Almost excellent - Telegraph rant
Discussion
From today's Telegraph. The only thing I take issue with is targeting his rant at the Police rahter than the legislators...
Cameras put honest drivers at mercy of greedy policemen
By Harry Mount
(Filed: 01/08/2003)
Congratulations to the Yorke One. All hail the heroic High Court victory of the Blackburn Rovers striker, Dwight Yorke, in overturning a speeding fine.
You can be sure, though, that the loophole – he got off because he didn't personally sign an official form showing he was the driver of the vehicle – will soon be tightened by the Department of Transport.
The loopholes always are tightened in the end. For a while, it looked like you could get off by claiming that admitting to an offence amounted to self-incrimination and so went against the basic right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.
But that was nipped in the bud. And the millions of pounds that are brought in by speed cameras are too useful to police forces to let them throw it all away because of a wily footballer's lawyer.
Speed cameras are no longer about safety – even the official at the Department of Transport, who I talked to yesterday, acknowledged, "We're moving away from calling them safety cameras" – and all about raising cash. And when policemen's eyes are full of pound signs, they can't see whether your driving is dangerous, and they couldn't care less, even when they claim otherwise.
Richard Brunstrom, head of North Wales Police, denied that speed cameras are a way of making money, before admitting that his force had kept £1.7 million of the £2.6 million raised by speeding fines last year.
Just a glance at my fading green and pink driving licence tells the wicked story of speed cameras.
Issued by DVLA Swansea – February 2nd, 1989
Endorsements: October 1st, 2000 – £60 and three points
January 25th, 2002 – £60 and three points
October 7th, 2002 – £60 and three points
Eleven-and-a-half years of conviction-free, crash-free driving, and then, BANG – caught doing 51mph in a 40mph zone driving through Richmond; BANG – 11 miles an hour over the limit coming out of Swansea; BANG – again, 11 miles an hour over, going through an empty Bournemouth during the Conservative Party conference.
Now, one conviction away from losing my licence, I hover in the slow lane on empty motorways at the dead of night at a steady 70mph, I suddenly brake to 30mph to go through empty villages in the middle of nowhere, and accelerate up to a precise 60mph as soon as I see that white sign with a black stripe through it – the "National speed limit applies" one.
Throughout the office and among my friends and family, the same story is told: of squeaky clean lives and squeaky clean licences, until the speed cameras got flashing in the late 1990s, after their introduction in 1992.
These were pernickety, safe drivers, often with children in the back, often with jobs that depended on them driving to work, who would never break any other law, but might just creep over the limit when it was safe to do so.
It's no coincidence that every one of my convictions was 11mph over – just big enough to be sure that the margin of error on the technology is taken care of; negligible enough to make no material difference to my driving on remote roads.
Relations of people killed in road accidents will say it's never safe to speed, and of course they're right. But it's never really safe to take to the roads; better to stay indoors with the duvet wrapped around your torso and a pillow over your head, on the off-chance a chunk of plaster might fall from the ceiling.
Once you take the momentous decision to walk from your bedroom to the kitchen, though, and turn on the kettle, you're constantly working on a risk/reward basis. I'll risk an electric shock from the battered old heat element so I can have a hot cup of coffee; I'll risk smashing my head through the windscreen in order to get across stretches of Britain on time and not depend on public transport.
And, before my last conviction left me on the edge of a ban, I was perfectly happy going 10mph over the limit because, after those 11½ years, it hadn't made any difference to my safety or to the safety of those walking the streets I drove through.
So it's not surprising that the millions of otherwise law-abiding drivers also on the edge of a ban finally flip when the summons drops through the door. People who are punctilious about everything else – filling in their income tax forms, queueing at the post office to get their licence discs, paying the congestion charge even when they know thousands are getting away with not paying – crack and start looking for the dodge.
The man who tried on the self-incrimination defence last year couldn't have been closer to the vision of Middle England Respectable Man. A retired company director, he was caught driving a 1925 Alvis Speed 25 through Surrey, 17mph over the limit. It's a pretty good bet that his Alvis had been driven for almost 80 years through the Home Counties without a scratch on the paintwork or a bump with a child, until the Surrey police had a look at their bank statement and realised they were running low on cash.
The Dwight Yorke Dodge is familiar to well-heeled Alvis drivers. As the judge in his case said yesterday, it's spreading like a virus up and down the country. So far it's been a relatively well-kept secret, confined to upmarket solicitors and drivers in the know, who can afford those solicitors.
And more and more people will use the dodge. David Blunkett is planning to slap on an extra £35 surcharge to every speeding fine. A new generation of speed cameras is being introduced, in which wet film is replaced by a digital system that can provide a colour image of a passing vehicle even at night, triggered by piezo-electric tubes – whatever they are – beneath the road surface. Several of my colleagues have already been snapped by one of these horrible things in the empty, pedestrian-free Limehouse Link tunnel in east London.
The war between honest driver and greedy policeman will rage even when the Dwight Yorke Dodge has been killed off. There's no choice: as the police use more sophisticated devices on the last bits of clear, safe roads, ingenious drivers will track down more sophisticated ruses. Every reasonable, safe driver should join in the hunt – you have nothing to lose but the licence you're going to lose anyway.
Cameras put honest drivers at mercy of greedy policemen
By Harry Mount
(Filed: 01/08/2003)
Congratulations to the Yorke One. All hail the heroic High Court victory of the Blackburn Rovers striker, Dwight Yorke, in overturning a speeding fine.
