Driving Bans

[Drago]

As mentioned in another topic...driving bans.

It takes a lot of effort to get banned from driving. A lot. A real lot.

There are two ways to lose your licence:

1) You must accumulate 12 or more points over a rolling period of 3 years or less. This involves repeated, multiple, minor offending. You either have to try real hard, be reckless, or else oblivious to the point of criminal negligence to manage this feat.

2) The other route to licence loss is to commit a single road crime of heinous seriousness, anything from drink driving up to death by dangerous.

Driving is a privilege and it would appear society and the law take a fairly relaxed view about the level of naughtiness they will put up with before a driver risks losing that privilege.

So, considering it takes either quite a bit of effort over time, or one almighty great piece of dangerousness before that privilege is withdrawn, should banned drivers ever be allowed to hold a licence again?

Society says pilots, shotgun licence holders, commercial boat skippers, doctors, train drivers, teachers, pharmacists, even school admin staff are never allowed to fly/drive/do whatever it is they do ever again once that privilege is withdrawn.

No argument about hardship will protect them from losing the relevant licenece/right, so why are those that endanger others with kinetic weapons ever allowed back behind the wheel?

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

I appreciate that I may be talking theoretically and reality doesn't seem to back me up but .......

What about having a nasty crash injuring someone whilst riding one of those ebikes that some people ride under the EAPC exemptions to motor bike law where the ebike doesn't qualify?

The ones with tweaked motors and no speed limiter; It's a minor offence guv, just like doing 80mph on the motorway on a clear sunny day

So you have;

• No insurance - up to 8 points, as it is extremely difficult to get insurance to cover you doing something illegal!
• Possibly no relevent category (motor cycle/moped although most older licences do have moped) on your driving licence - up to 6 points

And that's before any additional motoring offences are taken into consideration, who knows what offences exist that carry points if whoever is bringing the prosecution decides to set an example

• CU20 is a general purpose Construction and Use category which is surely applicable as you had an accident on a motorcycle/moped that required type/individual approval which it is highly unlikely to have - up to 3 more points.

and because these are motoring offences these points can be added to you licence even if you don't yet have one.

Your licence will be cancelled (revoked) if you get 6 or more points within 2 years of passing your test. (gov.uk)

Yes I am saying that "that adjustment" to take the motor assist up to 18mph could cost you your driving licence and even if you keep it getting car insurance with a recent IN10 is going to be expensive.

Bye

Ian

 

[sevenfourate]

I served a months ban and a decent fine for 85mph (?) in a 60mph zone: on a road that was straight, clear with good vision and dry tarmacadam perhaps over 25 years ago now: and as a zealous early 20’s male. Whilst not my best ever display of road skills: you’ll not convince me that was deserving of a lifetime ban. And a lesson was certainly learned as i slowed the heck down and have accumulated no misdemeanour’s since.

Had I been an obvious repeat speeding offender - perhaps your notion would see me leaning your way further…..

 

[All uphill]

I'd go for the first option conditional on there bring sufficient enforcement to prevent a huge increase in uninsured and unlicensed drivers.

 

[Slick]

A lifetime ban is far too draconian for the accumulation of incidents that some people have lost their licence for.

Maybe for another thread, but given my beautiful wee niece crashed her car into a ditch about a week after passing her test, I do agree with the proposals on the table to further restrict newly qualified drivers.

 

[sevenfourate]

……but given my beautiful wee niece crashed her car into a ditch about a week after passing her text

Sorry: She’d just passed her test. Or just sent a text ?

Is that not one and the same for many young drivers I see…. 🤣😳

 

[Slick]

Sorry: She’d just passed her test. Or just sent a text ?

Is that not one and the same for many young drivers I see…. 🤣😳

Edited now for clarity.

No text involved, we'll as far as we know.

 

[sevenfourate]

Edited now for clarity.

No text involved, we'll as far as we know.

Lol. I wasn’t suggesting she did / there was.
Your (predictive text ?) error was just kind of ironic in this day and age !

 

[Slick]

Sorry: She’d just passed her test. Or just sent a text ?

