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Department for Transport (DfT) Handbook of Rules and Guidance for the National Safety Camera Programme for England and Wales
The DfT created a set of rules and guidelines
governing the operation of the national 'Cost Recovery' programme
and from time to time these are updated. We referred to these
rules as the DfT 'Handbook'.
The Handbook's contents were the guide for
how we should operate if we wanted the Government to pay for
cameras. In brief, this Handbook set out the criteria for new
camera sites - if there weren't sufficient deaths or serious
injuries then they won't pay for the camera. The DfT also wanted
the cameras to be yellow, have at least one road sign before
the camera and be clearly visible. If we did not comply with
these rules then the DfT would not pay for the cameras nor their
operation. Mobile camera vans had to be visible and be marked
as a camera enforcement vehicle.
NONE OF THESE RULES ARE LEGAL REQUIREMENTS.
For a camera to be legal it must be:
• Properly Type Approved by the Home Office
• Properly serviced and calibrated
• Operated in the correct manner by a suitably authorised user.
All of our cameras complied with these rules
and you can see our calibration certificates for every camera.
Therefore every offence that we detect is done so within the
legal necessities.
Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIPs) must,
in law, be issued within 14 days to the registered keeper of
the vehicle that was committing the offence , or last known
registered keeper within 14 days. Again we comply with this
and our system does not allow the first NIP to be sent out late.
These are the only legal requirements that we must follow in
order to process the offence . The DfT's rules, set out in their
Handbook, were in addition to these requirements and purely
dictated whether or not the DfT paid our costs.
If we wished, we could choose to operate
some cameras using public funds from local authorities and the
Police (ratepayers' money). Cameras could have been grey, hidden
and didn't need signs if we chose to pay for them locally. If
you feel that the camera signing was not adequate, or that a
tree was covering the camera then there is no defence in law,
the legal requirements will still be met.
All of our recent cameras, installed since
July 2002, have been tested against the criteria and agreed
with the DfT. Older sites did not have to undergo this test
but nevertheless the DfT needed to see that we had a robust
road safety reason for installing them in the first place. All
of our old sites were accepted by the DfT, but in some counties
they had to remove some old sites that did not have a proven
justification.
However, if a camera or its signs do not comply with the guidance then we will stop using it since we want you to know where the cameras are; we want you to see them and have time to react to them. We erect more signs than we need to and we also use the blue '30' sign before every fixed camera in a 30mph limit to remind you what the speed limit is, even though this sign is purely optional.
If this sign is missing, covered in trees or vandalised then we can still use the camera legally to detect offences . If any other camera signs are missing or covered, then you have no defence in court as the cameras can still be used without them.
The Partnership has been formed so that we
might use DfT funds to cover our costs and thereby release the
Police and councils from that burden.
I think I've been wrongly accused of speeding - should
I contest it in Court?
The offer from the Police of a 'Fixed Penalty' provides a simple means to discharge the liability for the offence by paying a fixed fine and receiving points on your licence (if you have a UK licence). However the owner or driver of the vehicle has the right to request a Court Hearing and should consider this option if they wish to dispute the offence and/or put forward mitigation.
However before going that far you can ask to see the photographic evidence that we have to check that it was your vehicle. The lines painted on the road at fixed sites are there as 'secondary check' marks used to check which vehicle was speeding and again you can check to see that we have correctly identified the relevant vehicle in any photograph. Some cameras take two photographs half a second apart. The lines allow us to measure the distance travelled in that half second to be sure that it matches what the camera says, see section on Cameras: How they work.
If you were being overtaken by another vehicle then we can check which vehicle(s) were speeding and which were not and so if you weren't speeding then you have nothing to worry about. The operators of our mobile cameras can also be sure to photograph the right vehicles and any photograph that isn't clear will not be used for prosecution.
You can also ask to check that our calibration certificates are in order.
If you feel that our signs or the visibility of the camera was not adequate then you can tell us and we will check the site, but this proves no fault of the device and this is not a defence in court. There is no legal requirement for a camera to be visible nor are there legal requirements for road signs.
If you were not the driver at the time then you must, by law, tell us who was driving, otherwise we may have to take you to court for failing to nominate the driver. If you had sold the vehicle before the offence then we can obviously write to the new owner but you must inform DVLA (otherwise we will have to continue to contact you in respect of the charge). Under Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 the 'keeper' of a vehicle can be required to provide the Police with information on who was driving it when an offence was committed. |
