Strange coincidence
As others have said Herron is a director of the company that makes this GPS device. If you look back a few years his co-director Dr Philip Tann was caught speeding and he too had his case withdrawn by the CPS. Strangely enough both got caught on the same road in Sunderland, how strange is that?
It seems, on the reporting, that the evidence from the device was not tested by the courts or submitted to an independent expert so it could be examined.
I can see a large problem with using such a device in making a proper challenge to a speeding offence. The laser gun will measure the speed of the car in a fraction of a second. The GPS machine will not or is not likely to sample at this high sample rate so comparison is largely futile. Drivers who have been speeding and subsequently see the speed gun and police brake so a slow sample rate GPS averaged sped will always be lower than the speed gun reading.
Another issue is one of time synchronisation. While the Herron/Tann GPS log is on GPS time how many police laser speed guns will be connected to a GPS time source? In the Herron case it is an LTI20.20 Ultralyte 1000 so this will have its time set, if it was, by the police officer's watch. As such the time Herron was caught is only an estimate, unless of course he has a source inside the police that is passing the time to him. Only joking there folks.
So this case has been dropped probably because of a prosecution service mistake not because of the telematics device; maybe Mr Herron can enlighten us all on that...or will it ruin his advertorial?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
