Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 119 posts

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#61

Post by GordonS »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #50
amiga386 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still be professional, but Tory cuts made there be a lot fewer police (23,500 police cut from 2010-2019: https://www.gmb.org.uk/news/shock-figures-reveal-23500-polic... ) so they don't have the manpower to sit about waiting for speeders. The UK is not alone in using traffic cameras to enforce speed restrictions. There was a funny example in Germany where their automated cameras blur the face of any passenger…

your source...is a union? really? you can look at ONS numbers yourself (and you will see this isn't the case). Scotland has seen a drastic reduction in police numbers (unfortunately for you, not a Tory government :( oh well) despite record government funding levels. Labour's plan appears to be attempting the same trick with consolidation of forces, which should allow massive reductions in numbers. In Scotland, there…

> In Scotland, there are some days when there is one traffic car covering an area the size of England,

Scotland is smaller than England, so this makes no sense.

Furthermore, anyone who drives regularly in Scotland knows this to be completely false - there are plenty of traffic cops around (sometimes incognito too), and they are sometimes even seen waiting in rural and semi-rural areas.

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#62

Post by ninalanyon »

londons_explore wrote: post #7

For context for international readers, the UK has a lot of speed cameras and other automated ways to give out fines. These get sent by snailmail to the 'owner'[simplification] of the vehicle using a government database. The owner must then, within a deadline, say who was driving the vehicle at that date and time. If the owner fails to say who was driving, they have committed a criminal offence, and will be fined. It…

> ~30% of motorists receive a fine in any given year.

Really? Or have you (or someone else) just divided the number of fines by the number of motorists?

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#63

Post by amiga386 »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #50
amiga386 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can still be professional, but Tory cuts made there be a lot fewer police (23,500 police cut from 2010-2019: https://www.gmb.org.uk/news/shock-figures-reveal-23500-polic... ) so they don't have the manpower to sit about waiting for speeders. The UK is not alone in using traffic cameras to enforce speed restrictions. There was a funny example in Germany where their automated cameras blur the face of any passenger…

your source...is a union? really? you can look at ONS numbers yourself (and you will see this isn't the case). Scotland has seen a drastic reduction in police numbers (unfortunately for you, not a Tory government :( oh well) despite record government funding levels. Labour's plan appears to be attempting the same trick with consolidation of forces, which should allow massive reductions in numbers. In Scotland, there…

> you can look at ONS numbers yourself

ONS numbers say >20,000 fewer frontline officers from 2010-2018, which is pretty much in line with what the union said. See the graph here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-en...

> In Scotland, there are some days when there is one traffic car covering an area the size of England

Are you high, or did an AI write this?

Area of Scotland: 80,231 km^2

Area of England: 132,932 km^2

So on some days, in Scotland, there is one traffic car covering an area that is larger than Scotland. OK, where's it patrolling? Or are you saying Police Scotland only sends out 60% of one car to cover the whole country?

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#64

Post by psunavy03 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #47
philwelch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a horrible system. Britain used to be famous for the professionalism of their police and now they can’t be bothered to make a traffic stop and give people speeding tickets face to face.

I've never seen someone being against a system like this that wasn't pro speeding themselves.

There's a great generalization that conveniently excuses you not having to engage with viewpoints you disagree with.

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#65

Post by londons_explore »

ninalanyon wrote: post #62
londons_explore wrote: post #7

For context for international readers, the UK has a lot of speed cameras and other automated ways to give out fines. These get sent by snailmail to the 'owner'[simplification] of the vehicle using a government database. The owner must then, within a deadline, say who was driving the vehicle at that date and time. If the owner fails to say who was driving, they have committed a criminal offence, and will be fined. It…

> ~30% of motorists receive a fine in any given year. Really? Or have you (or someone else) just divided the number of fines by the number of motorists?

Original source:

https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/drivers-receiving...

I suspect the division method.

