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Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2007 10:51 am Post subject: Are speed cameras just a CASH COW?
Well in todays papers motorists are to be hit again, from Monday 2nd April, with an extra £15 fine, on top of the existing £60, it is to be a new surcharge to compensate victims of crime - see HERE but real criminals will pay nothing.
This will start off only if you go to court with a speeding fine, but will then extend to all speeding cases or being caught on the mobile, on the first "nick" you will be allowed off, (unless you decide to go to court), but from there after it will be viewed that you are a "serious and persistent offender and have to pay up. _________________ TomTom Go 60
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Joined: Feb 07, 2006 Posts: 616 Location: Midlothian
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:28 pm Post subject:
This whole thing is fundamentally flawed. How can it be justified for a motorist breaking the speed limit to be fined extra to help victims of domestic violence.
I have never heard of this, so I assume it is one of those 'England & Wales' things, which really P me off. How long have we been looked at as one United Kingdom, yet continually things are introduced in Scotland as a separate thing from England & Wales. I'm wandering off topic a bit here.
I can't see how they can possibly enforce this levy. There would have to be a national database of offenders which can be checked by Police at the roadside, otherwise how would Police in Cumbria know that the person they had stopped for speeding, had been given a ticket last month in Dorset ?
Joined: Jan 04, 2007 Posts: 2789 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:38 pm Post subject:
Yes, it does appear to be flawed.
Why are burglars, muggers and so on not receiving these 'surcharges', when it is THEIR victims who are being compensated after all??
Surely any compensation relating to motoring incidents is taken care of by the law abiding motorists who pay their insurance premuim.
I suspect and hope that this kind of thing will be taken directly to the European Courts because it appears to discriminate against motorists. _________________ Andy
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My Lords, I find this very strange. Like other noble Lords, I took part in the Committee stage of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill, which was looked at line by line, as happens in Committee. Then, suddenly, without any reference at all, the Government in the House of Commons start adding clauses which had never been mentioned, have never been considered by noble Lords and have no direct relationship to the Bill. Three of them deal with surcharges. I should have thought that these three clauses would have cried out for careful examination in Committee. So far as I am concerned, the principle itself is very dubious.
The principle as I understand it is that anybody who appears before a court and is convicted of a criminal offence, if he is not mentally affected or granted an absolute discharge, will be subject to paying a surcharge. Equally, anyone driving a motorcar who has one speeding offence as a result of travelling past a speed camera, maybe on an open road in the early hours of the morning, and who commits a similar speeding offence during the following three years will immediately become subject automatically to a surcharge.
What is the surcharge for? The Minister, Mr Goggins, told us:
"Our aim is to make offenders pay a small sum to a fund for the victims of crime. The fund will provide practical and emotional support to a range of victims".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee E, 1/7/04; col. 293.]
Why should there be a greater responsibility on someone who has committed a second motoring offence, for example, to pay for the establishment of a fund to deal with the emotional support needed by an elderly lady who is, say, the victim of a burglary? Surely, it is society's duty to provide support for victims. Whether or not you have committed a second fixed-penalty offence seems totally irrelevant and in no way increases the responsibility of that individual to compensate that victim.
Who will be the victims? We are told that the fund will provide practical and emotional support for a range of victims. There is no provision for the establishment of a victims' fund. Who is to decide who the victims are? Is it to be Victim Support with more money from the Government than before? I declare now an interest that I would have had to declare later in any event as a former chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. Is it merely a method of increasing the money available to the Criminal Injuries
2 Nov 2004 : Column 214
Compensation Authority to compensate for the substantial cut in the budget that, I understand, it has received in the past few months?
What is the principle behind it? The Minister said that it was right that people should pay for their crimes. Of course they should, but I still do not understand why someone who is convicted of an offence of, say, shoplifting or drinking after hours should be more responsible than society as a whole to the victim of a wounding. The principle is highly questionable.
What about the practicality? First, there is the intention to surcharge the offender. As my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns asked, does that mean that, in future, everybody who is sentenced by any court to a term of imprisonment will, as well as being sent to prison, have a surcharge imposed on him? If that is so, is that not, as my noble friend said, contrary, in many ways, to the principle used in the past by the courts that if a person is incarcerated for his offence, we should not add a financial penalty?
The new clause does not say, "a court may"; it says, "a court ... must". Presumably, anybody who is imprisoned for any offence, however serious and however long the sentence, will be surcharged. We are not told the amount, but he will have to pay a sum that will ensure that, when he comes out, he will have no money left with which to start, if he wishes, to live an honest life. It is an extraordinary proposal.
What about the motorist? Again, everyone who is convicted of an offence carrying a fixed penalty will, as I understand the proposals, be ordered to pay a surcharge. I agree with the Minister that motoring offences are serious. I agree with her that those who commit more than one motoring offence are a serious problem. I am not sure, however, that I would necessarily describe a person who committed one offence of speeding and one of having a bald tyre as a repeat offender.
If the view is that speeding for a second time is more serious than speeding the first time, why not put up the fixed penalty? The fixed penalty for a first offence is £60. In future, for a second offence, it will be £60 and something called a surcharge, amounting to £30. If we are concerned at the gravity of the offence, we should put up the fixed penalty to £90, rather than dressing the increase up by pretending that it is a surcharge that goes, in an unexplained way, through a victims' fund, which is not to be established, to help with the emotional and practical problems of victims of crime who have no relationship to the individual who has committed the speeding offence or driven with bald tyres.
I have spoken longer than I should have, but the proposal is nonsense in principle and will be shown in practice to be unworkable.
The above quote is a speech made in the House of Lords, by Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, interesting to see his views particulary the last paragraph - but it still got through Paliament.
999tommo wrote:
Quote:
......have never heard of this, so I assume it is one of those 'England & Wales' things, which really P me off. How long have we been looked at as one United Kingdom, yet continually things are introduced in Scotland as a separate thing from England & Wales.
Apparently it was suggested in the Scottish Parliament in 2004 with a £5 surcharge but (as yet) hasn't got through.
I can't find the evidence, so still looking, but i'm sure there was at least one English magistrate who resigned on this issue, as he didn't agree with imposing the surcharge in his court. _________________ TomTom Go 60
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