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http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/li ... 836449.ece

Penalty points double for speeding drivers

Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

Motorists face being banned from driving for only two speeding offences under a government plan to double the fixed penalty for exceeding the limit by a wide margin, The Times has learnt.

Those caught driving at 45mph or above in a 30mph limit are likely to receive a higher-rate fixed penalty of six points and a £100 fine, up from the existing flat rate of three points and a £60 fine.

Ministers want to send the message that excessive speeding will lead more quickly to an automatic six-month driving ban for totting up 12 points within three years.

More than 1.1 million drivers have six or more points on their licences and, under the new law, could be banned immediately for one more offence.

The higher penalty is also likely to apply to drivers caught at 57mph or above on a 40mph road and 94mph or above on a 70mph road.

But the Government is planning to drop a previous proposal to introduce a lower fixed penalty, of two points and a £40 fine, for driving only a few miles per hour over the limit.

The Department for Transport had proposed, in a discussion paper in 2004, that drivers caught at speeds up to and including 39mph on a 30mph road would receive the lower penalty.

This could have meant that drivers repeatedly caught just over the limit would not have been banned until their seventh offence.

At present, drivers are given up to four chances: they can take a speed awareness course to avoid the first penalty and then commit three more before being one camera flash away from a ban.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the Road Safety Minister, told The Times that introducing a lower penalty of two points would undermine the Government’s message that even small breaches of the limit can kill.

Research has shown that a pedestrian who is hit by a car at 35mph is twice as likely to be killed as one hit at 30mph.

Mr Fitzpatrick said: “It would be counter-productive and against everything we are saying to tell someone ‘you were doing 35mph so you should only get two points’. The big message we are putting out is that it’s 30 for a reason.”

But he said those caught well in excess of the limit should be punished more heavily than at present. “There is a very strong argument for saying that the more you speed, the more the penalty should be.”

The Department for Transport will publish a consultation document before Christmas which will invite comment on options, which may include a lower penalty for a slight breach of the limit on faster, nonresidential roads where there are few or no pedestrians and cyclists.

But Mr Fitzpatrick made clear that the Government did not expect much support for a lower penalty. He said: “I think there will be a strong body of opinion which will say there should not be a reduction in the number of points.”

He said he was particularly concerned by the 20 per cent increase in child road deaths in Great Britain last year, from 141 in 2005 to 169 in 2006. This included a 55 per cent increase in child cyclist deaths, from 20 to 31.

The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety welcomed the Government’s retreat from the idea of a lower penalty.

Rob Gifford, the council’s director, said: “Lowering the penalty for any speeding offence would encourage drivers to take more chances.”

He also called for police to be given more discretion to enforce even minor breaches of the limit. Under current Association of Chief Police Officer guidelines, drivers are given an allowance of 10 per cent plus 1 mph over the limit. This means they will not be fined at speeds lower than 35mph on a 30mph road, 46mph on a 40mph road and 79mph on a 70mph road. Mr Gifford said: “Police need the flexibility to enforce any breach of the limit, even 1mph over it.”

Acpo guidelines also state that drivers should be sent a summons rather than a fixed penalty if they are caught at 50mph or above on a 30mph road, 66mph on a 40mph road and 96mph on a 70mph road. Magistrates can impose up to six penalty points or a ban for a very serious breach.

Just over half (51 per cent) of drivers admit to speeding but 62 per cent accept that it is a serious offence, according to a survey of 2,000 motorists by the RAC. It said the figures revealed “a disconnect between what drivers think is serious and their own driving habits”. The survey also found that 16 per cent of drivers had been caught breaking the limit in the past five years.

When asked what steps they would accept to reduce speeding offences, 64 per cent said more traffic police, 59 per cent said speed cameras that photographed the driver (to prevent points swapping), and 49 per cent said in-car speed limiters.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'd love to see how the questions which spawned these answers were worded. I really struggle to believe that 49% of people would accept in car limiters if 51% admitted to speeding. More unbelievable is that 59% of drivers would 'accept' forward facing speed cameras...

Let's make sure our response is spot on.

If speed is only responsible for a very small proportion of accidents then why all this change? They won't catch the gross speeders in their unregistered cars anyway. Not sure I like the 1mph over scenario - it also seems pointless. What will we gain?

N.B. Government consultations are pointless. They only do them so they can say they asked you before imposing their latest daft scheme.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

If you ask me they print whatever fits in with their agenda. How does anyone know how and where they carried out these surveys? Are the surveys just cherry picking exercises?

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

A recent survey conducted by Semitone's Surveys found that just under half (49%) of drivers lie when questioned about speeding.

Some thoughts...

If we make speeding a more serious offence it will nullify the govt. attempt to discourage sec 172 offenses.

We will see a large impact in the economy as many more people are banned for totting up.

People wont be so keen to accept a fixed penalty and will clog the court systems with appeals and challenges.

Speeding which caused only very few accidents will be seen as a more serious crime than driving without due care which causes many more.

