SeeFive,
You beat me to it - here is the headline on the BBC website;
"Speeding drivers face victim levy
Motorists fined for speeding might have to pay an extra fine
Motorists convicted of speeding may have to pay compensation for victims, the government has proposed.
The plan, published on Monday, is one of several changes to the funding of victim support services.
Motorists given a prison term or suspended sentence would pay £30 to a Home Office fund providing victim and witness compensation and support.
Those fined for speeding or driving without insurance would face a levy of £5 or £10. "
My initial thoughts on this would have my post deleted , but I will continue to send the odd contribution to an excellent organisation called Orbis, who do great work in curing blindness, in the hope that we might get a Home Secretary with vision one day.
I do not intend this a a criticism of David Blunkett, and admire his achievements as an unsighted person - but this is absolute nonsense!
Matt35
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I see our beloved Government are going to make speeding motorists pay another £5 to compensate the victims of crime...
www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12971630,00.h...l
"MOTORING FINES TO GO UP
Motorists convicted of speeding offences may have to pay an extra £5 on fines to fund victim support services, Home Secretary David Blunkett has announced.
The levy was proposed as part of a shake-up in the way ministers tackle the aftermath of murder, rape, violent assault and other crimes.
More serious motoring offences such as uninsured driving would carry a £10 surcharge. Parking fines would be exempt from the new levy.
Other on-the-spot fines, such as those for being drunk in public or making a hoax 999 call, would also carry the extra charge.
A consultation document said the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (CICS) should stop paying out to people attacked at work - including police, health workers and teachers - with the burden shifting to employers instead.
The CICS currently pays out 40,000 awards totalling £160m a year."
Pity the Government currently has over £275M of fines outstanding which never get paid.
Without wishing to malign our much beloved Home Secretary I have to ask if these muppets have got their logic sorted out?
1. The monies involved are smaller than unpaid fines.
2. Unpaid fines would fund it all
3. Non payers now will certainly not pay bigger fines..
Why should not criminals pay for the damage they do? If they are on Government Aid, frequent offenders should lose it: otherwise taxpayers pay offenders to re-offend with no chance of redress.
Logic? Wotsthat?
madf
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Agree with some of your points, madf. But if you feel that funds should be collected to compensate victims of crime, it seems better to do it this way than to levy every driver via the pump price of fuel, as has been suggested. You will obviously only levy those drivers you catch, so it's not 'fair', but at least you aren't levying good guys as well.
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Whilst it is, in theory, a good idea for the perpetrators of a crime to contribute towards making good their misdeeds, this whole proposal is totally iniquitous.
As far as I am aware, speeding is still a civil matter, not a criminal one. Why then, should motorists pay even more on top of the already over the top fines to go towards compensating the actions of criminals?
The answer is surely to add this levy to all fines handed out ny courts, but the powers that be know full well that motorists, by and large, pay their fines without too much complaining. I'd be very interested to see statistics (preferably not Government ones!) that show what proportion of motoring fines are still unpaid compared to 'criminal' fines.
If this Government is not very careful, they will have a revolt on their hands. The normal guy in the street can only take so much.
Cheers
Rob
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Whilst it is, in theory, a good idea for the perpetrators of a crime to contribute towards making good their misdeeds, this whole proposal is totally iniquitous. As far as I am aware, speeding is still a civil matter, not a criminal one. Why then, should motorists pay even more on top of the already over the top fines to go towards compensating the actions of criminals? The answer is surely to add this levy to all fines handed out ny courts
I think the proposal is to add the levy to fines for more offences than just speeding. But, of course, you can't get convicted of any of the others without having the evidence tested in court. And you're entitled to see the evidence before that happens.
but the powers that be know full well that motorists, by and large, pay their fines without too much complaining. I'd be very interested to see statistics (preferably not Government ones!) that show what proportion of motoring fines are still unpaid compared to 'criminal' fines.
Indeed. I can't remember the number from last night, but I did see the annual unpaid fines figure somewhere and it was more than a few quid!!
Leaving aside for now the issues with enforcing speed limits vs enforcing road safety, I have no problem with convicted offenders (whatever the offence) being fined. And no problem with some of the money going to victim support organisations. But the level of the fine surely has to be determined by what is an appropriate punishment and deterrent, NOT by this year's victim support budget shortfall.
