If it was a handheld then I thought they had to stop you! Usually there is another plod car further up the road and they are the ones that stop you for being caught by the handheld. Maybe they have moved on from this and now the handheld also takes a picture? Anyone else know?
If it is soley a hand held, without any kind of photo or video recording attachment, then they are supposed to stop you at the time the offence was committed. They do have some "get-out" clauses, like you fcuked off and evaded being stopped! If it was a solitary plod, then if they didn't stop you, and it wasn't recorded, you will get away with it. However, if there were two plods (one who can verify the "opinion" of the other plod that you were speeding), they may still nick you via a NIP. If that were the case, I would personally ask for "full disclosure" of
all documents!
Hurdy is right, though, regarding say one plod in a layby/bridge etc and pinging cars with the hand-held, and radioing to a second plod further down the road to stop you. In that instance, if you dispute the "allegation", you can demand to see the speed recorded on the display of the laser gun. If they refuse, or there is "considerable" delay (ie, they are trying to tag another motorist, and stitch you up with their speed), again, dispute it, and make sure you give your reasons/concerns after the caution, and more importantly, demand they write down your concerns on the ticket, BEFORE you sign for it.
The other thing is if you carried on braking once you saw them until you were within the legal limit you may still get away with it as they have to have a constant reading!
Yebut . . . if it was a laser gun (which is standard issue these days), rather than the old skool radar guns, the device will get a speed reading in about a one-hundredth (0.01) of a second. That is why laser detectors are useless, as they merely give you notification that you
have been pinged.
Regarding the "constant" speed issue, they don't need a "constant" speed for any kind of hand-held, or road compression tube types of speed detection device. The constant speed was a throw back from days of old, when the copper would just use his Mk1 eyeball, and visually assess the speed of a vehicle without any kind of measuring device. This was then used on the VASCAR system - which is basically a glorified stopwatch and calculator, and requires extremely profficient manual operation by the plod.
