Stopped For Speeding and Broken L Plate

[bobybobybob]

My brother was stopped on his Aprilia the other day by the police.

He's good at riding, never dangerous and I've gone out with him a lot on my bike too.

Okay, he's just come back form a ban for speeding, but he really isn't stupid enough to get banned again...or so he says!

If any of you know Southampton, you will know A334, and that just after Northam Bridge, it's a 30mph speed limit (due to houses).
There are two cameras going up the hill, so if he was speeding, technically he would have been caught by them?

The police put their lights on just before the second camera, going up the hill. At this point, it's too late to switch lanes and go off the dual carriage way, so he carries on. As you can appreciate, there is nowhere safe to pull over and common sense tells anyone to carry on and find somewhere safe, but the police just forced him to stop, on the dual carriage way. I wasn't there, but I can imagine them saying he should have stopped straight away, but just because there is a police car with flashing lights doesn't make it any safer on a road like that, considering it's right after a bend, and just before a bus stop. (It's an extremely busy road, and just round the corner was a better stopping place/side roads/shops that they could have pulled into.

The bike had L plates on, so they should know from common knowledge, that he isn't going to go much faster than a police car being a 125.

When stopped, he was told he was speeding. Strange, he passed two camera's and no flash on either...
They then went on to say the Lplate was illegal, which is probably true... I've attached the images of it now (the replacement, but similar condition). Every L plate he attaches, get mashed up in minutes of riding. Any advice for this? He doesn't want to use plastic ones, as flying plastic shrapnel could be dangerous.
--- The day he was stopped, the plate was newly put on that day ---
The police said they will be taking him to court about this, not sure if they were bluffing or not. As far as I know, both offences would only result in points? and possibly a fine?

Are they being a bit power hungry about this?



As I said, if you've ever been down there, you will know how unsafe it is to stop.


This is more a post for advice about how to get a L plate that wont shred instantly, I just included a rant because I'm cool like that.

First post btw.

I have a Pulse Adrenaline. Slate me you slags!!! I love it! haha.

-Leon

[shereen]

Not sure about the L plate but just because there was a camera doesn't mean he wasnt speeding. The camera might have been a dummy one.

If he agreed with them that he was speeding then he is fucked when it goes to court.

And if he has just got off a ban for speeding and he was indeed speeding again, then IMO he deserves to be shafted up his A hole
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[WannaBeDude]

I use a platic rear L, been on a year, never crossed my mind about the ' flying shards of death plastic ? Other ' hazard's' took priority there.
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[shereen]

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[bobybobybob]

[Frost]

If he's just come back from a ban then he will have had enough points to warrant it. They stay on our licence for a while and getting any more is another ban (probably).
The police tend to hassle bikers a fair bit, Learners even more so. I made my own plastic rear L plate by sticking a normal one to a good peice of plastic and bolting it on. Lasted 18 months and looked good as new,

[bobybobybob]

[shereen]

[95Theses]

If he didn't see them coming he's nowhere near as good a rider as you think he is.

They didn't magic themselves into existence, he missed them and they caught him.

He's going to either get banned or killed, hopefully banned.

[Teflon-Mike]

The L-Plate, if that is the state it was in is a definite collar,. if they want to persue it. displaying an L-Plate conforming to standards is a requirement of licence restrictions.... it's there, but it is damaged.... mo modification to it, just severe wear & tear..... so greay area; if its not fit for purpose then shouldn't be riding.....

but, look at the state of the L-Plates on most school bikes, I've seen school bikes given to test candidates not MUCH better.... some schools working on the principle as long as the L is still whole, it's 'OK'..... and not had examiners refuse test for it...... SO?!

If they are the fibre board L-plates explains a lot, they are crap.

What's needed is something slightly 'tougher'... Snowies L is the plastic veriety and mounted on a piece of stainless steel sheet.

Rubber mud-flaps are good as backing too.

Something of that order; flexible but not rigid; a walk round a pound or cheap shop often turns things up; silicon baking trays for a quid, or something of that order....

But keeping the front wheel on the deck will probably also help.......
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[bobybobybob]

[thomp1983]

two officers both agreeing he was breaking the limit is enough to convict, if they were traffic officers then he will get points for it if just regular plod then with a bit of arguing he may get off. that l plates illegal he needs to get a solid plastic or metal board to mount it to, i cut the bottom out of a cheap wilko's baking tray and used that to attach my l plate too he's probably looking at 6 points and a fine

[bobybobybob]

[shereen]

[Nope.]

