Motor Authority - blog Tag: speeding

Ross Brawn could lose his license after police caught him doing 100mph in his Mercedes road car in a 70mph speed zone on the A30 (UK).

Referring to the May 30 incident, his lawyers wrote to magistrates asking for a court adjournment because the Brawn GP team owner and boss is currently abroad.

The Daily Mail said Brawn, who has not entered a plea, will instead appear in court early in September.

Brawn's F1 team, Brawn GP, is currently leading the 2009 Formula 1 constructor's championship by 15.5 points, and Brawn driver Jenson Button is currently leading the driver's championship by a solid 18.5 points. The half points are on account of... Ross Brawn could lose his license after police caught him doing 100mph in his Mercedes road car in a 70mph speed zone on the A30 (UK). Referring to the May 30 incident, his lawyers wrote to magistrates asking for a court adjournment because the Brawn GP team owner and boss is currently abroad. The Daily Mail said Brawn, who has not entered a plea, will instead appear in court early in September. Brawn's F1 team, Brawn GP, is currently leading the 2009 Formula 1 constructor's championship by 15.5 points, and Brawn driver Jenson Button is currently leading the driver's championship by a solid 18.5 points. The half points are on account of the rain-halted Malaysian GP, which awarded half the normal allotment of points. Brawn GP's success has stalled in the second half of the season, however, as both Button and Rubens Barrichello struggle to reach podium finishes where they once dominated the front of the grid. Read More

Already the UK is known as one of the most intrusive nations in the world when it comes to surveillance and speeding, but apparently they're not quite satisfied yet. Now Transport for London (TfL) is launching a trial of a GPS-based in-car speed limiter which will forcibly slow a speeding car.

The system has an appropriately benign and Orwellian name: Intelligent Speed Adaptation. So far it's fortunately only being fitted to 1 taxi, one bus and 20 TfL agency vehicles for a period of six months. Unfortunately the trial is clearly aimed at evaluating the system for a public roll-out. It has been under study by TfL since 2004, and this trial... Already the UK is known as one of the most intrusive nations in the world when it comes to surveillance and speeding, but apparently they're not quite satisfied yet. Now Transport for London (TfL) is launching a trial of a GPS-based in-car speed limiter which will forcibly slow a speeding car. The system has an appropriately benign and Orwellian name: Intelligent Speed Adaptation. So far it's fortunately only being fitted to 1 taxi, one bus and 20 TfL agency vehicles for a period of six months. Unfortunately the trial is clearly aimed at evaluating the system for a public roll-out. It has been under study by TfL since 2004, and this trial marks another step forward in its progression toward mass use. "We know the technology works, and now we want to know how drivers in all types of vehicles respond to it," said Chris Lines, Head of TfL's London Road Safety Unit. "ISA is intended as a road safety device, but if Londoners embrace this technology we may well see additional benefits including reduced congestion as a result of collisions and reduced vehicle emissions as drivers adopt a smoother driving style." It works by detecting the vehicle's position and speed via GPS, comparing that to a map of known speed zones, and slowing the car if it is exceeding the limit. It can still be disabled by the driver, reverting to an 'advisory status' where it notifies the driver of their improper speed. Which makes the system almost completely useless, in the end. But that hasn't stopped Southwark Council from expressing its interest in fitting the system to its fleet of 300 vehicles. In all, TfL estimates that if at least 66% of London drivers used the system, traffic fatalities could be cut by 10%. Of course, that assumes that the people that are most likely to speed excessively would be included in that 10%. For a full chart of the speed limits and their locations within London, check out the graph below.Transport for London digital speed limit map Read More

A special kind of justice was meted out in Britain on Wednesday, when Tom Riall, CEO of Serco - a speed camera supplier - was busted for driving more than 30mph (48km/h) above the speed limit. A court heard his case, fined him $450 and banned him from the road for six months.

It might seem like a harsh penalty, but the UK takes speeding seriously in general, and Riall, of all people, should be aware of the dangers. "I accept the decision of the court. I recognize that speeding is not acceptable and regret what I did," Riall told CNN.

The best part of the story: Riall wasn't caught by one of his own speed cameras, or any speed camera at all... A special kind of justice was meted out in Britain on Wednesday, when Tom Riall, CEO of Serco - a speed camera supplier - was busted for driving more than 30mph (48km/h) above the speed limit. A court heard his case, fined him $450 and banned him from the road for six months. It might seem like a harsh penalty, but the UK takes speeding seriously in general, and Riall, of all people, should be aware of the dangers. "I accept the decision of the court. I recognize that speeding is not acceptable and regret what I did," Riall told CNN. The best part of the story: Riall wasn't caught by one of his own speed cameras, or any speed camera at all - instead, he was caught the old fashioned way: by a patrol car. While it's not proof that cameras are for revenue and actual police officers are for safety, it does go a long way toward illustrating the importance of having a watchful eye behind the ticket-writing power. Serco is more tolerant of Riall's antics than the court was however. Riall will get to keep his job, but he will have to provide his own driver to get to work. Read More

Another day, another wacky UK speed camera ticket. This time, a young woman was busted for driving 37mph in a 30mph zone. The catch? The car was parked, and the woman was asleep in her house at the time.

