You can be the best driver in the world, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to encounter the worst. You have to leave room for error, even if those errors aren't yours.
Amen to that. Mrs B tells me details of successful traffic related prosecutions coming across her desk and gets me to guess the sentence. It's shocking how far wrong I am, even when guessing ridiculously low. Last week a fatal collision resulted in insufficient points for a ban and a £400 fine for the car driver. He drove without care and attention and killed someone,, FFS.
£400 for a life. If I ever feel the need to kill a Slovenian refer... er, I mean, someone, then I know how I'll do it.
Logically there will be thousands of people driving carelessly every day of which only a fraction will br caught and an even smaller fraction will have led to injury or death. It isn't actually wrong to make the punishment independent of the outcome which is just down to good or bad luck about who it affects. The way to avoid the injuries is to ban people for all careless driving offences.
It turns out that i am a bit out of date and there are now two offences that are relevant. Causing death by dangerous driving (Section 1 RTA 1988) Penalty: 1 to 14 years in prison, and disqualified for a minimum of two years; Causing death by careless, or inconsiderate, driving (Section 20 Road Safety Act 2006) Penalty: Up to 5 years in prison, and disqualified for a minimum of one year
I was a lawyer and then a police officer for just over a decade. I get how it works and across the board driving sentences are too low for my sensibilities. I've ridden bikes and driven for nearly 40 years, nearly all in London. I have never had a point on my licence or been charged with anything. I've no time for people who know how to drive properly and can't be bothered to do so. I do believe that there is a deterrent effect if sentencing is set at a proper level. Currently, there's no deterrent whatsoever.
The off the wall solution would be to require all vehicles to have a dagger fitted to the steering wheel and ban the driver from wearing a seat belt. Obviously I am joking but the fact that the driver is heavily protected while his potential victims are not is certainly part of the problem.
Yes, a deterrent only works for those who would otherwise choose to ignore the law. There are those who will obey it out of personal choice and those who will flout it, no matter what. A goodly proportion need to be encouraged to act lawfully, no matter what the offence.
There needs to be a balance between still being able to have fun driving and reducing accidents. Although excessive speed can be a contributory factor towards the likely cause of an accident, it is seldom the only factor. It does however increase the severity, as does the mass of the vehicle, Issac Newton pointed this out long before cars were even invented, i.e. Force is proportional to the rate of change of momentum. What can be controlled is vehicle condition, an immediate change to 3 mm minimum tread on any road tyre would help reduce accidents. In addition, advisories on brakes in MOT tests should be changed to MOT failures. Telling someone that their brakes are almost worn out then allowing them back on the road because their brakes worked 'during the test' is madness. Furthermore, I've had various hand free devices in various cars but now turn off my mobile phone because I've concluded from experience that using a mobile phone whilst driving, hands free or not, is dangerous. I feel a change in the law is needed requiring all motorists to turn off their phones while moving. Notwithstanding the above, weather such as rain and fog makes a mockery of having a standard speed limit. Two values as in France are needed. One for good weather, one for reduced visibility/slippery road conditions. Finally we used to drive on the left, we now drive on what's left. Road maintenance must be improved. Many of our roads are now dangerous. To top this and to save money, the hard shoulder is now being used as a running lane on many motorways. MADNESS, trust me on this, one day, probably in a November or a February, we will wake up to the news of a massive pile up due to a break down who had nowhere to go. What I do know is that someone driving on a motorway at 100 MPH giving the road their FULL concentration in a SAFE vehicle in good weather conditions is far less likely to have an accident than someone who is using a mobile phone, applying make-up, falling asleep or arguing with their spouse while driving at 50 MPH in similar conditions.
Reyes' tires weren't properly inflated due to months of not being driven, apparently. Probably didn't even consider it, as he had multiple cars.
Many cars now have sensors that determine incorrect tyre pressures, perhaps there is a case for making this a legal requirement. Slightly under inflated tyres often give better road holding, a the price of higher wear, but seriously unequal pressures will cause a vehicle to verve off the road under heavy braking. I know this from personal experience.
Pretty much all good and fair points. One of my brothers has never had a licence to ride a bike on the road. However, he's finished 6th in a TT. He's always said that if he had a road licence, he would have killed himself years ago.People who want to drive fast need to do so away from other road users and I don't mean on the certain roads going east from London in the wee small hours. I agree that with modern cars, when properly maintained, in good weather, that the current national speed limit is unnecessarily low for motorway driving. It's also notable that the US has a death rate nearly 3 times that of the UK, despite having lower speed limits. However, in built up areas, speeding is just ****ing stupid and there are plans to decrease speed limits in London over the coming decades for numerous reasons but one aim is to have zero road deaths in less than 30 years and this is part of what Mrs B is currently working on.
Zero road deaths is not possible. Even if you banned all motor vehicles, someone would crash a push bike and bash their head or fall off their horse. The best way to reduce road deaths in London would be to ban Uber. Decreasing speed will prove disastrous unless they ban petrol and diesel engines. Brighton has a 20 mph blanket speed limit introduced by the Greens in certain areas and the place stinks of unburnt fuel. Modern cars are not designed to run at 20 MPH. Fortunately for Brighton it is on the coast, if you tried that in an inner city it would be absolutely horrendous. I'm expecting cancer rates in Brighton to rocket in about 20 years time with all of the Benzine being pumped out into the atmosphere.
Given what's now known about the effects of breathing in fumes, this is a given in London. Human beings will always find a way of killing themselves but the stated aim is to eliminate such deaths. We may currently be standing in the gutter but....
The regime is always reward and retribution (for the 3 types of human behaviour) . The righteous (type 1) and those who hold laws in contempt (type 3) are small minorities. The great majority of us are type 2, and are steered away from type 3 to type 1 by the regime.
BT showing old episodes of The Big Match, have watched 2 today and though neither actually featured a Spurs match, we got a mention in both. The programmes are from 1974, and Bill Nick has just resigned. In the first one (where the main match was Gillingham v Charlton!), they had interview with Bill asking about the best players he had at the club. Obviously the 61 double team figures highly with Blanchflower, White and Mackay getting special praise, he then talked about Greaves and Cliff Jones and Brian Moore gets him to talk about more recent players and he talked about Jennings, Gilzean, Chivers and England. The second programme featured Fulham and Alan Mullery was a studio guest and he was good value talking about the Fulham game and then asked about Spurs being bottom of division 1 and who they should appoint as the new manager. He also talked about Spurs not signing players, so 45 years on it seems that somethings never change!
I saw one of the games the other week and our pitch looked like Blackpool beach ,not a blade of grass to be seen , also remember going th the FA cup semi final final at WHL Chelsea v Watford in 1970 and the pitch was orange
It is amazing how pitches have changed. The players used to often end up covered in mud. Sometimes you couldn't see the numbers on their backs. Which of course were always from 2 to 11