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#66

Post by dylan604 »

rob74 wrote: post #55
doublerabbit wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father worked on the early 90's contract that implemented the speed camera's on the motorway. The future road map was to make these digitally automated. Dark Fibre was laid but the plans were scrapped as the government saw it as a waste of money. This is why we are stuck with the ludicrous system. For a long while if you were changing lanes while speeding through the camera it couldn't capture the plate. Again the…

I'm not sure what the technology by which the data from the speed camera is downloaded has to do with identifying the driver? The reason for this "ludicrous" procedure is that the police can identify the owner of the car (based on the license plate), but not the driver , so the owner has to say who was driving. And all of this has to be done in a way that will hold up in court, therefore snail mail. The same procedur…

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just issue the fine to the owner of the car? The owner allowed the person to use their car and accepts that responsibility. If it was stolen, then just say so. Even in the case of fleets, someone is responsible for know who is operating the vehicle and when. The gov't shouldn't care about it any further than holding the owner responsible. If the owner doesn't want to rat out the actual driver, then the owner takes the hit on points/fines/whatever

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#67

Post by rob74 »

jaennaet wrote: post #60
rob74 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the technology by which the data from the speed camera is downloaded has to do with identifying the driver? The reason for this "ludicrous" procedure is that the police can identify the owner of the car (based on the license plate), but not the driver , so the owner has to say who was driving. And all of this has to be done in a way that will hold up in court, therefore snail mail. The same procedur…

In Finland automatic camera fines (they're not exactly fines but I have no idea how to translate "liikennevirhemaksu" so work with me here) are the problem of whoever owns the car. If the owner wasn't the one driving the car, then it's up to them to inform the police who was actually driving

Interesting! If I translate it from Finnish to German, Google says something along the lines of "traffic violation fee". Usually you can't punish someone for something someone else has done, but maybe if you call it a fee (which doesn't imply punishment) instead of a fine, you can (at least in Finland)?

Reminds me of the fines for using public transport without a ticket in Germany: they're not called fines either, but "erhöhtes Beförderungsentgelt" ("increased transportation fee"). I'm sure there's a very good reason for this name too...

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#68

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

sensecall wrote: post #51
jen20 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed ludicrous - I bet the same does not apply to your returned information either.

Correct. Obligation is on the individual to prove receipt by the Police (in the event they claim you didn't respond).

I believe that for Royal Mail at least, proof of posting is considered sufficient to work as proof of receipt.

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#69

Post by skippyboxedhero »

jen20 wrote: post #59
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the risk of small fines that is why people won't do dangerous things. Have we tried a £50 fine for murder? Economist brain. The problem is very simple: driving tests aren't hard enough, too many people have driving licences, and we don't retest people. In addition, enforcement of people driving without a licence is completely pathetic (as anyone who has driven in the UK can attest to, the stuff I have seen ov…

Automatic enforcement of dumb low level stuff is supposed to free up police time for the more serious things. Whether that happens or not is a political decision. I remember the time before red light cameras in London, and the time afterwards, and the situation was much improved after they showed up. I agree the driving test is too easy (though several orders of magnitude more difficult than in the US states I've had…

I don't think I mentioned anything wrong with automatic enforcement. I think the claim was that when confronted with a financial incentive, people who drive recklessly will stop driving recklessly. Would this be the case if we paid people £50/month to drive better?

It makes no sense at all. The problem in policy is generally that you have people talking past each other: speed limits are effective for people who are generally going to comply with them anyway, they are not intended to stop serious accidents. The majority of accidents are not caused by "accidents" (as most people on here would think them), they are caused by people who drive recklessly a huge proportion of the time and eventually have an accident.

Again, the solution to this is simple: do not give these people driving licences. In the UK, you can kill someone with your car driving recklessly and be out of jail in 18 months. And I don't think people realise this is true, or that this won't have been the first "near miss" for these people...it will have been months and years of doing stuff that will kill someone, and eventually killing them. How are they supposed to kill people with cars if they can't own a car?

Re: Tesla fined for repeatedly failing to help UK police over driving offences

#70

Post by londons_explore »

doublerabbit wrote: post #38
sensecall wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a ludicrous system – I've experienced it first hand. If for some reason the letter isn't delivered (or indeed sent), the original offence is scrapped and a new offence issued for Failure to provide information. Frustratingly, there is no obligation on the Police to provide proof of posting, and per the law, it is deemed received once sent. Try proving you didn't receive something...

My father worked on the early 90's contract that implemented the speed camera's on the motorway. The future road map was to make these digitally automated. Dark Fibre was laid but the plans were scrapped as the government saw it as a waste of money. This is why we are stuck with the ludicrous system. For a long while if you were changing lanes while speeding through the camera it couldn't capture the plate. Again the…

> Dark Fibre was laid

And now you would never bother laying fiber to a speed camera when you can just put a SIM card in the thing.

Post reply on HN