Crime Pays!

13 Jan 2004

THE message to drivers is that the Government wants you to put your foot on the gas and speed.
Mrs Johnson does her civic duty
A woman in a town 100 or so miles away has been brutally mugged and the Government wants you to chip in to see her right.

So if you could please put your foot on the accelerator when you pass one of the many speed cameras, then that would be most helpful.

The plan is that the £60 speeding fine coming your way will be hiked by an extra fiver, which will be slipped into the victim's bloodied and bruised paw.

Doing 33mph in a 30mph zone is no longer just a matter of devil-may-care carelessness and criminality - it is a matter of social necessity.

As the Independent says, the Government is finding it hard to raise funds for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (the bill was £171m last year), so it needs your help.

The new charge is outlined in a Home Office consultation paper, Compensation And Support For Victims Of Crime.

David Blunkett's office writes: "We believe that making a small payment towards victims could form an important part of the reparation of an offender."

How fining speeding motorists does this is questionable. But the plan is to hit all villains, not just mums on the school run and other plagues on human existence.

Anyone convicted and sent to jail will be ordered to pay £30 into the fund.

The burglar will not pay the money straight back to his victim - although they could leave goods to that effect as they flee the scene - but deposit the money into the fund.

There will also be a £5 levy on the fixed penalty £40 fine for being drunk in a public place, the same surcharge as that on the £80 fine for giving a hoax call to the fire brigade.

And there's an extra £10 to pay for failure to give your driver's details to police when pulled over for DWB (Driving While Black) and other offences.

So get out there and start breaking the law. Your community, victims and the Government need you and, more importantly, your money.

Go on, hand it over - or else!

http://www.anorak.co.uk/news.cfm?id=164874

£10 For DWB? (in a BMW??) That 'Really Would' be the end of bLiar and his crazy gang!

Hanbo

"How speeding motorists fit into this"?

Simple - if you are the blithering idiot who was on the radio today!

According to the idiot on the Radio 2 (Vine Prog), today, we are all the same as rapists, child molesters and murderers, muggers, burglars, wife killers .... just because we occasionally drive along a road at 32-33mph!

What about compensating the driver when the pedestrian ignores the Highway Code, allows his/her child out without training in the Green Cross Code! These people are as much to blame in the cause of accidents as the so-called speeding motorist!

People who cross slowly, cross at a 30 degree angle, "moon walk", deliberately cross in front of you, cross the road at a dangerous spot, ignore the pedstrian crossings completely.... where is their punishment in the "anti-social behaviour bill?" They'd make far more money out of these folk! MORE OF THEM!

Interestingly I read that the Victim Support Charity "would feel unhappy about taking money made from fines. This should come from the Government's budget!"

Well - now we know the answer - Gordon's fudged his figures and is looking for a way out!

Interesting little piece in today's Daily Mail (13/01/04)

AN IDLE POLICE CAR - DETERRENT OR EMPTY GESTURE?

This idle police car had been left "abandoned" in a lay-by in the village of Shardlow, near Derby.

One villager approached it to inform the cops of some anti-social behaviour on the part of some youths!

It was empty. Enquiries at the local shop revealed that it had been there for nearly a week.

The villager was fuming at the waste of tax payers' money! "It made my blood boil!"

The police admitted that the car was there to stop motorists speeding over 30mph!

Well, at least they could not be accuesed of fleecing this time! Wasting money - yes, Fleecing - no!

But then again - it was a little backwater village! No real dosh to be made there! Plenty of richer pickings elsewhere - but they just put the cop car there to fool the villagers into thinking they were earning their money!

Why the hell wasn't it out patrolling?

You know - that quaint old fashioned idea? The one where they actually see the dangerous, really aggressive twazak driving whilst drunk, or even without insurance?

The one who gives us all a bad name!

But just think - if the levy was already here - which fine do you think they would have gone for?

The motorists @£65 each or the gang of under-age youths who may not have had the funds to pay?

Cheers

In Gear (A Wacky Gangster!)

I'm confused by this site. OK you don't like speed cameras and would rather see some other method used. So the police try by putting a large reminder i.e. a thumping great police car and you don't like that either.

What should the police be doing?

Incidentally I know Shardlow well and it's a lethal place to be on a bike. Cars regularly speed and the pavements are narrow. Your suggestion please...........

Hi George!

The point the paper (and Cous') was making was that the cops were not catching anyone speeding either! An abandoned cop car would do very little to help the situation.

If the aim was to deter speedsters - then perhaps two cops sat in the car would have been a better idea! Apparently, all motorists saw was a parked up police car outside a shop!

As it happens - the cop car could have been vandalised!

It was sat there for 6 days by all accounts!

