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Torygraph argues that driving crime is not real crime...
Hi folks,
Interesting leader in today's Torygraph. We keep on hearing how 'speeding is not a crime' and that the police should focus on dangerous and inconsiderate drivers, the uninsured and other 'real' motoring criminals instead. Of course, this is usually just another deceit as whatever driving crime the police do pursue (which currently is very little) the protest goes up that that is not ‘real' driving crime either. In fact it often seems that the motor lobby and the hierarchical/ authoritarian right deep down want to pretend that no crime committed by a driver is 'real' crime. (Unless committed by a driver who stole the car first of course...). Of course, in reality all driving crime is ‘real' crime and claims many very real victims. In fact driving crime is certainly the most widespread form of crime in the UK today and blights the lives of more people than any other form of crime. Speeding alone, one of the most common driving crimes, claiming about 1200 lives a year and being implicated in many more deaths and injuries. True to form The Torygraph are today arguing that responsibility for ALL driving crime be taken away from the police who would then be free to concentrate on 'real' crime. (Which I have no doubt would include 'clampdowns' on pavement cyclists and arresting beggars and down and outs). They argue that driving crime should be farmed out to a new agency, doubtless in anticipation that this could be attacked for being 'over zealous' with much more freedom then the Torygraph and the right wing press would feel when attacking the police, who after all form a central part of the system they wish to maintain. However much they try to pretend otherwise this story is yet another attempt to promote the old lie that driving crime is not real crime. They should try telling that to the victims, ironically the people that the right wing press frequently argues the law should put first. Sunday Telegraph 22/08/04 Get the police off the road At a time when violent crime is rising, and there is an increasing reluctance on the part of the public to provide the witness statements which are so crucial to successful criminal investigations, the police need all the support they can get. Unfortunately, many forces appear to be alienating large swathes of the public. The cause is their crass and often stupid behaviour when enforcing road regulations. Almost every driver has encountered heavy-handed, or even straightforwardly incompetent, actions by police officers on the roads. Some particularly egregious examples have been reported in the past few days: seven policemen - each with body armour - were deployed in London to hide behind a hedge in order to catch motorists on a quiet, residential road who were turning right in defiance of a "no right turn" sign; a policeman who was accidentally splashed when a motorist changed lanes on a rain-soaked street in Blackburn ensured that the offending driver was prosecuted for "driving without due care and attention"; and it took 30 uniformed officers, with 15 police cars, to issue a £30 spot-fine to a grandmother who was judged to have been driving a car with the wrong coloured screw in its back number-plate. When the police treat people who commit minor road offences as if they were armed robbers, the natural reaction is one of anger and frustration, not merely at the rudeness and inconvenience, but also at the waste of police time and effort. It diminishes the police in the eyes of the public. The familiar question posed by every driver stopped by the police for a traffic offence - "Why aren't you doing something to catch real criminals?" - is not merely understandable: it is perfectly reasonable. The amount of police effort and resources devoted to enforcing road regulations undoubtedly takes officers away from their real responsibilities: policing the streets, and investigating crimes which actually threaten liberty and property. As we report today, the RAC is now urging the police to take a more aggressive stance in prosecuting motorists who are thought to be staying in one lane of a motorway for too long. It is not difficult to imagine the scenes that would follow if they actually started to do so - and the consequent waste of additional police hours. Cars are dangerous, and incidents on the roads kill and injure more people than any other kind of accident. There should not and must not be anarchy on the roads: the law of the land should be upheld there as much as it is anywhere else. But police forces are not the most appropriate organisations for ensuring that motorists obey traffic regulations. Policemen are schooled to confront and deal with violent criminals. The dangers which they are trained to meet, and to which they are often exposed, have ensured that they are among the best paid and most generously pensioned public servants in Britain. It is a waste of their training, of their skills, and of the remuneration which they receive, to use them to monitor traffic. Instead, the Government should create a specialist agency dedicated exclusively to the enforcement of traffic regulations. Many other countries make a clear division between the police and the "highway patrol". Britain should follow their example. The new agency could be largely self-financing: the fines it would collect for speeding and other infractions of the rules of the road ought to make that straightforward, with appropriate co-operation from the Treasury. Officers in the highway patrol would not be paid the same rate as police officers, or given the same quota of sick-days, or the same generous pension rights, for the simple reason that they would not face the same dangers as do officers in the regular police force. Their training would prepare them for dealing with ordinary members of the public, not for confronting dangerous criminals - something which would, it is to be hoped, be reflected in the way they treated drivers whom they caught infringing the rules of road. Hiving off the enforcement of the traffic laws to an agency quite distinct - both culturally and administratively - from the police would be an enormous benefit. It would end, at a stroke, the most prolific cause of the public's increasing resentment and distrust of its officers. It would also bring an end to the distortion of police priorities which has been the result of the imposition of rigid "performance targets". When the police are required to "clear up" a certain number of offences every year, they naturally opt for the softest targets: motorists breaking the traffic code. Targeting motorists inevitably brings up their quota of "persons caught committing offences". But it also means that squads of officers end up wasting their time hiding in bushes to catch drivers who turn right illegally, or lining up to take finger-prints from a grandmother with a dodgy number-plate. This is one occasion where a division of labour is called for. |
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mae wedi ysgrifennu:
Hi folks, Interesting leader in today's Torygraph. long post snipped The right have a big problem at the moment. They want to push a 'zero tolerance of crime' agenda because they think this will go down well with Middle England. Michael Howard has already made reference to this in the last couple of weeks. The only problem is that zero tolerance ain't zero tolerance if middle class crimes such as motoring offences are ignored. The Torygraph is probably trying to square this circle by finding a way of taking the kind of crimes that 'nice people like us' commit out of the equation. -- Rob Please keep conversations in the newsgroup so that all may contribute and benefit. |
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David Hansen wrote:
It is perhaps perfectly reasonable, if one ignores the 3500 odd people who are killed violently on the roads. IIRC motor vehicles have killed more people in the time since their invention than all wars. |
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Howard wrote:
Speeding alone, one of the most common driving crimes, claiming about 1200 lives a year and being implicated in many more deaths and injuries. Got a source for that statistic? Speed specifically causing 1200 deaths per year? |
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Nick Kew wrote:
In article , (Howard) writes: Hi folks, Ho! Speeding motorists kill more people in the UK than all other criminals combined. Case closed? What about smoking then - Shall we have a little jihad about that? |
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Howard wrote:
Of course, in reality all driving crime is ‘real' crime.... True to form The Torygraph are today arguing that responsibility for ALL driving crime be taken away from the police who would then be free to concentrate on 'real' crime. (Which I have no doubt would include 'clampdowns' on pavement cyclists.... You seem to be suggesting that bicycle crime is not 'real' crime. |
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David Martin wrote:
On 22/8/04 2:22 pm, in article , "dwb" wrote: Howard wrote: Speeding alone, one of the most common driving crimes, claiming about 1200 lives a year and being implicated in many more deaths and injuries. Got a source for that statistic? Speed specifically causing 1200 deaths per year? Over 90% of motorists speed. I'm pretty sure it's not the ones who don't speed who are having all the crashes. I didn't ask what you think though - I asked for the study that proves that 1200 people die specifically because of speeding. I'm still waiting for it obviously. BTW - you'd be surprised - I was hit from behind by a vehicle going well below the speed limit. I *think* ( but won't claim this to be fact) that most of the statistics are actually the other way round - excessive speed is not often a factor, it's usually driver error within the speed limit. ie. you can hit a tree at 29mph. |
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