Constant Touch by Jon Agar

Author:Jon Agar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science, engineering and technology, telecommunications, electronics and communications, telephone and wireless technology, internet, mobile telephones
Publisher: Icon Books
Published: 2013-01-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Cars, phones and crime

New technologies of mobility create new crimes, new criminal modus operandi and new ways to catch criminals. Take, for example, the automobile. From the first decade of the 20th century, cars provoked a crime wave. In Britain, a speed limit of 20 miles per hour was in force between 1903 and 1930, when it was briefly revoked; and a 30 miles per hour limit in built-up areas was hurriedly reintroduced by the 1934 Road Traffic Act, after a spate of accidents, and has been in place ever since. Mobility increased through the century: by 1950 an average day’s travel was five miles, but by 2000 it was 28 miles. Much of this travel was by car. A dramatic effect of the new mobility, with its legal limits, was to create new crimes of speeding. Criminal statistics became dominated by car-related crime. Furthermore, as well as driving infringements becoming criminal offences in their own right, speedy automobiles led to more accidents, including ‘hit-and-run’ incidents. Patterns of criminal behaviour also changed. More cars meant more stolen cars. Burglars, previously confined to large towns and cities, suddenly found rich pickings in the surrounding countryside, which was now only minutes away. Statistics for break-ins correlate strongly with increased car ownership.

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