Has anyone seen Suella Braverman behind the wheel of her car going down the Purley Way or over the Flyover recently?
What do points make?: as a lawyer and the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman is supposed to uphold the law
Only if the Home Secretary was clocked speeding in Croydon, she would be far from alone, as official figures published over the weekend show that one postcode in this borough has more unsafe motorists registered than anywhere else in the country, with 1,870 people in CR0 having six or more points on their driver’s licence.
That’s more than 20per cent more than the next worst area.
According to official Government data, 1-in-20 legal drivers in this country have penalty points on their licences – that amounts to almost 2.7million drivers.
The figures show that in 2021, 51 per cent of cars exceeded the speed limit on a 30mph road.
The anaylsis, released by the Department for Transport, showed that the number of people found guilty of a speeding offence has increased by 60per cent over the last decade. There were nearly a quarter of a million prosecutions for motoring offences in the last year.
The figure for Croydon drivers with six points or more on their licence is well ahead of the next worst area NW10 – the Wembley area – with 1,498.
Parked up: more than 1,800 drivers in CR0 have six points or more on their licence
That’s followed by LE03 in Leicester at 1,488 and neighbouring LE02 at 1,309 are the next worst.
As Home Secretary Braverman could tell you, having points on your licence can increase your car insurance premiums.
You can also be disqualified from driving if you rack up 12 or more points on your licence within the space of three years.
Other offences that can be punished with penalty points include failing to comply with traffic light signals (3pts), using a mobile phone while driving (6pts), driving without due care and attention (3 to 9pts) and driving under the influence of alcohol (3 to 11pts).
The data also revealed that there were more than 1,760 fatalities on British roads in the year ending June 2022.
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Read more: Ignore ULEZ scare stories – it will reduce traffic and save lives
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Probably speeding to escape the borough and or those in charge ?
It’s a powerful image…
And to think, when Croydon Conservatives were seeking a replacement for Tricky Dicky Ottaway, the overly enthusiastic claimer of parliamentary expenses, they chose Chris Philp over Suella Fernandez (as was).
Political giants both…
It may speak more about the radicalsation of the Southern Conservative and Unionist party and its voters. As one MP said I did not leave the party the party left me. (I am sure that will get some dislikes to prove the point perhaps?)
In a related issue, one could ask the question about senior members of the council calling in favours to get PCNs cancelled.
If you have any real evidence of such, Simon, then please do share it with us by email.
Of course, it does not mean that they sped–or speeded?- within that postcode area.
Maybe they did the ton on the short bit of the M23 between Hooley and the M25, getting to early meetings at business parks round the M25.
If you are driving as close as possible to 20mph in your local area of Croydon, and there is an impatient driver driving up your exhaust pipe, it is probably a fellow local resident on the last few hundred yards of their journey home.
That is the truth, statistics show…….
No doubt, most of us (motorists) are guilty of exceeding the speed limit, at times. But not all get caught, every time.
I like your points and agree. However over the last few years we have observed zebra crossings on St James Road, traffic lights at the jnction of the London Road and the no right turn off st James road into Wellington road.
Main reason is that they are used by pupils and parents to 2 schools on Lodge road and one on St James/Lodge road all in the CR0 area
We did not observe a few taking the illegal right turn – it was most cars held at the lights, some travelled down the wrong side thinking it was clear to be met with cars coming out of Wellington road. One Mercedes still did not stop but mounted the pavement and carried on.
It was close to every third car that went through the zebra crossing by the school and even more by the mosque even with people actually on the crossing they still swerved by them and carried on.
amber gambling and red light running coming from Sumner road via the junction on London road and then onto St James road is about every second light change at peak with drivers beeping pedestrians actually on the road as they race up St James Road.
We witnessed Police cars and vans who could clearly see these incidents taking no action including those using mobiles stuck in traffic right beside them.
We never bothered taking it forward as neither the SNT of the Council or the Police were interested at that time.
