Ludwig & o sung wu,
What would you say to my argument that the Police Officers would have behaved more responsible if they'd have had the benefit of a Nationa Service.

<< A photo of your speedo merely proves that the needle on the instrument was indicating a certain speed, it does not prove that your car or the car in front is in motion and certainly not the speed of the other car. >>

Is Mise, it does indicate, in conjunction with imagery from the other cameras, that you were in motion, and failing some rather serious tampering with your speedo, or your car being fitted with seriously different tyres or wheels to what the speedo is made to work off, your speedo could reasonably be assumed to be reasonably accurate.

You could also have this particular camera in your vehicle trained on your GPS with it being set to show the speed of your car. This is actually more accurate than most speedos when your car is moving along smoothly.

<< …one would need to have a good private income to keep attending court as a witness… >>

I can’t imagine that you would need to go to court very often.

The point is that there are many ratbag drivers out there who flagrantly flout the law and abuse drivers who stick to the rules by way of tailgating and various other risky and offensive antics. The use of in-private-car cameras to record wanky driving behaviour would I think be pretty condemning most of the time.

If this was promoted with a concerted effort, it would presumably initially result in a large number of reports to the police, with perhaps a few getting a bit complicated and going to court but the vast majority resulting directly in charges being laid against the perpetrators and the perpetrators paying up because they know they’ve been sprung and won’t stand much chance of getting out of it if they take it court.

Then once the d!ckhead element gets the message that this is going on, they’ll pull their silly looking woolly heads in and there will be very few complaints made to the police.... and the average standard of driving will have improved quite significantly.

Hi there Individual...

Gee that's a question from way out of left field ? National Service ? I guess many young men of eligible age would've received some benefit having done their National Service ?

Most certainly, military service does teach some of the very basic things necessary in life. Though I've known blokes who've never worn an army uniform in their lives, do very well in structured organisations ? A lot depends on upbringing I believe.

So provided a young fellow gets some good basic instruction at home, from good parenting, and responsible education, in matters of personal discipline, standards of behaviour, ethics, etc., I suppose military service might prove somewhat redundant in such cases ?

Though, where there's a general absence of any parental and educational discipline, well I guess placing the young person into something like a National Service Corps, would conveniently come in next I figure ?

Please remember INDIVIDUAL, with some people, nothing will ever help them, nothing at all. Further, todays Army, Navy and Air Force, are far more technical, and weapon systems more complex, then they were forty odd years ago now ? So in some cases the Military may not want them ? Still INDIVIDUAL, as an all round disciplinary concept, the National Service approach is a very good idea indeed.

Good thinking, though ! Nevertheless, I'll bet 'London to a brick' National Service will never be re-introduced, unless we're plunged into another cataclysmic World War, of huge proportions ! I might also add, neither will the death penalty be re-introduced either !

<< …unless the traffic offence is very serious, and as such, falls within the Crimes Act, more than likely no action will take place… >>

Yes o sung wu, but if that is the case the public needs to know about it. This is certainly not the message I have received from the police. I’ve received totally conflicting messages ranging from enthusiastic and highly supportive to the absolute opposite, with the latter well and truly prevailing. I keep hearing people say that if the police receive a complaint, they are beholden to act on it. It seems that most people believe this to be the case. So if it isn’t, we need to be told !! !!

I was told quite recently by a police officer that they do follow up on all complaints….. So what they say and what they do are at stark odds!!

Unfortunately I’ve got to say that in my experience the police are just all over the place, are totally unreliable in the way they respond, and indeed are capable of responding to you in ways that you could never imagine!!

continued

<< The main problem is, you claim someone tail-gated you ? The other driver repudiates it… >>

Firstly, this should not be used and an excuse for the police to discourage people from making complaints or for them to not follow up on complaints. Crikey, we the ordinary citizens of this nation should be encouraged to do our bit, whether or not we have hard evidence to back up our claims. Consider the Neighbourhood-Watch, dob-in-a-dumper and report-a-smoky-vehicle programs. All of these sorts of campaigns encourage the community to report things regardless of whether they can prove or corroborate their claims.

With Neighbourhood Watch, we are encouraged to report suspicious activity, or even people that are a bit unusual. They don’t need to have done anything wrong for someone to notify the police!! And you can bet the police jump right to it with all complaints/reports of that nature!

Secondly, it would be great if we were encouraged by the police to purchase an in-car camera system so that hard evidence could be recorded.

<< All these offences must be proved >>

No I don’t believe this is the case. In the absence of proof, the police can still talk to the alleged offender and suss them right out. That would go a long way towards making them improve their driving. And if similar independent complaints are made against the same person, then the police could lay charges and a magistrate could convict the offender. Guilt would be indicated beyond a reasonable doubt, without the need for proof.

Ludwig.

The courts would soon be cluttered with appeals and you would find yourself having to defend the accuracy of your speedo on every occasion that it was used as evidence and having any measuring device calibrated for accuracy to the Courts satisfaction is very expensive indeed.

As a Metrologist I tested instruments for accuracy and the accountants often couldn't understand why their firm had to pay more for a Certificate of Accuracy than it had cost them for the instrument.

99.999 percent of the time the instrument would be within the tolerance required but, at the time, any firm seeking Government contracts had to have their measuring instruments certified.

There was no good reason for doing so.