This is what a magistrate has just said to one of my best mates who has a MY99.

He was doing 71 in a 40, not condonable I know however very steep sentence, I reckon.

Thing is my friend is just about one of the safest quickest drivers I know, he does drive fast to fast for my flavour and he has now got busted. Just put the phone down from him he's gutted. He is an area Manager for a company that will remain nameless and this has had serious repercussions on his job.

The worst thing is there was a 17 year old lad in front of being Done for Joy riding who got a 6 month suspended sentence, work that one out.

Be careful out there seems they are clamping down hard.

Makes me sick. We are given sometimes harsher sentences than joy riders.

Speeding scooby driver : 6 month ban
Joy riding c**t : 6 month intensive driving course at silverstone paid for by mr tax payer.

We all speed so i am gonna be last to say he deserved it, but there are 40mph roads that I know are good for 70mph, like many dual carriageways. Easy to do me thinks.
Cem

It was a 60 Mph Dual Carriageway that turns 40 for roughly 300 yards and then back to 60. What makes me sick is that they may well have put him out of a job for a bit of sh1t revenue.

Sorry to lash out here, but traffic police that sit in these type of areas make me sick, easy life lazy bar stewards, catch some real crims.

Mind you seems if they do they get let off lighlty.

Ar5e

I don't think a 6 month suspended sentence is a lighter sentence than a 6 month ban. A suspended sentence is a <I>jail</I> sentence, it's just that it's suspended so you don't actually go to jail unless you offend again during a specific period. You still have a criminal record though, which is much more serious than a driving ban and will follow you around until it's spent (5 yrs I think). Although the ban may be harder on Scott's mate, you're mistaken to think that the joyrider got off lightly. (Maybe he couldn't lose his licence as he didn't have one.)

David

Point taken, however if we were to look at the consequences Vs the crime then I think they are very disproportional.

I think that the Joyriding scumbag has been let more lightly proportional to my mate.

Judges don't like speeders!

A work friend was telling me that he used to have a lovely 500 SL Merc and after having it serivced decided to test it out. So off he went down the M11 and got up to about 170. The road was completly deviod of all cars, except for the plod car sitting at the side of the road, who he then saw and slowed for and got clocked at 142.72 . The result. 6 month ban and 500 quid fine.

The interesting point is that the case heard before him was of a 16 year old who glassed a publican in the face, which scarred him for life. What did the sh1tbag get? 50 quid fine, payable by 5 quid a month has he had no job at the time, and a 3 month suspended sentance. Talk about injustace.

When the guy mentioned that the guy before him was basically let off the Judge went ape!

We need a serious rethink of our Judical system. Rapists, murderers, and pedophiles seem to get less severe sentances then speeders.

I'm not condoning speeding, well certainly not in urban areas, but on a nice clear motorway with a sensible driver and well maintained car there should'nt be a problem.

We're just an easy target for the cops/government to make money from, I wouldn't mind too much if the money genrated from all the fines was actually spent on improving our roads.

Scott,

Maybe I did OK - 6 points and £1000 fine for 90 in a 50!

Your friend sounds like he's been hard done by, unless there are other factors you've not said (like he already had a history of motoring convictions, 9 points etc.

Generally you get either a high fine and points or a low fine and a ban - usually one month for a first offence (unless the speed is just ridiculous).

To get both a long ban AND a biggish fine suggests that they really didn't like him.

I'd appeal to the Crown Court, especially if the job is at stake. Bear in mind, however, that this court examines your finances much more carefully than the Magistrates, and are quite capable of increasing the fine/ban.

Speeding, as with most things in life, is very much a risk-reward balance.

It is pretty common knowledge that once you stray 30mph or more above the speed limit, there is a very large risk of being banned if caught. I dare say the speedo was showing the best part of 80mph at the time too.

I really can't see the sense in bleating about the consequences, when the act of speeding was committed in the likely full knowledge of what the outcome could be. I'm not saying I think the law is right, but at least it is reasonably clear.

