I know these things can sometimes be a bit iffy - but this isnt iffy (IMO)

So if ur are snapped doing exactly 60 ks in a school 40k zone and you receive a $300 fine & 3 pts for travelling "BETWEEN 20 AND 29 KMS OVER THE SPEED LIMIT" are you guilty as charged?
And if you plead Not Guilty it in court should you ...
a) be hit with the fine as issued for bw 20 & 29
b) a reduced fine in line with the penalty for doing 1 to 20 kms over
c) be declared not guilty as charged and set free.

If anyone has any actual experience of this or similar Id love to hear about it.
Also need to know what the wording is for the penalty below this. Is it "up to 20 kms above the limit? Or is it 'between' 1 and 20km. Surely if its the later there can be no penalty on the books for doing 20 over ????

over 20km here is loss of license (i think?)

I was snapped doing 78 in a 60km zone a few months ago - on the outskirts of a SA town...I'll cop it, but I seriously thought it was an 80km zone and was watching my speed!

18kms over = $380 fine plus loss of 3 points!!! You guys get off light!

The legislation will come down to absolutes. ie 20km/hr is not a singular speed when shown on your ticket. It is a speed somewhere between 20 and 21. ie you could have been doing 20.9999999km/hr over the limit, but your ticket will say 20km/hr over.

So technically you were doing between 20 and 29 km/hr over, if you weren't it would be called 19km/h.

I don't agree with a lot of speed limits, but school zones I do. Cop it sweet and use it as a reminder to slow down next time.

I'm off sick, bored and know where to surf the net for this one. The answer lies in the wording of the legislation, not the ticket.

(6) A person shall not drive a vehicle in a school zone —
(a) at a speed exceeding, in kilometres per hour, that indicated by the numerals on; and
(b) during the school zone periods indicated on,
the “school zone” sign at the beginning of the school zone.
Points and modified penalty: see regulation 17.

17. Penalties for speeding(1) Subject to regulation 17(2), the following points and modified
penalties apply for the offences in this Part that refer to this
regulation for their penalty.
Description Points Modified
Penalty
Exceeding a speed limit by —(a) not more than 9 km/h 1.5 PU
(b) more than 9 km/h but not more than
19 km/h —
(i) during a holiday period 4 3 PU
(ii) other than during a holiday
period 2 3 PU
(c) more than 19 km/h but not more
than 29 km/h —(i) during a holiday period 6 6 PU
(ii) other than during a holiday
period 3 6 PU


So thw wording for the offence is simply exceeding the speed limit, it's not specific on haw far over you are. The penalty is actually applied for exceeding 19km/hr (but not more than 29) so at 20km/hr you definitely fall into that category.

I think the whole speed camera thing is a crock of **** and spits in the face of the whole innocent until proven guilty legal system.

It takes a photo of your car and presumes you are guilty, even if they can not identify the driver from the photo.

The law is jigged around so that if they cant identify you and you plead not guilty and cant identify the driver they hit you with an even bigger fine for not knowing who is driving your vehicle when the law is infringed, so you are better off just pleading guilty.

And with the new rear facing cameras there is no way they can actually see who is operating the vehicle.

That ontop of the fact that speedometers legally only have to be with 10% accurate and the multinovas are often innacturate (though the new ones are much more acurate).

Nah, you need to read it all in its entirity (how do you spell that??), I just cut and paste the bits relevant to Puppetonastring's original post.

Section 11 (6) just creates the offence for speeding in a school zone. Section 17 contains the penalties for all speeding offences (freeways, built-up, school zones, pedestrian malls etc etc).

And it is conceivable that you can get double demerits in a school zone, I think for long holidays like Easter/ANZAC Day double demerits start and finish a day or two either side of the actual public holidays. It just depends on the timing of the school hols.

FilthyAmatuer said...

I think the whole speed camera thing is a crock of **** and spits in the face of the whole innocent until proven guilty legal system.

It takes a photo of your car and presumes you are guilty, even if they can not identify the driver from the photo.

The law is jigged around so that if they cant identify you and you plead not guilty and cant identify the driver they hit you with an even bigger fine for not knowing who is driving your vehicle when the law is infringed, so you are better off just pleading guilty.

And with the new rear facing cameras there is no way they can actually see who is operating the vehicle.

That ontop of the fact that speedometers legally only have to be with 10% accurate and the multinovas are often innacturate (though the new ones are much more acurate).

The 10% accuracy thing is not an issue, as they must not read a lower speed than the real speed. In other words, if you are actually doing 100kph, it can indicate a speed of up to 110kph, but not under 100kph.

So in order to get booked speeding, worst case, you have to be going faster than 110kph on your speedo, in a 100kph zone. How can you argue this is unfair?

