Quote:
Originally posted by HP Dude
Wait for AP or EA S to log on. They're the blokes in the know!
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Very kind of you to say so, but you're at least half wrong as I know nothing about SA situation.
Here's the universal reality: the law is set up by parliaments to try to ensure that there aren't opportunities to challenge things like speed cameras, laser guns, and breathalyzers. Doesn't mean it can't be done and some jurisdictions will have opportunities that don't exist in others because of differences in legislation, but the ground has generally been thoroughly picked over by experts for years and it's pretty hard to find gold. Sometimes an amateur will beat the pros, but it's rare. The most likely time for a win by anyone is in the early phases of a new law when deficiencies can be exploited, but they are invariably fixed as they appear so that the opportunities to beat it diminish over time.
In my own recent case with the 63 in a 50 zone, I'll probably end up paying the fine because I can't find anything with a reasonable chance of success. In any case my real complaint is about the way the 50k system has been implemented and whether it is worthwhile, and I can't challenge that successfully in a court action which is concerned only with whether or not I exceeded 50k, which I'm prepared to accept I did.
The interstate aspect of this might afford an opportunity to ignore the fine as there can be obstacles to interstate enforcement if ED Manual lives in Vic and isn't likely to spend much time in SA. But this might be unwise as for all I know ED Manual might be at risk of arrest and detention if he's picked up in SA in future. Only way to get reliable advice is from an SA lawyer - try their state legal aid body, which should be under lawyers, legal practitioners, or solicitors on the net Yellow Pages or try SA Council of Community Legal Services 08 8582 2255 for its number or other legal service for telephone advice.
As pointed out by others, the simplest and cheapest solution is to write to whoever administers the traffic ticket system (should be on the ticket as the place to send payments) and explain you're from Vic and not familiar with SA system and could they please extend a bit of leniency?
As for the driveways defining the speed zone, every farm in the country has one and they're almost all on 100k roads.
Presumably the cop was referring to national Road Rule 25 (2) which says that the default speed limit applying to a driver for a length of road in a built up area is 60k (unless a different default speed is set by local state laws). The Road Rules are not the most precise law in existence and there will be some successful challenges to various parts of them, as illustrated by problems in the definition of built up area related to speed.
The definition of "built up area" in the national Road Rules is defined as an area in which there are buildings on land next to the road (or where there is street lighting meeting certain conditions, which in practice will get around the problem in most cases as there will usually be street lighting as well). The definition of "built up area", "next" and "buildings" are not defined, so on one interpretation every farm on the country with a building of any type on it (including a chook shed) is in a built up area as it has a building on land which land is "next" to the road, even if the building is miles from the road. Or is it meant to mean that the buildings are next to the road, in which case does "next" mean immediately adjacent in the sense that the building or the land is right next to the road with nothing in between, which is the case with most shops but rarely with houses? The next problem with this brilliant set of laws is that it will usually be impossible for the road-based definition of built up area to be satisfied as the Road Rules make a distinction between "road", which is what the vehicles drive along, and "road related area" which is the adjacent bits like footpaths and nature strips (but not shoulders which are separately defined to be part of the road). As there will usually be a road related area between a road and any land on which there are buildings, then it won't be a built up area if one takes a strict intepretation as the land and buildings can't be next to the road but only to the road related area, which isn't included in the built up area definition.
So, if you're pinged in a built up area with no street lights, you have a decent case to argue. Whether it will be accepted by a court is a different matter, as the courts, in Victoria anyway, appear to take the view that they are not there to let purely technical defences on fairly minor points upset road safety measures.
BSR DJ 
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