Safe Speed Forums

What do you all think of the swiss guy who was fined 180,000 pounds for speeding?

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www.drivingdefences.com

There has been a lot of previous discussion on here about fines related to the offender's wealth.

My view in brief:

The punishment should be related the crime and not the offender's means.

To those who think differently, should capital held or income be the yardstick?

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

But the offenders means determine how painful the punishment is. A £100,000 pound would mean little to Ashley Cole, would severely dent my fortune bvut would ruin many people. If the only punishment for an offence was a £100 fine rich people could break that law with impunity.


Both. The capital should be treated as a source of income at perhaps 10%

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

On the other hand, people claiming benefits would get off scot free to do their cash-in-hand work. They can offend with impunity.


What would you do to someone made redundant who owns their own house? Make them sell it?

Would this be justice?

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

Story : BBC Story Here

There is no correlation between a fine as a substitute for education. He will not become a better driver, nor more educated or considerate driver just because of the size of his fine. It is pointless and un-necessary as it totally fails to even slightly tackle the issue.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

What she said.
This is even more so about money than fixed fines. Brilliant strategy by the government to increase revenue!

I'll continue to operate under the assumptions that the posted speed 'limit' was set somewhat low (maybe not 35MpH too low, but too low), and that if the government body was interested in 'teaching him a lesson', they'd sit him down and teach him one, take lots of his money, and make a net profit, instead of just taking his money and making a gross profit.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

No. Which is why I think that fines are always a totally inappropriate way of punishing people. For offences where prison is not indicated community service should be the punishment. That punishment could be graded to the persons circumstances. Your benefit claimant would be expected to work all day all week whereas a person with a busy job might only work a Saturday morning. I am sure that spending his free time for a couple of weeks working as a hospital cleaner would make the likes of Ashley Cole think twice about speeding.

The main snag with that, of course, is that it devalues the people doing the j0b regularly - just like the suggestion of using the Army as a punishment.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

We’re talking about all crimes really. The question relates to punishments for any and every wrong doing and that’s probably going to have as many answers as there are people.

For myself, I have always liked the idea that the punishment is a reflection of the crime. (An eye for an eye an’ all that). I know it’s not going to work for all cases but, for instance, in the case of speeding the driver could have his vehicle restricted by speed and/or power to reflect what he did thereby forcing him to reflect on the error of his ways every day.

If a man is convicted of rape I think he should be stripped and horsewhipped. I don’t think he would become a repeat offender after that. A burglar should be stripped of all his homely possessions with regular checks for a year to ensure he’s not restocking! Let him know how it feels to lose your possessions.

I’m all for human rights but my loyalty lies with the victim, not the perpetrator. The current laws are so feeble they are clearly not a deterrent, unless you’re motorists of course…

Oh btw Martin

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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.

I have always favoured a combination of community service, corporal punishment and exile.

I do not approve of fines (There is far too much incentive for government to use the "Law" and "crime" as a source of revenue, which they have done with vigour, ever since the Norman invasion!)

For the most part, I am not a big fan of prison either, a very expensive solution. It has its place, but any sentance more than 3 months is increacingly counterproductive. (Those who I would see in prison would experiance relativly short sentences in "cold dark" solatary confinement rather than long years of expensive tedium. Except for those exiled I want people to re-enter socioty as productive individuals as quickly as possible-long sentances do not achieve this!)

As a VERY ROUGH guide (there is lots of room for debate )

Comunity servcie, primarily for crimes that do not involve a specific victim (Fraud of all sorts, etc)

Flogging, for "minor" crimes involving specific victims and willfull disregard for the welfare of others.

(Sentences may include a combination of flogging and community service)

Exile for those who one does not wish to see again! either because of the nature of the offence or the risk of repeat offending or both.

(By exile, say a crash course in crofting and then exile to West falkland. You are free in so far as you are not in prison, but you cant leave the island and on it, you are on your own! (Escape from New York style) as an alternatve, you may apply for residancy in any other country that is willing to have you-as long as you never come back!)