After a car triggered a speed camera but wasn't caught in the frame, an operator noted the only license number in the image and sent the ticket out anyway. It almost sounds too stupid to be true, but the Merseyside Police issued a £60 speeding fine, and didn't realize the problem with ticketing a parked car until Emily Davies, a 19-year-old, pointed out the inanity of it all, reports The Daily Mail.

Once made aware of their error, the... Another day, another wacky UK speed camera ticket. This time, a young woman was busted for driving 37mph in a 30mph zone. The catch? The car was parked, and the woman was asleep in her house at the time. After a car triggered a speed camera but wasn't caught in the frame, an operator noted the only license number in the image and sent the ticket out anyway. It almost sounds too stupid to be true, but the Merseyside Police issued a £60 speeding fine, and didn't realize the problem with ticketing a parked car until Emily Davies, a 19-year-old, pointed out the inanity of it all, reports The Daily Mail. Once made aware of their error, the police fixed the situation and issued an apology. But the underlying problem - speed camera operators with little accountability and no oversight - hasn't been addressed at all. If the case of Tex O'Reilly and his impossibly fast Lotus Elise didn't call out for a re-examination of the use of the cameras, Davies' case surely does. How many drivers out there have simply paid the ticket, afraid to challenge the summons issued, when in fact they were blameless? Even one is too many, but it seems likely to be a far greater number. Read More

British police have discovered the world's fastest unmodified Lotus Elise, having clocked motorist Tex O'Reilly at the phenomenal speed of 173mph - almost three-and-a-half times the speed limit for the area where he was 'caught'.

Unfortunately for the Derbyshire police, the Lotus Elise they managed to clock at 173mph actually has a top speed of only 127mph. Nevertheless, the Telegraph reports that the police stuck to their story that the radar equipment used on the day was properly tested and calibrated and that everything was in working order, despite suggestions that this was not the case from 'theories' such as physics.

In the end,... British police have discovered the world's fastest unmodified Lotus Elise, having clocked motorist Tex O'Reilly at the phenomenal speed of 173mph - almost three-and-a-half times the speed limit for the area where he was 'caught'. Unfortunately for the Derbyshire police, the Lotus Elise they managed to clock at 173mph actually has a top speed of only 127mph. Nevertheless, the Telegraph reports that the police stuck to their story that the radar equipment used on the day was properly tested and calibrated and that everything was in working order, despite suggestions that this was not the case from 'theories' such as physics. In the end, either through some technicality (or perhaps having a terrible lawyer) O'Reilly admitted to doing 105mph, forcing him to pay a fine rather than spend three years in jail - the outcome he was looking at if he had admitted to traveling at 173mph in a 50mph zone. Interestingly, if Tex did manage to reach 173mph in his unmodified Elise he would have the dubious record of earning Britain’s highest speeding ticket by a margin of just 1mph. As of 2007, this honor rests with 33-year-old Timothy Brady, who drove a 'borrowed' Porsche 911 Turbo to 172mph before being stopped by police and entering the record books. Read More

We've all heard the phrase 'speed kills', and it's been widely applied to situations both apt and not. A recent study conducted by the NHTSA examining over 5,400 crashes across a nearly three-year period presents some evidence that excessive speed, while it may cause more serious injuries, is not a leading cause of accidents.

Adopting a simplified linear model of an accident's timeline, the most frequent 'critical pre-crash event' cause is driver inattention. The 'critical pre-crash event' is defined as the action or event that puts the vehicle on an inevitable collision course - the point of no return.

Traveling to fast for the... We've all heard the phrase 'speed kills', and it's been widely applied to situations both apt and not. A recent study conducted by the NHTSA examining over 5,400 crashes across a nearly three-year period presents some evidence that excessive speed, while it may cause more serious injuries, is not a leading cause of accidents. Adopting a simplified linear model of an accident's timeline, the most frequent 'critical pre-crash event' cause is driver inattention. The 'critical pre-crash event' is defined as the action or event that puts the vehicle on an inevitable collision course - the point of no return. Traveling to fast for the conditions was the critical pre-crash event in only 5% of cases, according to the study. The NHTSA says that 41% of all driver-related critical events were recognition errors related to inattention and internal or external distractions. Only about 8.4% of the driver-related critical events were related to excessive speed, however. By comparison, inadequate driver skill was deemed responsible for 10% of accidents. Other prominent causes of accidents include turning or crossing at an intersection (36%), driving off the edge of the road (22%) or driving outside the lane (10.6%). A unique aspect of the study's conduct is that it involved investigators actually heading out to the accident scenes before they had been cleared by emergency personnel and recording data to determine the causation and timeline of the accident. The remainder of the accidents were attributed either to the vehicles or roadway conditions themselves, rather than driver fault. Read More