No Added Deterrent
Page 36
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1'1RST appearances may often be misleading.
A reasoned appreciation and criticism of much of the Road Traffic .Act, 1956, should not—and indeed, could not—be made within days of the measure becoming law. This is so, although the broad outlines of it have been known for a year, for the reason that amendments of a major nature were being made to it right up to the third reading, only three days before it received the Royal Assent.
Moreover, many of the new ideas which it seeks to introduce are, in their present form, merely enabling provisions which give the Minister of Transport power to make the regulations or orders which will clothe with decency—and, one hopes, with efficiency—the bare skeleton of the particular sections of the Act in question.
Nevertheless, one may perhaps be permitted an observation in relation to those parts of the Act which deal generally with enforcement of the Road Traffic Acts, and in particular with the imposition of penalties for the commission of offences. In this connection, at least, there would seem to be good grounds for assuming that the Act fails in what. it sets out to do before it has even begun to operate.
A good deal of,emphasis throughout the passage .of the Bill was laid by those in authority—and certainly by many influential pressure groups— upon the complete inadequacy of many of the punishments provided by the Road Traffic Act, 1930. Moreover, there was a good deal of agreement that, with the carriage on the roads mounting yearly, malefactors should be more sharply deterred than at present. Deterrence, it may be noted, has in modern times far outweighed in importance the second of the three aims behind a fine or sentence—the punishment of the criminal. The third aim—the reformation of offenders—hardly applies to this branch of the • criminal law.
To take the more important examples of driving offences, the Act raises from f20 to f40 the maximum fine for a first offence of careless driving; from £50 to £80 for a second such offence; from £50 to £100 for a first offence of dangerous or reckless driving; and from £50 to £100 for 'a first offence of driving under the influence of drink or a drug. Thus it can be seen that in each case except one the effect has been to double the 1930 maximum punishments and that in the one exception the 1930 figure is not even doubled.
No doubt the Treasury could say what the value of the 1956 pound is in terms of that of 1930: one seems to recall a figure of about eight shillings vis-à-vis the 1939 pound, so presumably the figure is probably less than that. This shows quite clearly that the deterrent effect of such maxima is in fact considerably less than in 1930—at a time when deterrence would seem more important.
It is true that in several cases the courts are now given power to fine and imprison for a short term, instead of being restricted to fining or imprisoning the accused, but one questions whether this is• much of an added deterrent. A man may fear prison; if he is sentenced to it he probably cares little whether he is also fined.
The 1956 Act in this regard, at least, seems to fail in one of its avowed aims. All it does is to acknowledge what everyone knows:--the continuous and deplorable fall in the value of the pound.