Stealth tax

[snorri]

There's no need for harsher penalties, IMO. Just more enforcement of all traffic offences,

The present penalties do not sufficiently influence driver behaviour.
Better enforcement would result in more people being caught, but with the present penalties, being caught is no big deal.
It would give us safer roads if drivers were worried about the penalty of being caught rather than the stigma and inconvenience of being caught.

 

[Debian]

The present penalties do not sufficiently influence driver behaviour.
Better enforcement would result in more people being caught, but with the present penalties, being caught is no big deal.
It would give us safer roads if drivers were worried about the penalty of being caught rather than the stigma and inconvenience of being caught.

+1!

Someone in a hurry and late for a meeting thinks:

1. ) "If I put my foot down I might just make it. The risk? Three points and a small fine. I'll risk it"

2. ) "If I put my foot down I might just make it. The risk? A years ban and my car confiscated permanently. Maybe not then."

 

[BentMikey]

The present penalties do not sufficiently influence driver behaviour.
Better enforcement would result in more people being caught, but with the present penalties, being caught is no big deal.
It would give us safer roads if drivers were worried about the penalty of being caught rather than the stigma and inconvenience of being caught.

Wrong - because there's very little risk of being caught. If the risk went up, then the penalties would quickly accrue for the many people getting away with it.

Driver bans and eventual jail time do happen, but not as much as they should simply because there's so little enforcement.

 

[Debian]

Wrong - because there's very little risk of being caught. If the risk went up, then the penalties would quickly accrue for the many people getting away with it.

Driver bans and eventual jail time do happen, but not as much as they should simply because there's so little enforcement.

Understand what you say but the penalties still need to be more severe. Currently, a speeding driver could be caught four times and still get away with it by saying he needs the car to earn a livelihood. If the rule was - caught twice and you're banned, three times and you lose your car - it would make drivers think twice from the outset.

I also think the owner of the vehicle should be made liable as well as the driver. In the case of company cars that might just concentrate the minds of the employers. Say for the second and all subsequent speeding offences the owner is fined £1000 the those employees who habitually speed would soon be downsized.

A motor vehicle is a lethal weapon, more dangerous in the wrong hands perhaps than a handgun so the penalties for misuse should be at least as severe as those for misusing a handgun.

 

[atbman]

One problem with speed cameras, or very strict speed enforcement is that it makes people spend less time focused on the road. I know this is, 'one of those excuses', but if I relied on a car and didn't have lots of money, what am I going to do - pay loads of attention to my speedo and less on what's further up the road, or not?

Why spend more time focussed on the speedo? How long does it actually take to check your speed? One second? Not as long as it takes to check your rearview or door mirrors and assess what you see in them.

I think there have only been a couple of occasions in 49 years of driving have I not been aware of the speed limit I was in.

Check speedo, ease off (if necessary).
Gradient changes, check speedo.
Speed limit changes downwards, slow down, check speedo, etc.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Why spend more time focussed on the speedo? How long does it actually take to check your speed? One second? Not as long as it takes to check your rearview or door mirrors and assess what you see in them.

I think there have only been a couple of occasions in 49 years of driving have I not been aware of the speed limit I was in.

Check speedo, ease off (if necessary).
Gradient changes, check speedo.
Speed limit changes downwards, slow down, check speedo, etc.

Exactly. That's how I've always driven. It's not difficult.

 

[Davidc]

I learnt very quickly when I started driving how to guage speed by listening to the notes (frequencies) made by bits of the car, meaning there's little need to look at the speedo.

It isn't that difficult not to get a speeding fine, I haven't had one in 35 years and upwards of 1.5 million miles of driving and don't intend getting one in the future. There's no magic or luck about it. All that's needed is to stay under the limit. There's no excuse, and many more drivers would suddenly learn how if the penalties were harsh &/or detection rates increased. The results would be safer roads for all of us.

 

[thomas]

Robbery and assault carry the likelihood of custodial sentences, which probably wouldn't be appropriate for a first speding offence.

I had someone come up to me one (on the street, day light). Claimed I called his sister something (just a pikey excuse) and he thumped me. Gave me a big black eye. I just walked off quite quickly as I wasn't interested in getting in a fight or anything. The Police were involved, yet chose not to prosecute the person.

Now, in my books. That is more serious than someone doing 30.03mph.

+1!

Someone in a hurry and late for a meeting thinks:

1. ) "If I put my foot down I might just make it. The risk? Three points and a small fine. I'll risk it"

2. ) "If I put my foot down I might just make it. The risk? A years ban and my car confiscated permanently. Maybe not then."

The thing is though, people won't think until after as they "won't" get caught. Bit like how the death penalty doesn't stop murders.

Why spend more time focussed on the speedo? How long does it actually take to check your speed? One second? Not as long as it takes to check your rearview or door mirrors and assess what you see in them.

No, I know it's not that hard...but for some people, if worried about a thousand pound fine, loosing their car, licence (livelihood, freedoms, etc) then they may spend a disproportionate amount of time focused on the speedo.

I know when I was learning to drive I checked the speedo every time I looked in my mirrors, (so every 6 seconds or so?), but I still may deviate up a mph by mistake.

 

[Arch]

2) The regional newspaper (La Verdad de Murcia) has a feature every Monday on the front page of all deaths on the roads in the past week. Everyone there reads La Verdad and it personalises road KSIs which we in England resolutely refuse to do

I think this would be excellent. One person can die in a train crash and it's over the news for days and something-must-be-done-about-it, and yet in that time, 30 people may have died on the roads, without a mention even on local tv news. Local papers may just about mention them, if nothing more exciting has happened.

