Tuesday 4th May 2004

End the Automation

Stop the crims getting away with it...

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The number of motorists prosecuted for offences detected by cameras increased from 1.1 million in 2001 to 1.5 million in 2002 – an increase of 40%. The RAC Foundation are now calling for revenue from speed cameras to be spent on boosting the number of traffic police to fight car crime and target dangerous drivers.

Other revenue from cameras should be put back into road safety by improving dangerous junctions and other stretches of road.

Even though the total number of offences dealt with were up, the majority of these offences were either enforced by cameras or were parking offences (7.6 million). Of the 7.6 million parking offences just 1.2 million were dealt with by the police or traffic wardens.

Breath tests were down by 9% and careless driving offences were done by 8%. Despite the increase in speeding offences, fewer of these offences were dealt with directly by police officers.

The RAC Foundation believes that some hard-core criminals are getting away with serious motoring offences and other crimes because cameras are increasingly replacing traffic police. Research for the Home Office clearly shows that serious motoring offenders are more likely to be involved in mainstream crime.

The RAC Foundation Car Crime Fact File shows:

• Car crime costs £3.5b to the UK economy and affects 2.5million people pa
• 80% of drivers without a valid tax disc are likely to be involved in some form of criminal activity
• UK is the car crime capital of Europe with 30% of European car crime committed in the UK
• There is an increased accident risk among unlicensed and disqualified drivers. They are between three and nine times more likely to be involved in accidents than lawful drivers
• 75% of vehicle crime offenders have convictions for other types of offences
• 73% of vehicle crime offenders have tested positive for illegal drugs
• VED evasion has increased to 4.5%. This equates to a loss of £193m per annum to government funds from the 1.7m cars that are untaxed.
• 25% of motor-cycles are untaxed
• There are 2.1m vehicles on the road with no registered keeper

[wedgepilot]

Couldn't agree more.

[Xm5eR]

So DoT are you reading this, are you listening?

If you want to hit your arbitrary KSI targets then you need to nail these feckers, NOT Jo Average taxpayer.

[s3am]

Unfortunately this is the kind of information the DoT routinely ignore... I can't think why.

Not much money in busting PROPER crims unfortunately.

Sam

[Mean'n'Roofless]

Bravo to the RAC though

[GregE240]

Bravo? No - they want their bollocks nailing to a wall.

In effect, they are condoning speed cameras saying the revenue should pay for more police.

They should be calling for the abolishment of cameras and camera partnerships. Given the percentage of revenue passed on to the Treasury is so paltry, with the vast percentage spent in hiring old gits to man the bloody things, surely the best thing to do is scrap them?

Damn it, theres a world wide steel shortage - melt the bloody things down and build something decent!

[Marki]

30% of all car crime in Europe commited in the UK

[iainsmith]

The number of hit and runs seems to be rising at an alarming rate. I'm sure this is linked to the number of people driving with no license / insurance / MOT.

IMHO there seems to be an underclass of drivers on the wrong side of the law who cause chaos and get away lightly in the courts.

A football player was banned for 6 months for doing 103MPH on the M6 in Cumbria the other week - What happens to someone with no Insurance / MOT / TAX and often no License? Not much more, sometimes just a £300 fine!

This person is exactly the person that will flee and accident leaving someone to die because they are not driving legally.

The police seem re-active rather pro-active these days (except with their speed camera's) and some people are getting away with driving around 'for free' but it's causing a rise in hit and runs in the process.

Rant Over.


Rant Over!