Bookmakers

The petition is entitled enforce a law that makes bookmakers have to lay a bet to lose a certain sum and the explanatory notes say

"The betting world is full of many shameful operations, that restrict some punters from betting more than very small sums. I believe that any bookmaker granted a license, should have to display on thier premises/website a "we will lay any horse to lose" sign. Therefore customers would know where they stood"

Does anyone understand what the petitioner's requesting?

I think he's saying that he wants bookmakers to be forced to make some specific bets. I certainly can't see why they should! Further, what does this request have to do with his first sentence, about "restrict[ing] ... punters from betting more than very small sums"?

Me no understandee!!

A Variation on Driving Ages

The petition is entitled enforce all under 25's to show a P-plate for two years after passing driving test and the explanatory notes say

"In order to reduce the risk of serious accidents involving young inexperienced drivers, there should be a compulsory "P" plate to replace the "L" plate on passing the driving test. This would indicate to other road users that a) the driver has passed the driving test b) the driver is young c) the driver is inexperienced. The "P" plate would only be available on "lower-powered" cars, say less than 1.2 lt. At the end of 2 accident free years, a further test could be taken and then the restriction could be lifted. If a culpable accident occurs then consideration would be given to extending the duration of the P-plate. Anyone who should be on P-plate use and caught driving without would have their licence withdrawn and would need to be put through the standard test again."

At least this petitioner hasn't decided young people have no right to drive at all. I suppose that's progress.

I don't think I'm inherently opposed to this idea, either - in its very broadest outline. I don't see why it should only apply to new drivers under the age of 25, and I don't know that having a second test is terribly practical, or yet restricting it to "lower-powered" cars. Also I suspect it's hopelessly impractical - how on earth would you enforce it?

You'd need to change the law about learners - currently (providing you can get insurance) you can learn to drive in any kind of car. It would hardly be fair for you to learn in you parents' high-powered thing and then not be able to drive it having passed your test!

But the idea's not bad. It's just that the specifics don't seem well-thought-out.

Test Voters

The petition is entitled introduce a competence test that individuals must pass before they are permitted to vote in elections and the explanatory notes say

"The current process of democracy, allowing every citizen to vote regardless of understanding or intelligence, is far from ideal. The process allows charismatic individuals (and politicians) to generate a large following amongst the populace with shallow, poorly thought-through policies that do not stand up to detailed scrutiny. The process also breeds apathy among highly-educated voters who feel their views will be outweighed by a mass of voters with a poor grasp of the issues, having been seduced into voting for the high-profile individuals. We propose a mandatory test to be completed by every subject of the land, to show competence in the understanding of basic politics and governance before being permitted to vote in elections."

Mmm, yummy, Jim Crow laws ...

Cards on the table: I am one of the "highly educated" voters who feels (as I posted in Cut the Knee-jerk Law-making just a few hours ago) that their views are outweighed by a mass of voters with a poor grasp of the issues.

I still don't think this is any approximation of a good idea. I made fleeting reference to things of this nature in the post about Reggie von Zurbach, regarding a petition that wanted people to pass an English/Welsh language test before being allowed to vote.

Even if one accepts the concept that people have to be "worthy" to be allowed to vote, actually testing this "worthiness" is bound to open an enormous can of controversial worms. Even if you've decided that people have to be "competent in the understanding of basic politics and governance", you're never going to get agreement on a test that successfully measures this. So it's hopelessly impractical on that level.

But in any case, why do I have any right to say who should or should not have any right to vote? I might say that Person X has no right to vote because they are ignorant and credulous and knee-jerking voting because the Sun's told them to - but they might say that I have no right to vote because I'm a do-gooding liberal idiot. And who is to say that I am more right than them? Obviously in my opinion I am right and they are wrong - but why should my opinion count for more than theirs? Especially when there are (we seem to be assuming) so many more of them than of me?

And most of all, of course - tests like this can become the thin end of the wedge for bigotry - racism and other forms of unacceptable discrimination can be cunningly hidden and practised by this sort of test. That has to be the biggest danger with this sort of thing. Potentially, very nasty indeed.

No. Being democratic means giving everyone a say, irrespective of their ignorance or other idiocy.

