Fixed Penalty for careless driving. A profiteer's charter

LINCOLN, U.K. - June 7, 2013 - PRLog -- 'The Department For Transport, having ignored impartial experts in their consultation on fixed penalty for careless driving, have clearly listened to the rag tag and bobtails of the vested interest profiteers on the one hand and the ideologically anti driver groups on the other and intend to introduce careless driving by ticket' says the Drivers' Union.

Keith Peat, the group's founder and ex patrol officer says: ' This is a massive step change for drivers. Originating with yellow lines, fixed penalty has since been adopted for many offences, including littering and dog fouling, but, until now, all were for absolute and objective situations of fact. Now the fixed penalty is to be used for mere subjective opinion of the third most serious driving offence, careless driving. What next? Attempted murder by fixed penalty too?' he asks.

Announced with a collection of increases in penalties for other driving offences, the group points out that this is to muddy the waters as, unlike careless driving, they are absolute and objective offences and should never be mingled into the same announcement as ticketing for  careless driving.

Written into the proposal are the usual coercive options to accept the offence on the threat of a harsher penalty and also the requirement to go on a driver awareness course on payment to profitable PLCs. 'So this is feeding the insatiable Road Safety Industry yet again.' says Keith Peat. 'Either a driver is driving carelessly in which case he should be summonsed and tried at court or not! How do drivers who were not deemed to be driving carelessly before, suddenly become careless drivers now that there's fixed penalty?' He asks. He goes on: 'Fixed penalty should never be used for mere subjective opinion offences and on the whim of a police officer. That's what trials are supposed to be for. Didn't Hammond know that?' Asks Keith Peat.