Tony Blair

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No, you are getting carried away. Your initial comment was that people would be jailed for running through red lights, and my response was "Good!". Nowhere did the issue of whether they'd done so knowingly or not get a mention. In the vast majority of cases people breaking the Law know that they are doing so. Therefore, they deserve all they get. If the punishment increases, they might not have such a blase attitude. Red lights are a particular area of concern as they generally exist to stop you from ploughing into somebody else, either in a vehicle or on foot. Therefore, when approaching a set of lights a motorist should always be prepared to stop.



All laws are generalisations, because they have to apply to all people in all situations. I could argue that the laws relating to trespass and ownership of property are generalisations and offend my own personal world view, but I don't think you'd accept that as a valid reason for my breaking the law if I smashed my way into your home at 3am and stole your TV.



Which meant that if anything did go wrong, which wasn't entirely unknown, you'd almost certainly be killed, and the spinning wreckage and excessive approach speed of the cars behind you would turn the whole thing into a multiple collision pile-up within a matter of seconds.



Yes, I would. I agree with you that we need to challenge dubious interpretations of the law, and to ensure that road layouts are properly designed and signed, but if there are no mitigating circumstances (which, in the vast majority of cases, there aren't), I would expect Drivers to take responsibility for their actions. I can't think of another area of the Law where it is seen as perfectly justifiable to break the rules expecting to have some kind of moral debate about it when the Police arrive. The thing you seem to have forgotten is that the M4 coppers could have nicked you any time they felt like it, and you wouldn't have been able to complain about it then, either. In fact it's probably their lax attitude which encouraged your casual approach towards law-breaking in the first place.

I've been caught speeding twice. Once doing 38 in a 30 zone, in a temperamental car (Alfa 33), young and inexperienced and not paying enough attention. The ticket taught me a lesson - pay more attention in built up areas, not so much to avoid speeding tickets, but because it's a riskier environment than the open road. Second time was on a by-pass which went from national speed limit to 40mph with little warning - signs were visible but not from a distance. I was overtaking someone at the time, so I thought "I'll just get past him, then back off...". But it doesn't work like that, does it? It's not optional. I shouldn't have gone for it, and in any case I should have been driving more carefully on a road I didn't know. So I regard these as useful experiences, and learn from my mistakes. I'm not moaning about them or trying to blame everyone except myself. It's my car and I'm in charge of it, end of story.

I used to own a classic car, too. Before you get too misty-eyed about "the good old days", bear in mind that my car was a 115mph vehicle made out of tin, with no crash protection. The windscreen wasn't even shatterproof, so one decent 'shunt' would have meant a face full of glass. Crap brakes, little skinny rubber-band tyres, useless seatbelts, vague steering...

It was superb fun but I can understand why so many people died in the 1960s and 70s. Things have moved on, for good reason.

Let's take this first regarding going 15mph over a motorway speed limit:

Exactly the same thing could occur if I was going at 69mph or 50mph. It's not as if at 69mph you're safe, and at 71mph you're suddenly a potential mass murderer. It's all about probability, and if you could assign a numerical value to the chance of someone being injured, for example, if you were going 85mph on a clear dry motorway with little traffic, then also assign a value to the chance of someone being injured whilst you were driving at 69mph (within the speed limit) on a wet motorway, in heavy traffic then I'd be fairly confident that in the first instance it would be a lot closer to zero than in the second!

The point I was making is that before all the busy-body safety zealots saw this as a nice band wagon to jump on, and before they created that Orwellian sounding "safety camera partnership", the traffic police didn't stop you at 85mph in clear, dry conditions because they knew that you weren't a danger to anyone.



I don't agree with that, and it's not reasonable to compare theft with, say, speeding; although nothing is completely black and white. The laws regarding theft are to prevent people permanently depriving others of property, whereas those regarding motoring offences are to maintain "safety". Safety is a subjective measure. Legislating around theft is fairly clear cut and there are no thresholds to consider as stealing £1 is as much theft as stealing £100 (though courts naturally take this into account as far as punishment goes) — evidence of this is that in most societies stealing is illegal. However, you'll notice that speed limits vary from country to country (in some places they don't even have them), even from town to town — evidence of the subjectivity attached to the decisions required to place them. In one country 50mph may be considered safe, yet in another country on the same type of road it maybe 40mph. However, in most (if not all) countries it would be illegal to take £50 from the pocket of a stranger.


