The government today announced plans to increase punishments for drivings who break the speed limits by a considerable margin, and it is hard to argue against the logic behind this decision. However, it does smack of the government wanting to further promote speed cameras at a time when traffic police numbers continue to decline.
The AA today claimed that traffic police numbers had fallen by 20% in ten years, and I wouldn't disagree. it is rare that you see a police car on the road and this means that persistent speeders and those who know where the speed cameras are can go about their dangerous antics on a daily basis knowing that they will almost certainly never be caught.
Every morning I am cut up and overtaken by a motorbike on the Fakenham Road in to Norwich at just about 8am. The same thing happens every day as he weaves through moving traffic, overtaking and undertaking in excess of 50mph. But where are the police to deal with him ? Of course they are never seen. The fact that I know this motorbike so well, an Orange track bike with the number plate beginning V5? ??? (and yes, I know the last missing digits also) tells you something about the regularity of this bike's antics, but he knows, like me, that the chances of a police car doing something about it is nil, and there are no speed cameras on my route to work.
If the government really means to do something about this, they should encourage police forces to take on more traffic police. Oh, and get them to also do something about slow drivers too !
1 comment:
Sadly, the government thinks that powerless and spineless Community Support Officers are more important than saving people's lives on the roads by stopping reckless and careless drivers.
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