Your income is assumed to £350 a week unless you can prove that it is less. Is this gross or net one wonders? So a £500 fine for 36 in a 30 and a caution for carrying a knife or drugs! Brilliant!
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Guidelines are here (beware: big document!): tinyurl.com/6emgfh.
Of course, you can always accept the fixed penalty for speeding.
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Yes, it really is well thought out.
So if you earn £3500 or £35000 per week and decline to say, you are fined as though you earn £350.
There is no point in fining people according to income unless everyone who commits the offence is forced to disclose his income.
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Erm ... I don't think you could force everyone etc.
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GM your link doesn't work - for me at least. Optimist - having to disclose one's income would probably be a breach of one's human rights. I shall be one of the "Offer to pay £1 a month or send me to prison" types!
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The motorist had better get used to paying ever increasing amounts.
Nice easy target, details all come up at the push of a button, most of us hard working decent people who try to live a normal lawful life keeping our heads above water....which means we will be the cash cow to prop up the last few years of our country before its bankrupt.
Any other section of offending requires time and resources to enable a prosecution which if successful will nett no all important income, its going to get worse too IMO.
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This could prove interesting in my case. I do not currently have any outstanding proceedings against me but were I to transgress I wonder what they would make of me ?
To explain, I have my own business. It is profitable and enjoying good steady growth. We are fortunate in that my wife has a seperate and good job. We are therefore able to meet all of our domestic needs out of her salary. I do not draw an income from the business. Any spare cash it generates is re-invested in its development. Very occasionally I will draw down some funds which then become taxable income but this is a rare event. It has good assets but they can all be attributed directly to it. If I chose to do so it could afford to pay me a good income but at present that is not the way we choose or need to do things. Therefore, I have genuinely and literally no regular income at all.
Wonder what my fine would be ?
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Actually come to think of it there must be loads of " normal " people who have literally no income. What about couples where one partner does not work and equally claims no state benefit or pension. Must affect millions in fact.
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That's me Humph. Voluntarily retired and under retirement age so have no income nor receive any benefits. Negative income in fact, as I still pay voluntary NI. Or will they then look at household income?
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Gross or net £350 would do me nicely - a lot of people do not realise how well off they are. - Still I dare say the company will pay it.
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So it doesn't.
www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/
Then halfway down the page to the link for "Magistrates? Court Sentencing Guidelines (including Update 1 issued 15 July 2008)"
Illuminating reading, perhaps.
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Still can't see the reason for the outrage.
If you've been caught speeding, pay the ticket. £60.
If you haven't, and you have a sensible defence (ie nothing based on dodgy maths, or something someone told you on Pepipoo, or how appalling modern life is), then contest it.
Then, after you've wasted everyone's time, pay for it.
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Then, after you've wasted everyone's time, pay for it.
Good job Barry George had better advice than that.
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Does 'a statutory duty to have regard to the guidelines' necessarily mean 'a statutory duty to apply the guidelines'?
I would have thought a magistrate, especially if supported by many others, would be in a strong position to carry on exactly as before after briefly having regard to the guidelines. But perhaps I am wrong and magistrates have become government commissars.
Edited by Lud on 02/08/2008 at 18:01
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You pay the same for the advice whether you understand it or not, jbif!
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what if your on jobseekers? is the fine reduced..as far as i know job seekers were on about 60 sovs a week
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At the moment, many people get other people to take points for them, this is going to increase in cases which go to court.
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Advice can be free, and good, from CAB or £750 an hour from a QC in Lincoln's Inn. The price and quality can vary widely!
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...
Edited by GroovyMucker on 02/08/2008 at 20:59
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Any informed opinion on whether magistrates have to take more than a blind bit of notice? PU?
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Humph Baxkbridge said: >>Therefore, I have genuinely and literally no regular income at all.>>
Do you pay income tax, Humph? If you do, that's your income you're paying it on.
Someone suggested it would be a human rights issue to compel people to reveal their income. Courts do it all the time, in divorces for example.
