What would you do if you were banned?
Discussion
Don't get me wrong, if you are an out and out sh1t, then not getting bail, and spending days the wrong side of a cell door is a matter of weekly routine. But, if like the vast majority of PHers you are a decent law abiding citizen, having to explain matters to friends/colleagues becomes a little embarassing doesn't it?
I know I'd be pretty ashamed, and when it happens to "decent" people, I speak from experience when I say I think they are very ashamed when they make that phonecall to wife/relative asking them to bring a change of clothes in, "just in case."
I know Courts can be wildly different sometimes, but if you're before an average bench for your second disqual in a year, I'd say it is very much even money whether you'll be getting B&B courtesy of Betty Windsor.
I know I'd be pretty ashamed, and when it happens to "decent" people, I speak from experience when I say I think they are very ashamed when they make that phonecall to wife/relative asking them to bring a change of clothes in, "just in case."
I know Courts can be wildly different sometimes, but if you're before an average bench for your second disqual in a year, I'd say it is very much even money whether you'll be getting B&B courtesy of Betty Windsor.
I had this conversation with a few mates last week.
I know I will loose my license at some point, I've been lucky for the past 4 years. I do around 30.000 miles a year have a 1000cc Bike and a 5.0 litre car and I exploit the performance of both where conditions allow and often exceed the ton motorway. I have to say I rarely see any traffic cops and concentrate hard on spotting cameras, unmarked cars etc. However, the luck will at some time run out.
Where this becomes long term license losing (jail sentance??) is on 60MPH roads, where double that is more than possible.
Losing my license for any period of time (not just a couple of weeks for edging over 100 on the motorway) would incur me losing my job, however, I would not be hanging around in this country feeling sorry for myself.
I will p1ss off to somewhere where I can still enjoy my passion for fast cars and bikes and if that means a year off then so be it. Rent out the house and go. Obviously I do not have kids so I've weighed up the risks and I don't care - when I get caught I'll take my (not inconsiderable) tax contribution away.. So there!!!!
XPLOD, you mention getting jailed for the second offence. What would you be likely to get for the first time you get caught while disqualified. Continuing driving is sounding like a viable option, with at least one chance if you get stopped.
I know I will loose my license at some point, I've been lucky for the past 4 years. I do around 30.000 miles a year have a 1000cc Bike and a 5.0 litre car and I exploit the performance of both where conditions allow and often exceed the ton motorway. I have to say I rarely see any traffic cops and concentrate hard on spotting cameras, unmarked cars etc. However, the luck will at some time run out.
Where this becomes long term license losing (jail sentance??) is on 60MPH roads, where double that is more than possible.
Losing my license for any period of time (not just a couple of weeks for edging over 100 on the motorway) would incur me losing my job, however, I would not be hanging around in this country feeling sorry for myself.
I will p1ss off to somewhere where I can still enjoy my passion for fast cars and bikes and if that means a year off then so be it. Rent out the house and go. Obviously I do not have kids so I've weighed up the risks and I don't care - when I get caught I'll take my (not inconsiderable) tax contribution away.. So there!!!!
XPLOD, you mention getting jailed for the second offence. What would you be likely to get for the first time you get caught while disqualified. Continuing driving is sounding like a viable option, with at least one chance if you get stopped.
mattrsv said:
XPLOD, you mention getting jailed for the second offence. What would you be likely to get for the first time you get caught while disqualified. Continuing driving is sounding like a viable option, with at least one chance if you get stopped.
If you are caught and convicted of a first offence you risk a large fine (depending on your means. One of my disqual drivers who was personnel director for a multi national company and failed to tell them was fined £1600) and a significant increase in the length of the ban.
mattrsv said:
So getting stopped looks like at worst it will cost £1,600. Well that wouldn't put me off! still sounds like on a balance of risk you may as well carry on driving.
Kinda crazy isn't it.
So you would be willing to take a prolonged disqualification?
You may find it difficult to get insurance after a 'drive whilst disqual' endorsement on your licence and whilst you are banned you cannot have it anyway.
If you hurt someone during that time, it may cost you a lot more than £1600!