Why don't you know who is driving your car? A lot of business/rich people would use this defence to avoid losing points and when you are rich, a few hundred dollars on a fine is peanuts, and no deterrent to speeding. So by upping the fine and including demerit points, for not nominating who was driving, people are less likely to speed.

puppetonastring said...

I know these things can sometimes be a bit iffy - but this isnt iffy (IMO)

So if ur are snapped doing exactly 60 ks in a school 40k zone and you receive a $300 fine & 3 pts for travelling "BETWEEN 20 AND 29 KMS OVER THE SPEED LIMIT" are you guilty as charged?

I get your question, so you must be a strange cookie to think like me.

The trouble is that it is the wording of the legislation, not the ticket and not the rta handbook that matters.

My bet is the legislation ties it up and covers getting busted for 21.5, 20.1 and 19.5 km over the limit.

Don't speed next time

PS: yes I have a lot of speeding tickets...

FormulaNova said...

FilthyAmatuer said...

I think the whole speed camera thing is a crock of **** and spits in the face of the whole innocent until proven guilty legal system.

It takes a photo of your car and presumes you are guilty, even if they can not identify the driver from the photo.

The law is jigged around so that if they cant identify you and you plead not guilty and cant identify the driver they hit you with an even bigger fine for not knowing who is driving your vehicle when the law is infringed, so you are better off just pleading guilty.

And with the new rear facing cameras there is no way they can actually see who is operating the vehicle.

That ontop of the fact that speedometers legally only have to be with 10% accurate and the multinovas are often innacturate (though the new ones are much more acurate).

The 10% accuracy thing is not an issue, as they must not read a lower speed than the real speed. In other words, if you are actually doing 100kph, it can indicate a speed of up to 110kph, but not under 100kph.

So in order to get booked speeding, worst case, you have to be going faster than 110kph on your speedo, in a 100kph zone. How can you argue this is unfair?

Why don't you know who is driving your car? A lot of business/rich people would use this defence to avoid losing points and when you are rich, a few hundred dollars on a fine is peanuts, and no deterrent to speeding. So by upping the fine and including demerit points, for not nominating who was driving, people are less likely to speed.

Oks, didnt know that about the speedos. Thats a fair call.

It is the presumption of guilt that I have a problem with, even if the govenment cant prove you committed the crime personally, they can still fine you for it (which is a greater penalty and ecourages one to admit to an action you may not have committed).

Don't any of you guys have kids that go to school?

CMC said...

Don't any of you guys have kids that go to school?

I would argue that "maybe half of the fines" are related to revenue...

Situation Number - Revenue Situation Number;
1) Auto Commodore or Falcon, or Euro Power Car, you accelerate with the traffic, you know you're in a 40 zone, but you accidently hit 44 at the camera and score yourself a nice letter in the mail for doing "almost" NOTHING WRONG !!
2) You don't have kids, and you are blissfully unaware if it is a school week or not, and there are no flashing lights at that school, and a speed trap is set up... You are doing 70 in a 70 zone (adjusted to 40), and get pinged for doing 30kph over the limit !! Where's the justice in that !! That should be "warning number 1" for the driver.
3) For a while some school zones even varied their hours.... Some were 7:30 to 9:30, and some were 7:00 to 9:00. Come 9:00, the kids are all there. And at 7:00, there are basically no kids there... The hours need to get wound into a "1 hour block only". Like 8:00 to 9:00, and 3:00 to 4:00. This revenue situation relates to "speeding" at 7:32am when you thought it was only 7:27am.... And there might be zero or 1 kid in sight, waiting there for his mates rock up, not even crossing the road!
4) Fark me, I won't continue....

A more appropriate punishment would be to lift them to 50, and do double demerits.... So "hooning" at 80kph would be like 6 points, half your license....

I'm not completely against the school zone... But I think there is room for improvement in the system... but it's probably a bit like "Stamp Duty on Property". The Governments are addicted to the revenue like a crack head on crack !

I still dun gettit (the original question)

there are categories like 1-9 over, 10 - 19 over, 20-29 over

where da problem at?

GPA, I hear you on the current freeway one though. They are working on the railway line up the middle - the traffic is 50m from the workers and they're protected by a wall of 1 tonne concrete blocks each side that is always there.

I drove thru last Sunday and nobody had been working on site for almost 48hrs, there is no realignment of the road or gravel or whatever, so it is 100% situation as normal for driving conditions but the 60 signs were still up. People may tend to not speed thru roadworks if they had speed restrictions whilst working and took them down after!

Simondo said...

Mark _australia said...

I still dun gettit (the original question)

there are categories like 1-9 over, 10 - 19 over, 20-29 over

where da problem at?

Yeah, he's getting carried away with the question !
He states 20-29 was what he was booked for, for doing 60 in a 40, or doing 20 over.
Since he was booked for 20-29, surely the category below that is 10-19.
He's trying to get off on technical legal loop holes (I think?), which is also not the best approach to life....

