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Assaults are up
– on the poor old British
motorist David Blunkett's scheme to add an extra £5 to all speeding fines is the latest in a long series of assaults on the Government's public enemy number one and great milch cow of the British tax system: the motorist. With the proliferation of speed cameras, extortionate petrol taxes, draconian traffic and parking restrictions in every major city centre and, last week, the announcement of new "superwardens", the humble car owner might have been forgiven for thinking that he was owed a little break. Not as long as he's a reliable source of government funds, he isn't. The Home Secretary's justification for the measure - that the money raised from offenders will be used to compensate crime victims - won't wash. If somebody, while speeding, causes an accident, they are usually guilty of a different, and greater, offence, which quite clearly has victims, compensated by insurance companies. But for the two million people a year who are convicted of speeding alone, there are no victims. The idea of compensating someone who's been hit over the head by a crook in west London, say, just because you've driven through Maidenhead at 36mph is a ludicrous non sequitur. And to class speeding offenders (who are unlikely to commit any other offence) in the same category as thieves, rapists and perpetrators of violent crimes is plain insulting. Mr Blunkett is trying to justify the scheme by whacking on even greater surcharges for the perpetrators of serious crimes, with a £30 fine paid by every prison inmate. But it is exactly those serious criminals who don't pay up, while the trusty motorist, who has the confiscation of his driving licence hanging over his head, can be relied upon to cough up. Another reliable source, the private businessman, is also at risk, with the proposal that employers should compensate staff who are criminally injured on duty. Some new source of cash was needed to fill up a yawning gap in the Government's balance sheet: its liabilities under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme have risen to £170 million, despite an attempt to limit claims by introducing a tariff scheme with exact prices for particular injuries. Claims have shot up in recent years, even though the Government claims that crime has gone down. That may be true of property crime, for which government compensation is not payable, but, by the Government's own admission, it is not true of violent crime, which has increased, and is compensated for. The pain doesn't stop here, either. The Government hasn't conclusively ruled out jacking up parking fines along the same lines. What next? A tax on windscreen wipers?
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