Speed Penalties to Rise -Deaths Down

[hawk20]

Until 1904 the offence of 'speeding' comprised travelling faster than four miles per hour.

There is no honest impartial science behind any given speed limit and there never was; only custom & practice.

And politics. And money raising.

Making laws is always about making judgements. There are few absolutes. We elect lawmakers to take these difficult decisions for us. The important thing is to accept the laws in a democracy and try to abide by them. Otherwise:chaos.

 

[scumbag]

Making laws is always about making judgements. There are few absolutes. We elect lawmakers to take these difficult decisions for us. The important thing is to accept the laws in a democracy and try to abide by them. Otherwise:chaos.

makes you wonder why people get so uppity about the rules on this forum really.

 

[Birdman]

Making laws is always about making judgements. There are few absolutes. We elect lawmakers to take these difficult decisions for us. The important thing is to accept the laws in a democracy and try to abide by them. Otherwise:chaos.

Granted, they have a judgement call. And as a citizen of this country I'm exercising my right to call their judgement as poor, misguided and counter productive. On this subject at least.

What gets me, as one who has a background in science, is that in this area above all, where getting it right saves lives and getting it wrong costs lives, our law makers suppress the inconvenient truths that science research offers, and instead they fall back on their right as government to be both wrong and unaccountable. We are talking here about suppression of key data.

Our speed-obssessed political class is more interested in punishing drivers who go a few mph over an often arbitrary limit than in saving lives.

And I don't buy the 'Chaos' argument. 99% of the population are reasonable citizens and respond to informed debate. You don't scourge them in order to try to reach the other 1% who are criminals that will not respect the law, ever. However hard they the government kick us, the reasonable citizen drivers, it does not touch the bad guys.

Like with the money laundering legislation that has caused banks to treat every customer as a potential terrorist and - guess what - it doesn't work either! And as for the hunting with dogs legislation! But that's another story...

 

[raymont]

You can tailgate, drive aggressively,drive dangerously, undertake, fail to signal, drive uninsured, drive without a licence, drive drunk, drive using drugs, hog the middle lane, not turn your light on at dusk, use rear foglights inappropriately, have no MOT etc. and your chances of being caught are slim.

However, dare to drive at 90mph speed on a quiet, bright sunny Sunday afternoon, in the dry in a perfectly maintained car on a deserted motorway and lots of expensive technology will be deployed to try to ensure you get six points.


Perfectly reasonable.

 

[Donza]

You can tailgate, drive aggressively,drive dangerously, undertake, fail to signal, drive uninsured, drive without a licence, drive drunk, drive using drugs, hog the middle lane, not turn your light on at dusk, use rear foglights inappropriately, have no MOT etc. and your chances of being caught are slim.

However, dare to drive at 90mph speed on a quiet, bright sunny Sunday afternoon, in the dry in a perfectly maintained car on a deserted motorway and lots of expensive technology will be deployed to try to ensure you get six points.


Perfectly reasonable.

Wow never thought of it like that..

How very true.

 

[andy_k]

yet if you drive on those same stretches of motorway the ANPR cameras will monitor the traffic and flag up ininsured/untaxed/unlicensed drivers. It will spot stolen cars, it will pick up cars used by known criminals and notify the motorway police who can then stop the cars.

I think the problem with cameras is we only see them as money generators rather than serving a purpose.

I don't like cameras but if they catch people breaking the law there must be a need for them - they don't target the "innocent motorist"

To use the old "Daily Mail Reader" line "If you are doing nothing wrong then you have nothing to be afraid of"

 

[Birdman]

Nonsense. You can clone a number plate and immeditely steal the driving identity of an honest owner. Talk about Havoc! Not only does the criminal get away with it, like totally, but the honest owner, and the police, and the courts, are tied up for months afterwards trying to unscramble the consequences. At enormous cost to us - the ordinary citizen.

The moral is, if anyone should want to creat chaos in this country: clone a registration plate. Have a real blast. Tie up our police and courts. Damage the reputation of the lawful citizen but this cannot be right. So why does it happen?

Because the anti-speeding technologists and their lazily unthinking supporters have removed the traffic police from our roads and replaced them with cameras. All kinds of cameras - all of them numberplate cameras.

Foolish really. Like expecting everyone to write honest cheques, or thinking all banks are working for their customers.

This government has put the ordinary citizen driver in the frame marked 'potential criminal, potential terrorist, environmental taxation sucker'.

Why????