He would have been doing 62 as they take off 2kph for tolerance, even though the machine has a tolerance of about 0.1kph.
Can't see his complaint.... that rules out the "maybe I was doing 19.99kph over" argument. The Govt is not dumb.

FilthyAmatuer said...

FormulaNova said...

The 10% accuracy thing is not an issue, as they must not read a lower speed than the real speed. In other words, if you are actually doing 100kph, it can indicate a speed of up to 110kph, but not under 100kph.

So in order to get booked speeding, worst case, you have to be going faster than 110kph on your speedo, in a 100kph zone. How can you argue this is unfair?

Why don't you know who is driving your car? A lot of business/rich people would use this defence to avoid losing points and when you are rich, a few hundred dollars on a fine is peanuts, and no deterrent to speeding. So by upping the fine and including demerit points, for not nominating who was driving, people are less likely to speed.

Oks, didnt know that about the speedos. Thats a fair call.

It is the presumption of guilt that I have a problem with, even if the govenment cant prove you committed the crime personally, they can still fine you for it (which is a greater penalty and ecourages one to admit to an action you may not have committed).

Now I have to eat my own words When I looked this up somewhere on the internet, it says that the rule about never being under the real speed came in in 2006. This implies that the 10% tolerance before that could allow it to read under.

I was really happy when they brought in the flashing lights controlled by GPS (as a time source) for these school zones. I don't have kids, and I don't always set my clock in the car, so without those, I am not sure if its a school day, or even the right time.

I remember when they brought them in here, it seemed like it was almost "the safety of our children is most important, but not quite important to insist on flashing warning lights, but important enough to fine you if you are going too fast". It was almost like they were admitting that the revenue from these cameras was important! There was even an article about a local guy that proved you could build the warning lights for next to nothing, and I think that shamed the rta into adding them.

Ian K said...

Simondo said...

CMC said...

Don't any of you guys have kids that go to school?

School Speed Zones Suck Bum Holes !! When you are pulled back to 40kph on 3 lanes each way, that usually does 70 to 80, it is wrong. 50 would be half reasonable.

There is a big difference between your proposed 50 kph and the 40kph currently in school zones.

Your stopping distance is proportional to the velocity squared. You can demonstrate this difference by considering a hypothetical situation where an excited kid bolts across the road, and you were just able to stop with an inch to spare. Where the same situation unfolded, everything the same except you were going 50kph, the collision speed now becomes the sqrt (50 squared - 40 squared) = 30 kph.

It's actually a little higher than that because you travel a few more metres before you get your foot on the brake at the higher speed.

That safety add where the say knock off 5kph it makes a big difference is absolutely true.

Here's another one smarty pants !! Everyone is starring at the SPEEDO, NOT THE ROAD !! I'm pretty much fine with 40 (or 50 if it is 3 lanes each way, and 70 to 80 otherwise), but THE REVENUE aspect "sucks bum holes". Potentially SPEEDO WATCHING at 40 makes these zones unsafe too..... (??)...

Don't give me sh!t about stopping distances, I know. Old school, was 80kph, no trouble (usually!). As a competent and safe driver, you actually see hazards, wash off 5-20, or set-up the foot on the brake, so you can react instantly.

On one trip to the snow, I'm burning down the highway, early hours... Boys trip, meeting some boys coming in from a different state... I get showered and ready to go, but the girlfriend wanted 5am nooky because we would both miss out for a few days... So I'm behind time, put the foot into it....

I decide to go easy out around Canberra, high level of public servants...
On the other side of Canberra, I boot it again.... Solo Cop and Cop Car are tucked up behind a really bushy set of median strip trees/shrubs, and he pings me for 130 in a 100 zone.... It's roughly 7:15am, -2 degrees, and the Copper is wearing "Dark Blue Leather Jacket, Dark Blue Pants, Dark Blue Leather Gloves, Dark Blue Hat"... He steps out onto the road to signal for me to pull over... The Road is also DARK BLUE !! I only saw him late, and I was doing at least 150 when I saw him. I couldn't pull up in time, and he had to RUN off the road to avoid being hit !!

I pulled up well down the road, and I got over onto the central median, and politely reversed up towards him, so he didn't have to walk so far.... He was solo, and probably 200m+ away from his car... anyway...

He tells me ACT ticket prices just went up, and he doesn't have his new booklet, but he will take my details, and send a ticket out in the mail.... tick never arrived. I ask a mate, what happens if the ticket goes missing in the mail... he said, they'll probably just send a second ticket out with an extra fine for not paying the first one... I ring The ACT Coppers, and tell them my details, incident date, etc... This is 8 weeks down the track.... They tell me The Fine is Cancelled !!! I ask, so do I have to pay anything... they say, No, its cancelled !! Something to do with not being able to issue the correct paperwork on the day.... LUCKY BOY !!