Safe Speed Forums

The Government seem set on reducing the practical penalties for a whole raft of offences on the back of the lack of prison space. Offences that you or I might consider very serious are downgraded to, so called, community "punishments" or fines.

On the other hand very trivial motoring transgressions are being ratcheted up. Take the £120 parking fines for example. You could shoplift or mug someone and get away with a lower fine.

The idea of sentences should be to reflect the seriousness which society places on a crime. Does "society" really consider parking on double yellows worse than theft or is it just easier to collect the dosh? The current regime makes no sense and will lead to the law, once again, being brought into disrepute.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

It seems that it is now the government v society.

People parking on double yellows is a minor irritant. Someone mugging an old lady is a major problem.

However! It is easier to solve the 'crime' of illegal parking than to solve the crime of an old lady being mugged.

How to solve the crime of illegal parking.

See car, ticket car, fine driver.

How to solve the crime of an old lady being mugged.

Interview traumatised victim of crime. Check with Criminal Intelligence as to likely local suspects. Re-interview victim when she is less traumatised. Track down and interview any likely witnesses. Conduct door-to-door enquiries. Operate an anniversary re-construction a week later. Stop All passers-by and ask them if they were at the scene of the mugging a week before. If so, did they see anything?

Which is the cheapest? Which gets the best -on paper- results? The illegal parking prosecution as it shows up in the Home Office stats as a solved crime.

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

I think it's all part of the "discouraging car use" agenda, to be honest. They won't make public / sustainable transport MORE appealing, so they can only make the car LESS appealing.

All of which is sadly true. But even when the perps of more serious vehicle crime are found guilty the penalties are frankly laughable. We've all seen the Cops on the Box stuff where they reveal the outcomes of each incident. The sentences rarely seem to fit the crime and certainly won't stop then going straight out and re-offending. Only incarceration or removing limbs will stop this small but very busy section of the population from driving.

In the end everything for the government, local or national, comes down to money and spending as little as possible collecting as much as possible. Car drivers are an easy target.

Even if a £250 fine would be a suitable punishment for 'Darren', guilty of threatening behaviour and put in Maccy Ds window for a laugh. Darren has no education, a record of petty crime and no hope of a employment. So he'll be allowed to pay £10 per fortnight from his Social and will miss the payments and be dragged back into court and on and on and on.

I spent a morning in the public gallery of the local magistrates and it had to be one of the most depressing mornings of my life.

Collecting £60 parking tickets etc is much easier and they know you'll pay because they can take your car off you if you don't.

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

And at a time when we're supposed to be trying to reduce prison populations we end up with such nonsense as a max 5-year sentence for "Causing Death by Careless Driving" which you or I could incur for a split second's inattention, and where the deterrent effect is zero

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I think this is a perceptive and accurate analysis

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Well Prof, I would modify that to say: "They can't make public (now privately owned) transport MORE appealing because they can't control the price demanded, it now being a "Private Business" for profit, NOT a service!

The only thing that ANY Government can do now is; as you say: "Make motoring more expensive and more unpleasant than the price of a private Rail or Bus ticket"
An impossible task, like a self fulfilling prophecy!

Another Thatcherite shot in the foot to our National Roads and the Railways Infrastructure which should have remained in the Governments hands!.........

P.S. "Society does NOT exist"................PMT

(un-coded means) Fend for your "fechin' selves!"

As always with soundbites, it helps to get the whole quote...

It often paints a diferent picture

(much like the "Rivers of Blood " speech http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood )

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

The penalties for easily detectable car crimes are levelled against those who have something to lose if they refuse to co-operate.
It almost seems that the government and criminal justice system has given up on widespread crimes such as anti-social behaviour, petty theft and assault because those commiting such offences have nothing to lose and are often too damned difficult to pursue.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I agree with what you say - having "competition" sits uneasily with having an integrated public transport. Very few other western countries have gone down the deregulation path to the extent that the UK did.

As regards Mrs T's society comment - I read it in much the same way as you (although I agree it IS usually misquoted). She was opposed to the concept of collective responsibility - seeing it more in terms of "if individuals take responsibility for their own actions/etc this will result in an improved whole". To me the weakness is that whilst it is really important to promote individual responsibility, I think that responsibility has to include a responsibility to the collective whole - eg I feel people have a responsibility to contribute to the society they live in - in more ways than just financial.

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Hear, hear!

Of course the tabloids' reaction is always "If you kill someone (in any circumstances) whilst driving you should be banned for life/castrated/jailed for ever/fed to ravenous wild animals etc etc". The sober fact is that in English law you are punished for what you actually did (or failed to do) - NOT for what happened as a result.

What I found disturbing about this idea about "Causing Death by Careless Driving" was that it was presented by certain sections of the media not as "Drivers may now be jailed for causing death by careless driving" but as "Drivers who kill may avoid jail"!

I do not in any way support imbeciles who kill innocent motorists or pedestrians by stupid, reckless and dangerous driving - but I personally know two people who have caused someone else's death by what Peter E correctly describes as "a split-second's inattention". Such occurrences are accidents in the true sense of the word, and to send people responsible for such accidents to jail would be monstrous - a view, of course, which would not be accepted by those who are motivated by vengeance rather than justice.

I rest my case, M'Lud.

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Save a cow - eat a vegetarian