2
Jan '10

Victimless

   Posted by: lyle   in Driving, News, Stupidity, Thoughts

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Good to see that politicians haven’t made any resolutions to talk more sense…

On BBC News today, there’s a story about plans to add the £15 “victim support” surcharge to lesser offences like speeding, driving and using a mobile, shoplifting etc. According to the politicians quoted, these are all crimes “with victims”.

Under the plans, a fine of £60 for speeding, using a mobile phone while driving or not wearing a seatbelt would be increased to £75.

Government officials deny the move amounts to a stealth tax.

They argue that such offences are not “victimless crimes”, saying thousands are killed or injured on Britain’s roads every year

Now I’m sorry, but how the scrambled fuck is speeding not a victim-less crime? And while I don’t like the offence, I don’t see how driving while using a mobile actually has a victim.

In both those cases, if your speeding or use of a mobile causes an accident (or worse) then it’s not the speeding or the use of a mobile that gets charged – it’s driving without due care and attention, death by dangerous driving, or one of the other offences I can’t currently remember.

If I’m caught speeding, the “victim” is me – I’m the one penalised by the action of the crime. If I’m not caught speeding, nothing whatsoever happens. I’ve not driven away from the scene of an accident, I’ve not harmed someone else, I’ve not broken, stolen, or conned something. I’ve just got to my destination faster.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 at 08:59 and is filed under Driving, News, Stupidity, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 comments so far

OJW
 1 

Presumably the victims are everyone around you who’s put at additional risk?

Despite you not actually killing someone this time, the people you drove past had their risk of dying increase from x% to x+d% which adds up to a shorter life expectancy and a financial cost of dealing with that risk (e.g. by buying a car instead of cycling)

It seems ludicrous that driving offenses are never taken seriously until people finally kill someone, at which point “death by dangerous driving” is too little too late.

Letting people know in advance that their driving is unacceptably risky seems like a sensible enough idea.

January 13th, 2010 at 20:59
lyle
 2 

How did they have their risk increased? And how can you be a victim before something’s happened?

That’s like saying I’m a victim every time a car passes me while I’m walking the dog, because I’ve inhaled more CO2 from their exhaust, or something.

I’m not saying someone’d have to kill someone before there was a victim of their speeding – a crash of any kind caused by speeding will have a victim of some kind. But overtaking someone who is going slower than me is emphatically *not* creating a victim.

And what happens when you have the opposite (as I saw last night) of someone deciding that 30 is a perfectly acceptable speed to drive on a clear dual carriageway? That has no victims until someone runs into the back of them. It’s still dangerous driving, but at the other end of the scale.

January 14th, 2010 at 07:21

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