[bobybobybob]

[Nick 50]

I think it all depends on what your brother said and how he said it.

By law the only questions you need to answer is giving details of who you are to confirm your identity. Everything else they ask is to bait out something they want to hear i.e admissions of guilt.
So somewhere in the conversation they police would of quizzed him about the L-Plates, how he answered will determine where it goes.

As for going to court, it depends on what evidence they have of his speeding.

I guess he'll just have to play the waiting game.

[bobybobybob]

[Nick 50]

[stinkwheel]

They are unlikely to have pulled him for speeding unless he actually was and they have some evidence. The L-plate is straight illegal.

So. He's going to get a £120 fine and six points. Minimum.

He's already been banned once which suggests he tottied up 12 points previously?

All adds up to me to him being something of a slow learner. Certainly a poor observer to get pulled by a police car in a 30 limit and not have seen it.

In answer to your question. A sticky L-plate stuck to a bit of estate agents for-sale sign will do the trick. For-sale signs are indestrucatable. When I was learning, I cut a bit of said sign out and stuck red insulating tape on it to the requisite "L" size then attached it with a bit of aluminium carpet beading across the top.

Thermoplastic margarine tub lids (like on the big, 2l tubs of stork) also do a similar job.

EDIT: The thing that'll really grip his shitter is that if they told him that they are taking him to court for speeding and the L-plate, they have another six months to actually do-so. Hope he wasn't planning on doing his test any time soon.
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[Teflon-Mike]

I think that the GATS camera can take more than 30 pictures!

There were a spate of them being nicked when first introduced (Early 90's) because they contained a Pro Pentax SLR camera with very fast lense and a 'bulk film' back.

Basically instead of the conventional 35mm photographic film cassette that holds a nominal 36 exposures; takes the full commercial sized reels used on movie cameras, something like 30m of film at a time...

Not sure if it was exposed 'half frame' as in a movie camera; exposable width of film on 36mm strip is 24mm, so you get either 36x24 if you expose with the reel feeding right to left, or 24 x 16 if you feed as a movie camera top to bottom.

But, presume 24x36, and 2mm frame spacing, you get 38mm per shot, or 26 frames per meter (standard 24 exposure film length) A 30m bulk length would then give just over 750 frames or enough pictures to nobble 380 speeding motorists!

Movie cameras; shooting frames 24x16 take twice as many pics per meter of film, but exposes at a rate of 460mm/sec.. that's about twenty five frames a second, or over 1500 frames a minute; actually takes photo's faster than a machine gun fires bullets! a 30m bulk-length is roughly a minute's filming, in a professional movie camera; the big set cameras take half or one Km reels! (half hour or hour)

When introduced though, the technological breakthrough in GATS was in the flash gun; to ensure a sharp image, the camera had to have a fairly small appature, to provide a good depth of focus, but also a high shutter speed; more than 1/125 of a second, 1/500th preffered. Small apature and fast shutter need a lot of light to make an exposure, demanding fast film, but that makes picture grainy; so to get a decent exposure a high speed flash was needed; BUT, while the flash isn't a problem, the short half second recycle time is.

I don't know what source your info is from Computid; but there has been a lot of bolox spouted about whats inside a GATSO over the years. Talk of IR Film being one of them.

I do know that the high end bulk-back pentax to be true, though.

Taking two pics; one B&W one on IR, would require two cameras loaded with seperate film stocks. You do not get film with different emulsions on the same strip. Most IR sensitive film though is monochrome & makes B&W print, and there is 'extended IR sensitivity' monochome stock, that can produce an image with IR high-Lights, that can be filtered to shift the contrast balance between visible & IR light..... but that would require some nifty filter swapping in the half seconds between frames.... or a prismatic lense producing double images with separate filters.

I believe that they do use extended sensitivity IR film, but for all pics, and it produces B&W prints; and possible where they are required to make prints for evidence, they dial out contrast to filter out the IR highlights, or dial it in to reveal them, but that will be in the processing, not on the negative.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[Imonster]

What your brother needs is one of these; they're made out of a hard rubber and just won't die

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Motorcycle-Mudflap-L-Plate-275-x-220mm-/140604664689?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item20bcb0eb71#ht_2011wt_906
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