Safety Features in Cars ...

[honeybee]

Also speeding fines in the UK bring in millions & millions of pounds each year

Compare the speeding fines with GST. GST is a source of revenue while a speeding fine is not. To increase revenues generated from GST, the government will (should) encourage consumption of products and services. If you think speeding fines are a source of revenue, or should be treated as such, the government would be encouraging speeding so as to maximise revenues.

If the cops are sitting idle without trying to prevent the overspeeding, I think you as a citizen should be able to drag them to court. Their primary responsibility is to prevent an unlawful event happening. Would you like if your local cop allowed a burglar into your house so he could arrest the burglar red-handed? Similarly would you like if a cop allowed you to overspeed, without warning you about the speed limits or the implications of overspeeding, and merrily wrote you a ticket once you were caught, again and again?

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[abhijit]

Compare the speeding fines with GST. GST is a source of revenue while a speeding fine is not. To increase revenues generated from GST, the government will (should) encourage consumption of products and services. If you think speeding fines are a source of revenue, or should be treated as such, the government would be encouraging speeding so as to maximise revenues.

If the cops are sitting idle without trying to prevent the overspeeding, I think you as a citizen should be able to drag them to court. Their primary responsibility is to prevent an unlawful event happening. Would you like if your local cop allowed a burglar into your house so he could arrest the burglar red-handed? Similarly would you like if a cop allowed you to overspeed, without warning you about the speed limits or the implications of overspeeding, and merrily wrote you a ticket once you were caught, again and again?

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Why do you expect the cop to issue a warning? The speeding signs are posted all over the roads. The fact that you possess a driver's license means that you had to take a test and are aware of all the rules.

[honeybee]

Why do you expect the cop to issue a warning? The speeding signs are posted all over the roads. The fact that you possess a driver's license means that you had to take a test and are aware of all the rules.

These are specific instances where the boards/signs are effectively a warning. But the principle still remains that fines are more of a deterrant to an offence, not a source of revenue.

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[NeedSomeAnswers]

Compare the fines with taxes. Taxes are a source of revenue, fines are not. Fines are to discourage people from doing certain acts. The effectiveness of the fines should not be measured by how much revenue it generated, but by how many incidents were prevented. The decision to raise fines would be taken only if there's no significant drop in the incidents leading to the fine. For e.g. if parking offenses aren't going down, you may want to increase the fine for illegal parking. Once the parking offenses start going down, the fines are working as intended.

If you are looking at fines as a source of revenue, it becomes more of a tax, because the enforcement agencies will only be interested in collecting the money, not in preventing the incidents.

I would say that many enforcement agencies ARE more interested in collecting revenue then deterring an offence.

Speeding & Parking fines have gone up massively in recent years without the corresponding rise in offences. These fines are some of biggest revenue generating sources for the Councils & Police in the UK.

[honeybee]

I would say that many enforcement agencies ARE more interested in collecting revenue then deterring an offence.

Speeding & Parking fines have gone up massively in recent years without the corresponding rise in offences. These fines are some of biggest revenue generating sources for the Councils & Police in the UK.

I think that's an indication of something wrong with the mindset of these councils.

Taking a broader view, the government provides the citizens with many facilities and services, law enforcement being one of them. A few others would be setting up the economy, infrastructure etc. Providing these services will take money, obviously. But this money should only come from the revenue-generation sources such as taxes. If any council decides to use the fines to fund their policing operations, it's becoming more of a corporate reorganisation and no longer a government operation. Yes, the money earned through fines may be good. But relying on it as a source of revenue is dangerous. For one thing, the council will only focus on the monetary value of the punishments. To take an example, the first speeding offence will cost you say 50 pounds, the second will cost 100 pounds, the third will cost a double of that. But it will always be x pounds. You will soon have the more serious types of punishments such as cancellation of your driver's license going off the list because they do not generate an equal monetary inflow. And some day some dullhead will come up with replacing all forms of punishments with monetary fines, so the traffic department can actually become a thriving business.

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[NeedSomeAnswers]

I think that's an indication of something wrong with the mindset of these councils.

I would agree

Taking a broader view, the government provides the citizens with many facilities and services, law enforcement being one of them. A few others would be setting up the economy, infrastructure etc. Providing these services will take money, obviously. But this money should only come from the revenue-generation sources such as taxes. If any council decides to use the fines to fund their policing operations, it's becoming more of a corporate reorganisation and no longer a government operation. Yes, the money earned through fines may be good. But relying on it as a source of revenue is dangerous. For one thing, the council will only focus on the monetary value of the punishments. To take an example, the first speeding offence will cost you say 50 pounds, the second will cost 100 pounds, the third will cost a double of that. But it will always be x pounds. You will soon have the more serious types of punishments such as cancellation of your driver's license going off the list because they do not generate an equal monetary inflow. And some day some dullhead will come up with replacing all forms of punishments with monetary fines, so the traffic department can actually become a thriving business.

Yep and in some ways it's already been happening, which is a scary thought. For instance (in the UK) you can get as many parking fines as you want and each offence will be dealt with by a fine unless you park in a clamping area and then they will of course tow your car. (as long as you pay each fine that is, if you don't pay the fines obviously you will be taken to court, but my point is there is no sliding scale were a repeat offender might get a more serious penalty)

Apparently ( i was speaking with a colleague about this earlier) the regulations have recently changed and Councils no longer have targets to meet regarding parking fines revenue. Personally i can't believe that they ever had targets regarding fines revenue !!