It seems like driving while disqualified and/or without a licence is normal for an increasing proportion of the population, especially the young. A quick Google revealed this story from the Sun 2 days ago:
www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004172234,00.html
Are we losing the ability to keep people honest in this area? If so, is this due to:
- there being fewer trafpols to pick up on this
- poor decisions on charges to bring
- odd decisions by magistrates
- other?
Will ANPR make a significant difference given the increasing use of cloned plates?
www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004172234,00.html
Are we losing the ability to keep people honest in this area? If so, is this due to:
- there being fewer trafpols to pick up on this
- poor decisions on charges to bring
- odd decisions by magistrates
- other?
Will ANPR make a significant difference given the increasing use of cloned plates?
The main problem when banned is not being picked up by the almost vanished Trafpol but the local constabulary who have details of all the banned drivers in their neighbourhood. And your neighbours who might shop you.
If you get banned - keep it to yourself and tell no-one - only drive a car not registered to you - keep it elsewhere than at your home and not nearby even if you have to cycle to work to get it - come to an agreement with a reli or friend of similar age that if you ever need to use his licence you can do so - and make sure you drive so damn slowly there is no chance of you getting caught out and him points - if you get a producer nominate a police station at least a hundred miles away.
And be prepared to return the favour - you will sooner or later - this may be theoretical but we are in Britain 2004.
If you get banned - keep it to yourself and tell no-one - only drive a car not registered to you - keep it elsewhere than at your home and not nearby even if you have to cycle to work to get it - come to an agreement with a reli or friend of similar age that if you ever need to use his licence you can do so - and make sure you drive so damn slowly there is no chance of you getting caught out and him points - if you get a producer nominate a police station at least a hundred miles away.
And be prepared to return the favour - you will sooner or later - this may be theoretical but we are in Britain 2004.
Peter Ward said:
It seems like driving while disqualified and/or without a licence is normal for an increasing proportion of the population, especially the young. A quick Google revealed this story from the Sun 2 days ago:
www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004172234,00.html
Are we losing the ability to keep people honest in this area? If so, is this due to:
- there being fewer trafpols to pick up on this
- poor decisions on charges to bring
- odd decisions by magistrates
- other?
There certainly is an other, as a section of society we are being priced off the roads, we are criminalised by constantly moving legislation which has managed to make law breakers out of grandparents. The young are finding it impossible to get insurance and resort to chancing it, the criminals are laughing all the way to the dole office because their unregistered cars are untraceable. Only the fully legal and insured are the ones who pay the full price in many ways
Apache said:
There certainly is an other, as a section of society we are being priced off the roads, we are criminalised by constantly moving legislation which has managed to make law breakers out of grandparents. The young are finding it impossible to get insurance and resort to chancing it, the criminals are laughing all the way to the dole office because their unregistered cars are untraceable. Only the fully legal and insured are the ones who pay the full price in many ways
Pete.
There are two systems of Justice in this country. You of all people should know about that!
xxplod said:
Don't get me wrong, if you are an out and out sh1t, then not getting bail, and spending days the wrong side of a cell door is a matter of weekly routine.
Some folks are in & out a lot, aren't they ?
And that's only for the things the boys in blue find out about, isn't it ?
xxplod said:
But, if like the vast majority of PHers you are a decent law abiding citizen, having to explain matters to friends/colleagues becomes a little embarassing doesn't it?
Nah. Not in the slightest. Having to go to prison for driving my car a bit too fast, especially when there were no injuries & no fatalities, just make the courts look silly.
xxplod said:
I know I'd be pretty ashamed, and when it happens to "decent" people, I speak from experience when I say I think they are very ashamed when they make that phonecall to wife/relative asking them to bring a change of clothes in, "just in case."
Your feelings are up to you, but so many folks are getting banned for small scale motoring offences that there is no big deal.
xxplod said:
I know Courts can be wildly different sometimes, but if you're before an average bench for your second disqual in a year, I'd say it is very much even money whether you'll be getting B&B courtesy of Betty Windsor.