Is there really NO reason why the limit drops to 40mph for this section of road? What about the presence of side roads and turnings, houses by the road, pedestrian crossing points etc?

You can try and justify why speeding is okay (oh it only accounts for 4% of accidents, that's "only" 120 deaths per year so that's okay then is it?), but at the end of the day any argument will come down to an attempt to justify (probably under a different guise)the personal enjoyment derived from driving fast, and is at heart flawed.

This isn't meant to be a high-horse post however it comes across. If I get caught for speeding (and I'm sure everyone who posts to this BBS does speed), then I'll have to say "fair cop" and accept it is a consequence of a choice I made in full knowledge of the consequences. I really don't see how anyone can do otherwise.

This is appaling. Speeding should not be categorised as crime.

No wonder this country is in such a mess.

Maybe of relevance.....read it all

THIS FROM THE BRISTOL EVENING NEWS FOLLOWING THE MAY DAY
DISTURBANCES WORTH SUBSCRIBING TO I'D SAY! WONDERFUL STUFF!

It has long been my belief that you should only be allowed to protest in
public if you pay income tax. And you should only be allowed to vote
at the ballot box if you own property. Sensible policies, both. And tested
in time, too. If only Mr Blah had thought to bring about these simple changes
in the law, he would have avoided last week's double embarrassment of Red
Ken's election and the rioting soap-dodgers.
Perhaps it's me, but could someone explain why people who campaign
for animal rights would throw bottles at police horses? Or why Friends
of the Earth supporters would want to dig up the grass in a perfectly
adequate London square? Or why anti-capitalists thought nicking the till out of
a burger bar was a political statement? Or why campaigners for freedom
would desecrate a shrine to the very people who fought and died for that
freedom? What a bunch of immature, selfish, hypocritical twats.
Bring down the State? Better not, Tarquin. The State provides
your giro and your housing benefit, you work-shy tosser. What would you do
without that little green cheque every other Thursday? Somebody has to
pay for the extra-strong cider and multiple nose piercings.
It makes me sick. If a bunch of football fans had pulled a stunt
like that, they'd have been banged up before you could say CS gas. But
this gang of middle-class warriors was allowed to deface national monuments
while the police looked on. Mind you, Winston Churchill with a green
Mohican haircut would have scared the wotsit out of Adolph Hitler.

My comments on the moral values of travellers seem to have ruffled a
few feathers amongst the bleeding-heart Lefties who live like leeches on
the publicly-funded fat of our society. One enraged correspondent (it
must have been his turn to have the crayons this week) accuses me of using
"intemperate and exaggerated language", says people like me should be
exterminated and then likens me to Adolf Hitler.
Pot, kettle, black, old pal. Another wailing Willy, who was
obviously off sick the day they did irony at school, challenges me to
produce hard evidence to support my claim that gypsies steal babies. Evidence? Of
course there's no bloody evidence. It's all covered up by a conspiracy of
Masonic magistrates, policemen and politicians, aided and abetted by a secret
sect of corrupt district nurses. Somewhere in Essex there's a
warehouse full of stolen babies. They're brought up by retired lap dancers and then they
they go off to be prison officers.
Stick that in your meat-free pipe and smoke it, you monument of mediocrity.

My final correspondent (green ink, pressed down VERY HARD so that it
comes through the back of the white weave Basildon Bond) argues that
travellers are people too and have the right to live just as they
want.
Half right, mate. Travellers have the right to live as they want
as long as they abide by the rules that bind the rest of us. That means
paying road tax, paying council tax and buying a television license. It means
paying for a plot of land on which to live, and paying income tax on the
proceeds of patching up all those dodgy driveways. It means obeying the law,
rather than laughing at it.
And the sooner the hand-wringing apologists on most councils
realise this, the better.

