Safe Speed Forums

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20110215/tu ... 23e80.html

thats nearly as much as the fine (£200)delivererd to the guy who smashed a young girls face in with a brick in an unprovoked attack the other week!

I suppose he is lucky he didnt get fined more...

If he had proved more difficult to track down I doubt if the Police would have given up easily either....

You can see where the states priorities lie....

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

"Paul Collins was riding his bike, which had no front plate, at 48mph in a 30mph zone in Southampton when he made the gesture."


Ahem! Motorcycles haven't had a "front number plate" since back in the 60s because they were mounted on the front mudguard and acted like a machete' in an accident.

Is it too much to ask that journalists only talk on matters they know something about and report it accurately? Was the kid really doing 48 or was the journalist told Collins had a 'faulty brake'.

'Bring reinforcements we're going to attack'. Pah!


They have completely lost any sense of balance and the punishment fitting the crime. (See my sig if you like)

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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 think this person was also riding not in accordance of his licence, hence the additional penalties.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I think the lack of priorities is biased more towards the violent, thuggish crime being punished too leniently than vice versa.

Worth noting that if the biker had not been a regular on that road, with a distinctive bike/helmet/clothing combo, and having drawn attention to himself by his gesture, there is every likelihood that he'd never have been caught. I am informed that SPECS cameras will not even register the presence of a vehicle without a front licence plate, so were it that type then there would not have even been a record of his gesture. If these devices are as successful as we are led to believe at improving road safety then how can they justify denying at least a proportion of that effect to bikes?

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Yes, quite, exactly! The moron who hit the girl with a brick should have had 5 or 10 seconds in a room with me holding a brick, no questions asked!

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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.

Possibly, but it is interesting to note that the "student" who threw a fire extinguisher at the police got a 32 month custodial despite no injuries resulting.

So on the one hand we have violent thuggish behaviour resulting in serious (possibly perminant) injuries being treated as being of no more importance than that of somebody "Flipping the bird" to a speed cam, whereas violent thuggish behaviour that causes no injuries whatsoever results in a lengthy prison sentence.

It does rather seem that they are quite willing to treat violent thuggish behaviour in the manner which it deserves, but only when it suits them to do so...

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

This is interesting because it's something I have often thought about.

I bet if we submitted a thread of the main broad categories of crime and what sentences we would attribute to them, there would be so much disagreement we would all argue and bicker like never before.

And the reason, IMHO, would be because we are all different and we all have different life experiences.

For example..

I have mentioned this before, and I don't want to dwell on it, but after a certain experience of someone who came knocking on my door in the early hours one fateful day, I put rape very high on my personal list of people who I would like to see hung and I personally would gladly pull the board from under his feet!

That is something I saw the repercussions of and it still torments me to this day. Even if I could hunt that son of a bitch down I couldn't do anything I’d like to do for which I wouldn't serve time. It has also come up again recently, sadly, with someone who is like a daughter to me.

Now I know there are worse cases of other violence and murder out there and thankfully I haven't had to deal with that in my life so far. I can see how very difficult it is to start grading crimes and what punishment/sentence fits what crime.

I want to expand on this but I’m short on time tonight, however, I wonder if what I am saying resonates with anyone else?

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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.

The biker was caught doing 48 in a 30 limit, one hand on the controls, not looking where he was going and with one hand potentially obstructing his forward vision. It is also seems that the speeding through the camera site was deliberate. The 5 points is just about in accordance with the guidelines courts are obliged to follow, and possibly on the low side. All fines are based partly on the seriousness of the offence and partly on the defendants ability to pay. It follows that it is not possible to compare fairness of sentencing between different offences based on the fine imposed without detailed knowledge of each defendants finances.



The brick incident is much more complicated as it involves a 14 year old defendant and comes under youth court rules which are very different from those in the adult court. I have no idea why an offence which seems to meet all the requirements for a charge of GBH was actually charged as assault. A court has no power to refuse to hear a case that they feel has been seriously undercharged and no power to inflate the penalty to reflect what they think the charge should have been. They also have to have regard to the Children Act which makes it clear that the main objective in the youth court must be the prevention of further offending and not punishment.

