Fining speeding drivers 10,000 pounds

[hollyisalovelyname]

Why not just take their car away?

[BMW6]

They can if they fail to pay the fine (High Court baliff action).

What I don't understand is why car manufactures can't make the car so that it has a maximum speed of, say, 80 MPH. (Or whatever the speed limit is for motorways).

Or am I being really idiotic?

[TheHammaconda]

I think for safety's sake you need to have the ability to accelerate away from a hazard so the engine has to have more power. It doesn't mean you have to drive at that speed for a long time though.

Limiting the speed of a car to 80 mph wouldn't stop dickheads from doing 60 in a 30mph zone though.

[Xcountry]

Is this just in England?

[WallyBantersJunkBox]

In a lot of European countries if you habitually speed in dangerous areas you get fined a percentage of your salary - or yes, hand over your keys.

genevalunch.com/2010/01/07/ferrari-driver-fined-300000-swiss-francs-for-speeding/

[TheHammaconda]

In Belgium I think they can increase the fine depending on how much over the speed limit you were.

[hollyisalovelyname]

I think if they just took the car away it would make a difference.

[hollyisalovelyname]

Particularly in the case of drunk drivers.
Just take the car away.

[niceguy2]

Wasn't something like this tried a long time ago?

It all sounded logical in theory but then when people started getting fined thousands of pounds for being a few mph over the speed limit and others getting the fixed fine, it all started to look a bit stupid.

Plus calculating how much you can afford to pay must be very time consuming.

Personally I think if an offence is so serious that a £10k fine is appropriate then maybe a custodial sentence is a better option.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

What I find interesting is that I live in a country, Canada, with lower speed limits than the UK, less people regularly speed from what I can see, and it has a much higher rate of RTA deaths per mile traveled and per person and per vehicle. Why is that? The UK actually has busy, scary roads and fast speeds in comparison to other countries but a very low rate of RTA fatality.

Instead of knee-jerk reactions to speed, I would love to know why the UK does so well. There are obvious reasons, like an older population and a larger % of women drivers. Doesn't account for it all.

[TheHammaconda]

I think the speed of emergency response really affects survival rates. If you're in a serious accident and receive emergency care within an hour your chances of survival are much higher than if that care is received outside the 'golden hour'.

In the UK survival rates are much lower in rural areas where accidents aren't discovered quickly/ emergency services can't access them quickly. Perhaps this has something to do with the differences MrsP.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

That's a good point.

[WallyBantersJunkBox]

We have the slowest roads in Europe though? I'd always thought that's why the UK statistics were so good?

Would you have more motorways than us, so on average traveling faster speeds due to long distances? Just a thought!

[TheHammaconda]

In Sweden and Denmark the speed limit on M'ways is 110kmph which is just less than 70mph. Have no idea how safe those roads are.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

B roads in the UK can have a higher speed limit than highways near me in Canada. I though some of the Scandies had the slowest roads...

[MrsTerryPratchett]

x-posted

[Fram]

The cynical part of me says it's a money-making scheme.
But tbh if you don't want to be fined, don't break the law!

[WallyBantersJunkBox]

Statistically I was thinking of the larger European countries that tilt the numbers a bit.

130 km in France, Belgium and Italy. I think Austria is the same. Possibly the Netherlands and Luxembourg too. Germany has no speed restriction on the autobahn, but a suggested 130km. I've witnessed some horrendous speeding on the autobahn, and seen a few horrific accidents.

What I meant was that possibly the majority of drivers in the UK are doing day to day short 30 mph journeys? When I lived in the US even the shortest journey seemed to involve a freeway....

[TheHammaconda]

Romania and Lithuania have the highest number of fatalities per million of the population: Eurostat. Malta and the UK have the lowest.

Speed is only one factor that will account for the difference.

[niceguy2]

Personally I think we're getting a bit silly. I think it's commonly accepted that we have the one of the safest road networks in the world with one of the lowest casualty rates in the western world.

In that context it's hard for me to understand what we have to gain here. I don't subscribe to the whole "One accident is one too many" argument since the logical conclusion of that theory is that we just ban all cars then we'd have none right?

Anything above that and it becomes a tradeoff between people doing their business effectively and road safety.

To me this is making another law just for making another law's sake.

[Nocomet]

The trouble is 150 on the M50 in a well maintained sports car is far safer than 30 past DDs secondary school because there are boys that just think they are imortal.

[CoteDAzur]

"Canada, with lower speed limits than the UK, less people regularly speed from what I can see, and it has a much higher rate of RTA deaths per mile traveled and per person and per vehicle. Why is that?"

That would be because the real danger on the roads is not maximum speed but difference in speed between the vehicles. The lower the speed limit, the higher the chance that people will just ignore the limit and go at whatever speed they fancy, increasing the chance that an old biddy driving at 20 mph will collide with one going at 40 mph.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Also, I would rigidly and with draconian zeal, enforce stopping distances. I hate tailgaters and my DD was just in a car accident because some bastard went into the back of the car she was in. He's lucky I wasn't in that car. Speed isn't that dangerous on faster roads with decent stopping distances.

I also have a secret theory that one reason is that people who are nervous, aging badly or simply bad drivers avoid driving in the UK because they get told off a lot (honking if they block roads etc.). Here they all drive with impunity. I saw someone who was 90 if a day (really) stopped by the Police here the other day. Weaving all over the road and no one beeped her.

[WallyBantersJunkBox]

I was told that there are enough road deaths in the UK weekly to fill a Jumbo jet.

And if a jumbo jet crashed every week in the UK, that would be a pretty hard statistic to swallow.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

If we all relied on jets to take us to most places, lived on or near runways, each had a plane in our garage, it wouldn't be. Each one is a tragedy. As a statistic, it is still a small proportion.

[WallyBantersJunkBox]

No, it's because of the way they are only reported locally. If every night on national TV the 9 or 10 people who have been killed that day, and the many more injured were announced, people would sit up more.

Road accidents are still the largest single cause of accidental death for people aged between 5 and 35 years in the UK.

They just aren't as newsworthy as train accidents or plane accidents with multiple deaths in one event.