Caught speeding

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Ride_on
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Location: Belfast, N. Ireland

Caught speeding

Post by Ride_on » 28 May 2013 10:16 pm

Well for the first time in about 25 years I've been caught speeding. My theory is that since I stopped trying to drive as fast as possible, paying attention to speed limits and risky areas of getting caught and instead trying to achieve MPG, I've now been caught out. There are only a couple of fixed speed cameras in NI and the road is marked, I should have seen it, but there you go, stick with what you know!

Anyway my question is who is this AA Drivetech, and how have I been contacted by them. I would have thought the original notice would have had to tell me that a private company would contact me on behalf of the gov't. I'm happy enough to take a course instead of points, but my concern is I have no way to know this is not a scammer who has somehow gotten my details.

The original letter said I 'might' be eligible for a driver awareness course and that I may be contacted. It did not say it would cost more than the fine and gave no option for me to opt in or out and that they could send my information to a private company. Perhaps I am missing another letter from the fixed penalty division.
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classicswede
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by classicswede » 28 May 2013 11:55 pm

http://www.theaa.com/aadrivetech/about/index.html

and yes they do the lecture you telling you how if you hit a kid a 30MPH they will live yet at 40 they will die. Personaly I think it is better to look where you are going and either not hit them at all or at a much lower speed.

Biggest pile of bull you will ever hear but well worth not getting points if you have the option
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jtbo
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by jtbo » 29 May 2013 03:04 pm

Oh yes, the pain with improving MPG is such that indeed one misses a ton of things which one easily picked up with a glimpse of eye when driving bit more....errr...enthusiastic manner.

I used to drive at limit that does not cause stopping or flashing, which here generally was 10% over the limit speed. Now it is 3% and there are more cameras than cops, also it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep up the pace as everyone else seem to be driving quite slow.

So when I switched to MPG driving I also decided to keep speed at 50 and even go as far as to drive only speed meter says and ignore real speed. Good bit is that most of the places with cameras are such where speedlimit goes from 62mph to 50mph, drive only 50mph and you can ignore all those, then there is some smaller limits where sometimes is cameras, but those are quite easy to spot generally. But known road and where before you could drive 50 and now only 25 without any other change, those are bit harder to spot.

I would so much more like to just observe the traffic instead of speed, but as our laws are made so that if you are completely moron you get away with everything, then it is better to drive like a moron, not my fault if something runs under my car when I'm driving perfectly legal way...

Laws in general are these days such that they do make idiots more than they protect honest people.

Anyway no speeding tickets for me, I got serious warning once when I was a kid, it was with a moped and huge downhill, where I wanted to test how fast I can go...

I have been pulled over once for 'checking tires' and once for 'missing license plate', both times I was bit hurry and drove bit quicker than safe margin was, also overtaking bit more than usual, so perhaps it was more to 'scare' so driving bit slower, but despite driving really a lot I have been lucky, choosing places etc. has been working quite well, well once at night I did exceed limits by bit more than one can publicly admit, rural area, long drive behind and long ahead, it might been that 240 did reach it top speed, but might be not, anyway I got some feeling when approaching long uphill that I should slow down, so I did and I saw then car came from opposite direction, it was a cop car, it did u-turn and started tailing me then, it got so foggy that could not see front edge of my bonnet very well so I had to drive quite bit under the speedlimit, they did stop for a while then followed from the distance attempting to be 'unseen', however because of fog I would had none opportunity to drive even at speedlimit, so they eventually got bored after 10 minutes or so.

Lot of such 'close calls', but indeed, have been lucky.

Now I'm wondering how on earth one could get that foresight as driving fast, when one is driving slowly? That would be something nice, especially when attempting new mpg record at hilly area, downhills cause speed to climb quite a bit and especially with improved aero speed can easily go from 15 at top of hill to over 70 at bottom, while limit is 50, however using brakes is not option as it would cause reduction in MPG and only when going fast one really can spot those cop cars before seeing them :lol:
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MCHUDD
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by MCHUDD » 29 May 2013 03:25 pm

Hi mate.
I got caught leaving Palace army barracks a couple of years ago and
took the course option so i didn't get the points.
When i turned up for the course at the Kings Hall Balmoral Belfast, I thought
i would be in with a bunch of boy racers. How wrong i was. Most of them
were all old people :lol: :lol: :lol:
I think its an extra £20 to do the course but its worth it to keep your licence clean.
Cheers Mark.
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macplaxton
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by macplaxton » 29 May 2013 10:11 pm

I got a ticket once, in 1996. 46mph entering a 30mph village. Got the ticket from the traffic polis out with the hairdryer.

Sent cheque, licence and fixed-penalty notice in as instructed, to the Clerk of the Court, Lochgilphead (Argyll & Bute Council ). Heard nothing, cheque not cashed. :?

Four-and-half months later I get a letter from Clerk of the Court, Dumbarton. Offering same terms and fine. Odd. Waited 28 days and on the 28th day phoned them. I was told they had a number of problems with these and to send the stuff in. Yeah right. Waited another fortnight and heard nothing. Six months up, limit of statute reached. Applied for my duplicate licence as the old one was lost. Bingo, it was clean.

Never heard anything again.

The joys of a change in council boundaries. 1996 was the transition year and whilst I was caught in Garelochhead in the old Dunbartonshire, I had to send the stuff to the new local authority for Garelochhead, which was Argyll & Bute. Don't know why the old local authority was sending me stuff. :lol:


Had a 3 pointer/60 quid FPN for an under-inflated rear tyre on a motorcycle in London once. Requested a court hearing and heard nothing back and my licence was returned with no covering letter or anything. Never heard anything after that either. :mrgreen:

For all the mega miles I do, my luck has gotta run out soon. :(

Getting back to NI, I was up there today. 17 tonnes of bananas to Lidl at Nutts Corner RDC. They only wanted 8½ tonne. :roll: Timewasting feckers.

I did see a mobile scamera van here though on the A3 outside Portdown. https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=portad ... 8,,0,17.71 (on the left before the house) Handy that the rejected bananas were holding me back. sm4
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MCHUDD
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by MCHUDD » 30 May 2013 09:22 am

Hi Rich.
If you fell into a puddle of shit you would climb out smelling of roses
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Cheers Mark.
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jtbo
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by jtbo » 30 May 2013 10:43 am

Your family will be disliking bananas soon, that is a lot of bananas to eat before they spoil :lol:

Our local shop has probably 5kg of bananas, at very most that is, around 20kg of meat and daily turnover is less than that, you can get a picture of how small place this is, 900 people living at 400 square kilometer area, where I'm living it is bit less dense than that, 1km and 4km to closest houses that have people living in them.

They use Ford Connect radar cars here, I saw one parked at center of village near the shop other day, was actually midday so there were probably only elders driving around, what a waste of money.
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CBA
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by CBA » 15 Jun 2013 03:17 pm

No points yet but that drive from London might have clocked up a stackload :? Eighty offences at a guess.

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bogbasic
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Re: Caught speeding

Post by bogbasic » 18 Jun 2013 05:36 pm

Well, I haven't received any of them yet ;-)

How's about we each take 40 and then both of us can go to prison.
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