GJD
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Isn't this an example of how modern Governments work? I have seen no regulation or draft regulation which would be required to bring this into law.
It seems the thing to do is make a proposal and float it before the populus and see what the response is. If only mild objection then they will follow through. Strong objection and possibility of lost kisses at the Ballot Box and it is shelved (for the time being).
So go forth peeps and object in your strongest possible way at this load of b****y twaddle.
DVD
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Just another stealth tax by Uncle Gordon who is desperate for more cash. I have visions of cabinet meetings with Gordy imploring ?can you noo think of ways of ways to help?
?taxes on beer to pay for unmarried mothers ?? After all it could be alcohol related..
?window taxes? been done before?.
Incidentally where did all that windfall tax on utilities go??.
There are many new taxes to come and who easier to cane than the motorist and the hoose owner.
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I don't think it's really a stealth tax by Gordon - it's just a bad idea from a person that doesn't (can't) drive. I do feel that those that make decisions on our roads ought to at least drive on them.
To return to motoring I've said it before and I'll say it again I don't have a real problem with people being fined for speeding. I do have a problem with only those insured, taxed and MOT'd being fined for speeding. I also dislike having to drive in fear of being hit by someone who isn't insured (and is hence more likely to break the traffic laws since they can't be traced)
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It's THIS week's reinforcement of the impression that the police (themselves, or through government policy) increasingly don't bother trying to catch 'real' criminals, whilst the motorist gets ever more money screwed-out of him for the slightest transgression of the letter-of-the-law.
It can be difficult to catch criminals - why not just compensate the victims instead, that should restore equilibrium, eh?
Thing is, up to £28 million a year of this pot of compensation is to be supplied by surcharges on fines for speeding (admittedly amongst a few other offences). So on the one hand the government tell us "Speed kills! You must not speed!", and on the other, they WANT people to speed, in order to fund this topsy-turvy approach to "being tough on crime".
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Exceeding the posted speed limit is a choice. If everyone chose not to then their plan would fall flat on it's face and leave a nice large hole in the coffers. It also may prove once and for all how many accidents are caused by exceeding the limit.
I think the money should get spent on having more of those ANPR devices so real criminals could be tracked around the country and have themselves followed by the fuzz at every available opportunity. Why aren't they fitted in truvelos so that every unregistered vehicle passing through is photographed? It should be particularly useful as they are forward facing so it would give them an idea of who they are looking for. It would be too obvious with gatsos as the flash would alert them, and they'd wonder why they were getting flashed through every camera, even when under the limit....it would also help those with cloned plates as the driver could be seen.
teabelly
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Did anyone watch Newsnight last night? I know it's unusual for an 18 year old to be watching it but I was flicking over channels and stumbled across it. Jeremy Paxman was interviewing Baroness Scotland (a Home Office Minister) about this new levy for compensation of accident victims. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating stupid speeds nor am I calling speeding safe but there are in some instances (For example 34mph in a 30mph zone lands a 65 year old man with 3 points and a fine - his first points ever - but I won't go into it) which makes speeding not exactly necessary but certainly difficult to avoid (I hope I've quelled any uprisings that would follow this thread). Anyway - to cut a seemingly long story short, Jeremy seemed very animated about the topic, almost as if he'd been caught speeding on the way to the studios! He asked the minister how they could liken a speeder and a robber to each other to which she replied that they were both criminals. This obviously enraged him and he fought back until eventually, when it was obvious he wasn't going to back down, the minister started to backpedal. I just thought it was hilarious ;-)
Cheers
Adam.
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"Give Way"? Wait....I know this one...give me a minute
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But this proposal isn't just about speeding, (which is why i didn't originally think to look for it in here Mods). You will get a 35 fine for not having water in the wash bottle, or noisy brakes (tada, spelt it right)
"Defective headlights, worn tyres, having no fluid in windscreen washers, not using a seatbelt and even having noisy brakes will cost drivers an extra fiver. "
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Noisy brakes? There are some brake designs that are noisy full stop and cannot be prevented from being noisy. Are they after serious squealing or a bit of a squeak? Is it going to get to the stage where people will be scared to use their brakes because they don't want a fine because they make a bit of noise? Defective headlights, no seatbelt and worn tyres I have no problem with. Arguably having no selt belt removes the idiots from the food chain faster so perhaps it should no longer be a crime for an adult ;-)
teabelly
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I didn't know that - the emphasis was on speeding and I only found out about it last night. I can just see that happening Teabelly - people will be afraid to use their brakes and so creep over the limit and get fined for that! All the bases are covered aren't they?