I very much doubt it - the prisons are full to overflowing and courts are very reluctant to send folks to prison for minor motoring offences.
They have enough trouble putting folks away for real crime like burglary, shoplifting, arson etc.
I refused bail on a bloke charged with his 3rd disqual in about 14 months a couple of weeks back. Went up before a stipe. Got 28 days, and was told if he was before him again for the same thing he'd get 6 months next time.
This particular District Judge is pretty fearsome, though. Scrotes turn up at Court, see that he's dealing with their case and abscond! They'd rather risk the FTA warrant and be put before 3 wise monkeys a week later!
This particular District Judge is pretty fearsome, though. Scrotes turn up at Court, see that he's dealing with their case and abscond! They'd rather risk the FTA warrant and be put before 3 wise monkeys a week later!
gone said:
There certainly is an other, as a section of society we are being priced off the roads, we are criminalised by constantly moving legislation which has managed to make law breakers out of grandparents. The young are finding it impossible to get insurance and resort to chancing it, the criminals are laughing all the way to the dole office because their unregistered cars are untraceable. Only the fully legal and insured are the ones who pay the full price in many ways
Pete.
There are two systems of Justice in this country. You of all people should know about that!
MC?....I certainly do and I can still remember your explanation. Thing is, how far can it go before it all collapses around our ears?
gone said:
So getting stopped looks like at worst it will cost £1,600. Well that wouldn't put me off! still sounds like on a balance of risk you may as well carry on driving.
Kinda crazy isn't it.
So you would be willing to take a prolonged disqualification?
You may find it difficult to get insurance after a 'drive whilst disqual' endorsement on your licence and whilst you are banned you cannot have it anyway.
If you hurt someone during that time, it may cost you a lot more than £1600!
Beg pardon 'gone' but I have to ask you something that has been bothering me for a while.
You recently referred to your drive up 20 miles of the M40 at around 6.00 p.m. one evening, during which you travelled a great deal on the hard shoulder at speeds of up to 115 mph.
Please understand that (as I have previously made clear) I am a great admirer of genuine advanced driving skills, but how can you really maintain proper safety standards in those circumstances?
Surely a motorway hard shoulder is relatively narrow, and you would be passing on the wrong side of vehicles travelling probably 60 mph slower. That may startle some of those drivers, and then what might they do? With such a large speed differential and nowhere to go at short notice it all seems questionable to me.
There could also be broken down vehicles on the hard shoulder, or at least large chunks of tread off HGV tyres, and some of those are big lumps to be hitting at speed.
I am not trying to get at you, but I am still very much in the listening and learning business.
Take care all,
Dave.
I missed a few posts here due to being on holiday, but I would like to come back on the question of Irish licences and insurance.
It was not my suggestion that you try to get an Irish licence AFTER you get disqual. Rather that if you get to, say, six points you should then get an Irish licence in your own name using an Irish address (for Irish read Southern Irish, i.e. Eire).
If your UK car is registered to a UK company and insured by that company then even if you get Gatso'd or Talivan'd the company secretary can give your correct name, your Irish accommodation adress and confirm that you have an Irish licence. In this way you are unlikely to have any further problem so long as you are only a little over the posted limit. If you want to go further and buy an Irish registered car and insure it in Eire, using your existing UK insurer and with your full UK NCB transferred you can do this, then the scammers will see the foreign plate and, usually, just not bother any further. You may listen to lots of 'bluff anf bluster' about the ability to pursue foreign drivers, but in practice this rarely happens.
I have a friend who has had an Irish licence for years, yet he lives and works in South Wales. He never has any problems and his car is registered to a 'shell' company in Cardiff. His accountant has had several NIP's which get returned with the driver's correct name and Irish 'address'. Remember, all they want is an easy £60.
So, the amswer seems to be: get a Road Angel (or similar) plus a laser jammer, but if you do get to 6 points, then get a foreign (Irish) address and licence and, maybe, an Irish registered car.
My wife has lots of family in Southern Ireland and I am fortunate in that I can have an irish address immediately. I might even go and genuinely live there in a couple of years time when I retire, in which case I'll keep or renew, my UK licence!