Edited by Optimist on 02/08/2008 at 20:12
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Divorce is a civil matter, depending on how the parties behave! These new rules refer to criminal matters where declaration of income may be subject to different constraints. Some aspect of HR may well apply.
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I think there are get outs in the HRA where the action taken is proportionate and in pursuit of the rule of law. Not sure. Interesting point.
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Someone suggested it would be a human rights issue to compel people to reveal their income. Courts do it all the time, in divorces for example.
I think it should be a Human Rights issue when a "wrongdoer" is punished according to his/her income. The equal and fair treatment should be that the punishment is the same for the same "crime", and the options to "pay" are graded according to the severity of the "crime". The guilty party is judged and sentenced based solely for the severity of the crime and not on the ability to pay.
The problem with the present Government is that everything they do is aimed at milking those in middle or higher income groups for every penny they can get. They are experts at continually adding ever more petty regulations and we continue to take it lying down.
To quote from a response to this excellent article from today's telegraph
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinio...l
"the weird bunch we see before us are a direct consequence of how Labour recruits. This sorry shower of Milipede and Balls types are the representative of the political career path- a bluffer's degree in PPE or the like, then straight into the party machine as an assistant, researcher, whatever, then parachuted into a safe seat, then the Cabinet. They're like this because these are the kind of people drawn into socialist politics- the social inept, sexless boys, the plain Jane girls who sublimated their social inadequacies at Uni by plunging into the drab world of Uni politics; not really able to party and have a laugh, they elected each other to head of Junior Common Room to plan anti-drinking poster campaigns and write resolutions condeming homophobia on campus. The career path into Labour, by its nature, selects these unsettling, creepy weirdies. Which is also, by the way, why they think running a country is entirely the same as campus politics. You can solve everything with posters, firmly worded resolutions and banning whatever it is you don't like in the student union bar."
Edited by jbif on 02/08/2008 at 20:31
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income should be irrellivant to fines , it should be points on licenses only? that way everyone is judged equally
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why not give everyone a starting point of a 100 points on their licence and then every time a road traffic offence occures they lose so many points, ie 3 for parking violations, 30 for speeding, etc etc and when they run out of points they are banned for twelve months and then they restart with 50 points to go on with until they win back the 100 with good behaviour over a set period?
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Points for parking zookeeper? Really! Whose side are you on?
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you can buy your way out of a parking ticket but you cant do the same with a speeding ticket, the point of the question was the rich can park where they want and buy themselves out, financial penalties are not the solution!
Edited by zookeeper on 02/08/2008 at 21:08
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If safety cameras, or whatever they are called this month, are NOT about raising money why are offenders given fines? We are continually assured they are not cash cows but life tells me otherwise.
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The new fines etc. only apply to irresponsible people, the responsible ones sleep easy at night.
If people don't like being fined then accept your responsiblities, comply with the law, stop your moaning and complaining, and stop behaving like a bunch of loud mouthed lawless yobs.
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A bit harsh MT! I think think that what is bothering people is apparent victimisation of motoring folk by ludicrous proposed backdated changes to road tax and the Government's lies on the subject, special scales of fines for motorists and so on. Are these new statutory regulations (above) just for motorists? While you are sleeping easy at night I wonder if you are happy that one of a bunch of loud mouthed lawless yobs (your phrase - not mine) might threaten you with a knife and relieve you of your watch, wallet and mobile phone? It isn't likely that they will be actively sought and if they are caught they might get a caution or 100 hours poorly supervised litter-picking. You will get a crime number and letter from Victim Support and that's your lot!
I think people would be happier if the level of diligence applied to the detection of driving and parking offences was also applied to shop lifting, anti-social behaviour, being armed with a gun or knife in a public place, drivers being untaxed, unlicenced, uninsured, cyclists riding on pavements and, in a recent incident, killing a pedestrian.
36 in a 30 is against the law but so are a lot of other things which are much more distressing and threatening to normal people in their everyday lives. We should have a level playing field and vigorous detection and prosecution of ALL crime - not just motoring offences.
I do hope my rant hans't woken you up!
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ALL crime - not just motoring offences.
