Grass a friend...

Re: yes

I liked colinmaslens point about people thinking of ddd'ing then thinking again ooer praps I won't, which I hadn't thort of...but bored now, think this done to death. Any thoughts on the arab-israeli conflict Byron? or euthanasia praps, that's a bit less contentious...
 
Re: Duh? don\'t d&d then!...

Interesting response

"The 360 makes your ears bleed with the noise above 120. We diced with one up the autoroute for 100 miles, his engine a complete racket when in front, so natch we blew him away."

I appreciate your dedication to road safety.

The point I was trying to make is that the breathalyser law is unusual in that a single meter reading is sufficient to establish guilt.

I fully understood and agree with Byrons point, but a similar scheme could not be run for the crimes he suggests for the simple reason that the reporter would be a witness and as soon as he gave evidence the defence would ask how much the police had paid him to give that evidence - Case dismissed.

I went on to argue that the police use this law or rather abuse it to generate a large number of of succesful prosecutions, most of which are a result of "random" checks where no loss or injury has occured.

Again with proper crimes this would be thrown out of court. Can you imagine the police searching peoples houses at random in the hope of finding stolen property, evidence of child abuse etc.

What I would like to see is the enormous amount of police resource devoted to this redirected to the sort of crimes Byron indicates. Police thinking tends to mystify me, if you report a break-in or theft from a car they will record the event and do nothing, but they spend a small fortune on high powered cars and helicopters which they use to catch an occassional car thief, all to often they manage to kill someone in the attempt which makes you wonder about their dedication to road safety.

I did not, and never have advocated drinking and driving, I don't drink and havn't done for years. In the last 25 years I have driven over 1 million miles with only 1 minor accident (that was the other guys fault) and no prosecutions. I still drive around 40,000 a year so have as much vested interest as anyone in road safety.

I do agree that speed kills, it kills far more people than drink and I would far rather this was the focus of road safety efforts than drink.
 
Re: Politcial Correct, but otherwise irrelevant

Good research! But irrelevant.

We weren't discussing crime, or DD, but grassing. But Okay, you want to open the issue of DD being a crime, and wonder at why there's a prosecution with no victim? It's the same reason as "conspiracy to murder" is a crime. Drunk in charge of a motor vehicle is simililarly a large potential disaster/crime, quite simple, one would have thought. I don't particularly have a problem with potential wife-beaters, child beaters also being investigated either by police and social services in advance of a more serious or fatal crime being committed, nor a grassing fee being payable to those who report other potentioal problems: imho it would move the law to actively encourage reporting, and encourage the perpetrators (and the far greater number of potential perpetrators( to think again. There's already procedures to do exactly this, and much handwringing when apprehension in advance fails to happen.

Unfortunately, your argument then followed the 1990s New Labour "polically correct" rules. This means that nobody BUT NOBODY can speak about anythiog if they are in the least little bit "involved", either by what they say, or what they do, or what they might say, or what some others might think that they might say, but haven't.

For example : business people can't speak out about tax, cos they're Fat Cats. Teachers can't suggest other ways of teaching, because they're Lazy. Policeman can't suggest other better ways ways of catching criminals because they too are lazy, and probably only want to catch DD's and do as little as possible. Any politician who is rich, old, young, experienced, male, female is similarly disbarred from speaking out with regard to anything which they might have closer knowldge. Lastly, matts can't comment about road safety cos he drove fast, in aargh a Ferrari, at ooer over 120mph.

In fact, people who pay lots of tax know lots about tax, teachers know lots about teaching, and so on. Policeman know most about how to catch criminals and your cynical comments of their work and their latest attempt to deter and/or catch drink-drivers is ridiculous. The fact that you have driven a million miles, invariably at under the speed limit I trust (really??) doesn't enhance the quality of your viewpoint. Quite the reverse. Indeed, if you are unable to control and think ahead for yourself and for other road users (but you chose not to cite those bits where I said 20ph or 10mph past schools eh?) means you are a less experienced/knowledgeable driver than some others, in the same way that someone who has never been in a storm is less effective as a sailing instructor.

Sadly, we now have a public besotted with fashionable cynicsm and boneheaded inexperience masquerading as "purity". Ex-ministers are therefore chucked out the house of lords, our Chancellor who didn't even buy champagne for his wedding and has never had a commercial job holds the pursestrings...the transport minister has an even cleaner driving record than you (he doesn't drive) ....and the prime minister who really should feel able to join the discussions regarding the pro's and cons of planned/unplanned middle-age child rearing over the issue of the use of cloning to help childless menopausal parents is conspicuous by his total silence.
 
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