I seem to have caused a bit of road rage here for which I apologise and I genuinely feel sorry for Global Stoner but I believe speeding fines should be quietly accepted and paid. Having driven for more than 30 years I know that people break the speed limit either because they let their concentration lapse or because they haven't grasped just how dangerous and anti-social it is. Either way, it's always the driver's responsibility.
If you're speeding and you're involved in an accident it'll be far worse, even if you were in full control of your car and didn't cause it yourself. I think if we are to save more lives then fines should be even higher.
ok so have you got any evidence what so ever that the financial impact of a fine has any corrilatory behaviour on the standard of driving.
In truth the fines are there because of an recognition that it's an easy target, no this is a poor motorists always beign picked on type response, it makes sense.
you have a million and 1 things to concentraite on when driving as a result some will in safe conditions be given a lower priority than others for example checking the speedo over watching the road. As cars have been modernised and internal road noise has been all but eliminated and as cars with smaller and smaller engines are more and more powerful in terms of accleration and performance we are gradually cocooned from the sensation or feedback of speed.
Removing this information detrimentally affects peoples driving, conversley it does improve passenger comfort. Don't beleive me do a simple experiment;
drive down a streach of dual carrage way from a point to a point resonably about 2 miles past it without looking at the speedo for the entire time when you go past you second point look down note the speed you are doing.
repeat this at night and try and match the speed again no looking at the speedo. even with street lighting illuminating the road you will be going faster at night because your visable perception is reduced significantly which decreases you perception of speed and of course any impending danger.
so that's speeding covered from a free floowing a/b/m road type situation. but how does this impact on why fining motorists is a soft target. Well we accept all vehciles are now safer for those inside and somewhat better for those on the outside than they have ever previously been, and that as a result of ever increasing safety people are removed a step from their driving
This is accepted, i mean who wants to drive in a noisey car or be driven in one what's also understood is that the other million and one things one couldbe doign rather than looking at a speedo are almost certainly of far greater significance you know looking at the road etc the relative assurance we get from from the peception of increased safety removes the fear of speeding or any of it's accisacted sensations.
this is then added to the level of perceptually unnessacerry speed limits on roads which are often arbitory misleading conflicting or confusing ( a matter of course when you have differnent groups responsible for different signs) mean people filter the information and have learned ( or been conditioned) to ignore the posted limit.
Our driving test in this country isn't hard, you are effectively given licence ( a right given with privledge status - like all rights if we're honest with ourselves about the power we have vs the power of the state ) with realatively short experince curves to use a vechiel.
Fines don't need to go up more money needs to be spent on the tutition in the first place. and that's not state cash that's privat individuals cash. You want to drive learn to do so propperly, be preparred to prove you have maintained the standard for a long period of time and be preparred to be tested regularlly.
but this would cost money to the privat individual which the state is reluctent to do as the income generated from driving is significant. So do you make the test harder or do you make cash from more likely (due to a lower standards) incidents which result as a common occurence of poorer education...
our current polices favour poorer driving skill better revenue streams over improved road craft fewer accidents...
and to my mind educationally crippling people to then make money of them is attacking a soft target it's set up to be so.
