Reward for reporting idling cars.

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Bonefishblues
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Bonefishblues »

UC & Brucey thanks for your posts in response to one of mine. I'll digest.
Freddie
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Freddie »

Maybe the police could do something about streets being turned into a racetrack every weekend, this has happened in most of the places I have lived. Fines for those stupid, loud exhausts and bass driven stereos too, before bothering with unnecessary idling.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

No need to choose, they could deal with both
We need more vigilaunties
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Freddie
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Freddie »

They could deal with both, but they won't deal with either, given how things are dealt with at the moment and have been dealt with for at least, what, fifteen years or more.
SAJM
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by SAJM »

Audax67 wrote:Don't like the idea. When I lived in Germany I became very conscious of what they called the "anzeigementalität", i.e. a state of mind that takes delight in denouncing petty wrongdoers. E.g. chum turned his ankle on a loose paving and stumbled a bit while walking to his car, police turned up at his flat half an hour later with a breath test because some good citizen had noted his number plate and called the police because he might just have been drunk.

Bleh.


Happens here in the UK all the time. You Tube is full of amateur policemen and sadly a lot of them are cyclists who trawl around cities looking for offenders to film and report.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Cyril Haearn »

SAJM wrote:
Audax67 wrote:Don't like the idea. When I lived in Germany I became very conscious of what they called the "anzeigementalität", i.e. a state of mind that takes delight in denouncing petty wrongdoers. E.g. chum turned his ankle on a loose paving and stumbled a bit while walking to his car, police turned up at his flat half an hour later with a breath test because some good citizen had noted his number plate and called the police because he might just have been drunk.

Bleh.


Happens here in the UK all the time. You Tube is full of amateur policemen and sadly a lot of them are cyclists who trawl around cities looking for offenders to film and report.

I wish there were many more Amateur Policepersons
In my leafy suburb lots of vehicles are illegally parked although there is plenty of room
I should not bother reporting them myself mind, because nothing would be done, and I might be outed
Ther the are plenty of parking warders in town, if one parks legally but for too long one may indeed have to part with a little pocket-mon€y
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pwa
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by pwa »

I know pollution is a serious matter, and I accept that pointless idling (not keeping food frozen, charging batteries for emergency vehicles , etc) is harmful and antisocial, but there is something deeply creepy about folk who report things when they could instead have a bit more courage and just have a word.

Ultimately, things like this get better when folk start behaving better because of social pressure, worried more about what others think of them rather than some remote prospect of being prosecuted.
atlas_shrugged
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by atlas_shrugged »

Snitching Britain eh?

That being the case of claiming a percentage of the snitch, I would like to claim a percentage of all the sleeping policemen being removed in the UK. These have led to a massive increase in pollution and damage to brakes and suspension. Especially in towns and cities.

I am rich, rich, rich... Oh wait we do not do common sense in this country!

In France we think we saw a system that recognised cars coming into a village and if they were too fast they received a red light somewhere in the centre of the village. This seems a much more sensible system as the sanction is imposed only on the speeding drivers. I guess it would need to be backed up by a massive penalty for driving through a red light.
Mike Sales
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Mike Sales »

atlas_shrugged wrote:Snitching Britain eh?

That being the case of claiming a percentage of the snitch, I would like to claim a percentage of all the sleeping policemen being removed in the UK. These have led to a massive increase in pollution and damage to brakes and suspension. Especially in towns and cities.

I am rich, rich, rich... Oh wait we do not do common sense in this country!

In France we think we saw a system that recognised cars coming into a village and if they were too fast they received a red light somewhere in the centre of the village. This seems a much more sensible system as the sanction is imposed only on the speeding drivers. I guess it would need to be backed up by a massive penalty for driving through a red light.


Do not sleeping policemen only impose a penalty on those who drive over them too fast? Automatic, immediate and inevitable.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
atlas_shrugged
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by atlas_shrugged »

In a 30 zone travelling at less than 30 I brake to say 10mph for a sleeping policeman and then accelerate increasing my emissions but hopefully preserving brakes and suspension. Delivering spare car parts to garages (e.g. brakes and suspension) also increases emissions. Increasing pain for individuals with bad backs and ambulance patients is also not ideal.

