Published: Wednesday, 29th October, 2008 07:00
Leader: It's the law
By Reading Chronicle, The Voice of Reading
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WHY aren’t they out catching burglars?
How many times have we cracked that old chestnut after spotting ranks of DayGlo-clad police officers pulling drivers over for a roadside check?
But the joke appears to have worn somewhat thin with our report this week that a routine operation in Reading’s Oxford Road over a two-hour period caught 29 drivers not wearing seatbelts and another seven chatting on the phone.
Anyone who joins the procession of traffic along Oxford Road at any time of the day knows that, while speeding is rarely a problem, maximum concentration is required to guard against a child or pensioner stepping off the pavement at one point, or a fellow motorist being forced to stop abruptly at another.
So exactly what part of the phrase 'breaking the law’ did these 36 drivers not understand?
There is always a public bar expert with statistics to 'prove’ how many road crash casualties die in the wreckage of their vehicles – fatally ensnared by a seatbelt. But the true fact is that seatbelts have saved untold millions of lives and also save the NHS millions of pounds in intensive care costs and rehabilitation.
And no matter how much the Government timidly nudges up the penalties for using a handheld phone at the wheel, the next time you are on the road just try counting the number of drivers who consider the law does not apply to them.
Surely if a standard motor vehicle was meant to be driven one-handed then they would all be built accordingly.
It could well be that a fair proportion of those 36 motorists stopped on Tuesday were just out of luck and guilty of a rare transgression.
But equally it’s a safe bet that a number are serial offenders prepared to disregard the law and the potential consequences to both themselves and fellow road users.
Hopefully the remainder will have learned a salutary lesson and the message will have got home.
Then the police can get back to catching burglars.
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