There will be a major disconnect between how speed limits are set (taking into account environmental issues, political issues, noise issues and cost issues) versus a severe penalties for breaches which assume all speeding is dangerous.

Tougher penalties take no regard of the inconsistent and inappropriate speed limits that are set throughout the country.

The police need greater flexibility not to enforce a speed limit unless the speed is inappropriate for the conditions.

Some questions that need to be answered FIRST...

What analysis of license data has been done to determine the number of additional drivers who would be banned under this new scheme.

What analysis of expecting reduction in casualties has been done by increased penalties given that speeding accounts for a very low number of accidents.

What is the expected outcome of these tougher policies

Funny how after drumming the "Speed kills" message into everyone and even, very quietly, admitting that it doesn't that these draconian enforcement policies are coming into effect.



A country where the workers are not mobile makes it harder to revolt?

Seems to me that everything this government want is aimed at stopping anyone doing anything. Apart from pay tax and work themselves to death

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Prepare to be Judged

If they didn't want to reduce the points for a speeding offence because they really feel it will send the wrong message then why not raise the number of points to say 16 or 20 before an automatic ban instead?

I know it's the same thing in effect but at least, from their viewpoint, it wouldn't be percieved as a climb down from how they regard the seriousness of doing 35mph in a 30.

Think of all the extra money they could make too!




It's the government who are revolting. (yeah, I know it's an old one )

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

So why are they not taking measures to ensure pedestrians DON'T GET HIT?

This is the equivalent of saying scalds are caused by people coming into contact with boiling water, so from now on, water should not be allowed to boil! If you boil water under pressure in a boiler, you will get a higher penalty!
And this will stop people scalding themselves?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

about time

one of the things i disliked most as an operator was a driver caught at 36mph would receive the same offer as a driver doing 55mph,

i would also call for immediate legislation for immigrant workers to be registered and licenced

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now retired

The whole point is to deter travelling by car. To deter people from using a car whenever possible and to lower the amount of journeys made by car. The forthcoming legislation wil do nothing to stop speeding, but it will deter people from using their car if at all possible.

Why?

Ha ha, what rubbish!!!

The whole point of increased punishments is to deter the worse cases of speeding. I can tell you for something for sure, this won't make any difference how much I use my car. In fact, I might even use it more if the roads are safer.

But what would you propose? Putting railings along side every single road?

Where have they admitted that it doesn't?



I know this is a hard subject for some of you to grasp, but all they are trying to do is to get you to adhere to the speed limit.

I agree with all three of those measures. More to the point, why do you find it unbelievable that 59% of drivers would accept forward-facing speed cameras? Why wouldn't you accept them?

I had to reply to this from another thread.



Driving at 45 in a residential area isn't safe. If a child runs out into the road without looking and you hit them at 45 instead of 30 then they are much more likely to be killed.



And saying the above is just being disingenuous if anything because we're talking about breaking the speed limit by a lot. I would say that driving at 45 in a residential area is dangerous. Oh, and you really should drop the "we all know" bit in future because you're not talking on behalf of everyone.

Who said anything about a 'residential area'?

What's a residential area anyway? Are they all the same?

Anyone who doesn't know that exceeding a speed limit isn't automatically dangerous needs to think a bit - or a lot - harder.

If you think that speed limit +50% is 'automatically dangerous', how exactly do you explain the actions recently attrributed to Med Hughes: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/421 ?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Oh dear, this is all very depressing!

It really does seem a case of finding out that the medicine isn't working and trying to combat that by simply increasing the dose!

We really need to vote these &*(%&%s out!

So let me get this right:

We had a road safety policy which, for many years since the end of the last World War, was delivering a pretty steady reduction in road casualties.

Then we introduce cameras and cut back on trafpols and it levels out.

We produce "research" saying that 1/3 of road casualties are due to speeding and put up more cameras.

Still the casualty rate levels out.

We go round the country reducing speed limits willy nilly on all sorts of roads... (...and put up still more cameras).

The casualty rate stays pretty much the same.

We get the camera partnerships to put out even more propaganda about how they've achieved such dramatic improvements in casualty rates in their various areas (and put up more cameras)

And guess what? As a nation, our casualty rate stays about the same!

We do MORE research because those pesky Safespeed types keep banging on about us talking bullsh1t when we say 1/3 of accidents are caused by speeding and lo and behold, we arrive at a figure of something like 5% instead of 30!

We introduce speed limiters on minibuses and large vans...

And still no appreciable difference in the national statistics.

We start rolling out 20MPH limits in towns and cities acrross the country.

(OK, bit early to say whether this will make any impact but I have a funny feeling...)

So what do we do next?

We double the penalties for speeding.




Sorry Hjeg, but I think the question you ought to be asking isn't so much what it is that WE don't grasp as what it is that YOU (and the government) don't grasp!

This of course is more or less complete bollocks.

See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/227

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety