There can’t be many people that were sad to hear a ban on wheel clamping will be introduced shortly. It will only apply on private land, but proponents are celebrating the fact that “the menace of rogue, private sector wheel-clampers”, as Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone describes them, will finally be dealt a severe blow.
It takes very little to sympathise with the misery experienced by scores of motorists at the hands of unscrupulous firms that have been given carte blanche to apply almost any figure they like to release a clamp. However, there is a sneaky suspicion here that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater.
We can all be sidetracked during the media’s silly season by tales of 30-hour sit-ins by drivers unwilling to pay exorbitant fees to thick-necked men wielding clamps. But between the private-land-nabbing, free-to-park-anywhere mentality on one side and spiralling numbers of unregulated clamping firms on the other is an ocean of sensible approaches, sanctions and regulation.
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Like them or not, evidence shows speed cameras work. But with police forces and local authorities now figuring out what will survive funding cuts, the Gatso’s grip on our roads has become an easy target.
Politically this is dangerous territory; campaign groups point to the statistics showing unequivocally that cameras reduce accidents.
They also raise money too, but only for central government. The cost of operating speed cameras falls to councils, which raises the question why the entire scheme is not simply ring-fenced.
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Q. Which of these is a defence to the offence of ‘driving without insurance’?
a) The fact that your car insurance company usually automatically renews your insurance but didn’t on this occasion.
b) Saying you didn’t receive a notice requiring you to renew your insurance.
c) Being told by the owner of another vehicle that you could drive that vehicle and would be insured.
d) Arranging to set up a direct debit for insurance over the phone but subsequently finding out that no payment is taken.
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