We were in South Australia driving to Adelaide in a hire car. The speed limit is most of rural Australia is 110KPH and although it felt slow I'd been pretty good at sticking to the limit. Some of their roads are so dull you suddenly realise you are speeding. I was driving along about 50Km after a place called Salt Creek (gas station and two houses) and a police car coming the other way went past. It suddenly turned and came up behind with blue lights going, I thought they just wanted to pass but the female officer pulled me over. Apparently the speed limit had changed to 100KPH just after there (I didn't notice any signs). I got the whole treatment about the dangers of speeding, cost of the fine, penalty points and even possible confiscation of the hire car. I was a bit surprised as I was only doing 105 on her radar. She went back the car and started filling out a ticket came back and said she'd decided to issue me with a warning. The crazy thing was she was English girl from Bolton. We mentioned it at the B&B that night and the owners said that stretch of Road was notorious for it. When I got home I had a camera ticket from the same part of the road, further back, with a $180 fine for being 10km over the limit. I debatied ignoring it but found that if you were ever stopped in Australia in the future and it came up that they charge a huge interest rate on the fine, so I just paid it as it was about £100.
I was under the impression that speed cameras in Australia are privately operated, and the do things like hide them in wheelie bins at the side of the road ?
Was lucky enough to drive round NZ a few years back. Their speed cameras were really well hidden - lots in wheelie bins just over the crest of a hill or round a bend. Proper stealthy.....
Just for info - Gendarme actually means "armed people" Gents (people) d'arme (armed) - Gendarme. Touring I try and keep it under 160 km cruising speed ( and the occasional roll-on ! ) - so as not to get into too much bother. Just your basic ticket for doing under 160 km in a 130 km zone.
I don’t know where it was we just got the email from the hire company and there was a link to the photo but I didn’t see a van at the time
future DF introductions:- "Hi, i'm new here, would you like a picture of my bike by the bins?" Ducbird:- "no that's ok, we have them already"
The M50 toll company is very good at chasing down fines. I keep getting caught because I forget to add new car plates to my account, but they are really great to deal with if you ring them, always waive the fine once you pay the toll. I'm not sure whether speed camera fines would follow you back on an English reg, but I'd imagine they would as the nordies are mental drivers.
Last time I was pulled up for ‘speeding’ in Ireland the guards had set up a road block! I was driving from the west to Dublin port to catch a ferry and the Porsche I was driving at the time had caught the guards eye. Twice I was pulled first was the road block just outside Carrick and the by a patrol car further on. I explained I had plenty of time to get to my destination and besides the my wife is sat next to me! All became clear when I was in the queue at the port and I saw a silver 911 pull up behind a few cars down, the owners got out and as they walked by I stopped them and asked which direction they had traveled from. Turned out they had been on the same roads and had been exploring the cars performance somewhat! I laughed when I described the road block incident, they didn’t, they just turned up their collars on their rugby shirts and walked away! The tits.
I had a 911 for a bit. The hardest I ever accelerated it was pulling out of one of the toll booths on the Dublin Galway road. It's like an airport runway.