Is that not one and the same for many young drivers I see…. 🤣😳

A few years ago now, a cyclist was killed by a newly qualified young driver on a route i used every day cycling to work. If memory serves, I don't think they were able to prove anything, but police were obviously convinced that the young female driver was distracted in some way by her phone. I remember being quite shocked by the incident, as I felt timing was the only reason it wasn't me she hit. My mate was also shocked, but his sympathies were directed entirely towards the young girl behind the wheel, as he had a daughter the same age who was just passed her test. I couldn't get my head round that, not a single thought given for the guy who was hit, or even if he had a daughter the same age. I found that weird.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have little sympathy for people who get a cumulative ban and then plead poverty of 'special circumstances"

In my view if you have 12 points and get caught speeding - e.g. doing 80 in a 70 - then you have already had a LOAD of warnings from your previous convictions
so what in the name of $deity makes anyone think you are going to drive better now???

Stuff like "what about my 140 year old disabled ex military award winning relative that I am the ONLY carer of"
Well - yes - I agree mate (or whatever gender) - but shouldn;t you have thought about that a few convictions ago???

Funny how celebrities often say that - I remember a Premier League footballer pleading special circumstances and I was thinking "how much do you get paid - cut down on the luxuries and get a taxi"

As far as lifetime bans are concerned - I would say that they should be reserved to the worst cases

which would include people who drive again when banned - and for people who have already been banned which expires and they just go out and do it again


People need to learn that they need to change the way they drive and that "everyone does 80 on the motorway" is NOT a good reason to do 80 on the motorway
and anyway - everyone does NOT do 80 on the motorway!!

 

[Drago]

I served a months ban and a decent fine for 85mph (?) in a 60mph zone: on a road that was straight, clear with good vision and dry tarmacadam perhaps over 25 years ago now: and as a zealous early 20’s male. Whilst not my best ever display of road skills: you’ll not convince me that was deserving of a lifetime ban. And a lesson was certainly learned as i slowed the heck down and have accumulated no misdemeanour’s since.

Had I been an obvious repeat speeding offender - perhaps your notion would see me leaning your way further…..

Counter to that, ive been drivjng 38 uewrs without so much as a penalty point, and I have driven Plenty of empty roads so its not unreasonable to expect others can manage the same and then not complain when they cant.

But fair play for fessing. However, the fact that you've been on the receiving end doesn't make you impartial. Too damn right you don't want a lifetime ban, because its you, in much the same way other classes of criminal never feel they deserve the punishment.

Drivers trot out the old guff about the feds being out catching burglars, but it's less well known that burglars when caught oft demand to know why the dibble aren't out hassling motorists. No one thinks they deserve the punishment.

And why the need to speed like that? Had you not been caught would you really have got anything beneficial out of it, or gained anything? No, it's was pointless to be doing it, and just because the road is emptying a strange reason to feel the urge to do something pointless.

Nevertheless, the laws of physics don't pop off to take a quick break just because the road is clear, or because its 4am. If something goes wrong on a clear road it is liable to be just as disastrous for someone, even if only you.

The other danger with that kind of selective adherence to the rules of the road is that it quickly becomes habit forming, and before long its not just an open empty road, or 4 in the morning. No, they start to pinch an inch everywhere.

Drive diligently at all timees and pretty soon that becomes an easy habit too.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I served a months ban and a decent fine for 85mph (?) in a 60mph zone: on a road that was straight, clear with good vision

But the vision wasn’t so clear or good; that you were able to spot the police and avoid getting caught. Plus proves, you were not paying attention at the time.

 

[Drago]

A lifetime ban is far too draconian for the accumulation of incidents that some people have lost their licence for.

Does the fact that they get caught multiple times within a relatively short time frame not suggest to you that they are not heeding the lesson of the previous times they were caught?

People who persistently offend in any field of criminality and who ignore early opportunities to reform their behaviour are going to continue doing what they are doing until the law positively acts to stop them. The safety of the public at large should easily outweigh someones right to continue their offending behaviour.

 

[Slick]

Does the fact that they get caught multiple times within a relatively short time frame not suggest to you that they are not heeding the lesson of the previous times they were caught?

People who persistently offend in any field of criminality and who ignore early opportunities to reform their behaviour are going to continue doing what they are doing until the law positively acts to stop them. The safety of the public at large should easily outweigh someones right to continue their offending behaviour.

We could just hang everyone for dropping litter and they would soon stop.

Yes I know that's a ridiculous analogy, but without wishing to sound rude, so is any ban, being for life.

We still need to be fair and proportionate.

 

[sevenfourate]

But the vision wasn’t so clear or good; that you were able to spot the police and avoid getting caught. Plus proves, you were not paying attention at the time.

You have zero knowledge of the road, camera position, other traffic or anything else. Let’s not make statements we can’t quantify and based on assumption…..

I’ve openly admitted my failing. And stood up like a man, apologised in Court and told the Judge it would t happened again. End of.