9 April 2013

Rejoice leadfoots and crap parkers a fine is now less of a penalty

| johnboy
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Simon Corbell is chasing the obviously vast constituency of bad drivers and has announced the passage through the Assembly of the Road Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 which will let those few transgressors ever caught laugh off the penalties:

Disadvantaged and financially vulnerable drivers in the ACT will have additional options for dealing with their traffic and parking penalties under a new scheme passed into law today, Attorney-General, Simon Corbell said.

“The scheme, starting in late May 2013, will include options to pay penalties in instalments, undertake community work or social development programs in place of payment, or waiver of penalties in cases where someone has no ability to pay by instalments or participate in a program,” Mr Corbell said.

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Pork Hunt said :

Erg0 said :

So basically “someone [who] has no ability to pay by instalments or participate in a program” can now break the law with absolutely no fear of punishment? Unless they do something that will actually land them in jail, of course.

One has to be a wevy bad wabbit to end up in the AMC, I’m not sure if not paying your fines will qualify you…

Fair point – maybe this is just an accounting measure?

I am entirely speechless at this one. So some loser who incurs fines due to they way they drive their crapmobile can get some forgiveness if they cannot afford to pay the fine. I am struggling to see what this will do to keep a modicum of deterrence in the system. I would have thought that if you cannot afford the fine, you cannot afford to run the car. Drive it unregistered it should be seized and scrapped.

Silly people. If you don’t comply with your sentence, you risk it being escalated to the next one up. That’s how the criminal justice system has always worked. Judicial discretion will come into play, and this being the ACT that’s a bit of a lottery.

But if you don’t want to do your six months of weekends in prison, you may well find yourself doing six months inside prison instead, minus the weeks you have already served the weekends for. In fact that decision is made by the Sentence Administration Board, not by a court. Good luck. I’d be packing a toothbrush when you go to the SAB Hearing if I were you. And filling all your orifices with contraband that you can barter for your sexual and physical safety in prison.

IP

chewy14 said :

dpm said :

zorro29 said :

can jail terms now be served in instalments or replaced with some trash pick up?

Yep, those have bene in place for a while. Community Service Orders and Periodic Detention etc. Just ask IP (#14) all about it! 🙂

But I can’t make it to my periodic detention because I want to go out of town on the weekend for a friend’s birthday and I can’t afford to pay for the petrol or bus to drive to the jail either.

So how about we just waive it this time? Cheers, thanks.

exactly what i was thinking…

dpm said :

zorro29 said :

can jail terms now be served in instalments or replaced with some trash pick up?

Yep, those have bene in place for a while. Community Service Orders and Periodic Detention etc. Just ask IP (#14) all about it! 🙂

But I can’t make it to my periodic detention because I want to go out of town on the weekend for a friend’s birthday and I can’t afford to pay for the petrol or bus to drive to the jail either.

So how about we just waive it this time? Cheers, thanks.

zorro29 said :

can jail terms now be served in instalments or replaced with some trash pick up?

Yep, those have bene in place for a while. Community Service Orders and Periodic Detention etc. Just ask IP (#14) all about it! 🙂

can jail terms now be served in instalments or replaced with some trash pick up? i am kinda busy so i don’t wanna….seems to be the way the wind is blowing

zorro29 said :

ScienceRules said :

zorro29 said :

what the absolute f***???? the “disadvantaged” are always the ones flaunting the laws and driving like idiots cos they don’t care if their pieces of crap get smashed up and have nothing better to do than annoy others…now there is no financial penalty (potentially)???

i don’t want to pay a fine either even if i can “afford it”….but here’s a tip: if you don’t want to “do the time”, DON’T DO THE CRIME!

disgusting

and i don’t care if i get trolled by all the leftie bleeding hearts on here…this is ridiculous

Dude, I’m one of the lefty bleeding hearts and, if this really is the way it reads, I’m totally with you.

excellent! some sense

#16 – that is so productive of you. way to engage with the debate

#12 – if you want to compete on this, bring it on

Nah, you win the least-number-of-caps-and-most-question-marks category hands down. I’ve got nothing.

Simon Corbell, you are a total ******** knob-head.

I was actually fully in favour of Mr. Corbells proposal until I read the final 1 and a half lines.

If they want to pay off in installments or do a course instead, then by all means, go ahead. Doesn’t affect me. Letting them off the hook is about as smart as walking into Pyongyang waving the US flag.

ScienceRules said :

zorro29 said :

what the absolute f***???? the “disadvantaged” are always the ones flaunting the laws and driving like idiots cos they don’t care if their pieces of crap get smashed up and have nothing better to do than annoy others…now there is no financial penalty (potentially)???

i don’t want to pay a fine either even if i can “afford it”….but here’s a tip: if you don’t want to “do the time”, DON’T DO THE CRIME!

disgusting

and i don’t care if i get trolled by all the leftie bleeding hearts on here…this is ridiculous

Dude, I’m one of the lefty bleeding hearts and, if this really is the way it reads, I’m totally with you.

excellent! some sense

#16 – that is so productive of you. way to engage with the debate

#12 – if you want to compete on this, bring it on

Don’t support waiving any penalties but I wouldn’t mind the other changes if the penalties (fines or work required) were increased substantially to boost police presence on the roads. I know there are serious flaws in such a system but it’s getting so bad that I’d even entertain seeing police get bonuses based on uncontested road offences.

Yesterday I was cut off by a guy who indicated too late and I had to hit the anchors, only to discover there was a policeman on the side of the road who seemed to see everything but was only interested in the speeds showing up on his speed camera.

Diggety said :

I thought IP would be in a good mood on today of all days, I guess not!

For why? The passing of Maggie? She passed a long time ago, ceasing to be a part of the political landscape. Unfortunately her legacy lives on and didn’t die this week or years ago.

IP

I figured a link to this http://the-riotact.com/got-the-monday-parking-blues/99899 would be worthwhile. Troll (sorry, trawl) through the photos, and see how many owners of these cars you think would struggle to pay the fines. In the 10 photos (I didn’t go through the slideshow again) the only really crappy car I saw is a Magna. It seems Canberra’s bad parking is the remit of the middle and upper income brackets, not the strugglers. I recall an illegally parked Aston Martin in the Monday Mayhem recently – they would pay the fine out of their small change. No deterrent there then.

So that’s parking dealt with – what other offences are we worried about? Driving unregistered or unlicenced? Speeding? Drink driving? Well, as someone else hinted, the fine is only part of the penalty for that, with demerit points, suspensions, and community work, good behaviour orders, imprisonment in all its forms (suspended, weekend, full-time), so it’s not like anyone’s going to be getting away with murder. (Oops, bad metaphor in canberra, where many people do.)

Of course, if you’re serious about wanting to clamp down on dodgy parking then maybe apply demerit points to it. And/or make it a proper criminal offence so it can be dealt with in the courts, with the full range of penalties available. And I’ll buy some shares in law firms.

IP

I thought IP would be in a good mood on today of all days, I guess not!

zorro29 said :

and i don’t care if i get trolled by all the leftie bleeding hearts on here…this is ridiculous

I don’t think I even need to do any trolling, your own words speak more than any troll every could.

Those will nothing to lose.. now have even less to worry about.

I’m sure that when one of these nutjobs that while driving unlicensed hits someone that their injuries will be less because the person driving the car is low income.

For those that don’t make as much as the rest of us, are they going to care their police record is like a Chinese menu? For those with enough to pay, are they going to risk having anything on a police record.

The biggest and number 1 issue with having instalments for people who currently done have income, its the biggest disincentive NOT TO GET A BLOODY JOB!
If they’re on the dole will they still have to pay?

Ridiculous over-reaction by johnboy and jsut about everyone else. Working off fines has been in place just about everywhere for just about forever.

Do you also object to Community Service Orders, and undertaking community work while in Periodic Detention?

You could also ask why Centrelink won’t cooperate with taking the fines straight from benefits (garnisheeing I think it’s called).

Let’s bring back the stocks, public flogging and hanging, and transportation to, err…., Australia. Because they all worked well.

IP (intelligent leftie bleeding heart and proud of it, compared to the ignorant rabid right wing alternative)

Simon Corbell = Nutjob

zorro29 said :

what the absolute f***???? the “disadvantaged” are always the ones flaunting the laws and driving like idiots cos they don’t care if their pieces of crap get smashed up and have nothing better to do than annoy others…now there is no financial penalty (potentially)???

i don’t want to pay a fine either even if i can “afford it”….but here’s a tip: if you don’t want to “do the time”, DON’T DO THE CRIME!

disgusting

and i don’t care if i get trolled by all the leftie bleeding hearts on here…this is ridiculous

You need to learn how to work the Shift key properly. It’s not an all-or-none kind of thing.

bundah said :

Why stop there Simon,can i suggest that you waive the demerit points as well?

Yay!

Why stop there Simon,can i suggest that you waive the demerit points as well?

ScienceRules5:07 pm 09 Apr 13

zorro29 said :

what the absolute f***???? the “disadvantaged” are always the ones flaunting the laws and driving like idiots cos they don’t care if their pieces of crap get smashed up and have nothing better to do than annoy others…now there is no financial penalty (potentially)???

i don’t want to pay a fine either even if i can “afford it”….but here’s a tip: if you don’t want to “do the time”, DON’T DO THE CRIME!

disgusting

and i don’t care if i get trolled by all the leftie bleeding hearts on here…this is ridiculous

Dude, I’m one of the lefty bleeding hearts and, if this really is the way it reads, I’m totally with you.

Just maybe the brilliant idea to suspend the license for failure to pay unaffordable fines was encouraging some to not renew their rego?

If this means sharing the roads with less unregistered cars and unlicensed drivers, I’m all for it. Everyone benefits.

Erg0 said :

So basically “someone [who] has no ability to pay by instalments or participate in a program” can now break the law with absolutely no fear of punishment? Unless they do something that will actually land them in jail, of course.

One has to be a wevy bad wabbit to end up in the AMC, I’m not sure if not paying your fines will qualify you…

what the absolute f***???? the “disadvantaged” are always the ones flaunting the laws and driving like idiots cos they don’t care if their pieces of crap get smashed up and have nothing better to do than annoy others…now there is no financial penalty (potentially)???

i don’t want to pay a fine either even if i can “afford it”….but here’s a tip: if you don’t want to “do the time”, DON’T DO THE CRIME!

disgusting

and i don’t care if i get trolled by all the leftie bleeding hearts on here…this is ridiculous

Just a logical extension to industrial self-regulation.

ScienceRules3:55 pm 09 Apr 13

dpm said :

Can’t someone go around to their place and take their 55″ LCD TV in lieu of money? 🙂

This!

Or confiscate one black velvet lion/dragon/dolphin wall accessory for each infringement. Mind you this still gives the average trogg about 6 months worth of daily misdeeds hanging in their living rooms alone…

Can’t someone go around to their place and take their 55″ LCD TV in lieu of money? 🙂

So the people driving unregistered cars with out a licence now don’t have to worry about the fines either, Great call Simon

So basically “someone [who] has no ability to pay by instalments or participate in a program” can now break the law with absolutely no fear of punishment? Unless they do something that will actually land them in jail, of course.

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