Tipping point?
Discussion
Something has shifted and I don’t think it’s going back.
I’ve got a fairly wide circle of friends and colleagues, mostly middle class professionals, lawyers, accountants, engineers, that sort. Reasonably law abiding people. A few years ago the occasional speeding fine would get posted in one of our WhatsApp groups, everyone would have a mild groan of sympathy and move on. It was rare enough to be noteworthy.
Not anymore. Barely a week goes by now without someone posting up some minor infraction that would have been unthinkable to enforce a decade ago. Thirty-five in a thirty. Twenty-four in a twenty. A left turn camera gotcha. A bus lane at the wrong time of day. These aren’t boy racers or dangerous drivers, they’re just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, and the state has decided to shake them down for it.
The twenty limits are the worst of it. I’m not going to argue that speed doesn’t matter in the right context. Outside a school at kick-out time, fine. But mile after mile of residential and arterial roads where the old thirty made perfect sense, now arbitrarily reduced, with average speed cameras or mobile vans positioned not at any obvious danger spot but at whatever point maximises the chance of catching someone doing twenty-four. It is revenue extraction dressed up as road safety and everyone knows it.
What’s driven this is a particular strain of anti-car ideology that has infected local and national government for years. The kind of thinking that views the private car not as the practical necessity it is for millions of people, but as a moral failing to be taxed, restricted and ultimately eliminated. Congestion charges, clean air zones, reduced road space, hostile parking regimes. The people pushing this stuff have never had to use a car to get a client to a meeting or pick up kids from three different schools or get a sick parent to an appointment. They live in zone two and cycle to their policy jobs and they have absolutely no idea how the other ninety percent of the country actually functions.
Here’s the thing though. Most voters are also drivers. And it looks like that penny has finally dropped in a fairly spectacular way. The local election results this week were extraordinary. Reform picked up over 1,200 councillors and control of councils across the country, while Labour lost more than a thousand seats and 31 councils. There are plenty of reasons for that result but I’d bet a considerable amount that the cumulative grinding resentment of being treated like a criminal for doing thirty-five in a thirty is one of them. People are done being lectured and fined into compliance by politicians who think the car is the enemy.
The anti-car crusade didn’t happen by accident. It was a deliberate policy agenda and it got implemented because the people pushing it assumed the majority would just absorb it. They were wrong. At some point you fine enough middle-aged professionals in enough WhatsApp groups and even the most politically disengaged people start connecting the dots between who is doing this to them and who they can vote out.
That point appears to have arrived.
I’ve got a fairly wide circle of friends and colleagues, mostly middle class professionals, lawyers, accountants, engineers, that sort. Reasonably law abiding people. A few years ago the occasional speeding fine would get posted in one of our WhatsApp groups, everyone would have a mild groan of sympathy and move on. It was rare enough to be noteworthy.
Not anymore. Barely a week goes by now without someone posting up some minor infraction that would have been unthinkable to enforce a decade ago. Thirty-five in a thirty. Twenty-four in a twenty. A left turn camera gotcha. A bus lane at the wrong time of day. These aren’t boy racers or dangerous drivers, they’re just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, and the state has decided to shake them down for it.
The twenty limits are the worst of it. I’m not going to argue that speed doesn’t matter in the right context. Outside a school at kick-out time, fine. But mile after mile of residential and arterial roads where the old thirty made perfect sense, now arbitrarily reduced, with average speed cameras or mobile vans positioned not at any obvious danger spot but at whatever point maximises the chance of catching someone doing twenty-four. It is revenue extraction dressed up as road safety and everyone knows it.
What’s driven this is a particular strain of anti-car ideology that has infected local and national government for years. The kind of thinking that views the private car not as the practical necessity it is for millions of people, but as a moral failing to be taxed, restricted and ultimately eliminated. Congestion charges, clean air zones, reduced road space, hostile parking regimes. The people pushing this stuff have never had to use a car to get a client to a meeting or pick up kids from three different schools or get a sick parent to an appointment. They live in zone two and cycle to their policy jobs and they have absolutely no idea how the other ninety percent of the country actually functions.
Here’s the thing though. Most voters are also drivers. And it looks like that penny has finally dropped in a fairly spectacular way. The local election results this week were extraordinary. Reform picked up over 1,200 councillors and control of councils across the country, while Labour lost more than a thousand seats and 31 councils. There are plenty of reasons for that result but I’d bet a considerable amount that the cumulative grinding resentment of being treated like a criminal for doing thirty-five in a thirty is one of them. People are done being lectured and fined into compliance by politicians who think the car is the enemy.
The anti-car crusade didn’t happen by accident. It was a deliberate policy agenda and it got implemented because the people pushing it assumed the majority would just absorb it. They were wrong. At some point you fine enough middle-aged professionals in enough WhatsApp groups and even the most politically disengaged people start connecting the dots between who is doing this to them and who they can vote out.
That point appears to have arrived.
I have watched this happen from the 60's onward.
The Road Traffic Act 1988 section 172 was the legislation that changed things dramatically.
Prior to that act the police had to actually get you behind the wheel.
If they came knocking on your door later you could just say "no comment" and get a maximum £50 fine, no endorsment or disqulification.
That section(172) allowed for the use of static cameras and camera vans ect.
Now we have millions of wannabe police officers everwhere in their cars with their dashcams all downloading to police website to get their fellow motorists convicted.
It makes millions and millions for the government, why waste money and time prosecuting shoplifters, far too expensive.
The Road Traffic Act 1988 section 172 was the legislation that changed things dramatically.
Prior to that act the police had to actually get you behind the wheel.
If they came knocking on your door later you could just say "no comment" and get a maximum £50 fine, no endorsment or disqulification.
That section(172) allowed for the use of static cameras and camera vans ect.
Now we have millions of wannabe police officers everwhere in their cars with their dashcams all downloading to police website to get their fellow motorists convicted.
It makes millions and millions for the government, why waste money and time prosecuting shoplifters, far too expensive.
I'm in agreement with the OP.
He mentions Reform: will they be able to roll the clock back? If so, how exactly?
I can only see things getting worse in the short term, leading to people actively trying to avoid getting caught such as removing numberplates.
It's a shame we don't learn from the French by disabling as many cameras as possible.
He mentions Reform: will they be able to roll the clock back? If so, how exactly?
I can only see things getting worse in the short term, leading to people actively trying to avoid getting caught such as removing numberplates.
It's a shame we don't learn from the French by disabling as many cameras as possible.
Toyota-MR23 said:
I ve got a fairly wide circle of friends and colleagues, mostly middle class professionals, lawyers, accountants, engineers, that sort. Reasonably law abiding people.
Reasonably law abiding?Let's have a list of the laws they choose not to abide by.
I have a lot of friends too, and none of us talk about breaking laws over our curry meet.
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