fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
Flinders
Posts: 3023
Joined: 10 Mar 2009, 6:47pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by Flinders »

thirdcrank wrote:
danhopgood wrote:Re. statistics on mobile 'phone use when driving:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31634425


Very interesting. :D

One thing that's obvious but is still worth noting, is that those observations only show activity at a given time. By that I mean that if you observed the colours of passing cars, you would soon have a pretty good idea what %age of cars were white. A couple of % of drivers using a phone at any given time suggests to me that those drivers are only a small part of the %age of drivers who might use a phone while driving. There will be some drivers, I expect, who never put their phone down and others who only do this occasionally. However, they are all people who consider the activity more or less OK and who might, therefore, be reluctant to convict another driver of causing death if "all they had done" was to use a mobile at the wheel.


Excellent points, well made. I don't even like to think about how widespread the problem really is. I'd say it was endemic, at least as widespread as drink driving used to be before the law against it came in.
Pugwash
Posts: 114
Joined: 13 Jan 2010, 12:57pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by Pugwash »

Using a mobile, speeding and lack of seatbelt should be outsourced to a g4s or serco to enforce for a percentage of the fines ( 50 pct ? )

any speeding over a certain percentage can then be given to the police for full prosecutions.

If there was a commercial incentive to enforce then I am sure people would soon stop.
thirdcrank
Posts: 36776
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by thirdcrank »

Even without privatisation of that type, camera enforcement has been characterised as being income-driven. I think it's fair to say that the reluctance of some chief police officers to use more speed cameras has its roots here. I get the impression that "cash-strapped" local authorities have no such qualms, but E Pickles is keen to put a stop to it.

The activities of Jonathon Wild gave "cash for collars" a bad name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wild
iviehoff
Posts: 2411
Joined: 20 Jan 2009, 4:38pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by iviehoff »

thirdcrank wrote:Even without privatisation of that type, camera enforcement has been characterised as being income-driven. I think it's fair to say that the reluctance of some chief police officers to use more speed cameras has its roots here. I get the impression that "cash-strapped" local authorities have no such qualms, but E Pickles is keen to put a stop to it.

The police's reluctance to use more cameras these days comes from the fact that it costs them - someone else gets all the revenue. Some forces even closed all cameras down because of the budget cuts in the recession. You seem to have a choice between two bad places, give them the fines adn there is incentive for abuse; don't give them the fines and they have no reason to operate the cameras at all. Economic theory suggests that there must be a better place part way between where they get a share of the fines, but not so much as to give them a strong incentive to run it as an abusive money-maker.

Camera enforcement is commonly used in privately run car parks, and we know there is enforcement abuse by some cowboys. There is even greater potential for it to be abused in public parking enforcement, and I can therefore understand, in part, Mr Pickles' reluctance to allow it, as we would not wish our councils to be tempted by the potential gains from high productivity extortion.
LollyKat
Posts: 3250
Joined: 28 May 2011, 11:25pm
Location: Scotland

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by LollyKat »

iviehoff wrote:... give them the fines and there is incentive for abuse; don't give them the fines and they have no reason to operate the cameras at all. Economic theory suggests that there must be a better place part way between where they get a share of the fines, but not so much as to give them a strong incentive to run it as an abusive money-maker.

So if a lot of motorist choose of their own free will to break the law, then it is an abuse to catch and fine them??? With that attitude, there is no hope for the rest of us. :(
blackbike
Posts: 2492
Joined: 11 Jul 2009, 3:21pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by blackbike »

We should crush the motorist's car and give him a driving ban for the first offence and jail him for a second.

No income driven fines though. Fines should be for petty crimes like shoplifting, Saturday night drunkenness and vandalism, not serious ones which recklessly and deliberately endanger life.
iviehoff
Posts: 2411
Joined: 20 Jan 2009, 4:38pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by iviehoff »

LollyKat wrote:
iviehoff wrote:... give them the fines and there is incentive for abuse; don't give them the fines and they have no reason to operate the cameras at all. Economic theory suggests that there must be a better place part way between where they get a share of the fines, but not so much as to give them a strong incentive to run it as an abusive money-maker.

So if a lot of motorist choose of their own free will to break the law, then it is an abuse to catch and fine them??? With that attitude, there is no hope for the rest of us. :(

So there's no such thing as entrapment then. There's no such thing as misleading signage, just motorists foolish enough not to work out what it really means. The government is wasting effort trying to control the activities of private parking enforcers, they are justly extracting reasonable penalties from people who chose to commit offences. There is no such thing as misleading or threatening enforcement documentation, just motorists foolish enough not to be able to see past the irrelevant verbiage. You can believe those things if you like, but it is a rare point of view.
Flinders
Posts: 3023
Joined: 10 Mar 2009, 6:47pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by Flinders »

iviehof, that is not what LollyKat said.

I don't like it when people put words into other people's mouths and then criticise them for what they haven't said. It doesn't advance the debate, it trivialises it.
iviehoff
Posts: 2411
Joined: 20 Jan 2009, 4:38pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by iviehoff »

Flinders wrote:iviehof, that is not what LollyKat said.
I don't like it when people put words into other people's mouths and then criticise them for what they haven't said. It doesn't advance the debate, it trivialises it.

