Boating offences - disproportionate punishments?

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Which is worse? Inadvertently driving the wrong way up the M1 or inadvertently straying into the wrong lane of the Dover TSS with your motor boat? The former would probably cause a multi vehicle pile up and probable deaths whilst the latter might give the officer of the watch on a few commercial ships an anxious moment or two. Yet, drive the wrong way up the M1 and you'll likely get done £100 or so for driving without due care and attention whilst mistakenly entering the TSS gets you a £6000 fine + £2000 costs HERE
How about this? Which is worse? Drive past a primary school at chucking out time at 50mph in a 30mph limit or do 11kts in the Hamble River entrance? The former gets you a £60 fine and the latter gets you a £460 fine + £2000 costs HERE
This kind of thing worries me. Give the peak capped little Hitlers who are charged with looking after our coastline a fancy new RIB, a speed gun, access to a helo and a few regulatory powers and IMHO they are going to abuse them. Whilst it might not be a huge issue now, I can see the day when some empire building civil servant or interfering politico thinks it's a good idea to regulate and police larger boating areas like the Solent or Thames Estuary. Doubtless there will be apparently good reasons like fighting terrorism or illegal immigration or drink boating but, for sure, Plod will find it a whole lot easier to persecute and fleece otherwise law abiding boaters in the name of safety than catch real criminals
The thin end of the wedge IMHO
 
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Give the peak capped little Hitlers who are charged with looking after our coastline

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That has to be one of the most moronic comments I've read on here to date.

To pick the two examples you use -
The speeding vessel in the Hamble was as you say only fined £460 - the decision to award costs lies with the court, not the "little Hitlers". If you drove at twice the speed limit in a crowded area you would not be fined £60 - you would be in court and a fine in the region of the low 00s would be more likely.
As for the Dover TSS, the offence was by an experienced skipper who stayed in the wrong lane for nearly an hour at speed - hardly a "mistake". He would have received numerous VHF warnings and caused the cost of sending up the spotter plane. As for your silly "anxious moments or two" have you ever been on the bridge of a fully laden tanker with an uncontactable vessel heading towards you, when you have 3 maybe 4 metres under you to move around in?

The fact dangerous driving is under-fined is hardly reason to moan about other areas - but your comment about "persecuting and fleecing" is just ridiculous. Perhaps you should spend some time clearing up the results of such idiocy before commenting!
 
I see your point but case number 1 the "experianced delivery skipper" could have run in close to the shore to get round the corner, no need to have joined the separation lanes at all, and case 2, if you had been up the mast I feel you would be a bit upset as well, what we are all going to have to bear is more interference but if we use our loaves they will soon tire of thier new found power.
 
I take it you are or aspire to be one of the peak capped little Hitlers then? First, a basic maths lesson. 2 x 30mph is not 50mph and, yes, it will get you a £60 fine
Whether or not the skipper of the mobo entered the TSS by mistake or deliberately (it is actually somewhat inconceivable that he entered it deliberately given his experience) is completely immaterial. Whether you exceed the speed limit in a car accidentally or deliberately, the fine is the same.
 
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soon tire of thier new found power.

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Can't speak for the Hamble, but the "new found power" for the TSS has been around since the 70s...and is rigorously used as the situation is too dangerous to allow transgressions.

Just try being in the wrong lane of a French TSS! A small plane above you will be least of your worries!
 
Do it in Holland and the local armed police will be waiting to speak with you. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Maybe, just maybe, the maritime administrations of various countries are right to impose a significant fine and threat of losing your certificate as opposed to the local authorities just giving you a slap on the wrist for your stupidity.

Having been through the English Channel a number of times on a very large ship with huge stopping distances and large turning circles, I think that they deserve everything they get /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
IMO Mike, this is yet another example of what this country has come to under New Labour.
We now live in a comunity that employs too many people doing jobs that aren't productive. I dont want to get on my "high horse" again but this is what happens when you spend too much money on public services. You just end up employing people for employment's sake. It's Gordon Brown's only solution to the economic problems that we're faced with. He just cant look beyond the end of his nose. He seems to think that by employing people to do stupid jobs like this, he is allowing them to earn their keep.

I like to consider the country as a household. Everything you sell (or all your income) less everything that you buy (your expenses) equals your wealth (your proffit). Just simple balance of payments. Now, taking the example further, just employing your kids (for example) to play with each other does nothing for the household economics.

IMO, we should be reducing public expenditure not increasing it. If income is greater than expenditure, eventually it will only be a matter of time and the profits will turn into wealth.

Sorry - political rant over now.
 
I don't know enough about the TSS to comment but regarding the Hamble, on the face of it, it sounds ridiculous and im with Deleted User on this one.
I'm not saying don't smack his wrists in some way but the fine seems ludicrous.
You can't compare a road situation with this. The risks like people walking on paths, closeness of other traffic and speeds involved are way way different.

This is one time where i think a road sized punishment wouldn't be out of line.. £60 fixed penalty tops..

