This is rather like the argument put forward by someone a few years ago on the radio. "If there are no ticket inspectors, why should I pay a train fare?"
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10 years ago
Replacement car registration plates.
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10 years ago
On Thursday 13 June 2013 10:36 David.WE.Roberts wrote in uk.d-i-y:
London - failry often.
My village - not since last bonfire night.
The house opposite used to be the police house - home and office (I think) to one local copper.
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10 years ago
On Thursday 13 June 2013 10:56 charles wrote in uk.d-i-y:
The "man in the street" can understand and largely agree that paying for your rail ticket is morally a sound idea.
No ordinary person I know sees any point in "production of ID for a new number plate for a car you own".
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10 years ago
So because you perceive the implementation as bad, the reasoning behind it is inherently and automatically bad?
What you're arguing doesn't seem to me to be any different from claiming that because people break the speed limit, the reasoning behind having a speed limit is bad. Or requiring cars to be traceable, insured and roadworthy. Or importing and selling drugs. Or people-smuggling. Or burglary. Or mugging. Or 1970s TV "celebs" or priests shagging children. Or MPs fiddling their parliamentary expenses. Or police staff selling investigation details to the press. Or journos hacking mobile phones.
Should it _matter_ whether it's a policeman or a PCSO? Again, you seem to regard the logic and the implementation as indivisible.
But Saturday lunchtime. One of each, walking the beat as a pair in a quiet and peaceful small town.
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10 years ago
In Canterbury, frequently.
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10 years ago
Until it's their car that gets cloned. Then it seems like a _really_ good idea.
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10 years ago
Of which the making of false number plates is probably the most trivial part. It seems a little like trying to stop people letting bombs of by requiring ID to buy matches.
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10 years ago
Really? Seems to me that getting and fitting a set of false plates is the ONLY work required to clone a car.
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10 years ago
On Thursday 13 June 2013 11:19 Adrian wrote in uk.d-i-y:
I've already said DIY plate kits are legally available. And even if they weren't, it would not take a huge amount of effort to make a fake plate - unless you are going to prohibit the sale and possession of blanks too.
It's a stupid non solution to a real problem.
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10 years ago
So what's your suggested solution?
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10 years ago
Adrian wrote: .
It depends on the car, and why it's being cloned. On my car, all you'd need is a set of plate, unless the vehicle was inspected internally, then you'd need to duplicate the maker's plate on the bulkhead as well.
On the Fiat Panda I used to own, you'd also need to change the VIN, which is visible from the outside, and is routinely checked by traffic wardens writing tickets, and traffic police when they stop you. If they don't match, the DVLA computer flags an error, often asking for the engine numer as well.
If all you're worried about is scameras, then you're right.
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10 years ago
Is this not standard now?
(Obviously not for old vehicles, but any new ones.)
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10 years ago
It has been legally required for many years. My everyday transport is, however, 45 years old....
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10 years ago
On Thursday 13 June 2013 12:51 Adrian wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Get rid of auto tolls and all the myriad stasi cameras and get real policemen out on the roads...
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10 years ago
And when the real live policeman follows a car, and checks it against the insurance/MOT/DVLA/Wanted databases, and it comes back clean - because the plates are cloned...?
After all, he can't easily check the VIN or engine number at 70mph on the M'way.
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10 years ago
It depends what you mean by "cloning" I guess. For the most basic action, why bother getting false plates ? Just steal them from the car you want to "clone". It's not like the owner can change the registration number, so *they* will be forced to buy the new plates, whilst matey-boy disappears into the distance with the originals to fit wherever they want.
When scameras were first introduced, thieves blitzed a road where a friend of mine lived, and took over 30 sets of plates one night.
When cloning was mentioned, I imagined the more sophisticated end, involving forged documents, and dodgy VIN plates ....
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10 years ago
Bit of a giveaway that there's a hooky set out there, though.
Do you _know_ your car's the only one on that set of plates?
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10 years ago
Yes - the reasoning behind the law is bad if the law is unenforceable. The requirement for action may be very logical - cloning a number plate (to avoid paying speeding fines and congestion charges) may be a problem that really needs sorting. However any law brought in should have a good chance of achieving the aim of solving the problem. If there is no enforcement then the basic problem is not the lack of yet another law. Do you think that passing the law has solved the problem?
Laws which are not enforced lead to a contempt for the law.
An impeccable source from 2011
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suggest that up to 30% of drivers in some parts of the country are uninsured.
So is the law solving the problem? Or are people seeing their mates drive uninsured and save loads of money because they are never caught? Are children seeing their parents routinely break the law and growing up to believe that this is normal behaviour? Would passing another law saying that it is really, really bad solve the problem? Or would enforcing the existing law make people take more notice?
And yes - if you are not going to enforce a speed limit then the reasoning is bad.
If you are going to enforce it then the reasoning is often (but not always) good. Urban speed limits are more likely to be enforced than motorway speed limits and there is more risk to non-drivers. I can't remember ever seeing a speed camera on a motorway apart from the variable speed zones around the M25.
The PCSO is an indication of lack of funding for fully trained police officers. The underlying problem is that we don't have the resources and the will to enforce existing laws so adding new laws isn't going to make things magically better.
The police are there to enforce the laws. If there are just too many laws for the police to enforce effectively then the police will pick and chose which ones they enforce and which ones they tacitly ignore.
Passing laws which the police will then tacitly ignore seems to me to be a trivial and pointless exercise (apart from politicians being able to point to them to show how proactive they have been in solving the problem).
Yes, I do regard the logic and the implementation as indivisible. A law which will not be enforced is a pointless law which does far more harm than good.
You listed a whole load of areas where people broke the very obvious laws and got away with it so easily that it became an endemic thing. Everyone was doing it so where's the problem? Nobody got punished for it, society protected them so it must be O.K. Forty years or more down the line there is much wringing of hands and spates of accusations but the law wasn't any protection at the time, was it?
So - review existing law. It will almost certainly cover almost any imaginable offence (and a few you probably never even considered). Then ENFORCE it or REPEAL it.
If the existing laws were enforced effectively then people would take notice of them and any new laws. Sadly, most new laws are treated as just more background noise.
Cheers
Dave R
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10 years ago
On Thursday 13 June 2013 13:57 Adrian wrote in uk.d-i-y:
He can after he's stopped you, which a scamera cannot.
As for insurance/MOT this used to be managed fairly adequately by eyeballing the tax disc.
As for 3rd party insurance - it should be scrapped as a driver bought commodity and automatic state backed cover provided paid for by a a small hike in fuel duty. This would remove "the uninsured driver" problem completely and remove one check that ANPR cameras do.
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10 years ago
So ? Unless there is a database of stolen plates (and in the incident I alluded to above, the plod who attended admitted he hadn't the faintest idea if there was or not) it's moot.
Nope. I also don't know we won't be hit by an asteroid tomorrow. Neither keeps me awake at night.