craigdmcd

iTrader: (2)

I was under the illusion that it usually is already, who's going to notice the difference?
Craig

Ver.4

its simply solve with 2 words.....Capital Punishment

BROOKS1E

As JASPER CARROTT once said `ONLY ONE WAY TO GET GET RID OF A MOLE ! BLOW ITS BLOODY HEAD OFF !

Jerome

My suggestion (which I've probably made before):

Anyone convicted for the first time of any car crime gets a minimum of 1 year in jail and a 10 year driving ban (starting from their 17th birthday if underage).

Anyone convicted of a second car crime gets a minimum of 5 years in jail and a lifetime ban.

Any subsequent car crimes result in life imprisonment.

Anyone caught driving after a car crime ban gets a minimum of 10 years in jail.

All of the above sentences (as all sentences should be) are the minimum amount of time in jail - with time added on for bad behaviour.


Unfortunately, the above will require more prisons being built, which costs money. Also, an army of bearded, sandal wearing do-gooders will protest very vocally and any chance of it happening will evaporate.

mart360

a word of advice if you want to go down the petition route...

dont..

you see reams of petitions sheets being handed in at ten d street,

but in fact the number of names is pitifull ??why??

apparantly due to our wonderfull eccentric britsh politics system, if you send in a complaint with 100 names on it, it is treated as 1 complaint.

however if you send in 100 letters of complaint with one signature on it, it is treated as 100 complaints

no wonder nothing changes

revolution the only option left really!!



M

Doink

The plan was to send the petition to TopGear, Evo magazine etc, Hopefully that way it might get some press exposure and somebody might have to take notice that motorists are not happy.

Steve

555wrx

Well the latest ' criminal' is a 13 yr old boy, who was caught driving at up to speeds of 75 mph, on the wrong side of the road, whilst being drunk. He was driving a stolen car, and whilst on his rampage almost mowed down an innocent pedestrian.
It turns out he is a persistent offender for this type of crime, so the good judge gave the little ****e a four month stay at a young offenders holiday camp, erm I mean institution and then gave him umpteen penalty points and banned him from driving when he eventualy reaches seventeen, should the little ****** reach that age, as he will probably die whilst being chased by the law in another stolen car.

Is this the bright, rosey picture that Labour promised us when they lied their way into office all those years ago?

In my view, there is no alternative to labour, as underneath all political parties in this country are the same, they promise the voters miracles and repay them with nowt.
Even the IRA had a hard stance on car crime, TWOCers in the province where treated to a bullet in the knee cap, surley this tells us somthing about our screwed up country?
As has been said in this thread before, if your an honest law abider, just bend over and let the legal system of this country along with the criminals shaft you for your troubles!

warrenm2

small wager on if he does it again when he comes out?

Doink

Thats exactly the point we have all been skirting around, We are being dictated to by criminals.

Dont leave your car anywhere but in a garage, It'll be knicked.
Dont leave your kit bag on the back seat, It'll be knicked.
Dont leave your doors unlocked while driving, It'll get knicked.

How many people frequent this single forum, 1000? More 10,000? maybe I dont know but Im sure someone will have the figures, And thats just one of many subaru forums not to mention other car manufactures.

There is potentially massive support out there for this cause. Surely that cant fail to get noticed.

Steve

ThrustSSC

I think you can guarantee to get plenty of support in this, Steve - but I think the real question is: "Who is going to organise it?" As with so many things I do in my life, I think you'll find there are loads of folks who say: "Great idea!" but very few who'll lift a finger.

The reason? They're all too busy working hard on earning their nice cars, etc. The scum have all the time on their hands that they need to carry off their 'work' - as they're most likely to be living off benefits paid for with the taxes of - you guessed it - those out working hard for their nice cars, etc.

Are you going to organise this one? You need to get 10,000 folks all to write to the Prime Minister in the same week demanding action against TWOCer scum. That's the only sort of lobbying they listen to no. If you can organise that, I'll get my pen and paper out!

(And my solution for the scum? Make benefits just cover bare needs, and make it FAR less attractive to be on them than working. Try the Workfare system as practiced in the USA: work for your benefits. Spend the profits of the system on new, hard-regime prisons for real punishment where you have to earn EVERY privilege and keep earning it. And make 10 years mean 10 years - with time ON for BAD behaviour.

