I was at red traffic lights a while back and one of the typical boy racers that are now prevalent couldn't be d queuing, so overtook the whole queue and then pulled in across the bows of the lead car, almost knocking over an elderly woman who was starting to cross from the left. Offences: driving without due consideration for other road users; failing to stop at a red light (because he had completely crossed the stop line).

The wife took images on her phone of him, and his car in position showing the lights, and his reg no. and tried to give the info to the police. They were amazingly reluctant to become involved. Eventually they came back to us with the claim that unless there are at least two independent witnesses, they/CPS will do nothing.

And as the chances of a police car witnessing the event are vanishingly small, (and if it was a panda or a van they'd ignore it anyway) the scrotes know that they can drive like this, and worse, with impunity.

Our car and several others got a good keying from some passing scrote over the weekend. I don't know how many cars were involved but the total value of repairs for the dozen or so we saw would be maybe ten grand.

Over the phone they just wanted to give me a crime number but would send a plod out "if I insisted". One duly came and took details from all concerned. A little later got a call explaining that as we could not give the name and address of the offender, and there were no witnesses, and nobody had it on video, they were closing their file. But gave me a crime number.

Similar thing happened to me when we got broken into a few years ago, they sent a SOC bloke down, but he never even took finger prints of the window frame where they got in, stating 'all good burglars were gloves' to which I replied 'perhaps these were crap burglars'. We got a crime number for the insurance and nothing more was done. I was advised (separately) by a copper that if I went to Elephant & Castle pub or Humber Social Club I was likely to see someone flogging my stuff, if this was the case whey the f'ck won't the coppers go to these places and nick the scrotes (they had all the serial numbers for my nicked stuff).

As there is already a law related thread I'll not start another....

Check out the new fixed penalty prices coming to a lay-by near you soon.

Also read a 'hogging the middle lane' penalty is £100 also.




Thoughts?

Using a mobile whilst driving - £2,000 fine plus a six month ban
Driving without insurance - 3 year prison sentence

I don't have a problem with the general idea of fixed penalties but I think that, for example, using a mobile whilst driving should carry a points penalty not just a fine because hogging the middle lane, whilst it causes problems, isn't as dangerous as using a mobile at, say, 70mph.
Also, I'd prefer that there would be degrees of offence so that not just the basic offence but also the level of danger it represents would be taken into account.

Prison capacity - c 88,000

In just Yorkshire and the Humber, an estimated 3.97% out of 2.7 million vehicles are not insured. That's over 100,000.

According to recent statistics (2012), the number of cars in the United Kingdom is about 40 million. If the overall uninsured rate is only half the above, that would be 800,000 prisoners. Over twice the population of Monaco.

Where are you going to put them all?

Average cost of keeping someone in jail per annum is £47,000. That's an annual bill of £37,600,000,000. How are you going to pay for it?

So the careless drivers of the UK are paying for the bankers' folly now too?

Not that I have an issue with trying to stamp out bad driving.

Apologies for the thread drift

Using the stats you have provided the current deterrent doesn't seem to be working too well. I myself don't have the answer but a couple of hundred quid as a fine is nothing and doesn't solve the issue.

The fine needs to be a lot greater than a year's insurance would have cost, otherwise the sheer economics will tempt many into taking the chance.

I think it does currently.

You get caught without insurance and you receive 6pts on your licence, £200 fine, you car also gets seized at a cost over just over £100 AND you pay about £20 per day storage costs at the lock up before you get your car back.

Oh and should you have no licence or only a provisional you get a further £60

Can't afford to do that too often otherwise you get banned and DQ. Drive when DQ and you get arrested.

How does that not work?

But I only commented on your ridiculous suggestion of a 3 years chokey for every uninsured person. At least the present system, in the individual case, works very well, you get points, a fine and lose your car (unless you insure it and pay the costs).

The problem would seem to me to be an inability or unwillingness to catch any more than a small proportion of offenders. Not what they do when they get one.

Unless an uninsured driver can categorically prove that he was uninsured through no fault of his own, the car should be seized and crushed or sold. A sizeable number of uninsured drivers are not driving bangers, there are plenty of them behind the wheels of what are prestige cars

My current job provides a car and when I first started I was driving up Holderness Rd in a new car with 300 or so miles on the clock when an uninsured driver smashed my back end. I asked to swap details and he just said as bold as brass 'not insured mate, sorry', fortunately it was at around 8am so there were lots of witnesses. Don't know what happened to him as the coppers never got in touch and my company just had the car fixed.

My niece who is 20 has just had her renewal through recently and it's £2,600 for a 1.0l Corsa (which has gone up a fair whack). No wonder there are so many willing to take risks.

lad at my college drove a BMW 3 series(it was a good few years old, but still) with no insurance, his parents didn't know he had it as he parked it in the next street to his house. They thought he went out for the bus every morning when he walked round to it, I have no idea how much money they gave him but to not notice that it must be a lot.

In the year I was there at the same time as him, he never got caught by either the police or his parents.