Officers Not Cameras

New evidence has come to light this week from a survey conducted by Churchill insurance that has motoring organisations calling out for a decrease in speed cameras and an increase in police officers on our roads.

The information brought to light by the survey has shown that the practice of what is known as point swapping is on the increase in the UK. Point swapping is the act where a driver passes penalty points incurred through a speeding fine onto another driver with that drivers consent. The survey has suggested that a large number of the motoring public have done or are willing to take the wrap for a friend or partners speeding offence to save the guilty party from a disqualification.

If you are caught speeding by a fixed camera in this country you can expect to receive a fixed fine and the addition of three penalty points to your licence. These penalty points then remain on your licence for three years. If a driver accumulates over 12 penalty points on their licence at any one time they are automatically banned from driving for 6 months.

The problem is that some drivers are now abusing a loophole in the system by asking friends or relatives to take the penalty points by claiming that they were driving the car. This loop hole has come about by the fact that the majority of cameras only picture the speeding vehicle from behind, making it hard to determine who was driving.

It is the belief of some of the UK's largest motoring organisations that this trend has come about due to the fact that a lot of the UK's motorists believe that losing their licence will go hand in hand with loss of their jobs. This is forcing them to ask friends and relatives to take the wrap for their speeding offences.

It is believed that the government trend to increase the amount of speed cameras on the roads and decreasing the amount of traffic police has added to the problem. Although the amount of speeding offences in the UK has increased since 1999 disqualifications has fallen. The fact that the government has failed to look into this phenomenon has fuelled debate that these cameras are solely put in place to produce revenue for the government. By putting more police officers on the street it would be impossible to point swap as the motorist is booked their and then without the opportunity to persuade relatives to take the blame.

In closing, if the government wasn't so hell bent on increasing speed camera numbers to raise revenue then maybe they would be able to afford to police our roads better. If we had more police on the roads then issues such as point swapping would become rare and remove offending motorists from the roads. If we could remove the repeat offenders from the roads then surely this would make the roads a safer place resulting in less accidents and fewer costly low cost car insurance claims. Unfortunately until the government is willing to sit up and take notice of the problems these repeat offenders will continue to get away with their crimes and we will all suffer from low cost car insurance premium increases.