Depends if any intelligence is going to be applied.
99% of the time, agree with you entirely, but [confession time]... would you fine me in the following circumstances?
At about 8:30 one night I was called by the police to tell me that my dad had died and that my mother was distraught, could I come straight away. Naturally, I went straight there. No. 2 sister was already there, and we did what we could to calm mum. The house was sadly uninhabitable as a result of the incident, so first priority was somewhere for us all to stay.
By about 11pm we had that sorted. Mum then began to fret about no. 1 sister who at university in Leicester, about an hour away, coping with the news on her own (no car), and asked us to collect her. Sister 2 and I set off at about midnight, ariving in Leicester at about 1am.
We got lost in the town centre. One way systems everywhere. We're not locals. Stress levels are, err, not low. We had no directions, only sister 2's recollection of where sister 1 lived.
While stationary at a traffic light, sister 2 spotted a street name on the right that, she remembered, led to sister 1's house. Problem - a big NO RIGHT TURN sign.
I was lost, a long way from home, on an empty road at about 2am. Mum is at home and very upset, wants her family together. Sister 1 is waiting for me a few hundred yards to the right. I feel as if I might never find that road again if I go straight on.
Light go green. I look again - there is no-one around. Quiet profanity under my breath and I turn right. It was illegal, I admit.
I suspect that an automatic system would fine me. But it caused no harm; what public purpose would that fine achieve?
This is why justice should be firm but intelligent.
|
|
If I was in a police car I would be able to talk to you and understand the situation and would say "follow me I'll take you there" If I was sitting in an office looking at a video of the event then you'ld get a letter through the post and would have a great deal of trouble arguing (you did break the law after all)
|
|
OP - exactly my point. Thanks.
|
|
|
If I was in a police car I would be able to talk to you and understand the situation
quite true, but I doubt anyone here would argue that we should increase police levels to the extent needed to monitor all such sites where cameras work.
In Patently's case -- an extreme example of a situation many of us have been in -- the camera need not have led to a penalty, and the police patrol might not have been such an easy ride.
Sure, the cop might have listened and said sorry and guided him to his sister's door ... but they could also have quite reasonably taken the view that someone going the wrong way up a one-way street in the middle of the night needed to be breathalysed and a check made about whether the car was stolen and whether it was taxed etc.
I had pretty much that happen to me when losted in a big city one night, and it was not fun, but it would be very upsetting if I had only just been bereaved and was looking for a distraught relative.
On the other hand, the camera would have produced a fixed-penalty ticket, leaving the option of either a written appeal or a court summons (depending on how the system was structured). In that case, the camera would have shown the time of the incident, and patently would have had no difficulty getting witness sattaements to attest to the rest of the unfortunate situation.
Still not fun, and a lot of hassle, but not necessarily any worse than being hauled out of the car in the middle of the night an hour or two after a parent's death.
Unfortunately, some appeals systems in these cars are atrocious, but then some cops are pretty awful too. The real solution here is to ensure that the appeals process against fixed penalties works properly, and can take situations like Patently's into account ... not to abandon a very cost-effective way of enforcing the rules against a meaneouvre which in most circumstances is dangerous and disruptive.
|
The point is that the hypothetical policeman would have stopped me, not smelt any alcohol, heard the story and followed me 200 yards before verifying it. That would have been the end of the matter.
The alternative would have been to spend hours writing witness statements, lodging them, replying to letters, only to be told that it is all very well but right turns were not allowed and I did one. And the £60 fine (or whatever) is now £200 because I contested it.
I do in fact agree that people who ignore these restrictions often cause problems and should be caught. But I think that as a country we face more serious issues and that our time, energy and budget would be better directed at these.
I also feel that those who are happy to turn right (etc) when they shouldn't are probably guilty of a whole host of other moving traffic offences and could thus be caught for other stuff by alert patrol cars. The one thing they are probably aware of is the location of automated enforcement measures, which thus bear down disproportionately on the lost and the confused non-locals.
London Welcomes You - with three points.
|
Well if these cameras (which incidentally are high level discreet remote controlled jobbies as I understand it) do have the deterrent effect on locals who consistently break the rules they will have achieved much of their aim and we'll all benefit. They won't generate loads of revenue either - something which seems to be frowned upon for reasons I'm always a touch suspicious about.
As for bearing down harsher on the visitor, I don't think being confused and/or a visitor anywhere is necessarily an excuse to block a junction, park illegally, drive the wrong way down a one way street or do an illegal 'U' turn and these would seem to be the main areas being targeted by the cameras.
|
|
|
The point is that the hypothetical policeman would have stopped me, not smelt any alcohol, heard the story and followed me 200 yards before verifying it. That would have been the end of the matter.
Not necessarily :(
A few years ago I got lost in Manchester at about midnight, and eventually realised I was on the wrong road. I didn't want to do a U-turn on the main road, so I pulled off the main road into a wide side cul-de-sac to the left. I did a U-turn there and was pulled over as I turned right coming out of the cul-de-sac (signalling properly etc, an entirely legit maneouvre).
"I'm lost and needed to turn round" didn't interest the policeman until he had breathylysed me and taken licence details, and radioed in for some checks. I don't drink, so he wasted his crystal-bag as well as his time, and in the end he was reluctant to give a few simple directions.
