The Fast and The Furious: Drivers, Speed Cameras and Control in a Risk Society by Helen Wells

Author:Helen Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2012-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

The threat of exclusion as a result of licence loss was also understood in terms of the threat to employment status that repeated prosecution under the NSCP could bring about. Such employment was a further necessary component of a respectable identity, and its loss was seen to impact negatively on the individual’s ‘viability’ as a ‘human resource’ (Ericson and Haggerty 1997, 197). Recent and ongoing changes in the nature of employment have led to a requirement that all employees are both flexible and mobile, able to respond to changes in demands placed upon them, or otherwise replaced by other more competitive (more flexible, more mobile) individuals (Beck 1992, 94). Failure to adapt is, furthermore, according to Beck, transformed into a personal failing, reflecting badly on the individual who could not keep up, rather than on the system that made him or her expendable (ibid., 89). Mythen notes that changes in the experience of employment have been singled out ‘as a decisive factor in the development of uncertain and insecure forms of lived experience’ (2005, 130), with ‘taken for granted assumptions’ about the individual’s place in society being undermined by the prospect of being without employment (ibid., 133). The increased attention being paid to speeding offences means that the likelihood of being banned from driving is increasing at the same time as these changes in employment markets are also occurring. As such, many drivers felt that the ability to obtain and retain paid employment was increasingly dependent on the possession of the driving licence and the flexibility, reliability and competitiveness that it made possible:

The money doesn’t bother me really – I thought ‘fair cop’, I was speeding – but it’s getting banned; to get banned is a bit rich. There are people who will find it a heck of a lot more difficult [to find employment] and all they’ve done is go a little bit over the speed limit. Why should they have the worry of it? They’ve done nothing wrong really and they’re being threatened with their livelihood being taken away from them! (Male mid 50s, convicted driver focus group)

The first thing that came to my mind was the ‘licence’ situation! Losing my licence and not being able to get to work, so losing my job. Especially when I was on nine points, I could lose it at any time and that would be that. Then it would be the accidents, or the chance of getting injured, but the first thing would definitely be my licence. (Female, late 20s, convicted driver focus group)

For me it’s the loss of licence, yeah, loss of licence, because I need my licence to work basically. I mean, if I didn’t have my licence there would be ways round it but I don’t know. Presumably I’d be reported to the GMC [General Medical Council] as well, I imagine, for losing my licence. But there again you’ve only got to fart and you get reported to the GMC these days. Any excuse. It’s ridiculous, but, anyway, the licence is the first thing.

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