Your post is sympathetic AS, because it is written from the viewpoint of a rational citizen in a democracy, in response to one that was ostensibly bon enfant but somehow made me think of lemmings or the armies of some unpleasant empire-builder.
However I must take issue with you over the apparent confusion between crime and motoring offences. Although some of them are crimes, most motoring offences are mere violations of civil rules that are often, as we know, foolish or ill-conceived in themselves. Under the circumstances it is sometimes more morally admirable to violate them than to obey them.
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"36 in a 30 is against the law but so are a lot of other things which are much more distressing and threatening to normal people in their everyday lives. "
A poster above mentioned "what about people carrying a knife or drugs?"
I think statistics would show that Joe Average is more likely to be killed or maimed by the speeding driver than by the knife-wielder or drug-user.
This whole "motorists as easy tax revenue" thing doesn't add up. If you catch someone speeding four times in a few years then they get banned and you lose any revenue you might have got from their VED and fuel duty and there's a chance they'll lose their job and be on benefits. Not a particularly sound basis for raising revenue.
I know I've said it before but I don't understand the persecution complex that many have. I drive a fair few miles a year, both for work and leisure, but I just dont feel persecuted. There's a set of pretty sensible laws in place and they're there to be obeyed for my safety and everyone else's. The laws don't seem much different to those in other countries so it's hard to say that we're dramatically out of line with the concensus.
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D6M. I don't have any figures for the number of people killed in South London by speeding motorists but 17 have been knifed/shot dead in 7 months which isn't reassuring. I think that what riles people is the rigorous enforcement and high prosecution success rate for one sort of crime or rule violation, as opposed to the apparent minimalinterest in chasing up more distressing things like burglaries and muggings. I KNOW the investigations take more effort but they are the crimes that actually bother people and really impact on their lives.
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A profile of those 17 victims of weapons crime would not look like Joe Average though AS. Risk of death or injury from that sort of thing is concentrated in a fairly narrow range of age and social categories. Of course pedestrian victims of RTAs are too (children, drunks and the elderly), and drivers involved in serious or fatal RTAs also tend not to be average but to be male, very young and/or in some sort of euphoric or emotional state.
Because it is gratuitous, thrilling and essentially nasty and incomprehensible, violent crime gets far more media coverage than its prevalence really justifies, even if it does increase and decrease over time.
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Thank you Lud. I was not sure to what crimes these draconian penalties I applied and I am greatful to my learned friend for the clarification! I will use this to mention a related nonsense which I have just seen in a broadsheet paper. Fixed penalty police fine of £80 for various offences including drunk and disorderly and shoplfting; proposed fine for not having your wheelie bin lid shut, putting it out in the wrong place or on the wrong day, fixed penalty of not less than £75 and up to £110 with a standard fixed penalty of £100 suggested.
It may be morally admirable to violate civil rules but it can be pricey!
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there's some pious rubbish being spouted on here isn't there
some speed limits are set too low in any case, most are set for a low common denominator
there are times when breaking them is no big deal, because the low commopn denominator isn't relevant at that time
stealing something, assaulting someone (or worse) etc, etc..is always badly wrong and I cannot fathom why anyone would want to equate it to a minor traffic offence
maybe we need a points system: e.g.
- stealing a mars bar = 15 points
- stealing a load of gold bullion = 1,000 points
- stabbing someone = 2,000 points
- driving slightly over a limit with no danger caused = 1 point
- driving well over a limit in incredibly dangerous circumstances = 800 points
Edited by Westpig on 03/08/2008 at 18:58
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im just wondering how they will apply these new fines to people who dont have a wage coming in i.e stay at home mums (opps sorry got to remain PC stay at home parents) housepersons etc
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>>36 in a 30 is against the law but so are a lot of other things which are much more distressing and threatening to normal people in their everyday lives. We should have a level playing field and vigorous detection and prosecution of ALL crime - not just motoring offences.
Too true. Trouble is that vigorous detection IS being imposed on us. There are security cameras almost everywhere you look in public places.
