http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/ ... _1,00.html
Guess which driver is about to be banned
Largely law-abiding drivers are being penalised for minor speeding offences while a growing motoring underclass gets away scot free, reports Emma Smith
Britain’s roads have become a domain of the haves and the have-nots. The haves, made up mainly of law-abiding motorists, boast a record number of speeding points and people facing disqualification.
The have-nots represent a growing “motoring underclass” numbering more than 2m that avoids speeding fines and penalty points (as well as parking fines, bus lane fines and congestion charges) by failing to register vehicles and pay vehicle excise duty.
The latest government figures will make galling reading for the millions of British motorists who regard themselves as upstanding citizens. While they have been branded criminals by a system that means drivers can tot up 12 points for a series of relatively minor infringements, the worst offenders appear to be getting away scot free.
“We’re getting better at catching law-abiding drivers,” said Andrew Howard of the AA, “and less so at watching the non-law-abiding ones.”
About 30,000 motorists lost their licences as a result of speed camera fines in 2004 and that figure is expected to rise when new Home Office figures are released later this year. Meanwhile almost a million drivers are currently just one conviction away from a ban, according to a study by Direct Line insurance.
The vast majority of these convictions are the result of drivers being caught by the escalating number of speed cameras on Britain’s roads: penalty notices are now issued at a rate of one every 15 seconds. But speed cameras can only catch drivers who hold a valid driver’s licence, have registered their car with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and have paid their road tax.
Figures released last month by the Department for Transport (DfT) show an increasing number of motorists are flouting the system. These untaxed drivers — part of the motoring underclass — are “invisible” to the authorities and immune to speed cameras.
Last year this group numbered 2,193,000 — or 1 in 15 of the UK’s 33m vehicles — almost double the figure for 2004. More than a million speeding fines go unpaid each year, partly because the owners cannot be traced. And 80% of these untaxed drivers will also have no insurance, according to the DVLA.
The irony is that while uninsured drivers are 10 times more likely to commit drink-driving offences, six times as likely to drive an unroadworthy car and three times more likely to drive without due care and attention, it is the otherwise law-abiding drivers who pay their road tax and renew their insurance who are increasingly being penalised.
“We need to introduce more discernment into the system,” said Edmund King of the RAC Foundation. “At the moment we have people inadvertently drift over the speed limit, in the middle of the night with no one else on the road, who feel they have been treated unjustly.
“On the other hand we have an underclass who are deliberately flouting the law, not registering their vehicles and escaping fines altogether. And these are the people who tend to be 10 times overrepresented in accidents.”
Under the current penalty points system, driving bans — once a punishment reserved for dangerous or drink-driving and extreme excesses of speed — are being meted out to motorists who receive four speed camera fines within three years (each penalty charge notice adds three points to a driver’s licence and 12 points results in a six-month ban).
Later this month drivers caught by traffic police or cameras using a mobile phone at the wheel will also incur penalty points. Professor Rose Baker, a statistician at Salford University, claims the average British motorist can now expect three driving bans during their motoring lifetime.
“We are criminalising people for no reason,” said Nigel Humphries of the Association of British Drivers. “If you get a badly sited camera you can rack up 12 points even before you know you’ve got the first ones and too many motorists are facing a ban for driving a few miles over the speed limit.”
Faced with losing their licence, and potentially their livelihood, some drivers have been prepared to break the law. A study in 2005 estimated that more than 700,000 drivers had “passed off” penalty points to friends or relatives who were willing to pretend they were behind the wheel.
Last year a prison officer who tried to take the blame for his son’s speeding to save him from a driving ban was charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and given 240 hours of community service.
The government knows it cannot go on banning ever more drivers lest it risk mass disobedience.
Last week, in an attempt to restore public confidence in speed cameras, it announced that from April local authorities will no longer be able to keep the revenue from speed camera fines. Councils are also being asked to review speed limits and speed awareness courses are being offered as an alternative to penalty points in some parts of Britain (see panel), at least for a first infringement. There are also plans to introduce a system of graduated fines whereby drivers could be given fewer points for going just a few miles per hour over the limit.
The government is set to tackle the problem of motorists who drive without the proper documentation by introducing automatic £100 fines for uninsured drivers — regardless of whether they are actually driving their vehicle at the time.
But these measures will still only catch drivers who appear on the DVLA computer. And experience shows those who pose the greatest threat on our roads don’t tend to appear on databases.
Matt Rudd regrets choosing a speed-awareness course over points on his licence
I am not a speeder. Except for last month, when I got a speeding ticket. There were two contributory factors. First, I’d upgraded from a rusty Corsa to a rather nippy Skoda Octavia. Second, I was in north Wales, home of Richard Brunstrom, the mad mullah of the Traffic Taliban. One slip over the limit on the outskirts of a clearly underpopulated Welsh town, and bang, I’m a criminal. Sixty quid, three points and a nice big hike in my insurance premium.
Unless I attend a speed awareness course. The deal is, if I turn up to a three-hour course I’ll pay £60 for the privilege but I won’t get the points. I accept the offer.
Arriving at the course in Wales (after a five-hour drive from my home in Kent) is strange. You have to announce yourself at reception then follow arrows with sports cars underneath them to a waiting room where the other law-breakers lope. I had been nervous: I don’t speak Welsh, have no facial tattoos and I’m not a skinhead. I didn’t expect to hang well with the crack smoking, hoodie wearing speed freaks that would be turning up today.
Couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s a waiting room full of slightly shocked middle-aged people. As we nod greetings, one appalled woman in a quilted jacket announces she’s never been caught “and I’ve been driving since 1958”. It also emerges that every one of us had been doing exactly 35mph. Any more and you don’t get the conditional offer. Any less and they probably let you off. This was a slightly-speeding awareness course.
We file in to a classroom containing 16 seats, a white board and an unpleasant man in a green blazer who doesn’t say please or thank you. He examines our IDs. “Is that your address?” he growls, turning my licence over. I stammer a yes but look uncertain. “Thousand pound fine if it isn’t. We don’t want that, do we?” The man in the green blazer isn’t a cop, he’s an advanced driving instructor of some sort who says things like: “Don’t sit there thinking you can opt out and I won’t notice. I will be in your face.”
We have to write down what we think is bad about speeding. We have to split into groups and spot hazards in photographs. When our group comes up with only six, including the freakish possibility of a horse bolting through a hedge, we are told to try much harder. I don’t know how many others in the room were itching to stand up and tell him where to shove his speed awareness course. Certainly several of them looked like they were boiling under the thin surface of enforced co-operation.
How effective it is, I don’t know. I suppose I’m more aware of how I drive now than I was before, but I also feel like I’ve had the psychological equivalent of an anal probing. Next time, I’ll take the points.
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they have proper policemen in charge of all their doo-dahs and in-car "toys" 
with his woo-woos a-singing 
might just NIP after them 
