Adventure Bike Rider Forum

(I do not read the Daily Mail)

But we were discussing in the pub the other day that being human and forgetting to do something or not complying with regulations can be punishable by fixed penalty notices, fines for small things like TRULY forgetting to put your tax disc in the car window or if you drive on motorways in central Scotland what speed you should be doing. So you end up breaking the law without knowing about it.

All straightforward until you see in the UK there has been more than 10,000 new or amended rules, regulations and laws passed in less than a decade. I am not saying that we do not need these rules, rather that these things are a constant trickle and how as a busy citizen are we supposed to read them, follow them or even decide which document we should be aware of and what it says.

Quick Quiz.
What is the status of gluing a Gopro camera mount on your helmet and riding about town recording then posting it on YouTube? What areas of regulation does this action touch upon?

You feel that sticking more/bigger/better lights on your bike will make you safer. What kind of lights are OK for general daytime use? How many, light pattern, CE mark?

Those that use hand tools at work, what are you doing to comply with the wording of regulations that your hammer or screwdriver is fit for purpose and is maintained and records kept?

The authorities themselves are swamped and they spend millions on databases, training and testing but how is an individual to comply?

Human nature being what it is means that we all forget to do something, mis-remember stuff or just unaware that a regulation exists? As an employer I have a good (paid for) relationship with a local firm of specialist lawyers who every now and then telling me that x,y and z has changed?

Is it now conceivable that human nature and it foibles are incompatible with our modern society and need to regulate and document everything?

As you can tell we have quite philosophical conversations in our local tavern.

Cheers dave..... . Catch up soon alan

That's the beauty of strict liability offences-there is no defence, apart from due diligence i.e. you did everything within reason to comply and ignorance of the law is no defence.

Who said in the Guardian this week that we are the most regulated and surveillanced state in the developed world!

Aye. It's a nightmare being an employer. I understand these rules are done in good faith, but they're counter-productive in the majority of cases, and can be seriously damaging to small businesses. It's properly difficult to sack somebody for being a persistent lazy shit. Verbal, written, second written... all with a witness, and if they pull a mental health card you're fucked.

I know a guy that founded a company that became a household name. In the glory days he employed some of his close friends. Token job, plenty of salary, not much work sort of thing. Mates, after all. Said people eventually said "hey, all this commuting is a bit of a drag, can we work from home?" This guy agreed, and so they worked from home, with their big salary and not much work. What happened next? They sued him, successfully and for a lot of money, because a H&S assessment hadn't been carried out on their work stations (at home!) and they'd developed RSI due to a poor seating position or some other such shite.

Still winds me up that I got dragged through court for a "loose chain." I got proven innocent in the end, but only because I battled it. I lost what little faith I had left in coppers after that. I wasn't speeding, I wasn't riding like a tit, I was on a totally legal, clean, and well maintained bike, but yet I got my afternoon ruined, missed a meeting, had to fork out for a new MOT (previous one was only a month old!), spent a fortune on train tickets getting from Preston to London to go to the court, and had to take a couple of days off work to sort it. For what!?

There just doesn't appear to be any common sense behind these rules, or the enforcement thereof, almost like they've been dreamt up by some civil servant that's never had a job in real life. Oh, hang on...

Yes it must be a nightmare for the security services to keep up with the new laws.
Living in Scotland, it is Scottish law that applies, must be about ten volumes.

It is unsustainable, what happens is that people start to lose confidence/support in the security services.

This is the first step towards chaos.

Delta city anyone?

I think that's the really worrying thing about the drive to make driving offences cross boarders in an international sense.

If you are driving in foreign places then often you have no idea you are doing something wrong anyway.

It's worrying about the EU seeking to make it so that an offence in another EU state (?) will translate into points on your license here.

I can't even keep up with watching the 500 signs on every street corner here........

I was Mallorca in July driving a hire car and turned left into a road that was a no left hand turn by mistake.
The next minute a policeman on a scooter appeared along side, I lowered the window and asked him what was wrong in English, he said one word, mistake and drove off.

Dark Knight,

Yep, what you describe is where the conversation in the pub went. More specifically systems that dish out fines without taking into account people being forgetful and making a mistake without malice or intent to deceive. Your Spanish police man showed judgment and an understanding of the human condition.

So do we want a society where behaviour is regulated and any and all deviations are punished?

If not all behaviours and actions then which ones?

Even when at school, I believed rules were there to be broken
Some, possibly many, are quite sensible but others are simply rules for rules sake.
Without rules governments feel powerless so if they can dumb us all down & make us fearful enough to stick to the damn rules, then they'll feel like they're in control. There are worrying signs that this strategy is beginning to work :dry:

What's changed/different regarding motorway speed limits in Scotland?