Safe Speed Forums

Updated with more info:

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,3 ... 31,00.html

Driving Offences Rocket
Updated: 11:16, Thursday March 30, 2006

Nearly half the vehicles on Britain's roads have been involved in driving offences, new Home Office figures have revealed.

The number of motoring offences dealt with by police reached a record high of 13.5 million in 2004, Home Office figures reveal.

The figures showed roadside cameras provided evidence for two million offences in the year - up by 6%.
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In England and Wales there were 466 offences for every 1,000 vehicles on the road, compared with 355 a decade earlier.

But the number of tests which were positive or refused fell by 3% to 103,000.

Local authority parking attendants issued 7.7 million tickets, up 7%.

But fixed penalties handed out by police and traffic wardens fell slightly to 3.4 million.

I'm not surprised really when you look at the effort the goverment are putting into catching people, and making us all criminals . They can't loose can they, and it will probably be another record for 2005, 2006....

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 12:16 this afternoon:

PR296: New Home Office figures hide bad news for road safety

news: for immediate release

Home Office figures released today show bad news for road safety and bad news
for drivers.

Careless driving offences are up by 60%, but only becuase they fiddled the
figures to include the offence of using a mobile phone while driving.

Figures for the offence of 'failing to identify the driver' (S172) are hidden
away in the 'miscellaneous' group which is showing large increase in the number
of offences. This is the hidden part of the speeding offence statistics. The
rise of 30% in the miscellaneous groups probably hides a larger than 30%
increase in S172 offences.

Breath tests are up, but the proportion of positive breath tests is down. It is
possible that this indicates fewer drunk drivers on our roads, but it is more
likely to indicate poorer targetting of breat tests by police.

The number of offences detected by speed camera is up by 6%, and the number of
speeding offences detected by police is down by 29% to 191,000. This is bad
news because speeding offences detected by Police have some road safety value
while camera offences have a negative impact on road safety.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "These new statistics do not suggest that we are
doing anything to improve road safety. They show that we're hitting easy and
ineffective targets, rather than taking the trouble to identify those causing a
danger to others."

"As drivers are more and more focused on legal driving they are less and less
focused on safe driving. That's why we're 1,000 road deaths per year behind
target. Our current road safety policy is directly and indirectly responsible
for failing to save over 8,000 in the last decade."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

New statistics from the Home Office:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb0506.pdf

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

Another story on ITN here - although the sign used in the photo looks suspiciously illegal?

http://www.itn.co.uk/news/britain_1353974.html



Gareth

Indeed, see:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/badsigns.html

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I find these figures very odd. I would have thought there would be far more offences recorded by cameras than by police stopping people. I can only assume than when the BiB stop one person and charge them with driving with no tax, MOT, insurance, license and being drunk that it gets counted as five offences thus bumping up the figures.

offences per vehicle could include road tax and parking?

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Good point - I forgot them

Personally if I was a police officer and I saw someone doing this I would charge them with Due Care rather than letting them off easy on the mobile phone law.

I couldn't agree more. I think the mobile phone law is all wrong. For a start it sends entirely the wrong message about hands-free mobile phones, when all the science says that it's the phone conversation that causes the trouble not simply holding the phone.

I also know drivers who are completely competent when using the phone, and drivers who are not.

And I've heard of coppers walking along lines of cars stuck in stationary traffic handing out mobile phone tickets. How mad is that?

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