The magistrates had no power to send this case to the crown court and that limits the available sentence. When a youth appears in court for the first time AND pleads guilty (both of which seem to be the case here) then the bench only have custody or a referral order as possible sentences. The other option of a Youth Rehabilitation Order is not available in such circumstances. Custodial sentences are only available for 14 year olds if they can be categorised as “persistent offenders”. That requires a history of offending, which doesn't seem to apply to this defendant.

So it appears that the court imposed the maximum sentence allowed by law. 12 months being the longest period allowable for a Referral Order.

The £200 fine referred to in the press can't possibly be a fine as that option is not available for first time offenders and in any case its either a Referral Order or a fine, not both. The £200 would have been either costs or compensation. I hope it was compensation. That sum falls far short of the maximum compensation a court could impose for such appalling injuries but, due to the defendants age, any cash has to come from his parents and is limited by the amount they can afford to pay.


The fire extinguisher throwing student is an adult and thus his case was not subject to youth court custodial limitations. He received a 32 month sentence, the maximum possible being 5 years.

Please understand that I am not saying that any of these sentences was correct. Or that any was wrong. I merely put forward the constraints and guidelines the sentencing courts were obliged to follow. All comments are based on press reports, which usually contain errors.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

As usual, a very succinct analysis by fisherman.


This really tells you what you need to know about liberal ideology in the political system. In my simple view no punishment content equals "I've got away with it." in the childlike mind of the offender.

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

Amount of carnage and death caused by badly/illegally driven vehicles, compared to amount of carnage and death caused by thugs/burglars etc... please.

If you look a the figures it's clear where the priority should be.

I'd rather resources were concentrated on people who set out to hurt people and steal things.

And there was me thinking people had been asking for police to be moved from traffic duties to instead address real, serious crimes!
Thugs commit serious crimes, like: gun crime, knife crime, violent assaults, murder, drugs. Pro-rata, I think I know where the concentration really is.

Perhaps this reminder will help level your perspective.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/resources/ ... -24124.jpg

(Don't say we never do anything for you Weepy!)

If you look a the figures it's clear where the priority should be.[/quote]

Yes - especially when you take into account the intent behind the crimes and compare them to the intent behind all road deaths.

100% thug enforcement will 100% stop violent crimes.

100% speed enforcement could prevent/lessen the impact of up to 5% of KSI accidents (don't forget that each KSI has multiple contributory factors).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Yep, come on Weepej, you are beginning to sound like one of the BrAKE knitting circle now.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

But you are just as dead if you are hit by a careless motorist who didn't intend to kill you as you are if you are decapitated by a machete wielding maniac who did. : And I am more likely to die the former way than the latter. If the intention is to preserve life rather than prevent crime both issues need to be addressed.

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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

I dunno. When I go out in the car, I know I'm statistically more likely to be killed or seriously injured than when I'm walking about a big city at night. But somehow, it doesn't FEEL like that! Given that (also statistically) neither event is that likely to happen to me, the biggest "discomfort" I face in daily life, is the one that gives me the greater worry- and that's not driving! It's probably because I feel I have some degree of control over my fate when I'm in a car - whereas, I'd probably not be that good in a street fight!

Also, on the theme of the "feel good factor" (or lack of it!) there is something truly sickening about violent "KSI" crime that I don't feel over KSI car crashes. Given that I (and my nearest and dearest) have been fortunate enough to suffer neither in my life so far, I only view either from the standpoint of a saddened / sickened observer. I tend to feel worse over the gratuitous and deliberate violence towards people (often deliberately targeted because they are vulnerable) than I feel towards RTA victims. I think it's because in all but a very few cases, the "attacker" didn't intend to inflic injury and suffering. Sure, it's not a good thing to get run over. Sure, the vast majority of RTA KSIs are preventable, but given that most of us will suffer no more than the fear of either event, I think the fear is an important issue.

Surely you're not suggesting that safety on our roads is purely about speed enforcement, or indeed that I've ever said this should be the case?

I agree that both issues need to be addressed, however the purpose of the legal system is not to mete out retribution.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Yes it is, part of a prison sentence is intended to be punishment for the crime, and the rest of it the rehabilitation phase.