Manually Operated VasCAR spped traps

A 'friend' of mine was recently charged by police using a manually operated
VasCAR device. He was done over a distance of roughly .2 of a mile, with the
police vantage point being over 1/4 of a mile from the road, and with the
start/stop being operated manually by the traffic cops.

Coming from a physics/engineering background, it strikes me that the margin
for error here must be enormous. Does anyone know of any data I could get
(on or off the internet) to look at the law on the use of these things and
how these devices (both to determine the 'distance between the two points'
and any built in margins of error, special reaction training the cops need
before using them etc.

Cheers in advance,

Ally.

 

They train for it and get tested on their reliability and accuracy.

Love it or loath it, it's how it works.

 

I beg to differ. If the speed is high enough to make it worth angling,
search for one of the specialist QC's who are tackling this sort of
thing. The vascar method is pretty old hat, a bike is a small visual
target, the conditions could have been less than ideal.

In court you only need to get a decent JP and introduce to him a
possibility of error to get the ticket overturned. I speak from some
experience.

 

The course is a week long - and reactions dont have to be amazing at
vall. Its remarkably accurate. What does tend to happen (ime) is that
someone with slow reactions will be slow both on the start and stop of
the watch/distance so they wont be far out. Unless you can show vision
of static markers (which could be anything but usually bridge shadows
or painted markers) was impeded or calibration of equipment wasnt done
then not likely to succeed in court.
--
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Aah - how sweet!!
--
STX1300 Pan European (grounded 'cause Honda cant sort out the high-speed weave)
ZX9R E1 - It's big, green and clean!
XTZ750 Super Tenere - the flying banana!
TDM850
Honda Dominator
NATC#1 MHP#1 MMJ#1 BotToS#1

 

Well naturally I thought of you!
You don't comment in here on these things much though.

 

Pray tell, how exactly would a device such as the above operate any
differently for a bike, a car, a truck or even a train?

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
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Smaller visual target passing a defined road marking. BTDTGTT

 

I wouldn't have thought so, TBH. As discussed elsewhere, the speed of
reaction tends to be the same for the start and end points, hence
minimising any differential, and I would think the same would be true
for a smaller target.

You do not. Go away and find out how these 'systems' work.

That was clear from the off.

Now you've gone and spoilt the fun.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
`\|/`
`

 

The point, as I said earlier, is that with a sympathetic JP you need
only introduce doubt to get a result. It's court, not a lab. I insisted
I was not speeding, that they did not have a good angle of view and that
a dark coloured bike with a rider all in black was a poor visual target.

This was quite a few years ago mind but I've had a result with a nice
old JP for over 100mph on the M74 into Glasgow. Small fine and no ban.
The Proc nearly fell of the chair.

It's always worth an intelligent punt if the stakes are high enough.

 

Probably correct. The machine is failsafe though - bikes are harder to
"target" - you just end up with an error message though as the LTI
20-20 just wont "lock on". Just the same as a lorry is easier to lock
on than a car

--
STX1300 Pan European (grounded 'cause Honda cant sort out the high-speed weave)
ZX9R E1 - It's big, green and clean!
XTZ750 Super Tenere - the flying banana!
TDM850
Honda Dominator
NATC#1 MHP#1 MMJ#1 BotToS#1