My doctor has forbidden me to read The Guardian on the grounds that it
does terrible things to my blood pressure, but I sneaked a look last
week to
see the following: "Burglars are people. For the most part, young
people,
even teenagers. From their point of view burglary must be fun as well
as a
way of making a few quid."
Fun? Fun? What are they on? What a bunch of lily-livered,
social-working, leather-elbowed windbags. Fun? Just ask an old lady
who's been terrorised, had her last few possessions stolen and who now
lives
in permanent fear. Fun? Just ask anyone who has to pay sky-high
insurance
premiums because the cops would rather catch drivers eating Kit Kats
than tattooed scrotes running off with your video recorder.
I'll give them fun, these poor lambs. Any sticky-fingered yobbo
coming within a hundred yards of Beelzebub Mansions will get to play a
game
currently popular amongst country dwellers. It's called Reasonable
Force
and involves a teenage thief, a baseball bat and a five iron.

Barry Beelzebub

*The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this newspaper, or
anyone who
thinks our new cabinet-style council will result in more openness, of
anyone
who thinks Jez Quigley is hard, or of the snotty-nosed schoolboy in
the back
of the Volvo estate who stuck two fingers up at me this morning.
Your dad's phone number was painted on the side, sonny. And I'm
ringing
him tonight

ROFL http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif

My local council has also move to a "cabinet" set up. However labour is slightly light on the seat front having forgotten to enter a candidate in one of the ward elections http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/eek.gif

Yex - over taxed on bloody everything http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/mad.gif

My post was going to be about magistrates coming down heavy unecessarily.

However, DanTheMan, do you really believe that or am I not catching the lashings of irony?

You want that unemployed people or strikers pensioners and voluntary workers can't protest, and people in rented accomodation aswell as the homeless can't vote?

Well, I'd be unhappy living in a country ran by you, Oh, that's right, we did for 17 years.

I'm sure the wig and the blue dress suit you.

G Colier

No offence but, smartern yourself up.

I agree that if we get caught then its fair cop guv nor, however the extremity of the penality is ridiculous. And its the easy life traffic ecilop that gets on my t1ts.

I know its cliched but shouldn't they be policing 'real crime'.

I was always told that in polite company one should never get onto the subjects of Religon or Politics........

However, saying that, Mr Beelzebub does have a point or two....it's those little b@st@rds that half inch your pride and joy for a quick blast down a back lane and then pile it into a wall just to see if the airbag works.... Is it me or do people think they have a god given right to other people's things? I work bloody hard, like the rest of us to buy a house, drive the car I want to, so why should some little sh1te who sat on his arse at school and did no work and still does no work expect that 1) he can afford a car like that and 2)Expect us to bloody accept it as the norm....

Well, I don't.......get off your arse's you fat, lazy beggars


Well, thats off my chest now....

Jamie

Scott,

Is it really me who needs to smarten up? I derive a lot of pleasure from my driving (which is soley for pleasure, I commute by train to work), and yet I've still got a clean license.

It seems to me that somebody who knowingly exceeds the speed limit by 30+mph, whilst depending upon their car for their job and whilst being fully aware of the consequences (however right or wrong they may be) is the person who needs to start thinking smarter. No offence intended.

I don't know the road and exact circumstances, and the penalty described may well be considered harsh by your friend. This was not my point. My point was that there is no point moaning about it on this BBS, when the penalty is a known possible outcome of a risk he CHOSE to take.

And however much you don't like to hear it, excessive speed is a cause of a percentage of accidents and fatalities each year. Yeah we all think we are super drivers, use speed appropriately etc, but the fact is that when the unexpected does happen, coupled maybe with a bit of bad luck, the consequences are going to be worse the faster we are going. People drive cars like scoobs fast because of the fun to be gained doing so. Anybody spouting the "speed is fine in the right conditions" line just feels that the right they have to speed outweighs any extra inherent risks in doing so.

If you don't agree with any of this, then I'd be interested to hear a carefully reasoned argument against it, rather than a call to smarten up.

Gary.

And PS: I don't know any traffic cops first hand, but from friends of friends have been led to believe that attending fatal accidents and watching people cut from wreckage isn't exactly a bundle of laughs.