Above all, make it absolutely crystal clear: if you want rights, you have to show responsibility. This principle to govern every decision made.)

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

IMHO That's not enough! He could be out in 3 years for good behaviour! I think the incident you refer to was to another Scoobynetter, IIRC He was pretty much dragged along with the car...lucky not to have been killed.

Its been said before, but if you were to hold up a post office/bank/shop or whatever for 20k, threaten the staff and injure one of them, you would most likely get the best part of 10 years. How is car jacking someone any different? IIRC Correctly, Street Robbery can carry anything up to a life sentence, so why should car criminals be treated any more lightly? As car security gets better this situation is only ging to get worst, because criminals are starting to give up on the idea of getting around a car's security and just going for the keys instead.

A crackdown on car crime, which consists of more than just telling the public to lock their doors, keep valuables out of sight etc... is long overdue. There should be a balance between this type of info and messages directed straight at the criminal: i.e. Carjack and it's the slammer for you!

Best

wide

Every body got ideas about the way it used to be but times have moved on , drugs and lack of discipline are the main factors. There should be more plod doing the beats in their local areas even if it is assisted by the community special officers or whatever you call them. Also bring back the cane, little shi*s.

Doink

And the moment I have a friend that is looking into setting up a web petition so that people can show their support by leaving their Name + E-mail address(hidden if prefered).

I originally thought of writing letters but as you say there are lots of people who nod and say "Yes I agree" but when it comes to taking half an hour to sit down and compose a letter, Thats a different story.

I thought that taking two minutes to log on and leave your details while browsing your favourite car forum would be much more apealing to the masses.

Steve

The Zohan

My take on it

There is a generation(s) of kids/teenages soon to be 20 somethings who have no respect for the law or other people and thier property.

They have grown up knowing that even whilst at junior school teachers cannot touch them and the law is toothless, not talking about the Police so much as the magistrates and CPS.

These people take what they want when they want with scant regard for the owners or the Police.

The only way IMHO is to have more Police on the streets tackling crime, help and support for victims of crime. persistemnt offenders taken off of the streets and rehabillitated or left locked up - i am more interested in my/our civil rights that theirs.
proper sentencing, the punishment fits the crime.


An example of how the the government/CPS/Magistrates are letting us down.
I live on a newish estate, quite expensive by Northampton standards. The local shops were turning into a no-go area, vandalism was up as was petty (no crime is petty) crime.
I spoke with a local copper about this. It turns out tha a large group (around 30 or so) kids form a rough as hell estate in the eastern district had moved their activities several had got ASBO's in their area and now taken to frequenting our estate. They got moved on but the problem does not go away just moves from one placee to another. This is not a cure in any way. The root problem is not being tackled


My experiences of 2004 (in no particular order)
I myself was burgled in 2004 whilst we slept upstairs

Another aquanitance was attacked getting out of his BM by car jackers

a friend of the family and her 12 y/o son was attacked in their home with a machette and severly wounded.

I saw a pi$$ed/drugged up teenager vandalise a car and then cause havock in a main street in Northampton. he damaged cars, tried to pull motorists out of their cars, kicked shop windows and terrified onlookers He had to be restrained by Police. I gave a statement. He was let off by the CPS - what message does that send out?!?

I have a lot of time for the Police, i feel thay are being let down by the CPS and judges who in turn are letting us down as well

If things get worse then i will be happy to be one of the first vigillanties. I want the streets safe for me and my children as well as other law abiding people.

ThrustSSC

Steve,

You are correct that that would be more appealing to the masses. It would also have no appeal for those in power. They need to see that we really care - and that means they need to see us making an effort to bring it to their attention - which 2 minutes on a web petition does not count as.

1000 letters in a week will have FAR more impact than 100,000 signatures on a petition - which would be open to the accusation of being 'fakes'.

Think about it. If you were in power, which would influence you more?

Regards,
Jeremy

555wrx

The problem stems from the people at the top.
Look at the background of most politicians, and they are either retired/out of work actors/sports people ( wow, they realy live in the real world), or they are bloody legal eagle solicitors ( and what world do they live in?)
There are no REAL everyday people in politics, and thats the problem.
Someone thats had to scrape money to live on a daily basis, someone thats had to clear up their house and whats left of their belongings after having some drug addict burgle their house, thats the sort of people that should be in charge, not these proffesional f~cking leeches.