Good. Because that is what LollyKat did, and I was complaining about it.
LollyKat
Posts: 3250
Joined: 28 May 2011, 11:25pm
Location: Scotland

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by LollyKat »

I'm sorry if you took it like that as I didn't intend it as such - it was not aimed at you. I had never heard of the entrapment you describe. I was thinking of all the eejits who bang on about the 'war on the motorist' and complain about speed cameras, traffic light cameras, public parking, etc.

The perils of forum posting :( .
iviehoff
Posts: 2411
Joined: 20 Jan 2009, 4:38pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by iviehoff »

LollyKat wrote:I had never heard of the entrapment you describe. I was thinking of all the eejits who bang on about the 'war on the motorist' and complain about speed cameras, traffic light cameras, public parking, etc.

I'm not one of those eejits, I agree they are eejits. I believe in enforcement. But if you give public authorities powerful methods enabling them to make lots of money from dodgy practice, history suggests they will take advantage of it.

I'm not talking about the friend of mine who got debt collection notices for parking tickets he'd never received. The warden moved his moped before photographing it, and then putting it back, putting no ticket on the bike, and then using a corrupt debt collector to try and collect the unpaid debt: that's just fraud. Fortunately my friend met someone who witnessed it happening and the warden ended up in prison.

When speed cameras were first permitted to be widely used, quickly police forces started to apply entrapment. It didn't last very long, because it was clamped down on quickly too. But clamping down on it did involve what were arguable stronger restrictions than would be desirable for proper use of the cameras. Let me give an example of entrapment that resulted in my first speeding ticket. Along a road in Oxford was affixed a 40mph speed limit sign on every lamppost. Then came one 30mph sign only briefly visible among thick vegetation. Then the camera. I was surprised to get a ticket because I thought I was observing the speed limit, unsurprisingly not having seen the briefly visible 30mph sign among the forest of 40mph signs. But since I live 30 miles from Oxford I was only able to examine the nature of the trap after the time to pay the ticket, so I paid. But it was all dismantled a few weeks later, so presumably some people made a fuss about it.

A street very close to this office was once an example of parking entrapment, though it depends upon a rather specific consideration. One side of the street is in Camden and the other side in Westminster, and each has their separate parking meter. Originally, there was no clear signage so people would put money in the wrong meter, then get tickets, start arguing as they had the meter ticket, and the councils used it as a nice earner. But it gives an indication of how unclear signage can be used as entrapment. People have been fined for parking on invisible yellow lines, etc.

My wife got entrapped by a parking machine the other day. Assessing that she had adequate coins in her purse to pay in coins, she started a process of paying, to find the machine wouldn't accept her 20p coin. However if she cancelled the procedure to pay by another method (card was possible), or go and get some more change, it would keep whatever money she had already paid, and forget she had paid it - it said so clearly. She felt she had morally done her best, and just hopes that the failure of the camera to read her numberplate properly means that they won't pursue her for a large fine for underpaying by 20p.

And sizes of penalties for small transgressions is an issue. Staying a couple of minutes longer than you paid for is a rather different case from being just a few mph over the speed limit, after all there isn't any danger involved, merely the loss of income to the car park from your excess occupation of the space designed for parking. A case at the appeal court is in the news today. A parker was fined £85 by a private parking company for overstaying by a few minutes in a space for which he had paid in advance £2. In the past the courts have thrown out such private penalties as disproportionate. However on this occasion the parking company tried again with a novel argument and got judgement in their favour, which has just been confirmed at court of appeal. It can still be appealed to the supreme court. Scotland has certainty on this matter, since they passed a law stopping such abuse, but apparently Westminster is unwilling to pass similar laws.
thirdcrank
Posts: 36776
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by thirdcrank »

Vote for Eric Pickles.
kwackers
Posts: 15643
Joined: 4 Jun 2008, 9:29pm
Location: Warrington

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by kwackers »

iviehoff wrote:In the past the courts have thrown out such private penalties as disproportionate. However on this occasion the parking company tried again with a novel argument and got judgement in their favour, which has just been confirmed at court of appeal.

I saw that. Good on them! I'm fed up with folk who think they can park wherever they like with impunity and then whine like a girl when they get a ticket.
The reality is that whilst not long ago parking companies were extracting the urine it's gone too far the other way now.
Flinders
Posts: 3023
Joined: 10 Mar 2009, 6:47pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by Flinders »

iviehoff wrote:
Flinders wrote:iviehof, that is not what LollyKat said.
I don't like it when people put words into other people's mouths and then criticise them for what they haven't said. It doesn't advance the debate, it trivialises it.

Good. Because that is what LollyKat did, and I was complaining about it.


That is not how it looks/looked to me at all. And it still isn't.
Flinders
Posts: 3023
Joined: 10 Mar 2009, 6:47pm

Re: fewer motorists fined for mobile use

Post by Flinders »

LollyKat wrote:I'm sorry if you took it like that as I didn't intend it as such - it was not aimed at you. I had never heard of the entrapment you describe. I was thinking of all the eejits who bang on about the 'war on the motorist' and complain about speed cameras, traffic light cameras, public parking, etc.

The perils of forum posting :( .


I'm afraid that poster seems to have a bee in their bonnet about parking tickets, whilst most of the rest of us were discussing people using mobile phones when driving. I didn't see you suggesting that anyone should be being chased for parking fines, or even speeding fines, when signage was inadequate.
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