More on Junk Mail

The petition is entitled national database of addresses where people would prefer not to receive unsolicited mailings and the explanatory notes say

"The Prime Minister shall make it his responsibility to: 1 Set up a national database of UK addresses where the owner or occupier would prefer not to receive 2 Require the Home Secretary to administer said database by asking the Police and Security Services to address and to advise on issues of security, as and when they arise. 3 Require the Environment Secretary to inform the operation of the database so that it works at a national, local authority and local community level. 4 Categories of non-addressed mail should include, but not be limited to: a. Commercial advertising b. Appeals by bodies of a charitable nature c. Information from a local authority where it under no legal obligation to supply (i.e. information about new services, regular mailings or brochures, surveys etc.) d. Material circulated by political parties e. Newsletters, petitions, advance notice of social activities and similar which may on an occasional basis be circulated by volunteers to a locality"

This petitioner is even madder than the one I talked about in Stop Junk Mail, since s/he is clearly requesting something that already exists ...

Also, s/he has signed themselves "Lobster Blogster", which I must say made me suspect s/he wasn't for real. On the other hand, having located their blog, I note that someone has already mentioned this and s/he says

"OK, I admit it's not [my real name], but everyone I know personally knows my real name and that I blog as Lobster Blogster. I've had nicknames since I was plankton, and LB is no different form that. Incidentally I've signed four or five petitions in the name of Lobster Blogster, but I always give my real name and address. Er, and Tony Blair knows my real name and address, does it matter that you don't?"

So apparently s/he does mean it seriously and simply hadn't noticed the Mailing Preference Service. Oops.

Credit Card Interest Rates

The petition is entitled Regulate the Interest Rates Charged for Credit Card Balances and the explanatory notes say

"The government should strictly limit the rates of interest charged for outstanding credit card balances to at most 3X the going bank rate extant. This would assist in avoiding Personal Bankruptcy as being the only way many people can escape their credit card debts. With interest rates of 5 & 6 X the bank rate, i.e. at present some are charging 25%..29%, it then becomes impossible for a customer to clear their balances when so much has to be found to pay the interest charge, especially when their income may be fixed, or have even dropped."

Broadly speaking I cannot see why Person A should be prevented from making a commercial arrangement to suit themselves merely because Person B can't make sensible provision for their circumstances changing or their ability to pay!

I very much dislike any kind of legislation which aims to protect people from themselves - I want to run my life my way, thank you very much, not be restricted unless what I'm doing is impacting on the rest of society.

Pah.

Two More Driving Age Petitions

Two more petitions about driving ages, just like the ones I talked about in Driving Ages and Driving Ages Again.

The first petition is entitled Raise the minimum driving age from 17 years old to 25 years old and the explanatory notes say

"70% of accidents are caused by the youngest 30% of drivers. Raising the minimum driving age to 25 years would ease congestion, improve road safety and reduce the number of road-traffic accidents exponentially."

While 70% of accidents may be caused by the youngest 30% of drivers, I maintain that unless you've compared what proportion of accidents are caused by, say, the 30% most inexperienced drivers, you have no evidence at all that age is in the least bit relevant.

Further, I maintain that it's grossly unfair to arbitrarily select young people to penalise so strongly just to alleviate congestion.

The petition is entitled Increase the age of driving to 21 and the explanatory notes say

"I believe that if the age of learning to drive was increased to 20 with a year of learning before taking the test was put in place, this would dramatically reduce the accidents and road deaths due to immature drivers. This would also have a massive impact on current road conjestion (not reducing but keeping the level current) with very few new drivers taking to the roads, giving the government more time to tackle conjestion problems. It would also lower carbon emmisions and lower insurance premiums for safer drivers and force the government to improve public transport as more people would be forced to use rather than drive to work etc."

Aside from a temporary hiatus, you would presumably have exactly the same number of new drivers as you get now; they would just be doing it later.

Four petitions making exactly the same spurious, illogical, unscientific arguments. Only qualifying as not-duplicate, presumably, because they've each chosen a different arbitrary minimum age that would be "more acceptable" to them personally to have people driving at.

Good King Nick

The petition is entitled make Nicholas G Dixon-Clegg the monarch of a newly reuninted British Empire and the explanatory notes say

"I know it makes sense. You know it makes sense. Make it so."

The only thing that puzzles me about this petition is that the EPetitions: Facts, figures and progress page says quite clearly

"Initially we accepted humorous petitions, on the grounds that they did no harm and were often funny. However, particularly after the site received publicity in the media, we found that more and more time was being taken up considering borderline cases where supposedly humorous petitions risked being seen as offensive or in bad taste. Some users also contacted us to complain about silly petitions undermining the serious purpose of the site.

We decided it was impossible to justify this use of Civil Service time, or to come up with clear guidelines as to what amounts to good or bad taste. Reluctantly therefore we have decided no longer to accept petitions which are obviously intended as jokes."

Does that mean that the Civil Service moderator(s) think this was serious? If so - EEEK!