Along with the illegal parking epidemic in the CRO area we also have a blue badge break into car epidemic. Though catalytic converter theft is a lot higher. As is robbing spare parts of high end vehicles causing £1000s of damage.
Despite most cases being closed due to insufficient evidence, there is quite a lot of visual reports to suggest that many cases of the parts and blue badgeare from one group run by a person with a spanish name (though not spanish) and many carried out by a woman and a man both who use the proceeds to buy crack from said spanish named person.
But as you say they will not get caught here in CRO as there is no one and no camera to catch them. They do get into that habit though and when moving to other areas do get caught. So default justice is still justice.
I am sure that te Met officers in Croydon are well disillusioned with the repeated chasing of their tails using the current operating practices but maybe its on the up? Crime at all levels certainly is! Reporting is markedly down as the waste of time in reporting has gotten worse.
That latest data shows that over 13,000 children were injured in road collisions in Great Britain in a year.
57 of those children died – that’s more than one child killed every week in road collisions.
Tell me again why you ‘need’ to be driving so fast?
The problem with the 20mph urban limit is that, for the driver, it can feel painfully slow. It depends on the road, the traffic, and, above all, the number of parked vehicles from which a child or animal could suddenly pop out, and get run over, injured or even, killed
I would agree that 30 mph is far too fast on the vast majority of roads in Croydon where a 20mph has been imposed.
My favoured ‘revised urban speedlimit’ would have been 25mph, which, if observed, would- in my considered opinion- have struck a balance between too slow and too fast.
The problem is that hardly anyone observes the 20mph in areas where the road is fairly open and free of parked cars. It does feel very tedious to drive at 20 in such circumstances, with open sightlines, where there is no risk of children, dogs, cats, foxes or other wildlife getting injured. But weirdly, 25 mph doesn’t feel tedious. It feels just right– safe, responsible.
When roads are closely parked, yes, totally agree 20mph is and feels safe, and the “right speed”.
If it were still 30 mph, I would still slow, down to 20mph, or 15mph, in such locations, which are numerous in our borough..
The problem, I suppose is that if you give people an inch they will take a mile.
Not sure if this is an urban myth, but is it true that the police allow 10% plus 2 mph on top of the limit, before a speeding ticket is issued ?
If so, 20 mph plus 10% = 22mph , plus 2 mph = 24 mph. Not far off my 25mph preference.
However, a law that most law abiding citizens break is wrong, in my view.
If I were Minister for Transport for a day (a post that probably went years ago)
I would reduce the national 30mph down to 25, nationally.
Plus, give Councils the right to reduce it to 20mph.
Whilst traffic flows seem still to be the same as they have for years, one thing that (in my observation) has reduced speeds is the increasing number of bigger, slightly wider, SUV type cars.
People driving these, other than dyed-in-the -wool, road hog types, generally tend to slow down and stop in places where they are uncertain of the width of the vehicle relative to the kerb and oncoming traffic.
Every SUV cloud has a silver lining, perhaps ? Well, almost all.
Good to point out that once you have reached 12 points you may face a ban of
6 months or more. However if you have a provisional licence or passed you test under two years of the offence, it’s actually 6 points, when a ban may apply. Strangely enough you can also tot up points if you use an e-scooter, e-mono cycle, e-skateboard, hover-board or segway. These are all illegal to use in a public area.
All of those offenses have close to b*gg*r all enforcement in Croydon. There are also people driving in Croydon that one would struggle to believe ever sat a test in any country.
13 years of Conservative Home office ministers and a total destruction of faith in Policing? Ask any victim of repeated crimes that are closed by email what they think of Conservative Policing?
see below from 2020 a total of 44 in all london. Ask how many in Croydon and you will struggle to get any reply
https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/af/accessing-information/published-items/?q=Traffic+offences+Croydon&_t_dtq=true.
If you accrue 6 points as a ‘new driver’ (within two years of passing your test), your licence is, in fact, revoked (and you will need to retake the test).