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Speeding fine may get £15 surcharge
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
"Speeding motorists could be required to pay a £15 surcharge on top of fines as a contribution towards a fund for crime victims. Skip related content
Related photos / videos Motorists fined for speeding may have to pay a £15 surcharge towards a fund for … So far the surcharge has been levied only on fines handed down in court.
But it was confirmed that Justice Secretary Jack Straw is considering extending it to on-the-spot fines and fixed penalty notices, as well as to other punishments imposed by courts.
This could mean millions of motorists, including those caught by speed cameras, having to stump up extra cash on top of the minimum £60 penalty, reported the Daily Telegraph.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "The surcharge has, to date, been applied only to fines, at a rate of £15. The Government is considering whether to extend the surcharge to certain types of penalty notices and other court disposals."
The Victim's Surcharge was introduced in April 2007 and latest figures show that between April 2008 and January this year it raised more than £6.6 million.
That sum could be vastly increased if the surcharge was extended to more than three million drivers handed fixed penalties for speeding each year. Other offences receiving on-the-spot fines include graffiti, shoplifting and being drunk and disorderly."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090427/tuk-speeding-fine-may-get-15-surcharge-6323e80.html
:banghead:
While I am all for keeping speeds down, it seems to me that motorists are just an easy target (again) for the government to raise cash from them when they should REALLY be extracting cash from REAL criminals.
If you watch programs like 'Police, Camera, Action' etc, these little cunts that cause so much damage are let off with a mere slap on the wrist. Why doesn't the government chase them and their families instead? Perhaps if parents of young offenders had to dig some compensation money out of their pockets, they'd be more inclined to keep their kids on a leash.
Related photos / videos Motorists fined for speeding may have to pay a £15 surcharge towards a fund for … So far the surcharge has been levied only on fines handed down in court.
But it was confirmed that Justice Secretary Jack Straw is considering extending it to on-the-spot fines and fixed penalty notices, as well as to other punishments imposed by courts.
This could mean millions of motorists, including those caught by speed cameras, having to stump up extra cash on top of the minimum £60 penalty, reported the Daily Telegraph.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "The surcharge has, to date, been applied only to fines, at a rate of £15. The Government is considering whether to extend the surcharge to certain types of penalty notices and other court disposals."
The Victim's Surcharge was introduced in April 2007 and latest figures show that between April 2008 and January this year it raised more than £6.6 million.
That sum could be vastly increased if the surcharge was extended to more than three million drivers handed fixed penalties for speeding each year. Other offences receiving on-the-spot fines include graffiti, shoplifting and being drunk and disorderly."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090427/tuk-speeding-fine-may-get-15-surcharge-6323e80.html
:banghead:
While I am all for keeping speeds down, it seems to me that motorists are just an easy target (again) for the government to raise cash from them when they should REALLY be extracting cash from REAL criminals.
If you watch programs like 'Police, Camera, Action' etc, these little cunts that cause so much damage are let off with a mere slap on the wrist. Why doesn't the government chase them and their families instead? Perhaps if parents of young offenders had to dig some compensation money out of their pockets, they'd be more inclined to keep their kids on a leash.
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Comments
Government needs money.
Government picks on easy target for more money, as taxing according to means is such a fucking alient concept to the Government.
Speed doesn't kill. Bad driving does. Cameras are revenue extracting, they don't prosecute bad driving.
It's either perfectly safe to drive at 90mph on a motorway or it is the most dangerous thing to do, depending on road conditions. I wouldn't mind, but the national speed limit was only brought in as a response to the 1970s fuel crisis; the black diagonal always used to mean 'end of restriction'.
But... I still think the speed limit is the speed limit. If people are exceeding the speed limit then if the police are around they know they're going to get caught. I further agree with Kermit's implication that it's situational - going 40 in a 30 near a school is increasing the chance of killing a child quite dramatically according to the adverts. Going 80mph on the motorway isn't going to make a lot of difference in good conditions. Then again, I've seen some drivers in APPALLING conditions still try to drive at 70mph when it was clearly not safe to do so.
I guess the speeding laws work on averages, on average someone who is speeding is more likely to be a hazard than someone who is not, and as such they should be punished. I don't think the speed camera culture is good at all, the theory is sound but as we have seen even prison doesn't act as an effective behaviour modifying deterrent.
£15 isn't a whole lot - if you can afford to speed where you know the speed limit then you can afford to pay the extra surcharge on top of the fine. If you can't afford to speed... then you shouldn't.
But enforcing the speed limits with cameras isn't done on solid safety reasons. There are several cameras on the A69 covering dangerous junctions- so far so good. But if they are there on safety grounds, why are they hidden behind a non-reflective sign, a tree and a bridge parapet? Speed cameras should be painted neon pink with flashing lights on them if it's safety you want- a hidden camera won't make people slow down for the dangerous junction.