Do you think a punishment like removing a 'foot', namely the left one that operates the clutch pedel is too harsh for these buggers? Then they'll only be able to steal auto's! Our Scoobs are saved!!
Personally i would support a move to remove certain parts of anatomy from these people to act as a permanent reminder not to do it again. Harsh maybe, but would you do it again with a leg removed?? I don't think so.
Joyriders should be 'removed'.

[This message has been edited by Stuart Page (edited 24-05-2000).]

GaryC'

You are right on the button mate.

Exceeding the speed limit is a choice we make voluntarily. We know courts hate speeding.

Surprised at stiff penalty ?????

J

G Collier (is the G, Graham?)

Thankyou for your rational response, I will now retort like wise.

I thoroughly agree with you, when you are knicked for speeding that’s it, you have been done fair and square. However what I do not agree with is the policing and the outcome of the said offence. Crime has risen 7% in the last 2 years (not wanting to get political), policemen on the beet are decreasing, and policemen in London can’t afford to live there. Our policeforce is shrinking and crime is increasing, fact.

A young man, driving his car with excessive speed is in the wrong, yes, however what is more wrong is that our under funded, under manned police sit in a lay-by waiting for an easy to cop rather than investigating a more serious offence. Yes speed kills and yes seeing a fatal injury is no bed of roses. However I would say that it isn’t just speed alone it is the excessive use of speed a reckless driving manor that causes accidents. A quick driver my friend is, reckless he is not. My post was not meant to be a ‘moan’ it was to highlight the fact that we as drivers of quick cars are more likely to get a sterner proportional offence for speeding than some burglars or car thieves.

I for one certainly do not condone the use of speed especially in the 30 and 40 speed limits, however there are quite a few areas I have noticed recently where the limit changes fluctuate hugely. You can get caught out and not even know that really you were 30 mph over the limit. Even worse the revenue collected from traffic offences is not used to improve the road network, unless you call putting a bus lane on the outside lane of the M4 an improvement.

G, my smarten yourself up comment was a little jibe, as surely you can’t agree that a 6 month ban and £700.00 fine and my friend losing his job, his livelihood and the ability to see his daughter at the weekends a fair sentence, particularly when car thieves and joy riders, people who really put lives at risk get let off so lightly.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Scott J Davies:
<B>particularly when car thieves and joy riders, people who really put lives at risk get let off so lightly.[/quote]

I think the problem here is this...
Yes we know speeding is bad, and yes we can get fined, banned or whatever for doing it, whether we believed the circumstances to be 'OK to speed' or not. We know the consequences can be very damaging to our livelihoods (sp?!)
On the flip side the little s**tbags who nick our cars know the consequences too. They know they will not be hammered for their crimes. Driving ban? Yeah so what...They don't have insurance, driving licence, MOT, tax, anyway. £50 quid fine. Ha - Only need to rob one pensioner.
When they know they can get away with nicking cars and burgling houses and getting these sorts of sentences they will. We're all too 'nice' to do such things. Easy targets one and all of us.

My tuppence worth
Joolz

http://geocities.com/r337m0nk3y/net3/wink2.gif

I have, on several occasion, been a victim of car crime, a know only to well how leniently the scumbags have been dealt with.

Having said that, like most of us I like to drive quickly, and yet also rely on my car for business. So lets be realistic here, 70+ in a 40, and 90 in a 50 is simply taking the piss! If you're exceeding the limit by 60-80% and get caught, we all know what will happen. You wouldn't be moaning if you got the same treatment for doing 110+ on the motorway, would you? Well this is the same, only more dangerous.

There's no doubt that something needs to be done about the sentencing of these people, but what I've read on this thread is nothing more than the pathetic 'have'nt they got anything better to do?' excuses for speeding that I'd expect to hear from the baseball cap wearing Revs subscribers.

Josh

Scott - Thanks for your response. The "G" is for Gary BTW.

I think the comparison with car thieves and joy riders just muddies the water. I agree that a lot of those people appear to get off too lightly, and removal from the gene pool would seem like a more appropriate punishment for persistent offending scum of that ilk.

