Safe Speed Forums

Terror. The War on Motorists is far more important to this Government.

At one time, you had to crank a car engine to start it up. Now the cranks are running the country and doing their best to bring the roads to a standstill.

To most people, cars are life-enhancers, bringing mobility and freedom. For millions, especially in the countryside, they are a necessity for getting to work, shopping, ferrying children or grandma about. To Government and the Peaked Cap Brigade, they are a resource to be taxed, fined, spied on and generally persecuted.

Last week Martin Walton was taken to court after a speed camera clocked him doing 37mph in a 30mph zone. The road was empty. It was 5am. He was rushing his wife to hospital because she was in an advanced state of labour. None of this meant anything to the jobsworths of the driver persecution industry.

However, Bournemouth magistrates granted an absolute discharge because the circumstances were exceptional.


We all emit CO2 when we breathe out so there should really be a tax on breathing, too.


This farce cost Martin several hundred pounds in lawyers’ fees and cost the taxpayer several times as much again.

As Martin ruefully says: “Someone who has drunk 25 pints and sticks at 29mph won’t get caught but someone in my circumstances is dragged through the courts.”

Dangerous driving prosecutions have fallen to the lowest level for over a decade, down from 11,400 in 2003 to 7,400 in 2006. But parking fines have hit a new record, up from 3.6million in 1996 to 7.8million in 2006. A nice little earner at £60 a time.

To please the carrot-munchers, our useless Chancellor announced huge increases in road tax in the last budget to penalise CO2 emissions. We all emit CO2 when we breathe out so there should really be a tax on breathing, too. Sounds stupid? Remember, you heard it here first.





The road-tax hike was supposed to apply only to new cars. The aim was to change people’s buying habits so it wasn’t meant to catch cars already on the road. Or so we all thought. A few days ago, the Treasury had to admit that, actually, all cars registered after 2001 will be stung.

Medium-range family cars like a Renault Espace face a tax rise from £210 this year to £300 next year and to £430 in 2010. This will make older cars saleable only for scrap. Bizarrely, old bangers registered before 2001 will be worth more because they attract a lower tax.

Alistair Darling boasted his last Budget would make a typical family with two children £130 a year better off. But an extra £220 in road tax cancels that out and more.

Here’s another fine mess, hard on the heels of Broon’s “soak the poor” 10p income tax abolition. Once again, worst hit will be families on modest earnings. They can’t afford the extra £220 let alone ­changing to a more fuel-efficient car.

All of the above might be justifiable for a worthwhile result but there is no evidence that the 6,000 speed cameras covering the country like a rash either cut road deaths or raise revenue. In 2006, road deaths were 3,172, down a mere seven per cent on 1998. Our nationwide spying system brings in about £120million a year in fines but costs over £90million to run. So who benefits? Only the jobsworths.

Similarly, there is no hard evidence that man-made CO2 emissions contribute meaningfully to climate change. In any case, the expensive reductions planned in Europe are utterly swamped by the vast increases in CO2 from rapidly industrial-ising India and China.

Our nationwide spying system brings in about £120million a year in fines but costs over £90million to run. So who benefits? Only the jobsworths.