Change of rules for speed camera prosecutions

[Ron Avery]

The French Government has just announced a change to the way speed camera tickets and fines will be issued.  From now on it will have to state the road, direction of travel and exact location of the offence. This decision follows a judgment in July by the Court of Appeal in Paris, which cancelled a conviction from a speed camera because of doubt as to the exact location and direction of the car filmed. The court decided that it was not possible to check if the infringement had indeed taken place. The lawyer who obtained this decision said that this decision could mean the cancellation of thousands of fines.  The French government denied that this "one-off" decision would set aside other cases and claimed that in most cases the location and direction of travel was clear

If you have ever been done in the UK by a mobile not fixed camera, and there are two speed limits on the road, you can contest the conviction on the same basis.  I got a blurry picture of the back of my car taken in "Ashford Road", which is over 5 miles long, the picture could have taken anywhere on that road, even the copper could not remember where he was when he " caught me " at 06-50 on a Sunday morning or more to the point which tree he was hiding behind, and as there were two speed  limits a 60 going into a 30, they could not show that I had gone as far as the 30 sign, which to this day I maintain and the case was thrown out.