Laying down the law now at the mercy of machines

Relax. There's plenty of time. No rush. Take it easy. It's ages away.

Without quickening my pace, I start to cross over to the Evening News offices to begin the day's labours.

But in the blink of an eye, this once-distant image is no longer a vague outline far away on the brow of a hill.

For in a split second, the car is upon me. Events come in a rush, but the face of the driver is freeze-framed in my mind.

Then I suddenly realise what's happening. This battered-looking vehicle is about to run me down.

The machine is no longer a metal container designed for transporting human beings and their goods. It is now a lethal projectile.

I dive across the road, the car screaming past, all throaty engine that hasn't seen a good service in many a moon. The single male occupant shakes a fist in my direction.

And before you can say Phillpott-splattered-over-the-bonnet, the car and its driver have careered through the lights and screeched round the bend over the river bridge.

I estimate his speed at roughly 75 to 80 miles per hour...

Cut to Powick village one recent Saturday night. My wife slows down to 30 mph and is immediately tail-gated by a sales rep or something similar. I say sales rep because they always have their jacket dangling from a hanger in the back, and this individual fits the stereotype, right down to the mobile phone glued to his ear.

Oh yes. He's flashing us as well. My wife stays within the law up to the Crown pub and only accelerates when it is legally permissible. Angry sales rep overtakes and roars off to Malvern.

At this stage I'd better come clean and explain why my wife is doing everything by the book. She'd just been caught by the cameras on City Walls Road.

Well, not just - because the discovery of her indiscretion had only become apparent the day before.

The summons dropped on to the mat along with the rest of the post. And guess what? There was worse to come. For the white envelope had barely ceased to stir the dust when it was followed by another.

Two summonses. Both City Walls Road. And relating to offences committed with 24 hours of each other.

I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been click-bang on the way to Droitwich for the haircut and click-bang on the return journey. But no. The camera had caught her doing roughly five or six miles over the limit on two separate journeys.

Well, it's a blow, to say the least. She's upset and I try to be as comforting as possible. Never mind, I say. Just see it as an expense, albeit an unnecessary one, of a working life spent on the road.

But I was only just over the limit, she says. Yes, that's true. But speeding is the new smoking, say I. Society is hardening its attitude against the speeder and the message is rapidly being spelled out loud and clear.

If you do the crime you pay the fine.

And in our case, it was 120 smackers. Such deep grief over the loss of such hard-earned lucre. I calculate how many hours I have to work to earn £120 after tax. Too long.

My wife says she feels victimised. Look at all the maniacs on the roads, especially the motorways. Aggressive drivers, stupid and needless risk-taking... male road rage by the bucketful.

And here's me nicked for driving just over the limit.

So you're saying it's not fair then? Yes. Anyway, the conversation soon goes pear-shaped when I become a little too sanctimonious. Don't you read the papers?

The speeding crackdown has hardly been a state secret over the past few weeks.

The conversation grinds to an abrupt halt after I suggest the fine is paid within a few days and then a line can be drawn underneath the entire episode. Yes, let's do that.

The Evening News has been full of reports and letters about the current blitz on speeders. The page opposite has, true to its noble traditions, carried all sort of views on the matter.

They range from the outrage of the freshly-netted speeder to the haughty "you should look at your dial" school of compassion.

Actually, I can see both points of view. And while I believe that speed is probably one of the major causes of accidents, I would nevertheless qualify that statement with a number of observations, particularly with regard to the current onslaught.

The problem with the speed camera method of law enforcement is that the whole concept is built on unfairness. For it strikes without warning and - more crucially - does not allow the driver to mend his or her ways.

If a policeman stopped a driver on, say, a Monday, and issued a speeding ticket, that person would probably not break the law again on the Wednesday. The incident would have concentrated that person's mind.

I won't do that again in a hurry, thinks suitably chastened motorist. Contrition, in other words.

Not so with this system. Because of its very nature, I daresay it would be possible to drive along City Walls Road on a number of occasions over several days and amass a collection of summonses of truly breathtaking proportions.

So are we saying that it's right and just for a driver to receive any number of plain white envelopes and end up paying hundreds of pounds for just trickling over the 30mph mark? And all because the deterrence factor has been removed by a machine?

Where's the justice in that?

This is not so far-fetched as it sounds. The day my wife paid her fine by registered post the clerk at the counter told of a young woman who picked up three summonses, all for offences committed just hours apart.

The young woman was in tears at the counter. Yes, said the clerk. There have been hundreds of people caught. Many several times.

Where the HELL is the justice in that?

The answer is simple. There is no justice in it. For this whole business is not about justice. It's about collecting money from the motorist, a windfall tax - not on the genuine anti-social driver, but rather on the law-abiding driver who occasionally errs.

Yes, speed is a killer. But law-enforcement by machines, in this case a camera and computer, is a fascist, frightening development that will, unless checked, almost certainly proliferate and extend to other areas of our lives.

How soon will it be before the human element - the policeman - is removed from other areas of law-enforcement?

John Phillpott, you are accused of being drunk in charge of a rabbit in Bath Road on the Fifth Inst. Who says, Guvnor? Why, a machine, that's who! Pay your fine and shut up.

My wife paid her debt to society and life gradually returned to normal at Dun Subbin. But I still can't stop thinking about the madman on Hylton Road. The one who nearly killed me, remember.

I wonder if he's evaded the cameras.

Probably. People like that usually escape the long arm of the law. Big fish, you see. A netful of minnows is far more preferable.

And a lot easier to catch, too.