I'm rarely best pleased about getting lost in M'chr (a city which seems to be designed to get lost in), but I managed to remain calm and polite. Howeever, if I was losted and bereaved and trying to find a distraught relative I might not have managed to remain polite ... and given that surly cop I can easily imagine the situation having escalated unhelpfully.
Your hope of a friendly cop following you 200 yards might have been a long way from the reality ... and given the choice I'd probably prefer to save the hassle until I needed to collect the paperwork later.
|
I'm sorry you had a hard time, NoWheels.
My experience of the police is that they are helpful and reasonable in person and in small numbers but hidebound and unhelpful at a distance or en masse.
Maybe you look a bit criminal? [tic!]
|
Me look a bit criminal? I wasn't looking too bad that evening, I thought, since I had changed out of the stripey clothes and put the stockings back on my feet rather my head ;-)
But seriously, I find most police straightforward and reasonable, and usually very keen to help. Their management is often dire, but the individual officers are nearly always fine.
Talking to friends in uniform about that incident, they pointed out that a night patrol in south Manchester probably has good reason to be wary of anyone it stops, and that it would probably have been a difft story by daytime.
That's why I suspect that your hope of a friendly lets-sort-this-out-later constable might be misplaced. At 1am in a deserted city street, wariness may be the best response you'd get: going the wrong way up a one-way street, you might have been any sort of hoodlum, and your sad story yet more of the nonsense people try on every night.
|
Fair enough NW, but the story is verifiable on the night. In a written appeals procedure after the event it looks rather made up.
It's also a slightly moot point, as I pointed out that the road was utterly clear of other cars. Had there been a blue light opposite me then I almost certainly wouldn't have made the turn. (Surprised no-one picked this up!).
On balance, I'm not completely against this idea and I certainly don't feel it would be practical to post an officer at every limited junction. I'm just nervous about the effect of ever more automated enforcement.
Someone else asked why being lost/confused/foreign etc was an excuse. I don't think it is, just that they are the ones who are going to get caught because they won't know where the enforcement is. At the moment, automated enforcement misses the recalcitrant drivers because they know the system and tailor their driving to suit in the 10 yard zones where they need to. The non-locals who are not so savvy get caught. They should, of course, they have still broken the law, but the recalcitrants who should bear the brunt actually get off lightest.
|
Surely knowing that there is the distinct possiblility of discreet CCTV cameras in a large number of locations picking up any or all of your illegal manoeuvres will focus minds on the fact that it isn't worth it and change the bahaviour of the recalictrants you refer to. My only argument against roadside speed cameras is that they are easily spotted and serial offenders can quite easily avoid them.
As for visitors, well if I drive somewhere without knowing the rules and get caught doing something illegal (accidentally or not) it's still my responsibility and my fault. AFAIK you don't get a heavier fine for deliberately filing your tax return late as opposed to doing accidentally.
As for genuine extenuating circumstances well that's what the appeals system will be for. Just as it is in every other form of enforcement issue. How well it works remains to be seen.
|
|
|
Patently, blue lights have a habit of appearing out of nowhere in these circumstances, so I'm not sure you'd necessarily have spotted a patrol car. You might even have found yourself recalling the words of Hoyt Axton's laconic song "Officer Ray" -- see www.coquet-shack.com/lyrics/Axton/Officer_Ray_2708...m
(Mods, sorry if those lyrics are out of order)
The point about locals not being caught is, as volvoman points out, a good argument against making cameras visible.
I'm not necessarily sure that it would be harder to prove the circumstances after the event. A week or two later, you would have had the paperwork relating to the death, but on the night you'd have had nothing.
It seems to me that the real problem after the event would be the same one as you'd have had at the time: the rarity of genuine mitigating circumstances such as yours, amidst the deluge of nonsense wheeled out by people caught for traffic offences. The backroom has regular posts from drivers caught fair and square who are looking for any wheeze to get off. That makes it much harder for genuine mitigating circumstances to get a fair hearing, whether on the spot or in court afterwards.
Even so, the quality of the appeals systems is much poorer than it needs to be. There have been numerous investigations into parking fine appeals systems, plenty of which have been found to be atrocious ... but of course, most of those are based on human trafic wardenss rather than on automated dedtection.
I guess there is a tendency for all such systems work badly at high volumes -- try sorting out a direct debit mandate that goes wonky, or look at the often poor quality of justice in magistrates courts :(
One of the big problems with the appeals systems in these cases is the
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Buses will NOT be exempt according to the TFL spokesman I heard earlier today.
As regards Patently's tale, yes it is annoying - I was done for £40 having got lost and confused in that motorists' hell otherwise known as Croydon Croydon a couple of years ago. I didn't dispute the fine and paid up because I knew I'd done something wrong even though it was accidental. I'd like to think a) there'll be an appeals system as there is with other issues and b) some degree of common sense & discretion will be applied.
Having said that, how can we expect anyone - police officer or CCTV operator - to know what's in our heads, what we did/didn't mean to do and what extenuating circumstances there might have been in any given incident? The trouble is that so many people cynically claim either innocence or ignorance when they know full well what they're doing. It's the price we all pay I'm afraid and it's no different IMO from having to pay increased insurance premiums as a result of other people's dodgy actions.
We all see it daily - drivers pulling across and blocking junctions because they're either stupid, selfish or both. I for one think this system will focus the minds of many of these people on what they do but do concede that, for example, drivers of unregistered cars will get away with it just as they do now.
|
|
|
|
