hand held laser guns

[944Turbo]

Some years ago when I still had time to make it to meetings I remember a fellow member mentioning something about hand held laser guns on national speed limit roads and how they should be tripod mounted. This may have changed since they now use pro-laser 3 and the innacurate LTI2020 has been binned.

Having recently met an officer at the roadside, I was surprised he freely admitted he was using his laser gun without a tripod over a dual carriageway. As there is a discrepancy between his speed reading and the speed I believe I was going at, this got me thinking. Sweep error is a reasonably well known problem with laser but not to him.

Thanks,
Tony

Not looking forward to his 'driving holiday' - holiday from driving as opposed to the more pleasant sort.

 

[Geoff_Fields]

BBC inside out programme found panning can cause dramatic errors in measured speed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southwest/series7/speed-cameras.shtml

 

[944Turbo]

Thanks Geoff I have seen that, this was more to do with wobble specifically from hand held guns - there was a case of a club members lawyer discovering that to minimise the effect of wobble the device used should be tripod mounted in national speed limit roads as wobbling from number plate to another part of the car at the wrong moment would increase the speed reading. The police were not and he escaped a ban - annoyingly the device that caught me was not only hand held but with no recording device unlike most these days.

The police man assured me it was approved by the home office and accurate - helps him sleep at night I suppose.

The police lady with him told me if I explain I need my car for work I will probably still be allowed to drive she says she is always stopping people with up to 16 points.

Its is slightly Ironic that they probably exceeded my speed to catch me up despite the fact I slowed once I spotted them - behind the bridge parapet off the bridge beyond the other carriageway - not dangerous for them to speed obviously.

Tony