One of the ways speed limits are enforced on UK roads is that police officers in certain areas will utilise a radar speed gun (also known as simply a ‘radar gun’).
If you’ve ever driven on a road and noticed a police car parked up near it, possibly by a junction or on the exit of a small side road, then there’s a chance that the police officers inside the car are utilising one of these radar guns to measure the speed of those that pass by.
So if you speed past a police officer using a radar gun, what can you expect to happen next? Will the police officer catch up to you in their car and pull you over, or will they store the information in order to get a fixed penalty notice sent to you at a later time? The answer is that either scenario could play out nowadays. It depends on the circumstances.
If the police officer with the radar gun deems it safe enough to catch up to you and pull you over, then they will probably take this action and then issue a fixed penalty notice on the spot.
But if the officer thinks they may endanger other motorists or the weather is unfavourable, then they’ll probably stay put. However, they will have logged the licence plate of the car they’ve caught speeding with the radar gun. They’ll use this information to issue a summons to the address of the car’s registered keeper.
How reliable are radar guns?
In the past there has been debate in the press and online about the accuracy of radar speed guns and whether they are truly reliable, but they remain popular among police forces across the country.
It’s believed that the radar speed guns used by police officers have a range of 600 metres, but the optimum distance for getting a reading is when a car is about 300 metres away.
That’s why police officers will tend to stand or park their car as close to the road as they can, it gives them the best chance of getting an accurate reading and it’s more likely that elements which can potentially interfere with the reading, like wind speeds, will be negated.
Can I ask to see a radar gun that says I was speeding?
If a motorist gets pulled over by a police for speeding based on a radar gun reading, then the officer may show the radar gun’s readout, even if they’re not asked too. However, while there’s no harm in asking, police officers are not obliged to show motorists what their radar gun says.
If you’re pulled over by a police officer who used a radar gun, they may explain how they measured your speed. You could try asking questions about how they used the device and when it was last calibrated.
The chances are though that the police officer who recorded you speeding with the radar gun has plenty of experience using the device. If they’ve gone to the trouble of pulling you over, it’s very unlikely they’ve made a mistake.