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Edinburgh's WDrivers (@EDIWorstDrivers)
01/09/2014 04:19
SPEEDING: Sir Stephen House "We have subtly changed so there are fewer tickets being issued and an awful lot more verbal warnings." - Why???
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"Fewer fines as police change tactics on speeding"
(5 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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I guess they must see it as a victimless crime, and that speed limits have no value.
Posted 9 years ago # -
It's one of these "it depends" things. If the police are stopping and warning more people doing 35mph in a 30mph, then that's a good thing, which seems to be the detail of the story. This level of law breaking is considered "below the enforceable limit", so was ignored when fines were the goal.
Granted, the chances of getting caught by officers are slim, but if they see it, you now stand more of a chance of being pulled over and warned.
It's the odds game - do more people speed "just a little bit" versus those that speed flagrantly? And do those speeding just a little cause (on aggregate) more damage than those speeding beyond the enforceable limit? And do we then as a society want the police focused on the everyday grumble or the high ticket, rare crime?
The Brake 2012-2014 survey reports 29% of drivers admitting to exceeding 35mph on at least a weekly basis, with only 37% saying "never". Unfortunately there wasn't a question on speeding a little...
Speeding is simple to handle - we can't have a Bobby on every corner, but automated enforcement is technically trivial now. However even vehicles that automatically record their speed can not have that record used as evidence of speeding! Tachographs can be used as corroboration though.
Robert
Posted 9 years ago # -
Gibbo, you guess correctly: "Many offences, e.g., speeding or possessing drugs, have no direct victim ..."
Others would argue that speeding has many victims, from the frights, disruption, extra pollution, costs of precautions, etc due to speeding.
Also from above report, level of speeding offences dealt with by Police in Edinburgh in 2013-4 (45 per 10,000 population) is less than one-third of the average for Scotland.
Posted 9 years ago # -
there is also the fact that fines are a) expensive to collect and bring in little income, and b) that if they are not changing behaviour but a talk from an officer would, then PS should indeed be focussing on What Works.
Posted 9 years ago #
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