 

[oldcro]

Lots of talk here about speed cameras, ANPR cameras and inappropriate speed limits being used mainly as revenue earners. Then there is the what about... brigade mentioning other examples of poor driving which should be a separate topic.

Nowhere have I read of an acceptable alternative system of controlling driver behaviour. How about some constructive criticism for a change. Does anyone thinks the present number of road deaths and serious injuries are acceptable?

Yes there are many many other reasons people die on our roads, and if anyone has an idea which reduces these deaths please tell.

 

[Swiss Toni]

You can clone a number plate and immeditely steal the driving identity of an honest owner. Talk about Havoc! Not only does the criminal get away with it, like totally, but the honest owner, and the police, and the courts, are tied up for months afterwards trying to unscramble the consequences. At enormous cost to us - the ordinary citizen.

The moral is, if anyone should want to creat chaos in this country: clone a registration plate. Have a real blast. Tie up our police and courts. Damage the reputation of the lawful citizen but this cannot be right.

If it helps, cloned plates get dealt with pretty well by ANPR and it doesn't tend to cause the chaos you're worried about.

 

[stevesey]

If it helps, cloned plates get dealt with pretty well by ANPR

If you have the common sense to clone plates from a car of the same make, model, colour (and not totally the wrong end of the country) how does the ANPR sort that out?

 

[andy_k]

this government has put the ordinary citizen driver in the frame marked 'potential criminal.

much the same arguments were used when the breathalyser was introduced

this government has put the ordinary citizen driver in the frame marked 'potential criminal.

and when the seat belt laws came in

this government has put the ordinary citizen driver in the frame marked 'potential criminal.

oh and using mobile phones

etc etc etc

what do you suggest? Should we go back to the good old days where traffic cops used to play "snooker" to decide who to stop?

If the "ordinary citizen driver" is too arrogant to think that laws don't apply to them, too poor a driver to stick to speed limits, too lacking in car control to maintain a legal speed whilst they are driving then how should they be controlled?

Maybe putting cameras everywhere to punish the the most basic of errors isn't such a bad idea At least it frees up the police to catch more "real criminals"

It's also funny just how many people seem to think that the only 30 mph limit in the whole country that really applies is the one that goes past their front door

 

[Birdman]

Yes there are many many other reasons people die on our roads, and if anyone has an idea which reduces these deaths please tell.

Look, there are more death from abortions than road accidents. Just because you don't have a name, an address and a NI number doesn't mean your death is meaningless. Department of Health figures show 2007 for women resident in England and Wales there were 198,500 abortions compared with 193,700 in 2006, a rise of 2.5%.

So let's get some perspective here.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsStatistics/DH_085508

The powerful Commons public accounts committee said obesity was contributing to 30,000 deaths every year and demanded the Department of Health tackled the problem more effectively.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-94984/Obesity-contributes-30-000-deaths-year.html

But the government will pursue you into your own home and drag you to jail if you travel three mph above the posted limit on a clear, empty road at 3am with no-one inside three miles of your vehicle on the say-so of a CAMERA!!!

Why???

Have we all gone mad

 

[andy_k]

Look, there are more death from abortions than road accidents. Just because you don't have a name, an address and a NI number doesn't mean your death is meaningless. Department of Health figures show 2007 for women resident in England and Wales there were 198,500 abortions compared with 193,700 in 2006, a rise of 2.5%.

So let's get some perspective here.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsStatistics/DH_085508

The powerful Commons public accounts committee said obesity was contributing to 30,000 deaths every year and demanded the Department of Health tackled the problem more effectively.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-94984/Obesity-contributes-30-000-deaths-year.html

But the government will pursue you into your own home and drag you to jail if you travel three mph above the posted limit on a clear, empty road at 3am with no-one inside three miles of your vehicle on the say-so of a CAMERA!!!

Why???

Have we all gone mad

your arguments are getting even more desperate than last night - I'm just not sure where you are headed with this rubbish?

Last time I checked, rather than pursue you into your home and drag you to jail etc they send you a letter - hardly as dramatic

 

[scumbag]

Have we all gone mad

not really. Road deaths cost us a fortune. The other health issues also cost us a fortune which is why they are trying to get you to eat healthy, live healthy, stop smoking and control your drinking. So if they allow all and sundry to charge about in motorised deathtraps at high speed, it would not help the other campaigns would it?

they are trying to control your speed so you don't cause mayhem. they could, if they felt like it, ban cars tommorrow. that would have the effect but it wouldn't go down well in a country where we are meant to be free.

