Should speeding drivers be given harsher fines?

MOTORISTS who end up on the wrong side of the law could be made to pay more for their misdeeds under new proposals being considered by the Goverment.

Ministry of Justice plans currently under consultation are suggesting upping the current penalties paid by drivers for offences such as speeding from £60 to £90.

The report which suggests raising the charges, entitled Getting It Right For Victims and Witnesses, reads: “As part of its new Strategic Framework for Road Safety,21 which aims to reduce death and injuries on our roads, the Department for Transport proposes to increase the level of some Fixed Penalty Notices for traffic offences to bring them in line with other penalties which deal with low-level offending.

"Penalty levels for many offences have not increased during the last ten years. The current levels have fallen behind other fixed penalties and therefore risk trivialising the offences. The proposed increases for motoring offences include those in relation to excessive speed, control of a vehicle, mobile phone use, ignoring signals and pedestrian crossings, and failure to wear a seatbelt."

However motoring groups have hit out at the plans, with the Institute of Advanced Motorists saying its own research highlighted that more than half of all drivers disagreed with the idea.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: "While funding victims of crime is laudable, the real aim of fines for motoring offences should be deterrence. We want to stop people breaking the law.

“Having an income that relies on dangerous driving won’t help reduce crashes. There is a strong case for this money to be spent on road safety.”

The consultation on the proposals, which can be seen in full on the Ministry of Justice website, closes on April 22.

Progress in Oregon

Oregon is usually held up as the hope of cycling in "the third world", a part of the US that has returned to bicycles. For us, the motorists, it is part of the front line of the backlash. This is why were an early supporter of the proposed bicycle tax.

That is why we are pleased to see a proposed law that not only makes it illegal to carry more than one passenger in a bicycle that is not designed for this, it will ban all bicycle transportation of children under the age of six!

This is for their own good!

• It gets them used to driving everywhere
• It stops their parents having a school-kid-dropoff-continue-to-work cycle run, so discourages the parents from cycling.

• It stops them getting into riding bicycles, or even learning how to maintain them.

• It stops their parents taking the kids on bike rides at weekends, such as this MAMIL-dad is doing over Willamette Pass, Oregon.

Such measures may seem harsh, but it is the only way to get these children and their parents to conform to what a modern society expects.

Before anyone complains that we exaggerate the problem, all these photos come from a source in Oregon. This state has a population of five million people, yet is only the same height and three times the width of Britain. There simply isn't room for bicycles and cars to co-exist in such a limited space. And if there isn't in this state, just consider how much worse things are in Scotland -with the same population, or England, with ten times as many people, or London, the place with the highest population density in the country.

This is why we are pleased to announce, along with our partners in the printed and TV media channels, our new 2011 campaign, to have bicycles banned from our city streets during peak hours and school dropoff/pickup times.

It's for the sake of the children!