As for Capital punishment, there may be some cases where it is justified. But it should be remembered that for some offences "Exile" will effectivly be a capital sentence!
In any case all All sentances should be "Public"

IE Comm service-Tabbards saying so!

Flogging (and even those rare execution moments) should be public. And I mean "Tyburn tree" public as it were. any socioty that is prepared to have such sanctions should not perform them behind closed doors!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

I think the biggest problem, and where I see it has gone, is the bastardisation of laws or law enforcement to a disproportionate level. It’s happened with driving but it should be about balance and fairness.

We have seen speeding demonised to the point that undiscovered tribes in the Amazon now believe it, so the danger is that flogging will be judged appropriate for this most dangerous of activities next.

I remember the case of the 12 year old boy who was tried for GBH for flicking a piece of paper at another kid. In my day this would be resolved at a local level, not blown up out of all proportion and turned into a big deal as it was. Whoever thought a prosecution or bringing that case into the public eye was a good idea is an idiot! It’s small stuff and should have been kept small.

In the case of that guy speeding it should be fair and balanced. You have to ask was it dangerous and if so how dangerous? A simple number tells us nothing about the danger so how can you attribute a penalty based on just one of aspect of driving? It’s the same old argument; if the law is an ass people are not going to have respect for it and lose faith in the Government's ability to get anything right!

_________________
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.

I worked with a millionaire in London who parked his Porsche wherever he wanted to and paid the fines. He said that it was worth it as the fines were a bargain compared to the hassle of finding a car park and sodding around with the what, where and how of each of them.

Which proves that, at best, fines only deter those who can't afford them. Of course, the government has no idea how grateful it is to him for his largess. Who knows, fines might actually go up once he starts avoiding getting fined!

Truth be told, I know even a six figure fine wouldn't hurt as much, if the fine amounted to truly disposable income.

I once read that, for the average person who owns more than one Bentley, that purchasing that Bentley - for that person - was proportionately equivalent to me buying a nice dress shirt.

If I had that kind of money, I think I'd be more pissed off if I were forced to pay a fine of several hundred thousand pounds AND forced to sit for 168 hours worth of remedial driver's education at my expense. Of course, as I said before, driver's ed is the last thing on the gov't's agenduh.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

Time is the only commodity that is equally valuable to each person. You can always earn more money but time lost can't ever be recovered. Hence wasting people's time with community service is more equitable.

I'm not sure that's always true, but in situations where a major violent crime hasn't been committed, and serious corrective rehabilitation is clearly unnecessary, I could tentatively agree.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

Which is why we have clamping and removal to the pound. AFAIK an illegally parked vehicle should be outwith the protection of the law so that ,eg, TWOCing it would not be an offence

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

So, by the same reasoning, you would support burglars being outwith the protection of the law on violent assault during commission of their crimes.

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

I'll second that Tone. Justice is an ass these days and there's no justice for the working man. Democracy has gone out of the window and the Country is in dire need of being brought back from the depths of despair, which, I doubt will never happen in my lifetime. OLLIE

Of course. Wouldn't everyone

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

A round of applause for Dusty and Big Tone from me.

IMHO the law has been an ass for some time, and there is still no sign of things improving, which is why I tend to do my own thing and not take much notice of it.

What is much more important to me is how I interact with the people around me. If we're OK with each other, the government and the rest of officialdom can get stuffed.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Thanks Dave

I saw a story on the front page of a newspaper yesterday which played on my mind last night. It was a gang on a train who terrorised two young boys of 16 and 17 years and I put myself in the position of seeing this abuse going on and what I could do. I felt myself physically getting worked up as I read on.

I came to the conclusion I would have to go ape and do some serious damage to them, firstly because they deserve it and secondly because I would enjoy doing what the judicial system wont. I have an inveterate hatred of bullies although ironically that is how I would be perceived.

For a start there’s no way I could use reasonable force on two or more thugs; I would have to quickly 'disable' them one at a time. What I would like to do to them would be censored here but I’d do it just the same and be sent down for it. Shame it has to be that way though. Still, I digress soz...

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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.