New penalties for drivers are misconceived

From: Rex Poulton, Salisbury.

The recent proposals for raising Britain’s road safety standards with additional careless driving penalties, are misconceived and highly illegal.

Misconceived, because road accidents are caused by carelessness and inattention, not by wilful intent.

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Illegal, because spot fines and fixed penalty notices are contrary to Constitutional Law. Magna Carta 1215 and The Bill of Rights 1689 (both extant Higher Law which cannot be impliedly repealed by Statute Law) state that we cannot suffer any fine or forfeiture unless we have been found guilty of an offence in a court of law. Moreover, such fines imposed by the court shall not be excessive and no cruel or unusual punishments be inflicted.

Other than mobile phone use which is difficult to detect and prevent and invariably leads to driver distraction with potentially serious consequences, the acts now proposed for criminalisation are not so much life-threatening as repressive additions to an already authoritarian regime.

Let me give an example.

Choosing a wrong lane at roundabouts can result from mistake or confusion from the plethora of misleading road signs. Why criminalise a mistake? In any case, the Highway Code makes clear that multiple lanes may be used depending upon the exit point. Prosecution for inappropriate speed is entirely subjective, wide open to exploitation and undermines the point of speed limits.

From: Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe Moor Road, Radcliffe, Manchester.

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IF a person has a criminal record, or indeed one of “simple” anti-social behaviour, would they be granted a firearms licence? If a person had a mental illness, such as depression, and therefore possible suicidal tendencies, would they be granted a firearms licence? What about bullying or wife beating – potential killers?

Why then do we grant any of these people a driving licence? “Disturbed and troubled” people are responsible for some six motor vehicle-related “killings” every day. Ninety per cent of “killings” (it’s said), are caused by driver error, and therefore preventable, yet as often as not, they are called accidents.

Our cloud cuckoo land

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold.

a NUMBER of unconnected issues which have appeared (Yorkshire Post, June 18) show just how far the UK has succumbed to over-regulation, mass hysteria, dumbing down, waste of resources and effort and politicians living in cloud cuckoo land.

In his letter published on the same date, Peter Rushforth has clearly stated the unacceptable continued overseas aid fiasco which surely cannot be justified; we continue to hand out questionable awards to all and sundry through the much-abused honours system; we spend more time in watching the antics of overpaid footballers and go crazy over the Olympic flame which is travelling around the UK – which is not the genuine article!

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Our politicians are not fit for purpose, particularly Miliband, Balls & Co, and Cameron still cannot decide whether he is a Lib Dem or pseudo/wet Conservative, but we spend millions of pounds on wasting time and effort on developing ghastly inefficient wind farms instead of developing a safe nuclear option for our energy needs.

There’s not much going for us, is there?

Threat from superstores

From: Keith W Sturdy, Grimbald Road, Knaresborough.

I NOTE the latest chapter in the saga of the proposed supermarket in the Wentworth Street car park in Malton. How can a council both sell and grant planning permission for the same site? How can this morally be right, and also how can the same council then refuse a similar planning permission to another applicant a few streets away?

I thought it would be too much to expect the Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles to call this in and do something about it. All this man seems to spend his time doing is thinking up silly schemes. In my view, he is John Prescott in Conservative clothing.

A small town like Malton does not need another supermarket on either of these sites. The local estate company should have been giving the cattle market a boost, instead of trying to run it down and sell the site.

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How is it that a car park in Wentworth Street was needed in the 1950s but is not needed for that purpose now, surely traffic has increased twenty fold in this time?

If either of these supermarkets are built, the local council, estate company, and Government should hang their respective heads in shame, it will completely destroy the local town and its small shops.

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