Metal theft. The biters bit

[Cynic]

No, I am simply asking you the same sort of question as you asked me.

Yes - which rather makes the sort of vigilante attitudes expessed by posters on this thread a bit questionable, don't you think?

How about a newspaper article?

So you *do* approve of vigilante action. I thought so.

Consider that even if "caught in the act" it is seldom 100% certain that the person is in fact guilty of what he appears to be guilty of. Misinterpreting someone's actions is quite common.

Not to mention the fact that if someone were to catch you in the act of taking vigilante action, then by the same principles they would also be justified in taking action against you - and so on and so on.

Done to death in this group - use Google.

[Cynic]

No, that does not follow at all. Many pedestrians are killed every year by being struck by trains. Does that indicate to you that the train was travelling at an unsafe speed?

What you say is true only if excessive speed *was a causal factor* in the accident. Which I believe is not the case in the majority of accidents (including those where the driver was exceeding the posted speed limit).

[Cynic]

You will find that they have more crimes per unit of population than we do.

[Cynic]

Can you honestly say that you have *never* in your life done anything that was extremely stupid to the point of being dangerous?

Between the ages of roughly 12 and 20, the greatest influence on behaviour is the peer-group. The type of peer-pressure a child experiences correlates very closely to the type of neighbourhood the child lives in. Many parents do not have a great deal of choice over the area they live.

It must be really nice living in your black-and-white World.

[Steve Walker]

As I've said elsewhere, I have lived in the same area for forty-odd years and the only failures of more than 15 minutes (other than the incidents mentioned above) have been planned maintenence or strikes, where people are warned in advance. Thefts can knock power out for lengthy periods and without warning. The NHS's position was, it's got a short battery life to allow you to switch the bottle on if the alarm goes off. That's your backup. Never mind whether she had to go out, the alarm could not be heard from the kitchen if he was in bed! Maybe things have improved now, I don't know, but that was all that they could get then.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

The simple fact is - no carer can be there 24/7 without having to do other things (possibly even working to maintain the roof over their heads), but social services, etc. will frequently not provide the cover necessary. How does someone caring for a relative get a young child to and from school every day or not get sacked from work when paid for carers cannot guarantee to turn up at the same time for instance? Many people having been warned multiple times will feel that they have no choice but to get to work on time and "the carer will be here soon." Take a chance or lose your job and then your home - a hard choice!

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

My uncle didn't misintepret the actions of a teenager who stole the tools of his trade out of his van while he was up on a roof unable to get down in time and then ran off with them, laughing at him and giving him some verbal abuse.

The police response was, "here is a crime number."

As it happens, he was down on the ground when he saw him the next day :)

What would you have done? Called the police, who would turn up and as the tools were by then no doubt sold on, would just say "there is no evidence?"

No. OTT vigilante action or action on rumour is morally as well as legally wrong. Reasonable punishment of the genuinely guilty when the authorities won't or can't act is only legally, not morally wrong.

Only second hand, sorry.

[Steve Walker]

Or punished?

There are many crimes for which cautions or small fines are deemed sufficient now where custodial sentence would have at least been considered in the past.

Who cares about getting caught, if there is no punishment when you are?

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

Children trespassing, but meaning no harm are very different to adults damaging and stealing deliberately.

SteveW

[Tony Bryer]

But given that UK speed limits are graduated in 10mph intervals, a highway engineer might consider 37mph to be perfectly safe, so the road has to be given a 30mph limit, and people then get camera tickets for doing 35 - illegal but not necessarily unsafe.

[Tony Bryer]

Here railway lines aren't routinely fenced, even in suburbia - of course we only have overhead electric not third rail. The deaths tend not to be trespassers, rather people ignoring warning lights at crossings (uh, second train coming opposite direction) and the plain stupid:

"PREMIER Ted Baillieu has indicated tougher penalties for train surfing, after a teenager was killed in Melbourne's south-east on Tuesday night. James Wilkinson, 17, died when he was electrocuted on the roof of a train near Caulfield station just before 11pm. Last year, 330 fines of $293 each were issued to people train surfing in Victoria."

I wouldn't fine them: I'd make them work in a morgue for a week or two.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They may be cautioned for a first offence. But not a repeat of one. Indeed the first one may be taken into account when deciding on the penalty for the second.

[Frank Erskine]

But not always. There's a regular repeat offender around here, who reappears every few months for similar charges, who seems to get away with previous convictions, and has done for about 20 years...

[Dave Liquorice]

one.

Presumably "petty crime" for which the maximum is say 6 months inside. Behaves himself inside, gets out in a month and half?

[Ian Jackson]

For a long time I have said that our 20/30/40/50/60/70mph speed limits are not 'natural'.

For example, in (say) a 30 limit, 30 is often unnecessarily slow, and in practice you find many people slightly bending the law by driving at the more 'natural' speed of 35mph.

Similarly, there are many locations where 30 is really too fast, and maybe 25 would be more appropriate.

The same goes for the other limits. They generally seem a bit too fast or a bit too slow. It therefore seems logical that we should consider speed limits of 15/25/35/45/55/65/75mph (some of which are common in the USA).

[Andy Burns]

Is there anything natural about 35, other than people knowing they usually have a bit of leeway above the limit? Therefore 'everybody' drives above the limit leading to that feeling 'natural' ...

[Ian Jackson]

Oh, this is true. in a 30 limit, I often find myself drifting towards a 'more natural' 35, and I realise that it will be extremely unlikely that I will be done for this minor transgression. However, I would be a bit more alarmed if I found that I had been travelling at 40. On the other hand, where conditions indicate that I should, I often find myself naturally doing 25mph. It just seems that 'n5' limits would be more appropriate.

[news]

Crowe pesters urg all the time and is treated as one of those species that usenet seems to attract - narcissus fuckwittus. It isn't worth getting into a 'discussion' with him as all he does is make some bizarre statement and then accuses everyone of being wrong. This applies particularly to those that don't even respond to him.

In this thread and others in urg, harry comes across all the time as a bitter soul. Anyone that doesn't share his views is clearly wrong and almost certainly ignorant. Harry is right because he is harry. Naturally, the rest of us need to just accept this.

[Bill Wright]

Given the enormous variation in drivers and vehicles no speed limit can be correct for all circumstances.

Bill

[Nick Odell]

Beggin' your pardon an' all that, and speaking as someone who spends a lot of time in South America, has seen the poverty you mention and works from time to time for a charity in Paraguay, I have seen terrible things in this country too.

People - usually with mental health issues who haven't the expertise nor the support to gain the attention of overworked agencies - who have dropped right through the holes in the so-called safety-net of our so-called civilised society.

Nick