All punishment should be graded in line with the genuine risk IMO
 
Hurricane -
Totally agree with the ethos of what you say, but I can't see how it applies to the examples Mike gave.
What are you suggesting - we disregard our international obligations and cease to manage the Dover TSS, probably the busiest TSS in the world? We allow a free for all with vessels going all over the place? Perhaps we should get rid of Air Traffic Control as well, far too unproductive...
As for the Hamble example, perhaps the guy who was up the mast at the time and nearly fell off sustaining serious injury should have been left to get on with it, and anyone should be able to navigate at whatever speed they wish regardless of the effects?
I can think of 000s of government employees who should be sacked as doing totally useless jobs, and a good few more who should go as a result of doing good jobs uselessly, but I'm not sure that allowing anarchy on the water will solve our economic woes....
 
Nicely killed thread - this was a genuine discussion between people who have different experience. It was a valid argument to air - from both sides of the debate. If all you want to do is campaign for the Tories, then take your half-assed political theories somewhere else and let us talk boats on here.
 
Oh get over yourself.
It's a different tack but it's all relevant when fines are being dealt out by government agencies...
 
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I take it you are or aspire to be one of the peak capped little Hitlers then? First, a basic maths lesson. 2 x 30mph is not 50mph and, yes, it will get you a £60 fine
Whether or not the skipper of the mobo entered the TSS by mistake or deliberately (it is actually somewhat inconceivable that he entered it deliberately given his experience) is completely immaterial. Whether you exceed the speed limit in a car accidentally or deliberately, the fine is the same.

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No, I happen to have a large amount of experience of navigating in areas like TSS on vessels where the approach of a small vessel in the wrong direction has to be dealt with.
I realise 2x30 is not 50, and don't need your patronising comments to point that out. The fact is that in BOTH examples the speed given is approaching double the limit - and if you can find a traffic cop that will allow double the limit on a £60 fixed penalty, you know some very different ones to the ones I know....
I'm not sure that saying the mobo skipper (a commercially licensed delivery skipper earning his living from the sea) made a mistake or not makes any difference - someone so qualified cannot make such "mistakes" and merely say "didn't know" - anyone who doesn't plan his course through a TSS carefully enough when professionally employed deserves to be dealt with. Perhaps next time I'm on board a tanker I'll take the most convenient route then claim I didn't know I'd done anything wrong....
 
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Oh get over yourself.
It's a different tack but it's all relevant when fines are being dealt out by government agencies...

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Neither fine was "dealt out" by a government agency. In both cases, the matter was brought before the courts, who could have levied far lower fines if they thought appropriate. They didn't, hence the amounts fined.
The MCA merely brings charges to court - it doesn't hand out bills.
 
Its the degree to which you police these things.

I think that Mike's example exactly proves my point.

Of course there are laws and they need to be enforced but IMO we have gone far too far and it is costing disproportionaly too much. Gordon has created a society that is too busy trying to be good to itself and has lost all sight of the reality of a productive economy where eventually everyone benefits.
 
Like I say, I don't disagree with the bulk of what you say - people fined for leaving the wrong bin out, etc is just plain ridiculous...as is much of Gordon's "do as you're told" state.
However, just think of the possible consequences in the TSS example - At 320,000 laden I have about 2m under me at HWS in certain places - I cannot move. Neither can the LPG tanker following me. If an idiot appears in front of us going the wrong way, I can either take avoiding action probably resulting in damage to my vessel, others and the environment, or let the idiot hit me and allow Darwin to take over. Either action results in a costly SAR operation, possibly with a clean up running into the millions. A bit of a different outcome to leaving your bin lid up on a Wednesday.
That's why Mike's examples were ill chosen, and his silly use of "little Hitlers" didn't help his case either.
 
As I say - there have to be laws but consider this:-

How long have ships been travelling through the TSSs without the intense policing that Mike points out?

It just isn't necessary to spend all this money doing these kind of things and as I say, we are now in a society that expects this kind of wastage.
 
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How long have ships been travelling through the TSSs without the intense policing that Mike points out?

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The Dover TSS has always been rigorously policed - since it was set up in 1977, following the Texaco Caribbean accident of 1971 in which a tanker exploded killing 8 crew following a collision. It was originally policed by radar from Deal in 1977, then the new station at Dover installed a better system in conjunction with the French at Gris Nez. Both authorities have been running spotter planes since the early 1980s. Prosecutions are rare, simply because the TSS is so well known. The UK penalties are actually fairly light compared to what the French levy if you're caught transgressing on their side.
 
Excuse my stupidity here, but as i'm not from the UK i'm half confused....

So the Dover TSS is the shipping lane at Dover, which is a damn busy shipping lane, yes?

And the incident you speak of is that a delivery skipper (what size boat) drove in the wrong lane for a long time?

These spotter planes - Planes fly over this shipping lane checking what direction boats are going in??

Do you have to notify someone if you want to go through this shipping lane, even in a small boat? What if you want to go accross it? (ie. Dover to france?)
 
Short answer, no.

I neither want nor can judge the "little Hitlers" part of the story, 'cause I don't know the facts well enough.
But with regard to your main question, my impression is that the disproportion - if any - is in those fines for driving offences, which are way too low.
 
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