GreenMan72

I am livid at the moment. My wife and I are currently doing the long drive up to Brisbane from Sydney. We had a nice stopover last night near Coffs Harbour.

So we left very early this morning. Just after we'd passed through the town of Broadwater, a police car on the opposite side of the road turned around and made us pull over. We have a TomTom sat nav and the speed I'd been traveling at was 102/103 kph. I am a careful driver plus my wife tends to constantly remind me if I'm close to being over the speed limit.

Anyway, Mr Policeman tells me I was doing 116 kph! Wtf! I watch my speed like a hawk and the entire way up here I've stuck to the limit with maybe a few kph over the limit as a maximum over the course of the entire trip.

So now I have a $216 fine and 3 demerit points. Really feel hard done by here. I was polite to the guy and explained what I saw in my GPS but to no avail.

Is there any way I can fight this? In my mind I am 100% sure he is wrong

The Woodcutter

Motoring offences carry strict liability which means that the police do not have to prove "intent".

There are two ways to get off motoring offences:
1) prove that the equipment used to catch the motoring offence (speed camera for example) is faulty
2) the police did not follow the correct procedures. (Nick Freeman, a UK solicitor specialises in this)

Other than that, sadly, you need to suck it up.

ozzieeagle

In my experience and unlike their City counterparts, there is no leeway with Country coppers unless your a local. Probably wanting to book as few locals as possible as they have to live amongst smaller communities.

He/she probably hadn't booked anyone for over an hour or so and started to get desperate re time and motion v results. If there's no crime they may have to transfer back to somewhere less cushy.



.

scrudu

Just wondering if you ever check what speed your car speed dial says in comparison to your TomTom? I know that when I set the Cruise speed on our car to 110km/ph when travelling on highways, our TomTom often says we're travelling at 105km/ph or other varying speeds. I presumed this was to do with intermittent satellite signal or something. Could it be that your TomTom is just reporting the wrong speed you were travelling?

Cheetah7

The only option I have on my Sat Nav is it tells me the speed limit of the road that I am driving on and if I exceed by 5km, an alarm goes off. However, sometimes it gets the speed limit wrong and tells me it is 90kmh when it is in fact 100 or vice versa.

I always go by the speedo on my car and am quite vigilant about looking out for speed limit signs, sometimes you dont see one for ages so its a bit hit and miss but my GPS has got it wrong before.

Last week I almost shit myself, driving along the country road doing 79km in an 80 zone and this copper jumps out of the bushes and points a speed gum at oncoming traffic, I know I wasnt breaking the limit but it scared the crap out of me, for a moment I thought he was pointing a firearm (just initial first thought).

Then further down, a tatty old Ute was half hidden in the bushes with a speed camera on the roof - I always see stuff like that, our bus got flashed at the other week for being 5km over - that was by a hidden car in the bushes with a speedy thingy on the roof.

monkeyalan

you should have swerved around a bit , braked for no reason , forced someone else off the road and been slightly pissed up , he'd have thought you were local and let you off

pumpkin blossom

I never go by the speed limit on my sat nav, I find they have a delay.

What did your actual speedo read? By the way you haven't mentioned it, I assume it also agreed that you were speeding??

phat-dave

by your own admission you were speeding at 103kmh, this is extremely careless and very dangerous. have you not thought of the children or wildlife that may be in the area?

good heavens i'm disgusted by this blatant disregard for our high quality road infrastructure and lack of road safety.

our friends here in victoria have clearly got the right message with drivers, while you're terrorising and threatening the lives of others at 103kmh, the TAC would have you "wiping off five".

you folk in sydney are TERRORISTS.

eddie007

Think yourselves lucky you werent in WA... Its WA (ex Foundation Day) day weekend... You would have DOUBLE demerits....

GreenMan72

Our odometer displays about 1 kph more than the TomTom. This is something I've always carefully monitored. The variance between them is very very small. I am always checking my speed - both satnav and odometer. Sometimes several times a minute.

My rule of thumb is to stick exactly on the limit or allow no more than 5 kph above the limit. Generally a certain level of tolerance is allowed (a bit like bag weights at airline check ins). My wife confirmed my 102/103 speed when I was 'caught'.

Frankly it is a crock of &$$ in my opinion. There is NO way I could have been doing 116 in the 100 zone. Even an assertion of 110 kph by the policeman I would have questioned.

I just need to vent. Probably the one thing that gets up my goat the most are blatant miscarriages of justice. Agree what other posters are saying about 'levels' or quotas.

I for one am suspicious about the force over here anyway. While on a Contiki tour around Europe in the early 1990s, four Australian cops in our group forged a burglary to claim insurance and were more than happy to discuss their corrupt behaviour!

moneypenny20

Well that's obviously proof of a corrupt police force, all 50,000 (give or take) of them.

eddie007

????? four alledged officers from the early 90s does NOT a bent traffic cop make 20 years later!!!!

Anyone unaware of the state of certain police forces around that time hasnt seen one of the number of exposes in the media... AT THAT TIME...

Ok... You're venting..... But honestly?????

Pollyana

They don't generally allow that couple of kph "tolerance" that you get in the UK anyway. I've seen people on here talking of being done only 2 or 3 kph over the limit, so he probably would've had you anyway.

geordiebloke

Might be harsh, with you being just a few K's over the limit, but it's hardly "unjustifiable".....................like you said, you were over!

I'm not a big fan of people being fined for being a couple of K's over the limit, but what people need to remember is that it is a limit, not something we need to aim for.
If you're worried (and this is the old chestnut) that you may inadvertently stray over the limit and that "it's more dangerous to keep looking down at the speedo" then aim to drive at around 5 k's under the posted limit and this shouldn't be an issue.

pumpkin blossom

I have had a couple of sat navs (two different brands) which I have used in five different vehicles. Every single one has shown the car speedo as being under the speed limit according to the sat nav (by about 5-10kmph depending on speed). A few people have said that they set the speedos under here by law (seems silly to me). But anyway, could it be that your speedo is not working properly? Just seems totally at odds with all my experience that your car would show you as only 1km faster than the sat nav at that speed.

Would be worth looking into rather than risking more tickets.