I have yet to see them trying to control my life. others may feel they are. But I can do pretty much as I please all day, and that includes going for a drive when I feel like it. They even allow me to speed, but we have an agreement. If they catch me, I get done. seems pretty fair to me.

 

[oldcro]

Look, there are more death from abortions than road accidents. Just because you don't have a name, an address and a NI number doesn't mean your death is meaningless. Department of Health figures show 2007 for women resident in England and Wales there were 198,500 abortions compared with 193,700 in 2006, a rise of 2.5%.

So let's get some perspective here.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsStatistics/DH_085508

The powerful Commons public accounts committee said obesity was contributing to 30,000 deaths every year and demanded the Department of Health tackled the problem more effectively.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-94984/Obesity-contributes-30-000-deaths-year.html

But the government will pursue you into your own home and drag you to jail if you travel three mph above the posted limit on a clear, empty road at 3am with no-one inside three miles of your vehicle on the say-so of a CAMERA!!!

Why???

Have we all gone mad

Thanks, a perfect example of the "what about.." brigade I mentioned.

 

[Birdman]

I don't have a road going past my front door. I have meadows. And a clean licence...

As for the 'zero tolerance' school of driving, who love their speed cameras more than liberty itself, well, I am always glad to greet them in the street.

 

[jeremytaylor]

According to the Institute of Advanced Motorists, road deaths are at their lowest since 1920something, and the roads are ever so slightly busier since then. What's the big deal with the level of deaths now?? You will never be able to remove all risk from driving. No way. Unless we bring back the man with the red flag to walk in front of the car at 4mph.

 

[oldcro]

According to the Institute of Advanced Motorists, road deaths are at their lowest since 1920something, and the roads are ever so slightly busier since then. What's the big deal with the level of deaths now?? You will never be able to remove all risk from driving. No way. Unless we bring back the man with the red flag to walk in front of the car at 4mph.

I have nothing to say about such a comment.

 

[hawk20]

You can tailgate, drive aggressively,drive dangerously, undertake, fail to signal, drive uninsured, drive without a licence, drive drunk, drive using drugs, hog the middle lane, not turn your light on at dusk, use rear foglights inappropriately, have no MOT etc. and your chances of being caught are slim.

However, dare to drive at 90mph speed on a quiet, bright sunny Sunday afternoon, in the dry in a perfectly maintained car on a deserted motorway and lots of expensive technology will be deployed to try to ensure you get six points.

.

Well if you can come up with the technology to catch those who carry out these other offences I am sure the govt will be happy to consider using it.

In the meantime you seem to ignore the major campaigns to catch and prosecute numerous drink drivers and those without tax and insurance.

 

[raymont]

yet if you drive on those same stretches of motorway the ANPR cameras will monitor the traffic and flag up ininsured/untaxed/unlicensed drivers. It will spot stolen cars, it will pick up cars used by known criminals and notify the motorway police who can then stop the cars.

Given the very limited number of police cars actually available to stop these people the majority, even if identified, are not going to be stopped. The speed camera isn’t limited in the same way, it can dish out a ticket every few seconds if need be.

I don't like cameras but if they catch people breaking the law there must be a need for them - they don't target the "innocent motorist.

Too simplistic. You really have to question if the speed limit is appropriate. Drive on any motorway at 70 and you will be passed by a good proportion of the other cars. Are all of these drivers going too fast? Or is the limit too low? Do you think that 70 as a limit has been set by any rigorous evaluation, recent or otherwise, of how fast it is safe to drive on a motorway? I believe it is an arbitrary number arrived at in the mid 1960s when cars were inferior to todays vehicles in nearly every respect and needs to be revisisted.

For laws to be obeyed they need to be perceived as fair and reasonable by a majority of the affected population otherwise the laws, and their enforcers, fall into disrepute.

This is beginning to happen. Cloned vehicles are a symptom. Vehicles are registered to wrong address to avoid prosecution. Drivers are banned, but drive anyway.

Drivers who comply with the rules regarding insurance, tax, mot etc stand a good chance of being hit with a speeding fine, which they will pay and points which will go on their licence, i.e. fundamentally law abiding people. These people are rightly angry when they see the amount of effort that goes into punishing their transgressions when they see an increasing number of people not bothering with any of the boring law abiding process of actually registering, taxing, insuring their car and doing pretty much as they please and getting away with it.

They are angry when they see the examples of dangerous driving we all see nearly every day and the drivers getting away with it because of the simplistic, misguided one dimensional approach taken by this government to road safety.