You can get an automatic fixed penalty notice if you’re caught using a hand-held phone while driving or riding. You’ll get 3 penalty points on your licence and a fine of £100.
(my bold)
For not 'picking up' after your dog:
(I do appreciate that if you contest the FPN "Your case could also go to court and you could be disqualified from driving or riding and get a maximum fine of £1,000."
Not really. The quantity of dog waste on pavements and public fields and the lack of any bleating culture in the media suggests fines aren't handed out that often. Up to £1000 doesn't add up to much if it's based on multiples of zero.
Relatively speaking fines aren't handed out for 'driving distracted' at the rates of actual offences, fouling by dogs is probably more heavily 'policed' The peak yearly mobile phone prosecutions were just over 8k in 2011, given the government beleive over 500,000 are flouting the law every single day it's microscopic
You can get an automatic fixed penalty notice if you’re caught using a hand-held phone while driving or riding. You’ll get 3 penalty points on your licence and a fine of £100.
(my bold)
Clearly we understand that FPNs are in place of a conviction for the underlying offence at greatly reduced penalty. Using a mobile phone while driving is (at least) driving without due care and attention, for which the maximum penalty on conviction at a magistrates court is £5,000 and disqualification.
To be fair, I think the Dog Poo and Mobile Phone problems are dealt with (or not) by different bodies, so there is probably not one single list of priorities in operation.
For motoring offences I feel the most important sanction is the imposition of penalty points or a ban. I don't know why a fine is imposed, as it clearly influences the wealthy much less than the poor. Points and bans work across the wealth spectrum.
I'd like to see an immediate ban of a couple of months for driving with a phone in the hand. That would focus minds.
I think £1000 is the standard max fine for all sorts of littering, from a sweetie wrapper to industrial fly-tipping. I would imagine the handful of pooing cases that go to court end up with a much smaller fine, probably less than £100.
I would like to see a bit more parity between the offences. The introduction of a dog keepers' licence and three points for every infraction. I will spare the dog from being crushed at twelve points, just a ban on the keeper.
beardy wrote:I would like to see a bit more parity between the offences. The introduction of a dog keepers' licence and three points for every infraction. I will spare the dog from being crushed at twelve points, just a ban on the keeper.
I'm imagining a sad old dog left at home on his own, his owner locked away in a human pound!
A more general aspect is that I don't like the "price for the offence" system that so many offences seem to have.
Quiet a few offences are always deliberate and conscious choices by the offender. For example, doing 36 mph in a 30 limit could happen through a lapse of concentration and be aggravated by other factors (e.g. driving in a queue of traffic all doing 36 mph, etc. - does not make it right but it is not always a conscious deliberate choice. But picking up your mobile whilst driving to send/read a tweet/text/whatever is a deliberate choice - you have to think to do it. So having a narrow range of penalties seems weird. I would prefer a system of fast escalating penalties e.g. where it's a fine 1st offence is £200, 2nd £2000, 3rd £20000, etc. and when you get to the point where people cannot pay (or their penalty would significantly impact other non-offenders) you trade money for prison sentences. There are probably far better ways to design such a system but I think there should be a faster escalation.
It's a bit like "you have been warned (£200), do not ignore the warning".
Or a per earnings system - £200 or 10% monthly earning, whichever is greater.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way.No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse. There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