It was not my suggestion that you try to get an Irish licence AFTER you get disqual. Rather that if you get to, say, six points you should then get an Irish licence in your own name using an Irish address (for Irish read Southern Irish, i.e. Eire).
If your UK car is registered to a UK company and insured by that company then even if you get Gatso'd or Talivan'd the company secretary can give your correct name, your Irish accommodation adress and confirm that you have an Irish licence. In this way you are unlikely to have any further problem so long as you are only a little over the posted limit. If you want to go further and buy an Irish registered car and insure it in Eire, using your existing UK insurer and with your full UK NCB transferred you can do this, then the scammers will see the foreign plate and, usually, just not bother any further. You may listen to lots of 'bluff anf bluster' about the ability to pursue foreign drivers, but in practice this rarely happens.
I have a friend who has had an Irish licence for years, yet he lives and works in South Wales. He never has any problems and his car is registered to a 'shell' company in Cardiff. His accountant has had several NIP's which get returned with the driver's correct name and Irish 'address'. Remember, all they want is an easy £60.
So, the amswer seems to be: get a Road Angel (or similar) plus a laser jammer, but if you do get to 6 points, then get a foreign (Irish) address and licence and, maybe, an Irish registered car.
My wife has lots of family in Southern Ireland and I am fortunate in that I can have an irish address immediately. I might even go and genuinely live there in a couple of years time when I retire, in which case I'll keep or renew, my UK licence!
TripleS said:
Beg pardon 'gone' but I have to ask you something that has been bothering me for a while.
You recently referred to your drive up 20 miles of the M40 at around 6.00 p.m. one evening, during which you travelled a great deal on the hard shoulder at speeds of up to 115 mph.
Again someone who has jumoped to conclusions without the full facts.
If you read the post again you will see that I stated that I responded to an incident which took me over 20 miles up the M40. Some sections of which I used the hard shoulder at 115mph to make progress.
This was not a 115mph blat up the hard shoulder regardless of consequence for 20 miles. I am not a nutter and I actually rather like the thought of going home at the end of a shift.
At times I was passing lane 1 traffic at between 20 and 30mph above their own speed. I had full warning equipment functioning including alternate full beam flashing headlamps which failed to have effect in lane 3. This is no different in speed differential from travelling past stationary or slow moving traffic of which anything in excess of 40mph is foolhardy.
As you very well all know. Lane 1 is often empty for considerable distance because everyone is trying to get past everyone else in lane 3.
At no time on the hard shoulder did I pass another vehicle which was in lane 1 adjacent to me. There was always a lane free between myself and a vehicle which was in lane 2.
TripleS said:
Please understand that (as I have previously made clear) I am a great admirer of genuine advanced driving skills, but how can you really maintain proper safety standards in those circumstances?
Because I have been trained and been doing it for over 20 years without incident (collision unless it was my choice
) under these circumstances. TripleS said:
Surely a motorway hard shoulder is relatively narrow, and you would be passing on the wrong side of vehicles travelling probably 60 mph slower. That may startle some of those drivers, and then what might they do? With such a large speed differential and nowhere to go at short notice it all seems questionable to me.
Motorway hard shoulders are 10 feet wide plus the marginal strip.
The three lanes are 12 feet wide.
Some of them may have been startled but that is down to their own misgivings and not my approach to the problem at hand!
TripleS said:
There could also be broken down vehicles on the hard shoulder, or at least large chunks of tread off HGV tyres, and some of those are big lumps to be hitting at speed.
I hit none of these as I am still here to type aboput it. I was looking for them as it was another potential hazard I had to attend to. 12 years of working motorways (M4,M40,M25) tells you what you are likely to expect in all environments.
TripleS said:
I am not trying to get at you, but I am still very much in the listening and learning business.
Take care all,
Dave.
I hope that explains some of the problems which people that read my posts seem hard to understand.
1. I like my life and my health
2. I do not want to hurt anyone ever, for anything unless I make a concisuos effiort to do so to protect myself or achieve a legal objective.
3. I have spent years practicing my roadcraft and had it constantly criticised by others who have been working with me and trained to improve me.