I have observed Chelsea tractors and cars such as audis speeding away and not slowing for sleeping policemen. So IMHO the sanction is placed on the innocent and not on the guilty.

But a red light that does target speeders but gives no sanction to drivers travelling at less than the limit would be much more fair, less costly to install, and would cause less wear and tear on the roads.
Freddie
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Freddie »

pwa wrote:I know pollution is a serious matter, and I accept that pointless idling (not keeping food frozen, charging batteries for emergency vehicles , etc) is harmful and antisocial, but there is something deeply creepy about folk who report things when they could instead have a bit more courage and just have a word.

Ultimately, things like this get better when folk start behaving better because of social pressure, worried more about what others think of them rather than some remote prospect of being prosecuted.
If it was any time before the 2000s, I'd agree, but there are many lunatic people out there that would react very badly to any kind of 'word' you might have with them.

Social pressure only works if there is one concept of how things should be done and everyone at least acknowledges that it exists. In today's free for all I doubt many of these people know they are doing something wrong or would care if you told them. All they might care to do is get unnecessarily aggressive and quickly.

I'd prefer a world where what you suggest would work, but I think it is almost as dead and gone as VHS.
Samuel D
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Samuel D »

Agree with Freddie. Pwa mentions “social pressure” and people “worried more about what others think of them”, but those concepts don’t apply to large sections of the public. And naturally the troublemakers disproportionately fall into that bracket.

But even in a society with largely shared values, ‘having a word with the perpetrator’ isn’t an enticing proposition for women. Nor for men, given the appreciable risk of angry confrontation and even physical violence.
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Cugel
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Cugel »

pwa wrote:I know pollution is a serious matter, and I accept that pointless idling (not keeping food frozen, charging batteries for emergency vehicles , etc) is harmful and antisocial, but there is something deeply creepy about folk who report things when they could instead have a bit more courage and just have a word.

Ultimately, things like this get better when folk start behaving better because of social pressure, worried more about what others think of them rather than some remote prospect of being prosecuted.


I agree. Shaming is an old and well-tried technique in human communities for getting the naughty folk to act a bit less against the common good.

But the key word here is "community". We no longer have those. We have only "individuals" who are in fact biological robots programmed into various conformant behaviours generally classified as "consumer-producer". The programming doesn't bother with other kinds of conformity, especially if they interfere with buying stuff. You are what you buy and the only shame is in being unable to afford the latest must-have fashions.

People feel less and less inclination to be ashamed of anything, though. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". We even have two very fine role models for this attitude, right at the top of the "top-people" heap. in the form of the Trumpeter and the Bojoklown. They feel zero shame about any of their egregious behaviours and doings. "Why should anyone else", seems to be the main message. Do what thou wilt - but dressed in the latest designer-jeans, driving the biggest gas-guzzler whilst stabbing a finger at the latest gizmo.

Cugel
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Freddie
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Freddie »

That is one part of it, another is that we have people of all different cultures, religions, nationalities brought together in a way that they never have been before, told that all culture is equal and they shouldn't feel required to change just because the British do things a certain way.

I don't want to make this a discussion about what is or isn't superior, but I just think this new model is completely unknown to humanity historically and will inevitably end up in people acting in whichever way suits them. It seems in places where they have long had different ethnic and religious groups living alongside one another, they are often very strict about what is right, without much concern or quarter given for culture or religion (see Singapore, for example).

Something that is shameful in one culture, may be celebrated in another - how do you navigate that? The common good suggests a sharing of values to an extent where everyone can pull in the same direction. I just don't think that is possible, even with the best will in the world, where you have so many disparate people living side by side and they are not required to adhere, to some extent, to an overarching culture.

It seems inevitable that people would be more individualistic (read as selfish) in such a society, as the ties that bind them would be fewer.
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Mick F
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Re: Reward for reporting idling cars.

Post by Mick F »

pwa wrote:I have always said that vehicle taxation should be shifted to the fuel, rather than VED and VAT. It ticks all the boxes for me.
Not for me it doesn't.

You'd be penalising drivers out in the countryside who have no choice but to use their cars.

I agree that in a Uptopian world, public transport would be everywhere for everybody, but until that comes, there are millions of folk who have no choice but to own and use a private car. Blame part of it on Dr Beeching.
Mick F. Cornwall
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