But in a significant minority of cases they don't. Like I said, I drive within speed limits as far as is reasonably possible; however, this morning I was over in Wales trying my best to keep track of the madly fluctuating speed limit (Wales is ruled by lefties and they get-off on changing the speed limit every 200 yards in order to confuse you so they can catch you on camera and get another £60 to waste on red asphalt and whitelines in the middle of Cardiff, but I digress). Anyway, I did find at one point I'd missed a 30mph sign and if one of those f*****g talivans had been there I'd have been done (and locked up if you had your way!).Luckily, the bastards were over on the M4 trying to mess-up some poor Englishman's weekend as he drove into Wales. But back to my heinous crime: I was driving very carefully; as far as speed limits go I must be the most careful bloody driver on the road, and yet I was still caught out!


Who said we should have a debate when the police arrived? Btw, it seems perfectly acceptable for my car to get vandalised, or stolen from; the police don't give a toss. 6mph over the speed limit and the fines on your doormat the next week.



Hells bells, they should've locked you up and thrown away the key. I guess you're one of the hardcore villains.


So, although you've blatantly broken the very laws you so treasure, you'd happily see others robbed of their freedom and livelihood for doing the same?

I find it very irritating when certain people go on about "the law" as if it's something that we should all look up to, admire and unquestionably obey, when they probably knowingly ignore many every day, and unknowingly contravene many more they don't even know exist. The law in this country is an arcane tangled mess that generally serves only the careers of politicians, and the coffers of the treasury.

I've always liked this little quote: Laws are for the guidance of wisemen and the obedience of fools.

But although I like it, it doesn't reflect how I go about my life these days. I do try and obey the law; actually, considerably more than most people do, which is why I find this increasing government obsession with creating new ones very annoying. Because of this I'm also conscious of the fact that I occasionally inadvertently exceed speed limits, and so am at risk of the punitive measures lobbied for by people like you being used on me. The quote in that paragraph should, I think, be kept in mind by those who police laws (and was before those speed cameras were invented). Indeed, in many instances it still is, as sometimes the police may just pull you over and give advice.

I expect most people in this country do not want to live in the kind of authoritarian society that individuals like you want. Locking people up for minor infractions of laws that rely on subjective criteria involving risk is clearly not reasonble. In fact, when you put that in the general context of how our society is policed (or more accurately not) as far as things like theft and assault go, it's extremely unreasonable.

Property could be regarded as an abstract concept, the same as safety, or time. We choose to take a literal view of the law with regard to property because it's in our own best interests, but when it comes to driving many people reserve the right to be aggressive and selfish by claiming that it's some sort of personal freedom issue. No it isn't. By pleasing yourself you may be putting someone else's life at risk. If an arsonist - someone who enjoys setting fire to things - burns down a building with people inside, everyone is horrified. Yet the same people will still think it's perfectly ok to drive their car too quickly, tailgate other motorists, jump red lights etc.. The hypocrisy of this is amazing.

In the same vein I'm surprised that you support the roadside Traffic Plod as a 'fair' alternative to the Speed Camera. At least cameras sting everybody who breaks the law, rather than a random selection based on a set of departmental targets, a localised bet between the policemen ("See how many white vans you can get - if it's more than 10 I'll get the cakes in") or simple convenience, e.g. pulling every other car.

Again I will re-iterate that I agree wholeheartedly with challenging the Police and the Councils where their signs, road markings, junction layouts etc. are misleading. But believeing that something is unfair does NOT in itself make it acceptable to knowingly break the law. A communist may regard property as theft, but will still be expected to obey the laws relating to property.


I repeat, the initial comment about jail was yours, and related to jumping red lights. Open your eyes, man.


You are suggesting that Traffic Laws are circumstantial and negotiable, and therefore open to debate when someone is caught driving dangerously. This is incorrect.


No, FOR THE THIRD TIME, I would expect the law to apply to me in exactly the same way as it applies to everybody else.

Your rant about police flexibility on the M4 is a case of rose-tinted spectacles and selective reasoning. In the good old days of the 1970s you'd most likely be driving something like a Ford Cortina with crap handling and brakes and hardly any crash-protection measures. And you'd most likely have had a few pints in the pub at lunchtime before setting out. And even if you were the safest driver in the world, that might not stop you getting hit by the muppet in the speeding GT6, big Healey or E-type whose cross-plies gave out at a crucial moment. 70mph is an arbitrary figure, true, but then it has to be. If you crash at 70 you're probably going to die, but it's what happens to everybody else in the minutes after the initial crash that matters to me.



I don't want to live in a country where the streets are decorated with chewing gum, litter and grafitti because small infringements of the law are seen as acceptable. I don't like bureaucracy and I don't agree with the way the Police do things all of the time, but as a basic concept I disagree with your reasoning that if a law is unfair in your eyes, it's ok to break it. That sends out the wrong message. It also relies on your assumption that you know best in any given situation - for example you are driving on a wide road in a semi-built up area with a 30 limit, but there's no-one around so you decide the limit is stupid and drive at 40. And that's ok until the school bell round the corner rings.....

Laws exist to define parameters that would otherwise be subjective. For example, I'd imagine there's room for debate in the laws regarding asbestos. I'd imagine when that particular piece of legislation came in, a lot of workers and managers thought they were a load of old rubbish. If your kind of legal system had been in place, they'd have ignored the regulations that they didn't believe in, and just carried on. Same with drink driving. Or child labour. Or dealing heroin. In every area of life where someone is at risk, there has to be a line drawn, somewhere.

But you've continued to respond by indicating you'd have people who speed, and jump red lights, sent to prison. You've done so whilst admitting you've been prosecuted for speeding yourself several times. Although you admit you've now seen the light, as it were, you don't wish others to be given the same opportunity as you... first offence and lock 'em up!


How? Property is tangible: you can put it in your pocket, drive in or on it, maybe live in it. Being deprived of it is fairly clearcut.


Quite rightly so. If you set fire to a building with people in it there's a high probability of death or serious injury. If you stay within the law, and don't set fire to that building, no harm will come to the occupants that's of your making. On the other hand, if you go 5mph over a speed limit you increase the risk of someone being injured by an infinitesimally small amount. You could spend a whole lifetime driving around the M25 at 75mph (congestion permitting) and it's quite likely nothing would happen that wouldn't have happened at 70mph.

You see, there's a difference, and these dramatic supposed analogies used by the all-motorists-are-criminals lobby are completely misleading. Yes, there need to be limits set, but these need to be viewed in the context that they are not absolute cut-off points between safe and unsafe. Penalties should reflect that. If you start locking-up people for going 5mph over the limit what the hell do you do with someone going 20mph over? And it's quite easy to do that if you drive into a section of motorway roadworks and the signs have blown over, or the contractors have removed them whilst the speed camera flashes away. It's disproportionate, and completely unreasonable, for someone to have the stress of going to court to prove their innocence (against the general principle that the state's the body who need to prove the guilt) on the pain of being sent to prison, which will most likely also result in the loss of their job and their house. This would happen all over the country thousands of time a year, and many would be unjustly incarcerated. That's wrong. Very wrong.


But they don't. The speed camera partnership vans have an operator using a laser type device. They play snooker with the cars — don't buy a red car!


Yes, but due regard must be given to the overall context in which they are formulated and applied if they are to be credible and non-oppressive. The penalties dished out must be reasonable and proportionate. For example, murder gets a life sentence. For someone to be convicted of murder they must intend to kill a person, then actually carry that out. Similarly, arson would carry a heavy sentence because there's a reasonable chance someone will be seriously injured. However, dropping a banana skin on the pavement would at most attract a small fine. Those are examples of what I mean by things being reasonable and proportionate. Going back to the speeding issue, if you go 5mph over the limit in the context of my second paragraph there is no great increase in the risk of damage being caused. It would be disproportionate to lock someone up for that. However, if they'd drunk a bottle of vodka before getting into the car, then there may be a good case for a prison sentence as in that case the chances of them injuring someone would be quite high, and they'd have known that by consuming the alcohol and getting into the car that that would be the case.

And as I said before, you need to consider the law of diminishing returns. Even if all people drove at the speed limit you'd not put much of a dent in the accident figures. Neither would you if you jailed everyone who went through a red light. Most accidents are caused by human error. People work, they have kids that keep them awake at night, they have adulterous partners that consume their thoughts; these things all affect a person's ability to concentrate and drive safely. What you would do with your system is create unbearable stress for people who need to drive to earn a living because everytime they got in their car they'd face a real chance of going to prison just because they'd made some small error of judgment.

There will never be respect for the Police, in general terms, when probably 50% of the nation break the law every day. It sets a very dangerous precedent. Kids grow up watching their parents speed, overtake dangerously, swear at Traffic Wardens, get involved in punch-ups at the lights, park on double yellows and in the disabled bays at the Supermarket ("cos there aren't that many disabled people, are there").

The law is the law. If you don't like something, seek to change it. And if you believe you have been unfairly prosecuted, contest it in a Court of Law. But don't assume you can do what you like and get away with it.

I find it hilarious that you object to any form of discrimination against you as a motorist, whilst claiming support for the BNP - a party who seek to discriminate against almost everyone, and with even less logic than the traffic laws you despise.

It's nice that you know how it feels.

You can't coerce respect from someone. The more unreasonable and draconian the system you create the less people will respect it. They may start to fear; is that what you want? Perhaps you'd be better off in some Muslim theocracy where you can summarily get the s**t beaten out of you for not showing necessary respect?


It's true, that lots of the behaviour we see around us every day is not conducive to creating a peaceful and pleasant environment in which to live. The reasons for this are, naturally, hotly debated. I agree that many people ignore the law and this creates a vicious circle in that people see others committing offences and getting away with it, and so feel aggrieved that they are inconvenienced by the same laws that are being ignored, so end up ignoring them themselves. This is especially true with many pieces of petty legislation that appear to serve no purpose: such as fulltime 20mph limits in areas frequented by school kids only a few times a day, or 40mph limits on motorway roadworks which haven't seen a contractor near them for a week!

For people to respect the police and the law, the police and the law must behave in a way that can be respected. The law must be seen to be serving the citizens, not the latest fad from those corrupt scum who now co-govern us from Brussels, not that deceitful rabble of liars, cheats and adulterers who form our elected government, nor, indeed, the commissars who run their own private fiefdoms from their positions within a local council. As it stands most people feel helpless against theft or assault in this country, because the police don't do their job properly, and neither do the courts. The very basics of any legal system, I'd suggest, require that citizens are protected from theft and assault. If a system cannot do that, how can it expect to be respected?


Like I've said previously, you probably don't know a fraction of the laws that are in place to control your interactions within this society, and no doubt in your blissful ignorance break many every week. In fact, many of the ones you are aware of probably don't receive the attention they deserve. I'm sure if a traffic policeman pulled your car over he'd have a good chance of finding something to book you for if he wanted to. When did you last check your tyre treads? Do you check all your lights work before you get into the car? Is your number plate clean? Have you ever had your speedometer calibrated? Are you really driving everywhere at 29.5mph?

Again, as I've said, this is where words like "reasonable" come in. Most likely a policeman pulling you over because one of yourlights wasn't working would just ask to see your licence, and advise you get the light fixed. He would not handcuff you, march you down to the nick to be kept until your appearance before the beak next day, where you'd receive your custodial sentence!

As for changing the law, you're having a laugh! I'm a white male — I don't matter.


I find many of the BNP policies interesting. Some are unrealistic, perhaps a little idealistic, but I see less discrimination, and more logic than I do in connection with the current regime. Of course, using a person's interest in the BNP is a useful rhetorical tool to curry favour with your leftwing buddies, but I'd like to see you articulate an argument that outlines exactly where this lack of logic lies.

I think you'd be more comfortable in a party like UKIP. I broadly agree with their policies - which are mostly reasonably libertarian, anyway. I know where my vote is going next time, and it is not to The Conservative (?) and Unionist (?! !) Party.

I'll check their website out sometime. I thought they were just a one-issue party, but maybe that's changed.

They've changed a bit. They have a few more policies as well as the anti-EU stuff now.

I've taken a look. I see they agree with some of what I've tried to put across in my replies to sociable_hermit! Some of it overlaps with BNP policy, but obviously they're coming from a different poliltical angle. They don't address the problem of those immigrants who are extremist religous fanatics and how, along with multiculturalism in general, that threatens us. However, that's not something I really expect anyone other than the BNP to take any reasonable steps to resolving until we get an incident the size of 9/11 over here.

Apart from that, most of it seems quite reasonable. It's territory the Conservatives should be exploiting. Indeed, if they did, I'd reckon they'd be the next government!

And they're not bigots. I'm voting UKIP - they're Unionist and libertarian, which suits me fine.

I'm sure some of them are, just as some of the BNP membership are.