Jail for thief who conned £6,800 e-bike seller into letting him take it for a test ride

Even on Police-Speed-Traffic-Interceptor-Cops, they generally tell you at the end that the bloke caught speeding and driving while disqualified was - er - disqualified again.

I think that at some point the courts just need to say, "This is stupid.  Lock 'im up!".

I agree with you on that.  What is the point of a driving ban when the person just flaunts it anyway.

It's the same kind of bug bear to me as the "exceptional hardship" defense for a motoring offence that would cause them to lose their licence on totting up.  That card should be allowed once in absolute exceptional circumstances, but after that, wave bye bye to your licence.

I was having a debate with someone and I think there are something like 10,000 drivers on the road who should have lost their licence on totting up but haven't, with one driver amassing 66 points on their licence using the exceptional hardship defense..... no it's not a defense at that point, it is basically a get out of jail free card for a serial offender who has no regard for the rules of the road

Totally agree there on the "hardship bit". To get enough points on the license for a ban would be about four "minor" offences to start with. To get to 66 points and still be driving is a serial offender who isn't attempting to reform at all. If someone flaunted safety rules at work that many times, they would be sacked. Yet people like these flaunting safety laws designed to protect anyone get a slight financial penalty. You know something is bad when even the Heil prints a story saying it is a mockery. 

TriTaxMan wrote:

It's the same kind of bug bear to me as the "exceptional hardship" defense for a motoring offence that would cause them to lose their licence on totting up.  That card should be allowed once in absolute exceptional circumstances, but after that, wave bye bye to your licence.

[...]with one driver amassing 66 points on their licence using the exceptional hardship defense..... no it's not a defense at that point, it is basically a get out of jail free card for a serial offender who has no regard for the rules of the road

Firstly, that is how it works. You can't use exceptional hardship more than once; after that it's your responsibility to be exceptionally careful.

Secondly, if you look at the details of the 66pts & still driving cases, they're usually something like someone going through the same speed camera regularly at 70 instead of 60, having not spotted a limit change sign. Obviously stupid, but not abnormally so given the general standard of driving in this country. 

In any case, can you imagine the insurance quotes after declaring 66pts! I don't think anyone who isn't very rich would pay that much money if the exceptional-hardship-otherwise part wasn't real. 

This is in a different category to people who just flout all the driving laws (and all the other laws too, usually). It's too-stupid-to-drive, clearly, but not 'complete scrote, bang em up'.

One of them here. Speed limit dropped from 70-50. For some reason 2 months of the speeds signs being there were not taken into account. However she already had 6 points and two of the times she was doing 80mph so take those two as twelve, use that as the thing and ban her....

However she and all the others who have beem caught in similar situations should be banned for driving how many days without due care and attention as they obviously are not looking for road signs telling them important information about the roads. 

Dave Dave wrote:

Firstly, that is how it works. You can't use exceptional hardship more than once; after that it's your responsibility to be exceptionally careful.

Secondly, if you look at the details of the 66pts & still driving cases, they're usually something like someone going through the same speed camera regularly at 70 instead of 60, having not spotted a limit change sign. Obviously stupid, but not abnormally so given the general standard of driving in this country. 

In any case, can you imagine the insurance quotes after declaring 66pts! I don't think anyone who isn't very rich would pay that much money if the exceptional-hardship-otherwise part wasn't real.

I'm going to call utter BS on that.  An NIP from a fixed camera has to be issued within 14 days.  The case of Georgia Carney she was caught 20 times over 2 months.  In other words the latter offences would have definitely have been after the first NIP had been issued and received by her.

So for her to plead ignorant as to the change in the speed limit after receiving what is likely to be multiple tickets within the first (being generous 28 days) does not excuse the remaining times speeding.

Not only that it is willful ignorance on her part.  If you are driving along a motorway and you find that you are going significantly faster than the majority of other drivers anyone with half a brain cell should be thinking - perhaps the speed limit has changed.  And even in addition to that, in order for any speed limit to be 20, 40 or 50 mph by law there requires to be repeater signs at regular intervals.  So driving multiple times up the same stretch of road never once did she see any signs indicating a 50 mph limit.

So I stand by my first thoughts they should be removed from the road.

I agree she shouldn't be driving. My point is that she's not even in the worst 10% of drivers, although clearly among the stupidest.

It isn't malign drivers we have to worry about as much as oblivious ones.

I'm not sure what we can do about petty criminals committing motoring offences too. Banging them up for longer doesn't seem to help. It just encourages them to trigger a police chase.