The problem with this new penalty regime is that it is inconsistent with all other penalty regimes. Why is a motoring offence penalty sensitive to income, but, say, an improperly closed wheelie bin offence is not? Is the speeding of a wealthy person worse than the speeding of someone who less well off? Are we all equal when it comes to our rubbish, but not otherwise?
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And so on and so forth IT, quite right.
Are these new 'guidelines' just another piece of political monkeying doomed to be ignored like so many others (if not all, alas!)? I am still waiting for an informed legal opinion on whether this is a serious attack on the population, an attempt at a serious attack or just the government's way of jumping out from a dark corner with a frightful but shapeless yell to give us all a fright for the good of our souls.
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It is a kind of populist resentment against people who have more money than most of us, but it has been dressed up as a concern for public safety. Why would you increase the penalty just because someone has a higher income? This kind of thing can be introduced because there is already a great deal of talk about the need to keep us all safe by catching and punishing those who speed. Hooray. We can increase the fines for speeding by sticking it to people who are resented for some other reason. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am neither a member of the resentful poor nor the arrogant rich. I merely think justice should be administered equally.
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You could just look at the variable fine as a pecentage of a persons wealth, thereby depriving rich and poor equally.
However we all know that it will never work with PFDs.
Edited by Pugugly on 03/08/2008 at 22:20
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Follow the curve of this "interesting" social/judicial experiment and do we then send richer motorists to prison for longer? (Or maybe give 'em more lashes?)
Dish out hundreds of hours of community service for Mercedes drivers, but let Yugo owning transgressors off with a few minutes?
Dick Turpin is alive and well, now working hard in collaboration with Robin Hood, Raffles and your local Speed Camera "partnership".
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The idea of applying different levels of fines according to income is a very old one and used in many countries. I know Sweden introduced this idea in the 1920's. I recall reading about this policy when in secondary school in the early 1970's.
They are used in the US (they call them 'day fines' because they multiply the offenders daily pay rate by a notional number of units according to the severity of the offence). The idea is that the punishment has the same economic impact whether the offender is rich or poor.
A fixed tariff may have little impact on an affluent offender, whereas a poor offender can't pay and so ends up going to prison (not talking about motoring offences here, but offences in general).
I recall reading that most fines in Germany are set according to a similar formula and have been for decades.
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It was used here a few years ago and was an administrative nightmare. At one point the Police were expected to obtain details of income and outgoings at processing stage.
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It was used here a few years ago and was an administrative nightmare. At one point the Police were expected to obtain details of income and outgoings at processing stage.
Well, presumably it can be done because loads of other countries do it. UK legal system always seems to be in a complete mess though and can't seem to administer anything properly, so doesn't surprise me that we couldn't manage it in the past.
It used to be said that the Italians were bad at organisation, but we seem to have overtaken them (I'm not just talking about 'state' functions either, most private sector UK companies have derisory service levels, coupled with rip-off 0871 numbers, spurious 'admin' charges and so forth).
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This kind of "means tested" punishment is in use in today's UK Armed Forces, based on daily drawing rate.
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I can appreciate (and accept) such a system if we think that the punishment is also a threat. That is, the punishment should act as some kind of deterent. We all know that a £60 fine means more to some people than to others. So, if the idea is to equalise the pain of the punishment and, thereby, deter the behaviour, it makes some sense. But, going back to a point I raised earlier, shouldn't the same principle be applied to all motoring offences in that case? And I do still think this new scheme is populist pandering, even if it makes sense in some other way, as well.
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Detention and Community Service deprive the offender of equal proportions of their liberty, eg a BMW driver in prison loses as much liberty as a Kenari driver would. a Bentley driver doing 120 hours CS would be expected to work as hard and long as a P reg Accent driver. A fine of £100 to a business magnate is not the same level of punishment as a fine of £100 to a basic wage earning family man for the same offence and I have to assume that 100 lashes would be equally uncomfortable/pleasurable irrespective of income.
You have equated money to time, as in "time is money" which is why the relationship is not a "curve" but linear, you need two graphs, one for time and one for money, for each offence.
Don't know a lot about Dick Turpin, other than what I've learned from the "Carry On" film, but I'm sure he robbed people rather than issuing fines to people for using services then not paying.
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