Andy Cunningham

“Scamerati” is a word that may be new to many here – a contraction of “speed” and “camera” into “scamera” (or was that “scam and “camera”), which in turn leads naturally referring to the shady organisations who run them as the Scamerati.

It turns out that Neil Kinnock has lost his licence for exceeding an arbitrary limit – in his words, “Both times the condition was a clear stretch of road with no one else in the camera frame and no imminent danger to anyone else.”

The good news is that the European Court on Human Rights has agreed to hear O’Halloran v. The United Kingdom. This is an important case, which is arguing that the current process for turning photographs into speeding convictions is an abuse of Human Rights. If you get flashed by a camera, you have to sign a “Notice of Intended Prosecution” to say that you were the driver at the time (or if not, who was), and that there are penalties for refusing to do so.

This is a pretty clear abuse of the principle that you cannot be forced to provide evidence to incriminate yourself.

Then again, the current government seems to be intent of removing all of our rights, between speed cameras, ID cards, and the proposals to no longer require parliamentary involvement in making new laws.