a laser detector for the mobile guns. Results.
Nicked! No warnings at all while the laser gun happily clocked
me at 50.
Verdict: may be good on fixed cameras but crap on mobile ones.
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| Snooper S1 'Premier series' radar/laser
detector. Results. Nicked! Warnings
often given on motorway bridge tests but no chance of slowing down in time.
Tests in the 30 limit gave NO warnings at all.
Verdict: Slightly less crap, but still crap.
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Target Laser Jammer. This unit is mounted in the
grille below the number plate and apparently sends signals back to block the
gun for 5 seconds, giving you time to slow down. Results.
Not always Nicked! Instant detection
in all but one test. Jamming did not occur on the motorway test because the
unit doesn't appear to like off-axis laser beams. If you own one of these,
beware of camera vans on bridges. However in the usual side-of-the-road
scenario it does successfully prevent a gun lock-on for long enough to slow
down. It successfully stopped the gun locking on 2 out of 3 times in the 30
limit allowing me time to brake down from 55 to 30 - (gun got only 31mph).
Verdict: Could save you some points. |
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| Gary. Laser operator Apologies for the
offensive shirt.
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| Laser gun. Works by measuring the time taken for
light pulses to reach your vehicle and return. It will easily clock vehicles
at the brow of the hill in the photo 1930 feet away! This is an extreme
example though, the plods tend to work at much shorter distances as they are
limited by the range of the video camera used in conjunction with the laser.
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A WEBSITE WITH SOME THINGS ON IT.
