Agreed !
The fact that burglars are not going to admit being at the scene of the burglary does not mean that such a situation is beneficial or acceptable. As I say, because we have one situation where it is difficult to identify a perpetrator ( because the means isn't available) should not mean that we make no attempt to identify a perpetrator when the means *does* exist!
But really Mark - there is very little *effort* put into catching speeders. Once a camera is erected it works itself. The administrative effort in obtaining a registered keeper from a VRM takes no more time than typing out this response. The fact is that if we look across a range of offences, speeding is the one that is very easily detected by electronic means. The fact that other offences are not so easily detected by such means is no reason not to use such methods for speeding. In fact just the opposite because by using electronic means wherever they *can* be used, frees up officers to concentrate on other areas.
And so would I quite honestly - but it's not going to happen and we have to accept that fact.
Hmmm............. I was chatting to my next door neighbour last week. He had just come back for a short break in Northumberland and while he was up there decided to drive into Newcastle - hopefully for a stroll along the river. He'd never been into Newcastle before and got hopelessly lost just looking for signs 'to the river'. He was in a line of traffic when he became aware that the road surface was different - it was cobbled in strips and he suspected that he had strayed into a pedestrianised area. There were cars in front of him and cars behind him, however, so he presumed that any restriction must be time-limited. Two days after arriving home he received the dreaded 'driver notification' form telling him that his car had been seen by a traffic warden contravening a traffic prohibited area. He returned the form, properly filled in - but pointing out his lack of knowledge of the area and the fact that he was just 'following the traffic'. By return he received a fpt for £35. Now he didn't make a song and dance about it. He recognised that he must have missed the signs and contravened an order and so he paid up and fully accepted that was the right thing to do. His response and atbreastude was exactly and precisely as mine would have been in the same circumstances. I am no longer a police officer and I am a car owner. I am subject to exactly the same requirements as you or any other motorist. I really do not have a problem with the driver notification scheme and I am puzzled why anyone else should - *unless* they feel that they have a right to break the law and a right to do everything in their power to avoid conviction.
Kev