I'd love a national paper to be brave enough to cover every road death, say for a month, to make a point.

 

[mangaman]

I think this would be excellent. One person can die in a train crash and it's over the news for days and something-must-be-done-about-it, and yet in that time, 30 people may have died on the roads, without a mention even on local tv news. Local papers may just about mention them, if nothing more exciting has happened.

I'd love a national paper to be brave enough to cover every road death, say for a month, to make a point.

Absolutely - it's very movingly covered. They list the people who died and have a photo of a wrecked car, which they always seem to pick in a place you're likely to have driven yourself.

They also choose pictures which are shocking without being unnecessarily graphic.

It's impossible to pick up the paper and not think - hey I recognise that roundabout - that could be me.

 

[snorri]

Now, in my books. That is more serious than someone doing 30.03mph.

I know when I was learning to drive I checked the speedo every time I looked in my mirrors, (so every 6 seconds or so?), but I still may deviate up a mph by mistake.

No one has been prosecuted for driving 0.03mph above the posted limit, so nothing to worry about there.

If by increasing your speed by 1 mph you would exceed the limit, then you are driving too fast. Just try to fix on a speed 10 mph below the limit and if any minor variations occur you will still be within the limit.
I really should not have had to explain that.

 

[thomas]

No one has been prosecuted for driving 0.03mph above the posted limit, so nothing to worry about there.

If by increasing your speed by 1 mph you would exceed the limit, then you are driving too fast. Just try to fix on a speed 10 mph below the limit and if any minor variations occur you will still be within the limit.
I really should not have had to explain that.

It was a point for David's post earlier . As for always driving 10mph below the speed limit, I don't really think that's a sensible option. I know they're not targets, but if it is safe to do it then I think people should drive close to it.

As for national papers covering deaths, that can hardly be a bad thing! I thought last year there might be more of a thing of road deaths after some road death statistics did make the headlines for a day or two. I was hoping they were building up for a longer news cycle, but they didn't

 

[ufkacbln]

Thnks for the heads up on that Cunobelin - I was about to challenge Dilbert on his assertion but didn't have the figures.

Even more interesting is the fact that some Police Forces (such as Kent) employ additional staff to operate the Camera Partnerships and the use of Cameras actually INCREASES the number of Police out on Patrol for opportunistic enforcement of motoring offences.

Kent Camera partnership also recognises the link between motoring offences and other crimes. It employs additional officers to specifically follow up the more serious offences, agan increasing the number of Police out n the roads and carrying out enforcement

 

[ufkacbln]

I think this would be excellent. One person can die in a train crash and it's over the news for days and something-must-be-done-about-it, and yet in that time, 30 people may have died on the roads, without a mention even on local tv news. Local papers may just about mention them, if nothing more exciting has happened.

I'd love a national paper to be brave enough to cover every road death, say for a month, to make a point.

Actually covered quite nicely in Heathcote Williams' excellent "Autogeddon" which although dated still has relevance.

MORE than twice the number in the death-camps,

A hundred and thirty times the kill at Hiroshima,

Eight times the count in Korea,

Two hundred and thirty Vietnams,

Eight thousand five hundred Ulsters . . .

The Hundred Years War in a week;

The Crusades in under thirty seconds.

A Black Death with bubonic rats on wheels,

A quarter of a million ‘auto-fatalities’ a year―

The humdrum holocaust―

The fast-food―junk-death―road-show.

Take any accident ward

Trying to service a few de-stocked slices

From the 250,000 a year

Wheeled in on stiff-scoops

To brain and body garages

By whistling ambulance men.

Lines of metal beds on castors―

A medical parking lot.

Sinuous tangles of drip-feeds

Fuel those who blended too urgently with vehicles

And make the room almost indistinguishable

From a cross-section of an automobile’s wiring system.

Multiple pethidine booster shots to jerk them into over-drive

Having turned their bodies into cribbage-boards.

The unreported wounded, the unreported dying

Vainly trying to kick their engines over.

Screams of honking agony from rows and rows of impatient, stacks of meat.

An attendant mops up blood-slick in the corridors twenty four hours a day

Watched by its donors

As they try to steer their minds back into any available space

Where the ‘accident’ never happened.

 

[Norm]

I don't like the whiners, if I travel above the posted limit and get caught, that's my luck playing out.

However, I'm nervously awaiting the postie at the moment, for a tale which will no doubt be seen as confirming that it is a tax on stupidity.

There's a bunch of motorways being ripped up round here at the moment, one set of roadworks on the M25 and two on the M4 which have been there with 50mph limits for over a year. I always set the speed limiter in my car in the roadworks, as I do in urban limits, to reduce the chance of being caught out keeping up with the flow of traffic and getting a £60 tax demand.

Last Saturday, I dropped the Smalls at school and set off along a motorway I know well (I used to live about 100 yards from it) which has recently had a roadworks set up. The road was completely empty, as were the coned off sections, but I set my limiter to 48 and drove through.

It was only on the return trip through the same roadworks that I noticed the speed limit was 40.

Yes, there were plenty of signs but it appears that, because I travel through so many roadworks each day that I've become immune to them. I see roadworks, I see speed limit signs, I set my limiter to 48 and concentrate on what I see as the important bits of driving (such as, on the M25 near Maple Cross, watching for the HGVs doing 51mph).

If the ticket arrives, I will pay up with a hint of resignation and a slap of my own forehead, frustrated that the limit on a dead straight and completely empty motorway with full width lanes was set so low merely because the hard shoulder had been barricaded and there might be people working there for a couple of hours a week.