SPEEDING tickets and parking fines may be topped up with a £35 surcharge to help pay compensation for victims of crime, it was claimed yesterday.

A leaked letter from Home Secretary David Blunkett to Cabinet colleagues proposed the extra punishment as a way of boosting the £160 million-a-year criminal injuries compensation scheme. The Home Office confirmed that a review of the scheme was under way.

From:

http://www.people.co.uk/homepage/news/page.cfm?objectid=13223307&method=thepeople_full&siteid=79490

 

Of course:

They would never dream of taxing the real criminals to compensate their victims:

It has to be the other way round in this through the looking glass PC caring-sharing woolly "liberal" socialist world of ours.

 

"...

But Michael Howard, the shadow chancellor, said last night that the scheme was a stealth tax that would unfairly penalise those who had not committed a crime.

"British motorists are the most harassed and persecuted in the whole of Europe. If this happens, this will be yet another tax imposed by this Government on top of the 60 tax rises we have had since 1997, thanks to Labour," Mr Howard said. "We are paying 50 per cent more in tax than we were in 1997 and we are not seeing the improvement in public services that we were promised.".....

From:

http://www.motoring.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F07%2F28%2Fntax128.xml

"But Michael Howard, the shadow chancellor, said last night that the scheme was a stealth tax that would unfairly penalise those who had not committed a crime."

When I last looked, breaking the speed limit (and parking illegally) were crimes, maybe Chopper Howard is looking at a different statute book...

I'm sure I saw somewhere on here that someone had worked out that is was worth speeding if you were paid more than £10 an hour, so lots of people took the risk. Obviously the bigger the penalty, the less attractive taking the risk becomes, hopefully with a reduction in speeding.

However, it's my belief that upping the points from 3 to 4 (therefore reducing the number of occurences needed for a ban) would be more effective. This would only affect people with 0 points, if you already had 6 points you'd still need two more offences to get a ban.

GOFL, it has been shown (look at the graphs) that the 'kill your speed' approach doesn't work.

It seems odd to me that this government wants to 'up the stakes' against speeding drivers in a misguided scheme which will not improve road safety to any great extent, when they could have announced a 5-yearly safety test (including hazard awareness instruction) for drivers at a cost of £35.
It's a bit late in the evening to press my brain into action, but I reckon that a guaranteed income of £35 X 30 million every five years would bring in lots of money (which is the real intent, forget the crap about 'victims') AND vastly improve safety.
Funnily enough, I reckon most drivers wouldn't object to this.

It does seem surprising that Michael Howard, one of the welsh chosen people should be making a stance for the ordinary motorist, particularly in the light that when he was the Home Officer minister, he did everything in his power to strip the public of every single civil liberty that they had left over from Margaret Thatcher's reign.

"When I last looked, breaking the speed limit (and parking illegally) were crimes, maybe Chopper Howard is looking at a different statute book..."

The last time I looked, either eating Christmas Pud, or celebrating Christmas, was a crime.

And the time before that, within the life of the last parliament, eating Christmas Pud, and celebrating Christmas, were crimes.

Welcome to gofl's world:

Where the eaters of Christmas Pud have committed crimes, deserve to be punished, and  taxed to help compensate "victims".

Such as Murderers and Rapists who have suffered some PC indignity in their formative years no doubt.

Like being deprived of appropriate chastisement.

 

"However, it's my belief that upping the points from 3 to 4 (therefore reducing the number of occurences needed for a ban) would be more effective. This would only affect people with 0 points, if you already had 6 points you'd still need two more offences to get a ban."

It would save on admin too.

Just think:

All those people who used to have to be sent four NIPS in a week for creeping past the new, illegally, or un-signed limits well within the former perfectly safe limit, will only have to be sent three to surprise them with a ban for being a homicidal maniac doing a whopping 35 on what used to be a perfectly safe at 70 40mph dual carriageway until they took the speed limit signs off the lamp posts!

Last time I looked fare dodging and riding a cycle on the pavement were crimes, both with probably a £1000 fine.

When was the last time they were used?

Never mind topped up with a tax?

Never mind those archaic laws about riding without lights, through red lights, or putting out the lights of some poor pedestrian.

 

Many people might wish to support victims of crime but why pick on motorists.

Why not tackle smokers who cost the health service millions of pounds each year, or burglars who increase the premiums on our insurance?

The motorist seems to be the solution to many revenue raising problems.