I had cause to go to court a few years back after someone did a hit and run on my car causing £2k of damage.
There was the same thing happening all the time there while I was sitting in the public gallery waiting for my case.
Guy already on 9 points pleading for leniency after being caught doing 60 something in a 40.
Thankfully the magistrate had a brain and told him that if his licence was that precious to him he should have learned his lesson.
6 Month ban, well deserved.
To me, pleading that your licence is required for your job just makes you look even more stupid for getting yourself in that situation in the first place
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Doing over 100 mph is not just a mishap its a blatently ignoring the law
And the majority of drivers wouldn't intentionally speed would they?
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And the majority of drivers wouldn't intentionally speed would they?
I think this discussion has been had before ;-)
It's the law, if you don't like the consequences then don't break it.
In my time, I have strayed over the speed limit but I know what will happen if I get caught (minimum 3 points, £60 fine). If I then decide to keep doing it I'll then get banned, rightly so.
I do need my license for my job, so I'm careful and keep an eye out for speed cameras and policemen and have kept a clean license for 11 years, apart from having to attend a Speed Awareness course but license not endorsed.
If you think you can use the 'need license for job' mitigation when you're on the point of losing your license, then maybe you aren't competent enough to ever have a driving license.
Chris
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As CW says: speeding to that extent on a general purpose road is taking the proverbial. Attitude is the most difficult aspect of driving to alter: banning (and crushing!) is the only sensible short term measure, but maybe more needs to be done to encourage fast driving on closed tracks. The corollary is that the constabulary stick be applied to the loutish fraction on the highway until they improve their manners?
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i have to disagree with stunorththants:
Just because i've been able to coax my ageing cars over 70 mph does not automatically mean I'll go shop-lifting, bank-robbing or whatever he had in mind. Speeding per se does not make one a criminal; for me anyway, it's a judgemental thing based on the current risk assesment - albeit, as I'm aware, against the law of the land.
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Im not talking about someone who creeps up to 80mph on the motorway.
Im talking about someone who chooses to do 100mph which is not something you do by accident, as the difference in sensation between 70mph and 100mph is enough that its not going to be a mistake.
As such, anyone doing 100mph has made the clear decision to disregard the law because they dont agree with it or it doesnt suit them. And that is about attitude. Most people ive known with a bad attitude dont have a bad attitude mutally exclusive to one aspect of their life, but apply it a broader range of things.
Therefore someone who thinks its ok to break the speedlimit by a wide margin may well not be too worried about breaking a few other similar laws ( most likely the sort who park sin the disabled spaces at Tesco aswell! ).
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At the risk of putting my head above the parapet... imagine the scene. A quiet dual carriageway, a summer day, good visibility. The road dips gently down into a valley and climbs up the other side. You can see for about 2 miles and there is nothing in sight. Your modern, well maintained car will ease up to 100 just by thinking about it. Your passenger is unaware and as you climb the far side you ease off and let gravity pull you back to 70mph while feeling a little bit wicked - and content to continue at whatever legal limit you may encounter or less if conditions demand. And that's criminal? I don't think so.
JH
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as you climb the far side you ease off and let gravity pull you back to 70mph while feeling a little bit wicked - and content to continue at whatever legal limit you may encounter or less if conditions demand. And that's criminal? I don't think so.
Yes it is. maybe it shouldn't be and the scenario is very familiar to me but the law says its wrong.
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Yes b you're right, but if the law is an ass then people will be tempted to break it. That said some idiots will break any limit.
JH
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In my opinion it seems to me that the people that get caught speeding are far from the most dangerous people on the road. The more dangerous ones are the cretins who cut across three lanes of a motorway when they see the 200 yard marker for a junction as they have been so busy messing around with their various in-car and mobile gadgets to take notice of what is happening on the road.
I encounter more hazardous driving on the roads, especially motorways, from people driving too SLOWLY, pulling across a lane of fast moving traffic without looking, having 'animated conversations' with the passenger and generally taking no notice of what is going on around them. These type are FAR more dangerous than a guy in a car doing 80-90mph. It is the aforementioned that are the cause of nearly all accidents I believe.
