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Hypocritcal attitude to speeding hypocrisy
Reproduced with kind permission of Stuart Winton from his blog on Planet Politics In an interview with the Telegraph, one of the UK's longest-serving chief constables accuses middle class motorists of "hypocrisy", and says: "Speeding is middle-class anti-social behaviour. People think we should be able to get away with it. They wouldn’t tolerate lawbreaking by somebody else but they do it themselves without thinking." While there is some merit in that view, on the other hand policing is all about exercising discretion as regards the enforcement of minor lawbreaking. Perhaps the phrase 'turning a blind eye' can be viewed as slightly critical of that approach, and 'a nod and a wink' is more pejorative still, but the fact is that the vast majority of minor motoring offences go unpunished. And it's probably also true to say that police ignore the vast majority of such offences that they witness - it's not just about lack of resources - so the charge of hypocrisy from Julie Spence, outgoing chief of Cambridgeshire Police, is a bit rich. Also, with the advent of more automated - and thus hugely more effective - methods of speed limit enforcement, the culture of turning a blind eye has become more institutionalised. In response to the complaints from these middle class "hypocrites" about being 'caught out' by speed cameras, the authorities have gone out of their way to accommodate them. Thus a whole industry has grown up with the aim of avoiding speed enforcement, from brightly coloured cameras to the official publication of their locations, with the latter extended by the private sector in the form of things like road atlases and electronic navigation equipment. Of course, the superficial aim of all this is to get drivers to slow down for the speed cameras - and from the speeding drivers' perspective, to avoid being 'caught out' - and to an extent that's clearly laudable. But this ignores the bigger picture and the consequence of the ethos created, which is essentially selective speed enforcement, and tacit endorsement of speeding as corollary. As argued here previously, if the official approach to speed enforcement was applied to other aspects of criminality then there would be a public and political outcry. Hence the official stance on speeding is hypocritical, and any official criticism of driver hypocrisy merely underlines that. Due to problems with spam only SalfordOnline members can now leave comments. Becoming a member of SalfordOnline only takes a minute, just hit the red Join Us button at the top right hand side of the page to create your Personal account. |
