hedgehog

More generally law abiding motorists are about to become statistics from Telegraph motoring:

Reality vs perception
(Filed: 07/05/2005)

You don't need to drive a sports car to find yourself in trouble with the law, says Austin Williams

Drive a bright yellow sports car or a snazzy, high-performance motorbike and you'll undoubtedly get stares, but you shouldn't be pestered by the authorities, should you? Well, you (and a number of other categories of motorist) might be if the police use their latest powers to the utmost. In fact, based on the accusation of a single individual, you could find yourself as a defendant in court proving your innocence before a charge of anti-social driving.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, unlike the Road Safety Bill (see Motoring, April 30), didn't fail the pre-election wash-up process and last month was given a rubber stamp, with a few House of Lords amendments and without the much-publicised offence of incitement to racial hatred.

Apart from setting up the FBI-style Serious Organised Crime Agency, the Act also gives the authorities powers to stop motorists and forcibly take their fingerprints using new portable technology being tested in Northamptonshire. Like that illiberal old 1990s saw, "If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear", here the counter-argument is that if you are against it, you are giving succour to terrorists. Indeed, as retinal scans are now commonplace at airports, who can object to a measly fingerprint?

But the question of who decides what activity is criminal was never addressed, and now we seem to have lost sight of that argument. Besides, civil liberties concerns are regularly brushed aside these days, especially in the transport sector, where motorists will swallow anything.

The Department for Transport boasts that Operation Laser demonstrated the value of automatic number-plate recognition. This technology, which has been funded from fixed-penalty revenue, "will enable officers in equipped vehicles to identify any vehicles of interest". So what, exactly, is a "vehicle of interest"?

Well, the Home Office, in its latest Roads Policing Strategy, talks of vehicles that are driven in an anti-social manner. Before you breathe a sigh of relief that this couldn't possibly mean you, it is worth noting that it ranges from undisciplined lane behaviour and verbal abuse to "generally threatening driving and riding". This new category of driving will attract police interest and extends the classification of errant behaviour beyond the standard list of dangerous, careless or erratic driving.

Have you ever sworn at a fellow knight of the road? Was this a stressed-out symptom of driving life, or latent, violent road rage? It won't necessarily be up to you to decide, given that criminal sanction arises from a perception of events, rather than the reality of the situation.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has just established a Road Policing Intelligence Forum, which notes that "bad driving, even where not leading to a collision, is threatening and intimidating to other drivers". It is sufficient that this threat is merely perceived by the self-proclaimed victim. The targeted individual will have to prove his or her innocence.

But given that ACPO states that "vulnerable and disadvantaged people particularly need proactive road policing", victims will have moral authority and superior believability. You'd hardly think, given the hype, that being a victim of crime is now less likely than at any time since the British Crime Survey began in 1981.

The Home Office document sees the overall objective as delivering "the target of 1.25 million offences brought to justice by 2007-08". But given that "bringing someone to justice" now includes cautions, penalty notices, TIC (supplementary offences taken into consideration), formal warnings and reprimands, the target culture of the police could see many erstwhile law-abiding citizens reported in the statistics. The new National Policing Plan states that when these once law-abiding motorists have been identified as perpetrators, "we must ensure that criminals are denied the use of our roads".

We can only imagine what this means. While we might nod when some chav is barred from driving, his licence revoked and his car crushed, we should be aware that the same state powers are waiting to be used on less obvious targets. Rights, as they used to say in the old days, are universal, which means that an assault on one person, however much we might not like that individual, is an assault on us all.

Recognising this, the authorities are clamouring to respect diversity and appear even-handed (the new policing plan has removed the reference to the Evangelical Alliance as one of the key stakeholders mentioned in the previous one). But more importantly, the police have adopted a more community-centred approach to criminality, which can only exacerbate the problem.

"Target setting," says the Home Office, "should ideally be a bottom-up process so that communities have local ownership of targets." This implies that locals can determine who should be targeted. If you've recently upset your neighbour, look out for police stopping you to inspect your tyre treads. If your leylandii are upsetting the local busybody, prepare for an early-morning breath test.

If you think all this is a bit of an over-reaction, you should be aware that, apart from animal-rights protesters, the only other cause worthy of direct mention in the 2005 policing plan is set out in clause 3.51, which states "Forces should prepare for the implementation of the Hunting Act". Sounds ominous? Not a bit of it. As they say, if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear...

gso

can you sum that up in a few words cos its gonna give me a headache reading it on this screen...

thanks

G

pslewis

Anti - Social drivers will have their cars crushed .....