You will always get the boy racers who think that two weeks after passing their test their Mum's Corsa is a Ferrari but put most (not all!) OAP's behind a wheel and thats where you get most of the problems
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simple straightforward 'speeders' are most definitely not crooks
most crooks are anti-social people who don't obey many laws and that includes speeding, so they will get mixed up with simple speeders
many drink/drivers are not crooks either, although they are treated fairly harshly and like a crook because they need to be, as their transgression is so dangerous to the innocent and therefore merits it
there is a difference between a fairly decent citizen who apart from the odd moment sticks to the laws/rules etc....and those pieces of garbage that don't care two hoots about anything or anyone and who habitually commit all sorts of offences.
the former need some leniency sometimes, the latter do not........the reality is though that the former are being persecuted and pay up every time, the latter do not, more often than not because they know the system and are inherently dishonest and they know how to get around it and stretch things to the limit
treating your mother, sister, daughter etc like a crook for a minor motoring matter brings the whole system into disrepute IMHO....albeit if they've done wrong their transgression would need something
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Anyone speeding is committing a criminal offence and that makes them crooks.
Yes I have, and been caught - 3 points and £60.
We cannot chose which laws we obey or where we obey them, we should obey them all. After all, we cannot argue if we chose to disobey some and someone else chooses to disobey others (e.g. theft).
If you don't like the law there is a mechanism for changing it, it is called Parliament!
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what i am trying to say is there are people out there who commit the odd offence, but are generally law abiding (i.e. most of the population, as after all 31mph in a 30mph limit is breaking the law)
and there are people out there who are not very nice at all and habitually commit crime, at all levels...inc the lower level stuff like the rest of us
a minor traffic offence is not 'crime' in my book........and your wife doing 31mph in a 30 is not a 'criminal' in my book either
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If you don't like the law there is a mechanism for changing it it is called Parliament!
I don't think so!
Over many years 'Parliament' has taken no notice whatsoever of what the electors want, as shown in opinion polls and subsequent laws.
Most people wanted to retain capital punishment, most people now want a referendum on the EU treaty, tighter limits on immigration, no more hikes in fuel duty.
How much money would you bet on Parliament obliging the voters on these?
Most MP's are on a super gravy train which depends on voting the way their boss tells them, not how the people they 'represent' want.
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Intentionally or not, you've pretty much exactly described part of the section of road he was caught on.
This stretch of road is a well known haunt for police officers out to catch speeders, so even without 14 points he'd have had to have been living in a cave for a while not to know that getting caught is a possibility.
--
Soupytwist !
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Therefore someone who thinks its ok to break the speedlimit by a wide margin may well not be too worried about breaking a few other similar laws
IMO I would think that connection can only be made for a minority of people.
A friend of mine is a sensible bloke with a good job and entirely law abiding, apart from the fact he once mentioned to me he sometimes used to do 120mph on the M18 on his way to work (this was at 6:30 to 7:00 in the morning, often deserted).
I told him woah, you better slow down you will get caught one of these days, they will throw the book at you at that speed. Then about 2 months later he got caught, but on a dual carriageway, doing about 61 in a 50. the experience of being stopped and booked (and getting 3 points) slowed him down somewhat, apparently.
Until then he had never been stopped for speeding in about 15 years of driving, so may have been thinking along the lines of, "I've been alright so far; I can spot a police car before they see me". Having not experienced being 'done', his speeds creeping up over the years, he may not have had a true concept that what he was doing was so risky.
In contrast to the person in the article, my mate learnt his lesson after his first set of points.
;o)
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I did learn...
... 1997-1998 I was doing quite high mileage for work. Car was serviced every 2-3 months (10K between services). So ended up driving a little faster at times.
One Sunday travelling from my parents in South Wales to home the motorways empty and road dry and road clear. So I went a little too fast. Zapped by a laser... a fair cop. Doing 97mph.
Had to appear in court and got a letter from work saying how work would be DIFFICULT without a car (not lose job I must add!). No other points etc. ever before that. They asked any other info they should know and since filling in the paperwork (income/outgoings/etc) I got a £2000 payrise and they said thank you for the info. Magistrates decide 5 points and £150 fine. I was expecting and prepared for worse.
I then went with clerk to pay and had the option to pay in installements. I didn't. No points or anything close since. but I do need my license for work! No points since but technically 5 points still listed since 1999. The paper part of the license still says 5 but why should I pay to remove.*
* had an accident whereby I had to give a statement and produce since... police officer interviewing looked at license and on tape said "clean license" or words to that effect ;-) So why pay to take off the points as I won't be doing anything wrong.
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