A driver won an appeal against a conviction for speeding six times on the same road in just 11 days – because bushes obscured the 50mph signs.
School milk delivery driver Keith Peace’s appeal was uncontested after he produced pictures showing plants in the way of the signs on Sealand Road as it leaves Chester.
Mr Peace told a Mold Crown Court judge on Friday he knew the road was covered by average speed cameras but believed it was a 60mph zone.
And he would have stuck to 50mph had he been able to see the signs last May.
Having viewed photographs he produced, the prosecution did not oppose his appeal and it was allowed.
Ryan Rothwell, prosecuting, said he had no other evidence to produce and was taking a pragmatic approach.
If the case was adjourned it was unlikely the prosecution could produce any further evidence of the state of the hedges last May, he said.
He had seen photographs produced by Peace and it seemed possible there was some obstruction.
The prosecution would need to produce some evidence that the regulations were complied with to oppose the appeal, which was evidence he did not have.
Following a retirement the judge, Mr Recorder Simon Mills, sitting with two magistrates, said one of the speeding cases had been dropped by the prosecution at the magistrates’ court but he had been convicted of five charges and disqualified under the totting up procedure.
They were all on the same road with the same camera.
The court decided not to interfere with the prosecution’s decision not to oppose the appeal.
It had taken a “robust and sensible view” in the circumstances, the judge said.
But he wanted to make it absolutely clear to other motorists using the road it was a 50 mph limit covered by average speed cameras.
He said there was signage along the road and it was important the authorities made sure they were monitored and they complied with the law.
The judge said the decision in the appeal was based on particular and unusual circumstances and did not affect anyone else who had been convicted of speeding on Sealand Road.
Peace, 49, of Church Street, Royston, Barnsley, said he was a courier driver but then got a job delivering milk to North Wales schools.
He had to set off in the early hours and that was how he came to be travelling regularly along Sealand Road.
All he saw were the average speed signs.
There were no dwellings, no lighting and he thought it was a 60 mph area.
“If I had seen 50 mph signs then I would not have driven at 60 mph,” he said.
He had since left the job and was working in a warehouse.
“I am no longer using that road,” he said.
The judge told him the disqualification would be removed and his fines would not have to be paid.
But the crown court had no power to remove costs imposed by magistrates.
He told Peace that his cases had been listed before the magistrates’ court on a number of times.
“It might have been helpful if you had turned up for one of them and put your case forward. It need not have got to this point,” he said.