4. I have a 90 class 1 driving mark held at the last 3 advanced refresher courses. There are not too many of them around, the average being about 87/88. Even the instructors are marked between 89 and 93%.
5. I am paid to deliver a service which involves a risk to me and those around me. My training and natural caution allow me to minimise the risk. So does the equipment on the vehicles I use.
6. I do not drive anything like that in my own vehicle
a)because it is not covered by legal exemption
b)because it has no warning eequipment
c)because I can do so at expense other than to myself at work
7.Driving under blue lights and sirens requires 100% concentration for the entire duration they are on.
8. I do not want to end up in court having to explain why any of the above did not happen.
9. I am accutely aware of my own shortcomings and the vehicles I drive in the manner I have to. I do not go anywhere near the ragged edge of either as that is asking for trouble.
There may be many very good drivers in the country but their are millions who are not. Many of those millions rely on luck and technical equipment of modern cars to save them from their own inadequacies. Experience and training help me to remove some of those problerms through planning anticipation and observation which is something you cannot learn unless you are shown how to do it.
Ask anyone who has done an advanced day with Ridedrive,
Drive and Survive, Drive Tech, Rapid Training, or Pro-Drive.
If you want a testament to what is available, read the letters of appreciation on the Ride Drive Website www.ridedrive.co.uk especially the one from Paul Hill who was one of mine.
Read some of the others and you will find out.
The public have invested a huge amount of money in giving me some of the best Road driver training in the world for which I am very grateful. Unfortunately there are many including those on this site who are either scathing because they are Jealous, do not understand, do not want to understand or because I and other Police Officers are mere public servant (regularly reminded by PH members who pay our wages!)who is scorned as a necessary but problematic part of the world we live in.
I hope that gives some insight into the approach and qualifications that personally I have in regard to my own conduct on the roads.
I do not propose to get it right 100%of the time. There is no such thing as the perfect driver. I know one instructor (police officer) who drives at 93% He is unbelievable good. But like me and every other advanced trained Police Officer, we are human and are therefore prone to be fallible.
Why is it when an SAS soldier dies in a contact or other operational problem, that is seen as terribly unfortunate and they are so highly trained something must have gone terribly wrong?
I will tell you why, because most of us have no idea what or how they do things. Very few are 'Lay' SAS soldiers. Millions are Lay drivers and therefore they know it all.
Keep safe everyone
My thanks to 'gone' for his detailed replies to my question, but I wonder how upset he might have felt had I actually chosen to try and get at him!
However I do not think my doubts about the incident are unjustified, even if the situation I envisaged was not quite in line with the impression originally given by 'gone'.
However, I find his reference to speed differential when passing other traffic very interesting. Some weeks ago in another topic I queried a police chase shown on TV involving a Lothian and Borders traffic cop. In that pursuit the police car was travelling at up to 85 mph in lane 2 of a four lane single carriageway road in Edinburgh, passing slow moving traffic in lane 1. With all due respect to advanced police driving skills that cannot avoid presenting considerable risks, and yet no one offered any reassuring indication of how this sort of thing can be done safely.
It is all very well talking about highly developed observation and car handling skills, but if anyone were to get in the way at such a time, I do not see how a police driver would avoid disaster any better than anyone else.
Take care all,
Dave.
However I do not think my doubts about the incident are unjustified, even if the situation I envisaged was not quite in line with the impression originally given by 'gone'.
However, I find his reference to speed differential when passing other traffic very interesting. Some weeks ago in another topic I queried a police chase shown on TV involving a Lothian and Borders traffic cop. In that pursuit the police car was travelling at up to 85 mph in lane 2 of a four lane single carriageway road in Edinburgh, passing slow moving traffic in lane 1. With all due respect to advanced police driving skills that cannot avoid presenting considerable risks, and yet no one offered any reassuring indication of how this sort of thing can be done safely.
It is all very well talking about highly developed observation and car handling skills, but if anyone were to get in the way at such a time, I do not see how a police driver would avoid disaster any better than anyone else.
Take care all,
Dave.
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