Mk7's front Radar

[p3asa]

I got pulled for speeding a couple of months ago by 2 cops with a hand held gun.
At the time it was all a haze as all I could think about was there goes my clean licence. 
The citation was delivered today and they claim they caught me doing 54mph although at the time they definitely said 53mph (as that is in my statement) at a distance of 418 metres.

I don't have a problem with taking my punishment if I was stupid enough to do the crime but I don't agree with the speed I was doing for a few reasons:

I had literally come off a roundabout as I've shown in the picture and don't believe by the time I hadn't straightened up I was doing 54.

I initially thought when I was told they caught me at a distance of 418 metres this is when they locked onto me but the road goes down in a dip out of view from where the police were standing so they couldn't have been tracking me as round about that distance is when the road goes out of view. it must be out of their line of sight for for a distance of 200 -300 metres

Lastly there were cars in front of me granted a good distance in front but I seem to recall one of them turning right into a new housing estate I've marked blue in the picture which is out of view of the police. in fact now I think about it, I could have been clocked speeding at 418 metres but instead of driving straight to where the police were to be pulled over, I could easily have pulled into the new housing estate all out of view from them!!

I'm only asking in here as a conversation I was having with my old father in law totally unrelated about radar and how they tried to block it during the war, made me think about the Golf and its front radar. Could that in some way interfere with the signal from a radar gun?

[itavaltalainen]

over 400 metres?

What was the speed limit and how much were you doing?

[Exonian]

I'd imagine the radar would have been pretty much tested with every type of speed detection device before being released onto market worldwide but I did wonder myself earlier in the year.
After 29 years of clean licence driving I got stung for a 40 in a 30 which really mystified me as I was on an unfamiliar bit of road, in light traffic, looking for somewhere to turn around so I certainly wasn't 'on it'.
The road was pretty wide and just off a motorway junction so it would have been easy to drift over the 30 limit, and after speaking to locals after the letter popped through my letterbox it was a police favourite spot. It does have street lights but they are well spaced and there are houses but only on one side and well set back. The locals said it used to be NSL along there but was dropped to a 40 and then a 30 because there was a bus stop on one side of the road.
It took the penalty on the chin but did indeed have my doubts about whether I was speeding, or at least that much above the limit. My father is a retired Police Officer and had all the driver training so I do know the tricks of making rapid progress without breaking the laws of the land but on this occasion I was driving (I thought) pretty slowly looking for a side road in which to do a 180 degree turn and head back to the motorway.
So it does beg a question as to whether the radar can interfere with things.

[Ross Detours]

This is really strange, I got pulled for doing EXACTLY the same thing (but clocked at 42mph) a couple of months ago coming out of Paisley.

I questioned the whole scenario as I don't believe at that disctance they had a clear line of sight to my car but I hummed and hawed about arguing my case in court and after a letter from the fiscal I paid it today (read: shat it).

[Exonian]

Yes, I was very much considering questioning it but just ended up attending a speed awareness course owing to the general opinion that if I questioned it I'd end up with lots of extra costs and the same outcome.

[corgi]

My advice... unless you are very certain of your situation then just pay the fine and accept the points or pay the the speed awareness course. some of the things you talk about could have affected their readings... could being the operative word...

The cost of going to court (especially if you lose, as the sanctions are likely to be significantly more severe) makes contesting speeding tickets not worthwhile unless (a) you have absolute proof of your innocence (b) absolute proof of a procedural failure etc.

I know you're innocent until proven guilty but the odds are against you...

[monkeyhanger]

Justice for all.....as long as you're rich enough to challenge any ticket.

If you've got written details stating 53mph and then further correspondance stating 54, that's a pretty tight defence on technicalities.

If you have the perseverence and funds to fight this, the easiest way to prove you were out of their eye/gun line for a large chunk of the distance they claim to have caught you over would be to mount a go-pro hero or similar camera right up the top of your windcreen, in front of your rear-view mirror (so they can't claim you're obscuring your vision. Have something in the position of the police who clocked you, 7' tall and highly visible, with a familiar standard size.

Something like a set of traffic cones stacked on each other. Do your drive (at the speed limit or below) along the alleged route and the camera should see the police substitute dip into and out of view. If they're not visible for most of the alleged distance then you've got video proof. Assuming your camera is mounted 9" below the roofline of your car, your 7" tall target would be seen as if someone with a 6'3" eyeline (likely 6'8" tall) could see the top of your car. At the end of your drive you should be parking up in full view of the substitute bobby and have the continuous footage capture you clearly measuring it's height with a tape measure to confirm 7' height.

That is probably the cheapest way of reasonably reconstructing the event. You would also need to request the using officer's height to confirm they weren't freakishly tall.

There are also training certs for the operator, calibration certs for the equipment to think about.

If it's your first 3 points you'll probably just cave and cop to it, but mounting a small challenge at minimal cost would be worth it for someone on the verge of losing their license.

[fredgroves]

I would doubt that the ACC radar would interfere with a police speed enforcement device.

The radar unit on the Golf Mk7 is a Bosch MRR unit:

http://www.bosch-presse.de/presseforum/details.htm?txtID=5289

(some interesting data on the device on that page btw!)

It runs on 77Ghz, which is in W band and W band is not used for radar based speed detection devices (as far as I know at least anyway, they use K or Ka or if you are stuck in the 1960's, x band)

In fact, 77Ghz is actually reserved for ACC applications:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_band

Radio frequencies are quite highly regimented and organised, if they weren't all sorts of interference problems would occur all of them time. Its unlikely that any manufacturer such as Bosch would be naughty (as opposed to random electronics geeks messing around!)

Most probably, if you've been got, its either because you were actually speeding or the equipment wasn't being used correctly by the Police. If you feel its the latter, feel free to try and take it to court but unless your licence is actually on the line because of accumlated points, I'd not recommend it as they will chew you up if they find you guilty with way more points and a fine that a fixed penalty! Unfair I know, but thats the way it works.

There are specialist solicitors who can try to wiggle the case for you... but again, unless its do or die...

[p3asa]

Thanks guys for the replies.

The road itself is a 30 but the same road before the roundabout is a 40. So I reckon I was doing over 30 but not over 40 hence why I was queering the front radar.

The chances are I'll just take the rap for it. I've just had 2 speeding offences wiped off my licence earlier this year so was wanting to stay clean for a while that is why I was p!ssed off with it.

I still don't believe I could have got to 54 in the space of time from straightening up coming off the roundabout to where they allegedly caught me. Measuring it on Google maps it reads just under 60 metres from the roundabout which is a large one and I wasn't hammering it at all.

@monkeyhanger thanks for that advice. Using google street map where their cameras must be about 5 feet above the car you can clearly see the area where the policemen would be standing disappear. So there is no way on this earth they tracked me for that distance however I don't know if that would be evidence enough to contest it.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.7531659,-4.2789404,3a,75y,356.15h,63.84t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sAlIXwO7LFk1pVPllkksCyQ!2e0  Is the road and roughly the spot they allegedly got me at.

@Ross Detours you will pass this roundabout every day as its between Eaglesham and Waterfoot on the by-pass.  What did you end up paying in terms of a fine? I reckon mine will be quite hefty considering the amount over the 30.

[monkeyhanger]

If you're copping for the points without going to court, it will be a standard £60, it's not a sliding scale unless a judge gets involved. Got caught doing 47 in a 30 (that used to be a 50, then a 40 - and a non-residential area), and it was 30 points SP30 and £60.