Likewise, pointing out increases in other areas of crime does not make blatant speeding any more right, nor is it a reason why speeding should go unpoliced, allowing us get away with it.

There may well be mitigating circumstances in your friends case - he may well be a master of observation, and car control, the 40mph limit in this case may have existed for no reason, but the speed limit has to cater for the lowest common denominator. If this thread had appeared on the RSOC site, and the offender had been a 19yr old RS Turbo owner, then the response by members of this board would probably have been "serve him right, irresponsible speeding b****** in a 40mph zone". I don't really see how the law is supposed to take your friends supposed superior driving ability into account.

The ban sounds like it'll have a big effect on your friends life. Maybe it is a bit harsh, but the judge probably thought along the same lines as Josh (above), that 71mph in a 40mph zone is taking the piss out of the law (which it is). But what is an acceptable punishment? And where do you draw the line at banning people? If 71mph in a 40 zone is okay, then how about 80mph, 90mph or even 100+mph?

I know judges go easier on real offenders in the US cause they know it is easy for them to blame other people or things for their bad acts. A 180lb 12yr old beats his cousin to death and gets away with it cause he watched too much TV. Another kid justified strangling, raping, stabbing and dumping the body of his girlfriend cause he did too many drugs in his life to know it was wrong.
The punishments hardly ever justify the crimes. Most of the speed limits in the US are also set by old 1950's logic. Since then they haven't changed. Local police forces also use the speeding tickets as a source of revenue. The more they write, the more the county makes, the more they can ask in raises. I got a fine last year because the highway I was on ran across a military base. The base law says that if not in sight of a speed limit sign then the speed is by default 35mph. Well The sign I had just passed said 55mph. I got a ticket for 52mph in a 35. I got to court (who by the way is a military judge) the judge gave me a $230 fine and 3 points off of my license. Then I had to pay for the $15 court costs. Time came for a change and I moved to Japan.

My brother is called Gary, eh oh.

Fair point, I take it on the chin.

Removal from the gene pool is an excellent idea for re-offending gibbers, you should be a judge or magistrate or police officer. Or are you and Josh one of those now??

Josh

I know someone who is a director of a major company who just got let off doing 138 mph, on the M6 yes it was 1.00am, however this chap had the ability and money to put together a strong argument resulting in a £400.00 fine and 6 points.I wasn't moaning only advising and giving my opinion about what I believe to be a harsh sentence. Judging by your lack of diplomacy, you should cancel your subscription to Maxpower and read something more challenging. Joke

Right I'm off before I upset anyone else.
http://geocities.com/r337m0nk3y/net3/outtahere.gif

The story concerning the Company Director is a perfect example of brainless bureaucracy v money'and sadly highlights inconsistencies in the way justice is handed out. However, there can be no real excuse for that sort of speed on public roads.

I remember a thread a few months ago in which it became apparent that one member prefered his old 206 to his Scoob because he loved driving 'on the edge'. The grip of an impreza is such that you simply can't drive to the limit of the car on public roads without the risk of killing yourself or somebody else.

The reason for my 'undiplomatic' reply was that there seems to be a worrying increase in this sort of post. If people want to drive 'on the ragged edge', try a track day. Alternatively buy a remobile and be able to drive like that and still stay under 50.

Josh

A remobile?

Stuart Page,

I'm a bit slow to reply on this - thanks very much! http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/wink.gif

Cheers

Gavin

94 WRX Automatic....

It's inappropriate speed that kills.

Repmobile: you know, ford mundano, vauxhall vectra, toyota supra... that sort of salesman driven, ubiquitous thing that clogs up the rightmost overtaking lane on your average motorway....

Stay safe,

Moray

Moray you pi55-taking smeg-head. Wonder who that last one was aimed at: Me or Jon....

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/biggrin.gif

Ooops!
Sorry Gavin, didn't realise there were a few auto's out there!!

Stu.