Perhaps, given Shardlow's lay-out - Smiley Sids - known to prevent undue speeding would have been better and more long term as a safety measure! No-one is advocating NO speed limits, or no penalties. Folks on these sites are pointing out the bizarre way in which these limits are being enforced! Most of it really does appear to have more to do with increasing revenue than preventing accidents. We have repeatedly called for on-going training for drivers - say every 5 years - including eye tests etc, cautions instead of points for first or marginal speed offences of, say, 1-7 mph over the posted, as has the ABD, Speed Limit! A review of all speed limits and improvements to road layouts (which would certainly help Shardlow) would also improve matters.

We also advocate fines for pedestrians and cyclists who fail to observe the Highway Code, on the grounds that this would reduce accidents to almost zero! If we get fined for tripping a red light - then they get fined for tripping a red man! J-walking, moon walking and failure to cross at designated crosssings should all carry on the spot fines for pedestrians!

Highway Code is not just for drivers, George!

And should one of us get run over - the family would probably brand us as twazaks for eternity!

Speaking of the authorities' response to real road safety....

I telephoned the authorities yesterday regarding LARGE nails on the A560/M56 roundabout. If these pierced a tyre ..... major accident on M56/M60 network! The nails are still visible on the roadway today! So much for road safety then! Presumably if I'd reported speeding - a talivan would have arrived within minutes!

Incidentally, this gang does not advocate dangerous OTT speeding, and will always drive appropriately through a village. (We are IAM/RoSPA "muppets" as are the ABD etc muppets!)


Cheers

Flashpoint

Another Wacky Gangster (There are 16 of us!!)

George Painter mentions narrow pavements etc, and asks "What do you suggest"....you could always lobby your local council to widen them...or better still, stay in bed all day!
Seriously tho, Why does George seem to take such a delight in watching a TAX paying section of society fund a NON tax paying section?
Im referring to drivers vs cyclists.
Please bear in mind George that im a driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian.
I dont see that pedestrians should be penalised for walking on the pavement, so why the malicious view that drivers should be bent over for driving on the roads that they pay £43 billion a year to drive on?

Interesting OU prog the other night!

Lots of viruses and bacteria infest your body!

The one that seems to affect about 60% of the UK's population is ,, the toxaplasma virus! This is found in meats and certain cheeses! (Lentil munchers could be OK - unless their lentils are from GM crops!)

The virus burrows itself into our brains, and reduces all perception of fear and risk!

Apparently research into accident victims have shown that the virus is indeed present in 60% of those involved!

so there you have it - the ultimate excuse for getting nicked for speeding!

It weren't me Guv - it were the virus!

And since I am a victim of your crass DeFRA controls - can I have my £65 back plus the compensation due to me as a victim of your Government!

Just another Wacky thought!

All I questioned is how you would propose the police tackle the problem of speeding motorists through such a place as Shardlow.

Widening the pavements is not an option. It is a historic village with many listed buildings. However, building a by-pass was an option so it was done.

Would you prefer the police car to be manned (at whose expense)?

I don't offer a solution this time (I have one) but I would be interested to hear yours.

Hi George!

You ask us if we want the cop car to be manned and at whose expense!

The cop car is a tangible fixed asset and is incurring depreciation costs at our expense! Just standing there stationary is costing us (the taxpayer - I consider I pay enough already - as perhaps you do too!), money! It would have cost money to bring a crew out to retrieve the vehicle as well. So that would be perhaps 3-4 coppers wages spent on fetching a car, depreciation, opertaing costs, etc of both vehicles - which we would be paying for - again! This was a blatant waste of resources!

Of course we want it manned! We do not mind paying for resources, providing they are used properly. We would, of course, prefer to see a Smiley Sid. This would be a much better and longer lasting resource. We would get our money's worth out of that!

If you like seeing your money wasted in this way - you are free to continue being a lentil munching twazak! But normal, rational people do object to seeing money squandered in this way!

The stationary cop car at Sharlow would be costing us dosh, just by sitting there in the lay-by. It was not catching anyone speeding. It was not a deterrent to the dangerous speeder. It ws just a cop car outside a shop, and anyone passing would assume that the cops had gone to buy a bar of choc!

So it was not solving any problem. It would have been better deployed elsewhere - catching criminals, the uninsured, the dangerous and reckless driver who actually causes the accident.

As for widening pavements, re-engineering roadways to ensure greater road safety - then would this not be a better way of spending public money? After all, this would give you a better cycle path! But we would like to see fines for you people who do not keep to them! Fair's fair

We will accept that joy riders and yobby scrotes, drunken drivers etc may indeed mount pavements. We all want to see these types locked up and the key thrown away. But the average motorist in this country is a hard-working, tax paying, law abiding citizen who does not take too kindly to being branded a criminal for driving at 33mph for a couple of yards! Or driving on a motorway at 75mph under clear dry and absolutely safe conditions! The speed limit in Europe in 70 mph in wet conditions (France) and 80mph elsewhere! Germany does have limits on certain busy stretches and recommends 80mph on non limited stretches.

Why should the UK be any different?

Cheers

Sums Up Fast
A Wacky Gangster