Smile for the camera in VIC

Interesting point Wombat,
I can tell you that on a technocality, you could win such a case. But its a lot of fiddling around. First thing would be to prove the vehicle is fitted with illegal tints, Now i dont know too many tinting places that would dare measure the legallity of a cops car.
But its not impossible to prove. ALl you need is time and money

You would have to choose your words very well in a court room, You could say that you passed the car becasue the tints were so dark that you couldnt see infront of him, so you wanted to steer clear of the blind spot on a major hwy. Something like that would win you a case IF you could prove the tint factor.I love it when you talk DIRTY !

Pretty sure you'll find there are legal loopholes provided to exclude emergency vehicles from most of the requirements placed on other cars for this type of thing. For example an HF autotune on the bull bar will get you booked for obstructing vision but all the cop vehicles with them mount them there. Was a thread about that specific recently for those intersted.

Cheers.

I sped up to pass a vehicle quicker on a main road in WA around 30 years ago and it was an unmarked cops car!
"Why were you speeding?" the cop said.
"So that I could return to the left hand lane to get out of the way of the lunatic on the motorbike swerving in and out of the traffic" I replied.
"That lunatic was an unmarked police patrolman" he said "Checking vehicle registration stickers"
"You've got to be joking" I said " He's a menace on the roads"
"Am I laughing? Here's a ticket for speeding, we don't like people telling us how to do our job!"
So I don't reckon any of those arguements would win you a case against speeding. It's the only thing they're interested in in WA at least.

"I can tell you that on a technocality, you could win such a case"

I'll have my $500,000 on the cops winning..

Report rego# to mainroad dept and get them to check it out. They like pimps.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the camera operators a private contractor? If so then you may well have a case for illegal tint obscuring the view, or for that matter wreckless driving (parking in a position so as to obscure view), as they would definitely NOT be classified as an "Emergency Vehicle" under the present legislation. Could be an interesting test case.....

Gary... only in Vic... NSW ones are pigs.

They are contractors, and a few years ago they used to park on the causeway between Shepparton and Mooroopna, this is a 4 laned road, 2 lanes in each direction. Each 2 lanes is seperated from the other 2 lines by double lines.

In Victoria it is illegal to park alongside double lines (unless Police, ambo etc, but only for emergency etc.) So I mentioned this to the local Snr Sgt of Traffic, and guess what? I haven't seen the cars there for ages. They are contractors cars, and have no legal standing (at this stage) until they change the legislation, which I wouldn't put past the current Vict. Govmt. So they have no legal reason to be parking alongside double lines.

They are contractors, and a few years ago they used to park on the causeway between Shepparton and Mooroopna, this is a 4 laned road, 2 lanes in each direction. Each 2 lanes is seperated from the other 2 lines by double lines.

In Victoria it is illegal to park alongside double lines (unless Police, ambo etc, but only for emergency etc.) So I mentioned this to the local Snr Sgt of Traffic, and guess what? I haven't seen the cars there for ages. They are contractors cars, and have no legal standing (at this stage) until they change the legislation, which I wouldn't put past the current Vict. Govmt. So they have no legal reason to be parking alongside double lines.

on the tint, in Vic the windscreen may be tinted at the top edge , only in areas excluded by the sweep of the wipers, the front driver and pass windows may be tinted to 35% transmission, the rear windows to 20% transmission, and if a commercial vehicle, the rear window to 5% transmission, conversions to food vans etc are approved to block windows alltogether.

Not a chance in hell of beating a rap on any grounds..Moo... everyone knows what a Jackaroo looks like :-)

Gday nomad, yeah mate i drive at least 70k a year just for work and regularly go through 5 or 6 of those "advisement" checks on the freeways, and everyone of them reads different . ADR states 10% + - but private contractors who are paid performance bonuses for camera operation are allowed to ping at 1 or 2 k over. It is hard enough to get a look at the piccie let alone check the calibration compliance and set up of the camera in question.

Funny how if you put a trained and qualified law enforcement officer in a marked car on a stretch of road on a regular basis then everyone slows down whether they have to or not, and make a concious effort to monitor speed for some following time, but put a sly covert camera there and a speeding driver won't slow down for a month at least until the fine rocks up. one is very effective at lowering the average speed and hence road toll etc., the other is quite good at raising gov't revenue.

I have no sympathy for outright speed demons, but all the empathy for the average driver caught by this madness. Give me the bush anyday, and of course leave nothing but tracks.Moo... everyone knows what a Jackaroo looks like :-)

I agree Bradley, the average driver is probably travelling at the same speed as the normal traffic flow but because there's a camera get's a ticket. Bloody unfair and does nothing to catch the loonies on the road. Very few actual patrols on the roads in WA, they rely on these machines to do their policeing for them.
A copper in the UK recently said "My officers on the streets can pick up far more offences than these things" after they'd chucked out speed cameras as useless for everything except revenue raising.
They won't even use them in country WA as they say they're not "cost effective"!
If that's not admitting they've got to earn their keep by catching heaps of average motorists, I don't what is.
There was a scientist in WA about maybe 10 years ago who fought them and won, over a speeding ticket he got by being caught by the airwing who used to fly up and down the main country roads clocking peoples times between painted lines on the road, and using a stop watch to calculate their speed.
He took them to court and showed that the slightest mistake when pushing the button could mean a great deal of differenc to what the speed calculations were. He won easily and I don't know if they still try to get people that way or not these days.
I've no respect at all for the cops driving ability or the way they police the rules in WA at all.