Speed Checks on the Upper Thames

[apollo]

After reading the "expose" in the Daily Mail yesterday about how the radar guns used by the highways police can measure a Brick Wall travelling at 44 mph, I am just wondering how this impacts on the Environment Agency playing the same game?

On the road, you can demand to see the photos with the white lines, this could be a problem on the river - there arent any white lines!

Also on the river they are trying to detect someone breaking a 5mph speed limit, theres not a lot between 5mph at 6mph, surely the radar gunes need to be fairly accurate? If the highways police get it wrong, how can we be sure that the Environment Agency are playing fair?? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I am just interested to know how many of those supposed bookings as reported in the last Motor Boats Monthly actually make it to court and result in fines? /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Interesting times we live in.

 

[oldgit]

Re: Speed Checks.

In my long and very undistinquished career as a car aimer, seem to remember that during the 1970s a very similar straw being thrown for speeders of all stripes to cling to, especially those with fibre glass cars.It gave a glimmer of hope to a few at the time,but was soon sorted.

 

[byron]

<span style="color:blue"> The 4.84 knot speed limit (or whatever it is) is total nonsense and can contravene maritime law. The Master is required to navigate his vessel safely, this also means maintaining steerage.
i.e. try steering say a Broom 37 at less than 5 knots and you will not have full control. The same applies to all craft with small spade rudders.
I have been challenged at 6.5 knots, my answer was "you had best take me to Court to resolve this idiocy" Guess what! The didn't. The late Dr Mark Warner was also 'pulled' and gave a similar reply.
The only people taken to court have been Boy Racers up on the plane, they would have been done anyway.
The rule was obviously thought up by someone that doesn't know a boat from a bodywarmer. The mere fact they placed the speed limit in Kilometres P.H. is a clue to that.</span>

 

[SimonA]

I read on the Environment Agency website that the courts fined a boat owner £1000 plus costs for speeding on a river. The fine seems a little harsh compared to £65 for speeding on the roads.

How accurate is using GPS for measuring speed at 5 MPH? How are you supposed to stick to the speed limit if the river is flowing faster than the limit, engage reverse?

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

>>>
The mere fact they placed the speed limit in Kilometres P.H. is a clue to that
>>>
I regard that, coupled with the same agency posting the Medway speed limit as 5 knots, even on the bit just down from Leigh Barrage, as evidence that someone needs a refresher course in ar$e:elbow discrimination.

EA have "spoken" to me about speed in a small rib at Windsor, using a bit of squirt to avoid being run down by French Bros avoiding some little rowing boat that was fecking around in the bed up by the racecourse pontoon. They clearly wanted someone to nick, but a licenced tender with a lifejacketed crew, using a kill cord and taking urgent avoiding action would have made them look too foolish.

Possibly a management consultant said "wouldn't it be a good idea if..."

 

[Andrew38]

Can anyone tell me if the speed limit is taken as speed through the water or speed over the ground. How am I supposed to know my speed over the ground as there can be be up to a knot of current running for or against me? My speedometer just tells me water speed but if they're on a bridge, moored boat etc they're measuring something different to anything I can measure. Equally if the current is against me can I push on at 6 mph through the water but putting up much more wake?

 

[apollo]

Its over the ground, basically all Thames boaters need to go and spend upwards of £100 to get a GPS (hopefully one that can read on Kilometers per hour) so that they dont get nicked.

Your quite right, going downstream I would need to be in reverse to be legal. At a narrow place like just below Boulters, you would probably be able to do over 6knots upstream thru the water and still be legal.

So far all the photos I have seen of them pointing radar guns, were of boats going upstream.

My reason for raising this is if there are so many checks being made to ensure that the road equivalent tests are fair and legal (or not according to the Daily Mail), who is checking out these dudes?

The speeds are so slow, that they would have to have a very accurate Radar Gun to detect the difference between legal and speeding and I just dont believe they are that accurate.

KIM - Any chance of asking the Environment Agency to contribute to this thread???

 

[Major Catastrophe]

Simple answer is: If they intend using radar evidence in a court of law or as evidence for a fine, can you please see the calibration certificate and in particular, the date when the last check calibration was undertaken.

I'm not a lawyer, but it should make them think.

Incidentally, the Menai Straight has one short speed limit area of 5 knots because of a hazardous navigable bend. It is correct that this speed limit is in place and luckily the Caernarfon Trust warden who polices the speed limit is a man with a great deal of common sense. At times, the tide in the straight can run at 7 knots, so to go uptide at 5 knots over ground, you need to be powering and producing a bow wave equivelant to 12 knots!

Not only that, but mussel boats and other large ships use the straights and cannot maintain both 5 knots and steerage at the same time.

 

[Steve Clayton]

We came off the Thames in 2000 and made the break for the sea.

The Thames speed limit of 4 Knots was (is?) based upon boat wash eroding the river banks. In our experience some boats could far exceed this limit and create very little wash and others would cause you to "rock and roll" doing far less than 4 knots; but the EA had to have some sort of yardstick.

[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone tell me if the speed limit is taken as speed through the water or speed over the ground?

[/ QUOTE ]
It is speed over the ground. There are some measure posts where you can check what your speed is and adjust accordingly. In Dreadnought Reach (between Sonning and Caversham Locks) and just above Days lock you will see a pair of marker posts ; if it takes you less than 1 minute to travel from one post to the other then you are going too fast.

The only boats who are allowed to travel faster than this are the @rsehole rower support boats who seem to be a law unto themselves... but that's another story /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif