Motoring Discussion > Motoring fines to be quadrupled Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Crankcase Replies: 17
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 09:07 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Crankcase
I should work for the Daily Mail - the topic title over eggs the pudding.

In brief, magistrates are to be given increased fining powers (or is that "could be", hard to tell) by quadrupling the amount they can impose. That means for speeding the maximum fine goes from £2500 to £10000, for example.

Whether they will exercise that power, and a typical £500 fine will now become a typical £2000 fine is another matter of course.

Anyway, fining people often doesn't work because they simply don't, or can't, pay. That's a different issue that is not simple to resolve though.

www.thestar.co.uk/news/national/fines-could-be-increased-fourfold-1-6663585
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 16:18 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Fullchat
And when have you known the maximum fines ever imposed as they stand at the moment?

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 Tue 10 Jun 14 16:31 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Crankcase
Thought I covered that point.
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 16:51 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Stuartli
>>I should work for the Daily Mail - the topic title over eggs the pudding.>>

But exactly the way also detailed on BBC2 News this morning, rather than specifically outlining the fact that such fines were the maximum now potentially possible.
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 16:54 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Bromptonaut
I'm struggling to find what presumably should be a Ministry of Justice press release on this. Used to be all in one place but since the moved to a single .gov website it seems to involve three times as many clicks and still no certainty of a result.

Wherever the release is I suspect it headlines on motoring offences then mentions more serious Mags Ct stuff as all the papers seem to have similar angle.

This change was legislated for about two years ago and uprates the amounts applicable to the 'levels' of fines specified for particular offences. Successive governments have apparently been asleep on the job since this is said to be first increase since 1991.

Whether the fine levied in practice for straightforward motoring offences will change is a different point. Speeding, mobile phone use etc are usually dealt with by conditional offer and I suspect magistrates will continue to be pragmatic when sentencing defended charges but they have more weaponry now for timewasters and serial recidivists.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 10 Jun 14 at 16:54
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 18:28 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Meldrew
Smart idea would be to set about the collecting the £2 Billion of fines imposed and uncollected before raising the bar to impose more, probably also uncollectable!
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 18:32 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - ....
What will this do to the inflation figures?

10k headline grabber so everyone breaths a sigh of relief when it's only 5k.

I know, fines are not compulsory. All together now "It is for our own good".

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 Tue 10 Jun 14 18:43 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Cliff Pope

>>
>> I know, fines are not compulsory. All together now "It is for our own good".
>>


The next line is "If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear"
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 18:49 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - ....
You're catching on.
Have you signed up for a GPS tracker in your car yet? They'll give you a tenner off your premium if you're a good boy.
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 19:01 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - No FM2R
In all seriousness, why should I care if someone knows where I am all day?
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 19:11 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - ....
As it's PII possibly even SPII I would hope controls are in place to ensure the data is handled correctly.
Sadly, history says the offer of cash even at a loss will see that information being traded. DVLA is a great example. £2.50 buys the registered keepers information. It costs DVLA almost £4 too process the request. Priceless!
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 19:16 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - No FM2R
>> It costs DVLA almost £4 too process the request

I think that's a fully allocated cost where as the £2.50 is based on marginal costing.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 10 Jun 14 at 19:17
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 Wed 11 Jun 14 11:02 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - ....
>> I think that's a fully allocated cost where as the £2.50 is based on marginal
>> costing.
>>
You could well be right and I have fallen prey to some editors wish to distort facts.

When the numbers I read stop meaning the numbers I am reading I start thinking PFI, how much is this going to cost the tax payer?
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 Tue 10 Jun 14 19:26 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Crankcase
>> In all seriousness, why should I care if someone knows where I am all day?


I care. I'd not be comfortable with it, but don't ask me to explain why because I can't rationalise it, and anyway, that ship has sailed by virtue of me carrying a mobile.

Perhaps it's the devil of having enough paranoia to think that bad things could come of it, but not enough imagination to describe credibly what they might be.

But if my insurance company suggested a gps I'd tell them to go hang until I was forced.
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 Wed 11 Jun 14 15:10 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Crankcase
Bystander (a magistrate) has posted his views on this. (Or one of his team, since the "blogging is illegal" lunacy a year or two back)

magistratesblog.blogspot.co.uk/
Last edited by: Crankcase on Wed 11 Jun 14 at 15:12
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 Tue 17 Jun 14 09:26 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Bromptonaut
An alternative view from 'Mr Loohole' himself.

www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/big-fines-to-criminalise-motorists-says-mr-loophole/5041675.article
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 Tue 17 Jun 14 13:22 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - Alanovich
>> 'Mr Loohole'

Deliberate?
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 Tue 17 Jun 14 13:08 
 Motoring fines to be quadrupled - MtrTdesre
They'll put the fines up - claim they've saved thousands of lives and then drop them down again... that's what's happened to a lot of speed cameras!
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