Hi Everyone
i try to make sure i am driving at the correct speed limit, driving for an agency i can be in different vehicles.
Is the correct speed for a Merc Sprinter on a single carriageway 50mph?
cheers
Flipside
Correct 
good job i slowed down just in case for the cameras on the A9 
cheers
Flipside
Yes, there’s been quite a few cases of people recently caught out by this 
In truth i thought was 60mph, glad i checked, i have no desire to see points on my licence
Flipside, the table you want is above Rule 124
Or if you want 20 pages of the stuff 
as a PDF then look HERE
When I started driving vans it was about 6months before I realised they had lower speed limits than cars on single and dual carriageways. To be honest though, fixed cameras won’t be able to sense a 3.5ton van so it’d take a clued up camera van or bobby with a speed gun. It’s even more frustrating driving a van at below the posted speed limit because 99.9% of car drivers have no idea vans are limited aswell as HGVs so you’re subject to barrages of abuse.
It’s a shame really, coz an unladen sprinter or VW LT35 handles really well, used to love my country drives in them, the A5 all the way up to Anglesey was a favourite, certainly wasn’t holding any cars up…or bikes 
Gotta be careful on the up and down rollercoaster roads though, go along them at the right speed and the dips and bumps get in time with the rebound from the leaf springs and it get’s worse and worse until you’re jumping a foot of your seat and start feeling a bit sick.
Surprisingly fixed cameras can differentiate between over 20 different types of vehicle, by using the the inductive loops situated just before the camera. So don’t be so sure that they can’t tell if you are in a van or not.
Smart Mart:
inductive loops situated just before the camera.
And what on earth are they? lol
jas07:
Smart Mart:
inductive loops situated just before the camera.And what on earth are they? lol
Detectors just under the tarmac - don’t know much about how they work though
Inductive loops.
As you travel along the roads you may have noticed rectangular cuts in the road surface (actually in pairs) and always just before a speed camera, also on approach to traffic lights there are often similar cuts usually angled. These have a wire loop with an electric current running through it. As a vehicle passes over them, the metal in the vehicle alters the inductance of the circuit, by an amount corresponding to the size of the vehicle, thus identifying that vehicle. As there are two loops close together, it is possible to calculate the speed of the vehicle as well.
Is that explanation ok?!
Is that explanation ok?!
I am impressed Martin. What a clever man you are.
I have no idea what you are talking about but I am impressed anyway
To be fair, truvelos which use the induction loops aren’t that common, it’s mainly gatsos, which cannot differentiate between a van and a car. The few truvelos that I did pass, A14 ones for example, I always made sure my speed was nice and legal* just incase they could sense the difference (*as it was for the whole journey… 
).
Kiowan wrote:-
To be fair, truvelos which use the induction loops aren’t that common, it’s mainly gatsos, which cannot differentiate between a van and a car.
I’m afraid you are wrong there. Gatsos have the induction loops as well - have you not noticed them?
Gatso speed cameras can also identify between cars/vans and HGVs separately. For example, if the speed limit was 60mph for cars/vans and 40mph for HGVs the camera will enforce the two separate limits.
speedcamerasuk.com is a good site with lots of info on cameras.
Induction loops are basically big metal detectors. They’re a big loop of wire in the road which creates a magnetic field, and as something big and metal passes over them, it affects the magnetic field, which can be detected by the detector.
They’re also used for some traffic lights - so that the lights only change when there’s actually traffic there.
They don’t need to be particularly accurate, as the camera can just take the photo, and then a computer will use the DVLA database to work out what the actual MAM of the vehicle is, based on the registration number - for example, if it takes a photo of a van doing 60 mph on a single carriageway, the computer should send the NIP if it’s over 2 tonnes MAM, but not if it’s under.
MrFlibble:
- for example, if it takes a photo of a van doing 60 mph on a single carriageway, the computer should send the NIP if it’s over 2 tonnes MAM, but not if it’s under.
It could also be a camper van which are not subject to the lower limits applied to 3.5t goods vehicles and minibuses.
mrpj:
MrFlibble:
- for example, if it takes a photo of a van doing 60 mph on a single carriageway, the computer should send the NIP if it’s over 2 tonnes MAM, but not if it’s under.
It could also be a camper van which are not subject to the lower limits applied to 3.5t goods vehicles and minibuses.
True, so the computer should realise and not send out a NIP.
It would have to do the same to distinguish between, for example, a 18-tonner (limit 40mph on a single carriageway) and a bus (limit 50 mph on a single carriageway), as it’s unlikely that the induction loop would be able to tell the difference.
I think a natural progression of fixed cameras will be the introduction of an integrated ANPR into the system - that way it will know exactly what type of vehicle it is as well as taking pics of those vehicles without tax, MOT, insurance etc…
sorry smart mart but i used to install the loops and they aint that clever believe me its called a loop detector and all it does is senses somthing has passed it and that switches the camera on a sequence so if you pass that very last white line quicker than u are suppose to thats when you are snapped
jokey g wrote:-
sorry smart mart but i used to install the loops and they aint that clever believe me its called a loop detector and all it does is senses somthing has passed it and that switches the camera on a sequence so if you pass that very last white line quicker than u are suppose to thats when you are snapped
Well, the information I passed on was from government sources that I read up on when I had been flashed in a truck on th A17.
I spent a lot of time researching speed cameras and how they detect the size of vehicle, so I know that my information is correct - its not just guess work on my part!