Driving licences at risk from state offensive
Stay mobile during a penalty-points ban, says insurer
UK motorists look set to lose control of their cars and lives as the growing army of road safety boffins and enforcers tightens its grip on all aspects of driving, says an insurance company selling a partial remedy.
According to research undertaken by Isle of Man Assurance Ltd (IOMA), the fast-spreading rash of speed and traffic light cameras is only the start of an all-out onslaught on careless, anti-social and dangerous driving that could eventually put the State behind the wheel of Britain’s cars.
The research - carried out for IOMA's new St Christopher Flashguard policy - reveals more and more motorists face the prospect of losing their licences in the short term as the number of camera sites and the sophistication of the cameras increases.
But the long term prospects for hard-pressed drivers look bleak.
St Christopher says just under 300,000 drivers are currently serving out bans but that figure is set to increase significantly over the next five years as the boffins and enforcers clamp down on those who speed, jump traffic lights and commit other less serious road traffic offences.
Its study reveals:
- The number of drivers caught on camera rose by one third between 2002 and 2003 from 1.5 million to 2 million and looks set to top 3 million this year
- The UK has around 5,000 ‘approved’ camera sites, a tally which is set to grow (the backlog of requests for additional sites from local communities blighted by speeding traffic currently tops 10,000)
- The older GATSO cameras, which require film and are not always switched on, are set to be replaced with far more sophisticated digital cameras that will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- The new style digital cameras can operate in pairs, emasculating in-car camera detecting devices by computing average speeds between two distant locations and automatically issuing speeding tickets
- The new type cameras can scan up to six lanes of traffic at a time, capture identifiable images of speeding motorcyclists and catch motorists who drive the wrong way down one-way streets
- Road safety campaigners are pushing for a switch from high visibility cameras to more covert speed checks with ‘harder-to-spot’ cameras
- Courts in other EU countries may soon be able to add penalty points to the licences of UK citizens who are caught speeding abroad
- Police are to be allowed to access mobile phone records to check whether they were in use at the time a road traffic offence was committed
Aware of the all-out road safety offensive, IOMA has developed its St Christopher Flashguard policy to protect the livelihoods and mobility of drivers who have their licences taken away.
The policy is aimed at higher mileage drivers who, by the law of averages, are more likely to rack up penalty points as a result of the distances they cover. It is also available to other drivers who are worried about the consequences of losing their licences.
The £1-a-week policy, which is limited to drivers with six or less points on their licence, provides £6,000 worth of cover a year to pay for alternative forms of transport while drivers serve out their bans.
It will not cover drivers who receive bans for drink, drugs or dangerous driving related offences
More intrusive checks lurking
“Nobody has the right to break the law with impunity and drivers who speed or commit other road traffic offences deserve to be penalised,” said a St Christopher spokesman.
“However, in today’s high pressure world where so much competes for our attention, many drivers will from time to time unwittingly stray over the speed limits or commit other less serious offences.
"As many drivers know to their cost, this can result in a driving ban. What we aim to do is make sure that Flashguard customers don’t lose their jobs and incomes as well their licences. The policy ensures dependents and employers are not hit by the bans too.”
The St Christopher research reveals that those most at risk of picking up speeding penalties -- and ultimately a ban -- are middle class, middle-aged male and female drivers who, more often than not, use their cars for work.
Just under three-quarters of those caught are in the 25 to 35 years age bracket with high mileage businessmen and women - and mums on the school run - being particularly at risk.
“But the threat to driving licences posed by the growing number and sophistication of safety cameras is only the tip of the iceberg,” said the St Christopher spokesman. “Our research reveals motorists face far more intrusive means of controlling the way they drive in the future.”
For those who drive as part of their work, there is the worrying prospect that ultimately they may either place their existing jobs in jeopardy or influence their prospects of finding a new job, says the insurer.
Already moves are underway to allow employers to link into the DVLA to check if an existing or prospective employee has any points on his or her licence.
Also under consideration, says IOMA, are in-car ‘black boxes’ that will monitor when and where a driver is and the speed at which he or she is travelling -- as reported here on PH. The devices -- which can be linked to the engine management systems of cars -- use GPS (global positioning by satellite) to track a car’s whereabouts and either alert the driver to a speed limit or automatically restrict the car to the limit that is in force.
The devices may also be used to record driver behaviour behind the wheel, set car insurance premiums and charge drivers for when and where they have travelled.
"So it's no longer a question of being watched by Big Brother but being watched by a Black Box," St Christopher says. "With congested roads and the inexorable stress of day-to-day living and work, driving consistently within the limits is not easy,” it adds.
Drivers who want to find out more about the Flashguard policies should log onto www.flashguard.com or call 08081 624046.
Why can't anyone just realise that road safety is not a single-issue, single-solution problem? Why can't anyone just come clean and admit that perhaps there are some situations they need to be doing something about but can't make any money on When a scrote breaches an ASBO, s/he is tagged so they can be monitored to ensure they can't breach the peace. Normal people don't have them because they're not criminals and can be trusted without having taxpayers money spent on their surveillance.
Black boxes= motorist guilty until proven more guilty.
and present it to a control-freak government who like extracting cash by stealth, they've got a perfect outlet. You mention civil liberties once and they'll wheel out a crash victim and bleat on about their civil liberties. We can't wheel anyone out, and then we lose. Got to take the emotions and the ideological nonsense out of it, or else we'll end up in a state where everyone is treated like a criminal and has a criminal record without having done any crimes.
In a 'know your enemy' exercise, I read some of the Grauniad's 'ethical makeover' features. Basically in order to live an 'ethical' life you have to sacrifice just about everything you enjoy and everything that helps you to get by in life, all in the name of barely making any difference in the grand scheme of things and supposedly benefitting some people somewhere else in society, who you'll never actually meet, in no discernable way.
My worry is that these people will get into power and their pathetic way of life will become law.
>> Edited by v8thunder on Tuesday 9th November 15:57
havoc said:
V8Thunder - just to play devils advocate, the opposite of what you propose - outright hedonism and not caring about anyone else in society - also has a few problems...it's called rampant capitalism coupled to a crime-wave (genuine crimes here, not lentilista crimes)!
Not proposing we all grow our own lentils, here, but I firmly believe that there DOES need to be state intervention in society, otherwise society ceases to exist.
The fact that our current state intervenes in completely the wrong ways does not detract from the above statement at all.
Not quite what I meant - state intervention is necessary, but it must be politically unbiased when it does so, with eyes firmly on the facts and nothing else.
Did anyone else see that special report on BBC news last night on 'no-go' zones in Britain? There was a bloke wandering around Tower Hamlets, basically pointing out the 'no-go' zones. There are certain areas where certain ethinic groups 'control' it and others can't go, and the reporter recorded a young kid threatening to slash his eyes out with a knife for just looking at him.
It incenses me when I see that large sections of our cities are being turned into lawless ghettoes through lack of Police, and I'm supposed to allow my money to drain into the bottomless pit of razed community centres and insecure drug rehabilitation, and all the while, the Police are working to targets to see how many otherwise law-abiding citizens they can get some more cash from to make statistics look good for Fony Bliar.
It's time for someone, somewhere, to wake up and smell the coffee before they smell the cordite.
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