Wednesday 15 October 2008

Speeding!

Hi All,
I got caught speeding. From this moment on I will always obey the speed limit on all roads, as I was caught fairly and squarely by a hidden bloke armed with lasers and cameras in the back of an unmarked van. While I was armed with nothing but a Honda Jazz.

Yeah, right. Don't get me wrong here. I don't drive like a complete nutter, I don't do 50mph past a school (in fact I tend to do far less than 30mph) but I do tend to be a little heavy on my right foot on main roads and motorways.

I have a beef with speeding tickets. The reason is quite simple. It is the only crime that you can be charged with because you have the potential to do more damage to someone or something. When I leave my house, I am not arrested for having the potential to be a burglar, or the potential to be a muggist, or cause damage or something. I was harming nobody. I had the potential to, but I was doing no harm at all.

So anyway, I get a letter through the post to my partner (who owns the car) and its says something like: Please tell us who was driving, if you don't, we'll give you points and a fine. OK, so even though my partner not telling the police who was driving has nothing to do with the offence itself whatsoever, they can give her points on her licence, I'll explain quickly, they can charge me with speeding and give me points, if they photo ID me, and they can still give my partner 3 points for not telling them. How stupid is that? But, it gets better, because here in the UK you do not have to provide evidence that can incriminate yourself. As you can see they have threatened to give you the points and a fine anyway.

At the bottom of the letter it says something like: We have video/photographic evidence. Cool. Where is the evidence then? You expect me to just roll over and take your word for it? I want a picture of my car, date and time stamped with speed, and also the latest calibration test results. I want them now.Don't tell me you've got it, just give it to me, I'm legally required to have it, for god's sake!

So anyway, when all's said and done, I'm gonna ask for the pictures and the calibration test results and then pay my fine and take my points.All because some anoraks in the early 1900's decided that 30 was far too fast for their cars or their roads. Even though now we have cars that can stop in half the distance, if anything were to happen.

Another thing I'll mention, If some idiot wants to step out in front of a moving car, that's fine by me. I'm a car, on a road, you are a small squishy human.It doesn't matter what speed I'm doing, if you don't walk into the road while I'm coming down it, I can safely say I won't hit you, ok?


At 50mph You'll mostly die
At 40mph You'll mostly survive
At 30mph You'll have bruising
At 15mph I'll stop the car, get out, and give you a mouthful of abuse, and maybe even cause the injuries you would have had at 50, 40 or 30mph.

If you don't step in front of a car regardless of speed you will 100% fail to incur any injuries at all.


Notice that in this article I haven't mentioned police catching burglars (caught mine yet?), old people driving very badly or slowly or down the motorway towards you, drunk drivers, and other more dangerous drivers than little old me, a reasonably fit young gentleman with fairly good reaction times, and also someone who has never had an accident on 2 or 4 wheels involving someone else (ok, I fell off my motorbike twice, it was wet and icy, I was doing under 20mph and I grazed my knees, and broke my wing mirrors) since I have started with motor vehicles.

I didn't say anything like that in the article at all.


Thanks for reading,

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