As for who I think the most dangerous drivers are, lets start with the owd codger I was following the other week doing 27mph on a trunk road.
But never mind that the average modern car is two million times safer and can stop at a fraction of the braking distance of the Morris. Apparently anything about 70 is dangerous.
I for one don't mind further speed restrictions on certain roads- so long as it is recognised there is nothing wrong with doing at least 85-90mph on a motorway in the right conditions.
I'm inclined to disagree.
Although it may be safe for YOU to drive at that speed, alone on a road, you have to remember there are other road users. Road users that are STUPID. If you were doing that speed and someone cut you up etc you would have less time to react and a much slower stopping time, thus making 90mph not an advisory speed to be travelling at compared to 60/70mph.
That's my opinion anyway and of course you are entitled to yours which I appreciate
But then again it would be too difficult to judge whether people were driving recklessly all the time as apposed to just checking their speed.
Yea I agree it all depends on the circumstances and like I said its more dangerous to drive dangerously i.e. too close to other vehicles, unsafe lane changes than to just simply drive faster.
I think it's an issue the government avoids looking at tbh, just like drugs for whatever reason.
In busy traffic it's inappropriate to go that fast, but in good conditions on quiet roads it's perfectly appropriate to be going that fast.
You don't have carnage on the motorways in Germany and their motorways are unrestricted.
What I really want to see is the Government going after middle lane morons.
:yes: and restrictions on lorries overtaking on dual carriage ways.
Driving fast isn't dangerous. Driving fast in the wrong conditions is dangerous.
The whole system's out of date. Speed limits could quite easilly go up on some roads without any significant increase in risk. But then there are other roads that coudl do with heavier restrictions.
For example - in heavy rain, I'm doing a solid 70MPH. The speed limit, and I feel comfortable that I and my car can cope with it (the car I drive is particularly communicative as to road surface conditions).
Someone comes steaming past at 95MPH, hits unsighted standing water and almost smashes into the barrier, possibly collecting other road users.
A few weeks ago, I'm driving home on the M4 on a sunny Saturday morning. There is very little traffic around, and I'm doing 90MPH. The car is stable, I am confident and alert, monitoring what little traffic ahead I can see and planning accordingly.
I come round a bend in the motorway and see a camera van on a bridge up ahead - too late, as I tend not to check for road hazards on a bridge above my head.
Bam. 3 points and a £60 fine.
Now tell me which one is more dangerous and deserving of a penalty?
Limits are there for a reason, but common sense has to be applied more thoroughly to something with as many fluctuating variables as driving.
Just as in the same way a speed camera will catch a motorist straying over the limit coming home late at night, it won't catch a drunken driver weaving all over the road endangering lives and property at 25MPH.
As for the surcharge ... just ANOTHER way for this bloody government to milk road users for all their worth. They really don't want re-election, do they?
Which victims ? Whose lives will be saved ?
Helping victims of what? Saving whose lives?
As I said before, if these cameras were about safety there would be one outside every single school and they would all be painted neon pink with shiny sparkly lights.
But they're not, these cameras are hidden in places solely to catch people speeding. Hell, it was only after a European challenge that the Government were forced to paint them yellow and put warning signs up; before then, most cameras were well hidden on fast flowing stretches of road. Most of the speed cameras in Northumberland Partnership are hidden behind non-reflective signs even now.
Is sarcasm lost on you two?
Thank you, some brains on the boards
In such cases (say on dual carriageways with a restriction of 40 or 50mph) the one driver sticking to the speed limit sticks out like a sore thumb and promptly creates a long queue of traffic behind them.
Who is to say that it's safe travelling at whatever speed on whatever day?
I'm actually in favour of increasing the limit on the motorway, like in Germany, but they have different rules altogether (for example, they don't have lorries clogging up the autobahns on a weekend, unless carrying fresh produce, meaning lower numbers of lorries / tired lorry drivers etc).
I'd rather see more Traffic Police than cameras to be honest - i'm not sure how much the cameras cost, but i'm sure for every one, you could afford at least 1 to 2 bobbies, and considering a camera is only triggered by someone going over a set limit, it can't determine what could be dangerous driving, along with other problems
Pont is braking distances are still far smaller now than when when these laws were set in place. Cars are safer all round infact. Speed is not the main cause of accidents on the road anyway.
Who is it say that 70mph is safe and 75mph is deserving of ticket?
Commen sense tells us that dryy roads are safer than wet roads, clear conditions are safer than foggy condition etc etc.
Variable speed limits are in already in effect on large stretches of UK motorways. Of course they still have have a ceilign of 70mph which is outdated.