Adam
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"Give Way"? Wait....I know this one...give me a minute
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Noisy brakes? There are some brake designs that are noisy full stop and cannot be prevented from being noisy. Are they after serious squealing or a bit of a squeak?
Perhaps the Government wants us to oil our brakes so they won't squeal. Then they can collect more £5 contributions for speeding.
Seriously, the good Baroness was on every news bulletin telling us that the public will welcome the £5 levy on speeding motorists "and other criminals". So why are we complaining? After all, she says we WILL welcome it [or else?].
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Exceeding the posted speed limit is a choice. If everyone chose not to then their plan would fall flat on it's face and leave a nice large hole in the coffers.
Something like this already happening in Northmptonshire where there is a sizable hole in the police budget.
Suspect this proposal has the subtext that speeding is criminal (it remains so, though you don't get a "record" for motoring offences). The governmemnt's aim is to change the culture of speed.
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I was driving along at a steady 30mph, minding my own business..and then I thought of victims of crime.....
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Just a quick visit to comment on this fine surcharge malarkey..
I hope that the fury this will generate means this will never see the light of day, but quite frankly I've been wrong before about some of the garbage this current administration inflicts on the basis that "surely they wouldn't be this stupid" only to be proved totally wrong.
What next, a window tax?
Do the scrotes pay any fines, ever?
(Btw is scrote the correct spelling or is it scroat?)
I'm sure many inhabitants of the Backroom virtual bar will never be hit by one of these fines, but what did anyone make of the geezer on Newsnight likening offending motorists to paedophiles. That got me shouting at the TV.
Baroness Scotland, another one for the list come the revolution.
Finally when they introduce fines for (ahem) emitting greenhouse gases (methane) then that will be the end of Mrs FiFs famous chestnut stuffing at Christmas, and for that they will NOT be forgiven.
At the moment I could do a good version of Steve Wrights Mr Angry if you remember him.
Cheers all off for a while,
FiF
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I thinkthe derivation of "scrote" is "scrotum", so I expect that the correct spelling is "scrote"!
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"Rude, crude and socially unacceptable"
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There is no way I am going to pay a surcharge on ANY motoring fine to recompense some oik who has had his teeth knocked out in a drunken brawl! I fully agree with earlier posts re get outstanding fines collected and enforce existing laws before coming up with even more nonsense. Remember the idea of thugs going to a cash point to pay an 'on the spot' fine? I don't think it ever happened. This is just another bit of policy on the hoof from a bunch of no-brainers, IMHO!
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Lib Dem MP Menzies Campbell, said last night, that to levy a surcharge on a penalty to pay for something completely unrelated, is against all European Human Rights laws.
Egg on the face all around then eh?
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But HMG believes that speeding drivers are criminals akin to child molesters etc, so would deny that the surcharge is unrelated surely?
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Typical New Labour reaction.
Push the idea out there, thrown in the lightweights to support it and if you get a bad reaction back off.
Bliar is already saying 'its just a proposal'.
I am surprised at the political incompetence though. Why not just hikes all fines by £5 and quietly cream the dosh off behind closed doors?
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Why not just hikes all fines by £5 and quietly cream the dosh >> off behind closed doors?
Because then it would be a stealth tax, not a prudent investment in our country's future carefully targeted to achieve social justice....
So now you know the difference between the two! Presentation, presentation, presentation.
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>> Why not just hikes all fines by £5 and quietly cream the dosh >> off behind closed doors? Because then it would be a stealth tax, not a prudent investment in our country's future carefully targeted to achieve social justice.... So now you know the difference between the two! Presentation, presentation, presentation.
Hmm, politics, politics, politics.
No Dosh
mailto:Alan_moderator@honestjohn.co.uk
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