King RA

Clarkson for PM!!! he'd get my vote.

555wrx

I second that.

RJMS

iTrader: (2)

Same here - but if various threads on the forums are to be believed they don't have a lot of time for us - or is it that they spend all their time trying to get cases through the CPS/Courts all to no avail.

I would love to be able to do something about it - perhaps earlier suggestions of letter writing being more effective than a web petition are correct - perhaps we should draft a standard letter that people could download, personalise slightly and stick in the post. This wouldn't take much longer than entering your name on a web petition and would as suggested probably be more effective.

Anyone good at letter writing?

I'm sure we could find somewhere to host it for downloading - and who should we send it to. Perhaps Mr. Blair - or might it be more effective sending it to the Conservatives/Lib Dems who would be quite good at getting more publicity ??

Doink

I like the idea of a letter if we can get enough people to get involved, Having a standard letter to download and modify would be simple for all willing to take part, but as for who to send it too??

I think if we sent it to Mr Blair we would all get standard response letters thanking us for our input and assuring us they are taking it very seriously(yeah right).

I would vote for a more public approach so it cant just be swept under the carpet like it never happened.

The opposition partys would give it publicity but only to bad mouth Labour, However if TopGear were to receive tenthousand letters maybe more in a week asking them to highlight the situation we are in and pass our letters onto someone in goverment that could make a difference to the motorist, maybe a sunday night spot watched by 5 Million viewers would make them take notice??

I cant get past the fact that after watching dozens of news reports about people handing in petitions and letters at No 10, I cant remember what a single one was about!!

Steve

warrenm2

Arrghh - was just about to suggest this!


I'm on it....

Someone earlier said about needing more Police - whilst this is true, numbers arent that bad, its the fact that a policeman spends most of his time doing paperwork. If a policeman sees a small kid smashing a shop window - he can, and often does spend 8 hours dealing with that 1 incident, arranging an adult to be present for interview, arranging solicitor, getting the kid examined to make sure he isnt about to die, filling in the forms, contacting social services, writing up the report for the court and cps, etc etc. Thats the real reason why nothing seems to be happening.....

Other things you can do:-

1) Lobby your MP - they have regular surgeries and will hassle the police on your behalf (in theory)
2) Become a magistrate yourself http://www.bbc.co.uk/crime/law/becom...gistrate.shtml
3) Become an MP yourself http://www.justdosomething.net/xsp/x...ected-as-an-mp
4) Write to your local superintendant warning of a situation out of control and people talking of taking things into their own hands
5) Become a vigilante, oops, I mean Guardian Angel
6) Target the known offenders and make life hell for them (all within the law though of course)

ThrustSSC

Worked wonders in our village. We had a problem with some local yobs - blocking the road, harrassing, generally being anti-social. Part of the problem was the hour it would take the police to get here from Banbury. It got to a Village Hall meeting with the local MP. No response of any value until my G/F stood up and pointed out the regulars in one of the local pubs also knew it took the police an hour to get here and were considering taking the yobs behind the bus shelter and sorting the issue out.

Police suddenly got interested and heavy-handed with the culprits. End of problem.

warrenm2

so the moral of the story is then

a) complain like stink
b) getting tough DOES work!

Nich B

A friend of mine if you get my drift came across a scum bag trying to nick his motorbike from outside his house, Unfortunatley for scum bag he was discovered by about 5 blokes. The bike was a CR500 Motorcross bike, apparently he wanted to experience off road riding, not to dissapoint him he was trussed and taken to field out back and towed behind bike across the field, he WAS crying at the end of it, he was asked if he had nicked anything else and admited to some vandelism and TDA in the local area, a real one man crime wave, he thought cos he had admitted to more he would be let go...............err no

As I write I can clearly see and hear some poor sod being towed behind a bike, boy does he look muddy, I cant condone violence, but if you want to get your own back, it does feel good,

I have had in the past 6 years stolen from my drive an XR4X4i and a VW Camper if you have never experienced the feeling you wouldnt feel sorry for the muddy person in the field

I cant believe they are still going, its dark out there.

Oh well, got to go Im on duty tonight, apparently I have had a complaint, of some bikers charging around a field


Dont let the buggers get you down

warrenm2

Although to be fair - given the quality of your average member of Joe Public, I would be careful about that!