Agree with all that. I don't think anybody with any sense will argue that we shoudl just up the limit across the board. There are so many variables to take into account when assessing how risky a road is.
Not normally!
Look in your Highway Code. Most of the braking distance is actual stopping distance, rather than thinking time. The Highway Code distance could probably be cut by 35% and be realistic for modern cars, although I appreciate that they should overstate the distances massively.
Erm not quite...
Based on the Highway Code (but you'll know this, as you quoted it)
Speed - Thinking Distance - Braking Distance
20mph = 6m - 6m
30mph = 9m - 14m
40mph = 12m - 24m
50mph = 15m - 38m
60mph = 18m - 55m
70mph = 21m - 75m
Therefore even if you cut the braking distance, you'd still be looking at between 25% to 50% of the stopping distance being thinking time.
Eitherway, it's not hard to see that speed limits are outdated. Cars are much safer, and those stats are old stats. Even if you don't take ABS into account breaking distance on most modern cars are shorter than that. Those stats are way out of date.
There are clear instances where limits should be decreased - such as many country roads, and clear insatnce where they coudl be increased - such as motorways where variable speed limits are possible.
These bare figures do not show the whole story. Nearly all cars produced today are fitted with anti-lock braking systems. Not only do these allow relatively unskilled drivers to access a car's full stopping abilities on a consistent basis, they also enable steering control to be maintained whilst doing so. Some more expensive and performance oriented cars are equipped with dynamic stability aids, which will become more widely available in time. These enable vehicles to be kept under control in extreme circumstances, such as when taking avoiding action.
Part of the improvement in braking performance can be attributed to the development of tyre technology. In 1965, radial-ply tyres were only just starting to make significant inroads into the original-equipment market. Today, even quite ordinary cars are fitted with tyres having much greater cornering, braking and wet weather grip than those of the 1960s. The design of suspension systems has become more sophisticated, to take advantage of the abilities of the latest tyres. Even basic modern tyres are capable of being run at sustained speeds above 100
RE: Your comments about tyres - this assumes that all individuals look after their tyres, which unfortunately they do not.
A blow out at 100mph would possibly result in far more serious injury than that of a lower speed
Just a thought.
As speed increases from 10mph to 20mph the kinetic energy increases by 4 times. Therefore definitely if you crash at 100mph into a brick wall as apposed to 70mph the energy differential would be massive, about double. Which effectively means you have double the chance of dying, although crashing into a brickwall at 70mph is a pretty grim outlook anyway.
Although that is all sound physics, the problem is there is really no evidence that if people are driving at speeds suitable for the conditions that accidents are any more or less likely to happen at 100mph than 70mph. In fact in many places innappropriate speed limits have been cited as a causal factor of accidents because some drivers try to stick to them and some try to drive at what they determine to be safe and end up tailgating, weaving, and other dangerous driving habits.
The thing is, on clear stretches of the M1 where variable speed limits are enabled, at clear times of the day, do you think that increasing the speed limit to 80mph would do any extra damage at all? Because there is really no conclusive evidence at all, other than the above science that going faster and crashing = more damage.
Consider that motorcycle helmet manufacturers gave up trying to protect the riders head from impacts at 70mph because if they do hit a lampost or something, they're going to be dead anyway. So what they have done is engineered them to be safer at low speed impacts (where most collisions occur anyway) so you are less likely to have brain damage from crashing into a bus at 30mph. The same is true in cars. If you hit a stationary object at 70mph, unless you are deflected the energy you were travelling with is most likely going to kill you. So the emphasis must be on avoiding accidents with appropriate distances between cars and driving at speeds safe for the conditions.
However there is no reason why you are more likely to crash in good conditions on a clear road at 80mph over 70mph, anymore than if you were travelling at 60mph or 50mph. The case, in pure evidence, just isn't there for limiting people's top speed arbitarily on good roads. In fact in pure evidence germany with the autobahn is far safer than many other countries with imposed speed limits. It is all about -not- crashing and speed is only a contributing factor to a crash when it is speed inappropriate for the conditions or there is a speed difference between the vehicle and the mean speed of traffic (either if the car is going much faster or much slower).
Nobody complains about planes travelling a couple of hundred miles per hour!
I accept those points.
But you can't get away from the fact that car saftey (both in prevention and result of crashes) has improoved significantly whilst UK laws on speed have remained the same for decades. They are out of date.
Britain has the safest main roads in Europe. The evidence is that approc 50% of people speed on our motorways yet they remain some of the safest in the world. That goes for A roads too.
Where Britain is lagging is ur saftey record of pedestrians and cyclists indicating that it's our minor and country roads that need harsher limits whilst the limit for our major roads could be increased.
And Whowhere the highway code's stats on stopping distances are not realistic. They do not accurately represent the true stopping distance of modern vehicles.