Absolutely EXCELLENT news!!

The Communities are about to FIGHT back!!

Lets get those big bore exhaust cars OFF the road

Lets get those big sound system cars OFF the road

Lets get those speeders OFF the road

Lets take control of our streets!!

Pete

Tiggs

so to clarify......if you drive sensibly and within the law whats the problem????

pslewis

Same with everything else ...........

No problem at all .... problems develop in peoples minds when they want to do something Anti-Social and the Community says, "NO"!!!

But then they blubber and cry into mummies apron!! and then POST on here!!

Pete

unclebuck

***DON'T FEED THE TROLL***

Another important and informative thread ruined by the resident Scoobynet retarded troll.

pslewis

Look out, UncleButt is back!!!

Pete

unclebuck

I'll tell you one thing. If I had any authority on this board at all filth like you would out so fast you wouldn't know what hit you.

I don't understrand why they let one or two losers f*ck this place up so bad that it's almost no longer worth coming here.

Tiggs

Almost?

How bad does it have to be? maybe we could hire some losers just to push you over the edge!

Slartibartfast

I agree with Uncle Buck. Why does Scoobynet allow this kind of nonsense?

The other forums I post on would never allow this kind of blatent anti-community behaviour.

mart360

lewis and tiggs, its cambell & mandelson under pseudnyms NL,s double act

spin and smear,,,

roll on uk bastille day!!


M

warrenm2

pslewis is a speeder therefore his car must be crushed......

Leslie

Whatever PSL feels he has to rant on about in his usual bigoted and hypocritical manner, is does not have to be accepted or even be taken notice of.

That is a truly frightening situation as described by Hedgehog. Basically it means that if some trog takes a dislike to you for any non associated reason, he could report you for whatever he feels like to the authorities and then you have to prove he is lying. Only too easy to do with regard to driving under these circumstances.

This is merely the start of absolute control over the people and means the total loss of our protection in law. It is government by fear which is resorted to by those who cannot gain the respect of the people. Orwell was not so far off the mark!

Anyone who considers that to be an improvement to our lives in the future should really take a long look at Hedgehog's post and think again. Even if it might cause a headache to apply a bit of concentration for a few minutes.

Les

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Just put both of them onto your ignore list and you will never hear from them again. I agree that you should not have to do this, but its not too hard for the regular member to get around.

I think they should do something about this as it puts off new members, but for me, I just don't care anymore

OllyK

Unless of course you don't let somebody out of a junction and they decide to report you for giving them the finger. You now have to prove you didn't do it. No longer is it up to them to prove you did wrong, you are now guilty unless you can prove you are innocent.

Could this be to soften drivers up for the introduction of ISA's and onboard cameras as a way to protect yourself and prove your innocence?

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

This whole thread has to be a wind up. They have to have proof that the offence actually took place. You cannot just call up and report someone for doing something. If that really is the case then there will be nobody left on the road.

I mean really, how many days go past without someone somewhere annoying you on the road? All you have to do is call up and get them in the sh*t.

unclebuck

It's no wind up.....


It's the dreaded Third Term.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Cool. No more old gits on the road then. What is PS Lewis' reg?

I think I'm going to spend an hour a day dobbing in slow dawdling drivers on the grounds that they were driving as if they were drunk. Failing to indicate and generally being a menace to the public. Something tells me that nowt will happen.....

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Cool we will at last be able to get all the BMW drivers off the road

hedgehog

Yes indeed, but only if they don't get you off the road first. Remember this is about divide and conquer and your reaction serves to demonstrate the method by which they are going to win.

NewLabour

Instead of whining about it on some backwater of the internet why don't you actually do something about the threat YOU perceive?

Of course that would require some action and I don't believe most of you are capable of that.

hedgehog

You might be surprised at the efforts being made even by people who post here on a regular basis.

There are several involved, at all levels, in the fight to retain access to private transport with people taking actions ranging from writing to newspapers through being actively involved in pro-motoring organisations to engaging in political activity at Parliamentary level.

With this in mind if you are not actively involved yourself you may care to join forces, writing to papers is always a good start. If you are actively involved then be sure to let us know what your involvement is as you will often get good suggestions and ideas for new approaches from other SN members.