You can be sure, though, that the loophole – he got off because he didn't personally sign an official form showing he was the driver of the vehicle – will soon be tightened by the Department of Transport.
The loopholes always are tightened in the end. For a while, it looked like you could get off by claiming that admitting to an offence amounted to self-incrimination and so went against the basic right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.
But that was nipped in the bud. And the millions of pounds that are brought in by speed cameras are too useful to police forces to let them throw it all away because of a wily footballer's lawyer.
Speed cameras are no longer about safety – even the official at the Department of Transport, who I talked to yesterday, acknowledged, "We're moving away from calling them safety cameras" – and all about raising cash. And when policemen's eyes are full of pound signs, they can't see whether your driving is dangerous, and they couldn't care less, even when they claim otherwise.
Richard Brunstrom, head of North Wales Police, denied that speed cameras are a way of making money, before admitting that his force had kept £1.7 million of the £2.6 million raised by speeding fines last year.
Just a glance at my fading green and pink driving licence tells the wicked story of speed cameras.
Issued by DVLA Swansea – February 2nd, 1989
Endorsements: October 1st, 2000 – £60 and three points
January 25th, 2002 – £60 and three points
October 7th, 2002 – £60 and three points
Eleven-and-a-half years of conviction-free, crash-free driving, and then, BANG – caught doing 51mph in a 40mph zone driving through Richmond; BANG – 11 miles an hour over the limit coming out of Swansea; BANG – again, 11 miles an hour over, going through an empty Bournemouth during the Conservative Party conference.
Now, one conviction away from losing my licence, I hover in the slow lane on empty motorways at the dead of night at a steady 70mph, I suddenly brake to 30mph to go through empty villages in the middle of nowhere, and accelerate up to a precise 60mph as soon as I see that white sign with a black stripe through it – the "National speed limit applies" one.
Throughout the office and among my friends and family, the same story is told: of squeaky clean lives and squeaky clean licences, until the speed cameras got flashing in the late 1990s, after their introduction in 1992.
These were pernickety, safe drivers, often with children in the back, often with jobs that depended on them driving to work, who would never break any other law, but might just creep over the limit when it was safe to do so.
It's no coincidence that every one of my convictions was 11mph over – just big enough to be sure that the margin of error on the technology is taken care of; negligible enough to make no material difference to my driving on remote roads.
Relations of people killed in road accidents will say it's never safe to speed, and of course they're right. But it's never really safe to take to the roads; better to stay indoors with the duvet wrapped around your torso and a pillow over your head, on the off-chance a chunk of plaster might fall from the ceiling.
Once you take the momentous decision to walk from your bedroom to the kitchen, though, and turn on the kettle, you're constantly working on a risk/reward basis. I'll risk an electric shock from the battered old heat element so I can have a hot cup of coffee; I'll risk smashing my head through the windscreen in order to get across stretches of Britain on time and not depend on public transport.
And, before my last conviction left me on the edge of a ban, I was perfectly happy going 10mph over the limit because, after those 11½ years, it hadn't made any difference to my safety or to the safety of those walking the streets I drove through.
So it's not surprising that the millions of otherwise law-abiding drivers also on the edge of a ban finally flip when the summons drops through the door. People who are punctilious about everything else – filling in their income tax forms, queueing at the post office to get their licence discs, paying the congestion charge even when they know thousands are getting away with not paying – crack and start looking for the dodge.
The man who tried on the self-incrimination defence last year couldn't have been closer to the vision of Middle England Respectable Man. A retired company director, he was caught driving a 1925 Alvis Speed 25 through Surrey, 17mph over the limit. It's a pretty good bet that his Alvis had been driven for almost 80 years through the Home Counties without a scratch on the paintwork or a bump with a child, until the Surrey police had a look at their bank statement and realised they were running low on cash.
The Dwight Yorke Dodge is familiar to well-heeled Alvis drivers. As the judge in his case said yesterday, it's spreading like a virus up and down the country. So far it's been a relatively well-kept secret, confined to upmarket solicitors and drivers in the know, who can afford those solicitors.
And more and more people will use the dodge. David Blunkett is planning to slap on an extra £35 surcharge to every speeding fine. A new generation of speed cameras is being introduced, in which wet film is replaced by a digital system that can provide a colour image of a passing vehicle even at night, triggered by piezo-electric tubes – whatever they are – beneath the road surface. Several of my colleagues have already been snapped by one of these horrible things in the empty, pedestrian-free Limehouse Link tunnel in east London.
The war between honest driver and greedy policeman will rage even when the Dwight Yorke Dodge has been killed off. There's no choice: as the police use more sophisticated devices on the last bits of clear, safe roads, ingenious drivers will track down more sophisticated ruses. Every reasonable, safe driver should join in the hunt – you have nothing to lose but the licence you're going to lose anyway.
Unfortunately drivers will have to resort to very dubious methods - criminal, infact, to stay "clean". Ironic how a very minor offense can turn an ordinary person into a crim, or even wreck their lives due to loss of license.
In some ways I welcome the event of speed controlled cars - no worries about tickets, just drive like a t** and rest easy that you won't get a ticket. How sad that a skillful operation is numptified.
In some ways I welcome the event of speed controlled cars - no worries about tickets, just drive like a t** and rest easy that you won't get a ticket. How sad that a skillful operation is numptified.
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