DVLA - No Way Out for Car Tax Evaders
March 26th, 2008I’m addicted to shows like Police, Camera, Action! and all of those BBC clones that keep Jamie Theakston in Mayfair dungeons (”Look, it was a long time ago, he doesn’t go any more and he said he’s sorry, can we all just forget about it?”) long after all his other TV jobs seemed to have dried up.
It’s true I really can’t get enough. Yes, I find that there are few things more entertaining on TV then watching a bunch of lobotomised chimps speed up and down the country’s motorways - chasing criminals.
Now, I know that the consequences of having a car accident, even one at low speed, can be extremely serious. And there’s nothing funny about people being killed - even if it’s a troupe of clowns in a tragic custard pie accident - but the traffic police are to law and order what the burger van is to haute cuisine.
This however, is not something that the traffic policeman is aware of. They believe they’re the Lord Chief Justice on wheels. Which, of course, explains why when they speak to you, in their uber-patronising tones, it is as if you’ve been driving round in a mobile death camp and, not only that, but you’re actually Eichmann.
Let’s examine a typical scene from one of these shows:
Traffic Policeman: “Did you know, Sir” - they use “Sir” because they can claim they are nothing but polite to you even though they always, always say it in an ironic way - “Did you know, Sir, that your indicator is flashing at a faster than permitted rate?”
Criminal: “No” - The criminal’s best responses are surly and sheepish in equal measures.
Traffic Policeman: “Well, ignorance is not an excuse I’m afraid, is it, Sir? No, no. We all have to take responsibility for our actions, don’t we, Sir? I’m going to have to give you a ticket, aren’t, I Sir?”
Cut to a talking head sequence with the Policeman moralising further about the consequences of excessive indicator flash rate.
“Over 10,000 people are killed or seriously injured each year alone because of indicators blinking too quick. This driver didn’t seem to realise the seriousness of his offence,” then a pause and a look of mild despair into the camera “nor did he seem to care.”
My favourite ever actual scene from the BBC’s programme involved a couple of policemen in Manchester looking for stolen cars.
They drove round in an unmarked police car, wore bombed jackets and both had skin heads. Out on patrol one day, they spotted a pair of teenage lads in a Fiesta, pulled up along side it at the lights and looked menacingly at them. As the cars pulled away the coppers followed the Fiesta which, when it realised it was being followed, took off at speed. They two coppers finally caught up with the lads after a high speed chase through a housing estate, sprinted from their cop car and manically tried to get the lads out of the Fiesta. Before finally smashing the windows with batons, injuring one of the lads inside.
When it all calmed down and they did some “police work”, it turned out the two lads hadn’t done anything. They weren’t wanted for anything and weren’t driving a stolen car. They’d just been scared of these two skin heads who’d stared them out at the lights then followed at high speed.
In the talking head sequence the two traffic policemen seemed to think it was pretty funny they went round terrorising the innocent population of Manchester.
Which is my problem with adverts like this one for car tax:
It menaces the innocent.
“You’d better tax your car,” it cries “because we will get you, you know, Sir”.
It treats us all as guilty despite most of us not having done anything which, if I remember rightly, isn’t quite the cornerstone of justice that the law is built upon.
No, it’s not. Is it, Sir?
(4.7)
15Responses:
snooks
March 27th, 2008 9:38 am
You can’t run, you can’t hide - ID cards, anyone?
Dave
March 27th, 2008 10:33 am
The one that gets me is where the car unfolds into a mobile phone, ‘now you’ve no excuse, you can now pay by phone’ . Well blow me down there was me thinking people didn’t pay their car tax because they are too tight or too skint, but no it’s they didn’t know how to, what a load of shite, the biggest reason for car tax evasion is that its linked to insurance and an MOT and many down the crappy end of life can’t afford it, either remove the requirement of an insurance certificate from the equation or tackle high premiums, or is this a long term strategy to get the great unwashed of the road, leaving them free for the wealthy.
Silky
March 27th, 2008 2:11 pm
Yeah, there was a cracking scene from the one on BBC last night to do with insurance costs.
A French guy who couldn’t afford to insure his car but needed it to get to work to earn the money to try to pay for his insurance got pulled over on the M6.
After giving him a jolly patronising telling off the policeman said “Is there anything you don’t understand?” The French guy replied “Why I should stay in this country”.
Bravo.
Jonny Chestwig
March 27th, 2008 5:36 pm
Dave, The reason we have high premiums is because there are thousands of unemployed scrotes pushing everyone else’s up. If you took away the need for compulsory car insurance then who’s going to pay when an uninsured driver crashes into me?
I don’t really buy the argument that people are in such dire straits they cannot afford car tax, insurance etc. If that’s the case they need to look at either abolishing car tax or having a look at council tax reform. Car insurance is a must IMHO
RumpleThumps
March 28th, 2008 12:01 am
Ummmm…yeah, I’m afraid I have to agree with Mr Chestwig on this one. Basically, if you can afford to buy the car and put petrol in it, then hiding behind an excuse of the ‘I cannot afford the insurance / tax etc…’ is pretty lame. And to put forward an admittedly cliched argument, a lot of the people who say they cannot afford insurance do manage to find the money to piss away on fags and booze. And the reason why a lot of people dont bother with tax/insurance is that the fine for getting caught is less than paying out for said items in the first place.
God, I sound like a Conservative now, (shudder!), and sure, car tax and insurance may be more expensive than what we think we should pay but at the end of the day it comes down to accepting responsibility for your actions.
Rant over
Dave
March 28th, 2008 12:52 pm
I take the point about uninsured drivers, I am not and never would encourage anybody to drive without insurance, but I do believe that there is an ongoing long term governmental policy to reduce car use by increased cost, which effects those most on lower incomes. This would be ok if this country had a decent and affordable public transport system. But it does not, it is expensive and crap, some of the train fares in the UK are more expensive that flying to some European cities. This policy only encourages people to drive without insurance (which in some cases can be higher than the purchase price of an old car) , which means they then don’t pay their road tax, which is what the ad is about.
Jonny Chestwig
March 28th, 2008 2:35 pm
Dave, I think we may be arguing the same point here. This gub’mint seems to think that the best way to change our transport habits is to attempt to ‘push’ us away from cars whereas they should be trying to ‘pull’ us towards public transport.
Put simply they should be trying to make public transport the best option, rather than the least bad.
Dave
March 29th, 2008 10:08 am
Jonny I think we are, what pisses me off is everything the government (this is not party political, previous Conservative administrations have been just as bad) does seems to be reactive rather than proactive, reducing car ownership has got to be good for the environment but viable alternatives must be in place and they are not.
Michael
March 30th, 2008 12:04 am
What is pissing me off is this whole new culture of “we know what you’re not doing and we’re going to come and get you” adverts, like that TV licence one on the Beeb. There’s something Orwellian-ishly threatening about them that I don’t like at all.
Jonny Chestwig
March 30th, 2008 11:07 am
I know what you mean Michael but I don’t think that they can rely on good old human nature to get people to stick to the rules anymore. Unfortunately
Silky
March 30th, 2008 7:27 pm
Crickey, TWA has turned into Question Time…
@Michael - I wanted to say something about the independence of the BBC and showing the Police propaganda but forgot…
@Jonny - I’m sure some, possibly even most, people stick to the rules it’s just they don’t have TV programmes/adverts made about them. Because they’re a bunch of boring bastards.
@General Readership - The copper in the Tuesday night show told us that our insurance cost is increased by approximately £30 per year because of uninsured drivers, and my insurance is well over 10 times that amount. Insurance costs are so high because, in my opinion, insurance is a borderline scam.
Now back to slagging off TV adverts…
Jonny Chestwig
March 30th, 2008 10:23 pm
Huzzah! Yes we were dangerously close to engaging in politicial debate there!
Ian Finlayson
March 30th, 2008 11:13 pm
Ahhh… Another commercial with 2008’s Queen of Advertising, Kate Groombridge.
She’s got this, a Kia one and a couple of Special K’s
PIFLover
April 1st, 2008 2:32 pm
Technically this is a public information film, so I might review on my own blog when I get around to the site redo …
I just hate that feeling of “The government is breathing down your neck. So pay up, punk!” At least they’ve stopped trying to guilt trip us now - remember the one with an out of date tax disc at the scene of a car crash?
Tom Hewitt
April 7th, 2008 1:21 pm
Dystopia anyone?
ID cards, CCTV, electrical tagging, speed cameras, the anti-terrorism act….. this advert epitomises everything that a government reading ‘1984′ and thinking “what a marvellous idea! I think ill monitor and oppress the population to such an extent that even looking at a website that doesnt like the country’s government will get a young boy sent to Guantanamo Bay without charge” would want.
There are traffic cameras placed so densely throughout our countries roads, it is entirely possible, nay, disturbingly easy to track a person making a car journey from the isle of Wight to York every foot of the way.
They say ID cards are volentary, but to get a passport you will need one of these little tickets to fachism, a great catch added by a power hungry government to try and force feed the notion of this psuedo-freedom down our throats and make sure we are so high on every legal drug they can so the inhebriated population dont realise just what the fuck is going on and revolt. Trust me, the only way to keep a government from abusing its powers is to make it realise that its people can, and will revolt. Seems to have worked out alright in France, now they have an NHS second to none.
What do we have? We have leaders who will, instead of paying 3 years wages to a cleaner for a hospital ward, spend the equivelant sum on a toilet in a second home. Not first, second. This is one thousands of people dont even have one, when teen mothers cannot afford even basic amenities for thier babies, when thousands are dying from cureable diseases, when thousands of people die because of the privatistion of hospital cleaning….. I weep for Britain. We used to have an empire, we used to be prosperous and have the greatest industry in the world. Now we give money to a politician who feels his one home not able to contain his own over-inflated and undeserved sense of self worth, rather than feeding, homing and clothing our own population.
God save our gracious Queen, god save our noble Queen…. means little more to me now than the mumblings of a drunken homeless, wondering why his need for life comes second to some nice wallpaper in a second home. Disgraceful.
Everything summrised by one, fachist advertisement.
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