Speeding fines getting tougher

[pembssurf]

Personally I'm in the corner of implementing SS style death squads, knocking down people's doors in the middle of the night, rounding up the individual involved and shooting them in front of their families. Some say heavy handed, I say effective!

 

[ash59fifty-uk]

in my view the only way to stamp this out is to confiscate the phone. First offence you lose it for a month and each offence thereafter the confiscation period doubles. Some will just go out and buy another cheap phone to see them through but i suspect as the majority of people whom have 'their life' in their phone, i bet they'd think twice.

I think something stronger would suffice, having to declare to insurance making it higher, more points on the license etc

Three things that will significantly hurt someone and in order from least to worse- money, phone, ability to travel

I'd be lost without my phone but without my license I'd be dead in the water

 

[dejongj]

Personally I'm in the corner of implementing SS style death squads, knocking down people's doors in the middle of the night, rounding up the individual involved and shooting them in front of their families. Some say heavy handed, I say effective!

But surely that is not fair. I mean the rich can afford to have their own private SAS team to defend themselves. Heck I've got them as outriders already. So it will only be the poor who will receive justice.

I do think that the punishment needs to be relevant to the offence. Nobody got hurt after all, and when they do then surely a custodial sentence for the crime is much more fitting.

To me the educational element is much more effective in context of the offence where no crime has been committed.

 

[dejongj]

I'd be lost without my phone but without my license I'd be dead in the water

Neither would affect me; I work from home. Heck even a ban wouldn't affect me much. But yes I did speed twice; clean license now. First one I had to go to court as they couldn't issue me a fixed penalty notice and then it was already means tested. So foreigners pay more than citizens do Second time I choose to go to a speed awareness course. Which was interesting; quite shocking at the same time as I was totally aware I was breaking the speed limit on the dual carriage way, the amount of people mostly elderly people who have no idea what the speed limits are was just an eye opener to me.

But then again not that surprising as I see them around me all the time; they do 40 when it is a national speed limit, they do still 40 when there are repeater signs up, they continue to do 40 in a build up area with street lightning, and then they continue to do 40 when there is national speed limit. Nearly without fail we can pick them out;

 

[Deleted member 65149]

Offence.

To me the educational element is much more effective in context of the offence where no crime has been committed.

Crime or offence? All crimes are offences, but not all offences are crimes. Surely anyone caught speeding or using a handheld phone whilst driving has committed a crime because they have broken UK law. We may well think that nobody got hurt when driving at 15mph over the limit or chatting on the phone, so it's not a crime. But the law was broken, and you were caught, so it's a crime. Demoting the action to being called an offence minimises the perceived possible consequences and thus less effort is made to not take the action.

Whatever it's called though, education must be good. But not necessarily as a replacement for punishment.

 

[dejongj]

Crime or offence? All crimes are offences, but not all offences are crimes. Surely anyone caught speeding or using a handheld phone whilst driving has committed a crime because they have broken UK law. We may well think that nobody got hurt when driving at 15mph over the limit or chatting on the phone, so it's not a crime. But the law was broken, and you were caught, so it's a crime. Demoting the action to being called an offence minimises the perceived possible consequences and thus less effort is made to not take the action.

Whatever it's called though, education must be good. But not necessarily as a replacement for punishment.

I agree that the law is broken. However you can't get convicted for a possible consequence, you can equally kill or seriously hurt someone when you do not break the speed limit.

I find it fascinating how focused the UK public tends to be on punishment. Why do we have these rules in place? To punish people or to maintain the safety of other road users, reduce impact on environment etc...I much prefer the focus to remain on the reason these rules came in, opposed to being punitive.