I was almost caught by a static camera on my way into Liverpool on Sunday; I'd been travelling down the East Lancs road at 40 (the limit), and always forget that it changes to 30 on a ridiculous junction where it's really far more prudent to be looking at the five con/di-verging pieces of road (and persons alongside/between them) than at the signage and the speedometer. It remains a 30 zone, with no real need to be so. I only thought to ask my girlfriend on imminent approach to the camera what the limit was at that point, and I think I managed to take 10mph off before it could see my plate (there were no flashes that I could discern). Thankfully there was no-one close behind. The camera is placed on a flyover between the run-offs to and from one of the tunnels, so again my concentration really would be more use on other aspects of my driving than the speedometer and signage.
I was also pulled over for the first time on the M62 on Friday for (in my eyes, obviously) mostly unjustified reasons, at least partially caused by the officer doing the pulling. Thankfully he was only in the mood to administer a lecture, and then had to extricate me from the far more dangerous situation he'd left me in - he'd pulled me over behind a broken down van in the hard shoulder on a exit filter lane to Warrington. This involved both of us reversing down the hard shoulder(!), then him madly waving people out of the filter lane before pulling out into it at 3mph(!) so that I could get out and 'safely' build speed and pull back out of the filter-off lane. Which I'm fairly sure is an offense, due to the markings on the road, but that was what he'd told me to do(!).
I wrote an overly long-winded explanation. Click here to see it.My girlfriend was the one to suggest that he'd actually engineered the second point he laboured over - both vehicles joined the M62 from the M6, he got into the middle lane, I was stuck behind a lorry doing 60 (remember, in a lane that almost immediately filters off the motorway to Warrington, so it's necessary to get out of it quickly). In effect, he was blocking me moving out, so I indicated. He slowed down, and when I was sure he was letting me out and it was as safe as it would get I moved out smoothly (who does anything unnecessarily boistrous in the presence of a traffic car?). I turned off the indicator, raised a hand in thanks and started accelerating only to get the pretty flashy lights. Apparently I was 'nipping in and out' of traffic (yes, by changing lane once, legally, at 60, and in front of a traffic officer who'd just moved back to give me space). From his vantage point of somewhere else entirely he could tell that I couldn't see what was going on next to the lorry; apparently there could've been a crash happening or anything. Except, of course, *that he had gently slowed on the engine in response to my indication*. According to him, I was taking undue risks. If you don't want risk, don't go anywhere near a car! I pretty much know what's going on around me, even when I haven't been able to see into a spot for a second or two. It's called induction and extrapolation. Well, I think it is, and on that point I think I'm in pretty much the ideal place for correction. Sorry, I needed to vent. My girlfriend got sick of it after about half an hour.