Speeding Taxi Driver avoids Jail JUST!

Image:castletaxiscanterbury.com

62-year-old Mohammed Malik claimed a mechanic was driving his Toyota Avensis when it was clocked traveling at 37mph in a 30 zone in Washwood Heath Road, Birmingham, in April last year.

Officers then wrote to the mechanic, only to have the letter returned saying he no longer lived at the address given. They also visited the address and found it was a residential property that had never been a garage.

This aroused more suspicion, so police then spoke to the cabbie's firm to get a print out of his journeys on the day in question - they clearly showed Malik had actually picked up a fare at the time, with the person clearly visible on speeding camera footage sitting in the back seat. Still, Malik insisted it was his mechanic at the wheel.

With the evidence stacking against him, Malik finally admitted the speeding offence and was subsequently charged with perverting the course of justice for lying about who was behind the wheel. The driver, of Coleshill Road, Ward End, pleaded guilty to the charge and on 31 March he was handed a four month prison sentence - suspended for 18 months - plus 80 hours unpaid work and costs of £400.

He was also banned from driving for six months. PC Steve Jevons said "Malik may have avoided jail but the suspended sentence is hanging over him for the next year-and-a-half and it’s likely he will now be stripped of his taxi licence. With no livelihood, clearly this will have a huge impact on his life and he will have to ask himself if all his lies were worth the risk. We hope this case serves as a warning to others that lying to the police and the authorities is a serious offence and can ultimately land you behind bars."

Could driverless cars own themselves?

Emancipated automobiles sounds like a crazy concept (cars that own themselves). But his is a "thought experiment" to inspire by Mike Hearn.

Mr Hearn is a Zurich-based software developer is both an ex-Google engineer and one of the leading Bitcoin software developers.

At the heart of his vision is the idea that once driverless cars become commonplace, most people won't want or need to own a vehicle any more. And in a world dominated by self-steering taxis, each ride becomes cheaper if the vehicles are autonomous rather than owned and run by major corporations.

Instead of controlling which car goes where via proprietary software, the cars would communicate with people and the surrounding infrastructure via a new internet-based commerce system, he dubs the Tradenet.

"You would be using an app that goes onto Tradenet and says: 'Here I am, this is where I want to go, give me your best offers,'" the developer says.

"The autonomous taxis out there would then submit their best prices, and that might be based on how far away they are, how much fuel they have, the quality of their programming.

"Eventually you pick one - or your phone does it for you - and it's not just by the cheapest price, but whether the car has a good track record of actually completing rides successfully and how nice a vehicle it is."

The car, in turn, would communicate with the sensor-equipped roads it drives on, offering its passengers the ability to pay extra to go in faster lanes or unlock access to shortcuts - the cost of which would be determined by how many others wanted the same thing.

One expert, who has considered the proposal, suggested it was both "realistic and idealistic" at the same time.

Realistic, because the technologies involved are likely to become available within the next 10 to 20 years. Idealistic, because it flies in the face of how the car industry works.

To hear more about Mike Hearn's idea of self-owning cars you can watch his presentation on the subject.

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Jailed: Minicab Driver Who Said He Had Sold Car & Constantly Lied to Avoid Speeding Fines

Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Mohammed Khawaja a 60-year-old from Oldham claimed he had sold his Ford Focus car to a fictitious person, a Mr Mohammed Saleem – but was spotted driving it by a licensing officer. That was the final nail in the coffin when combined with a host full of other evidence provided by the satellite tracking system in Khawaja’s taxi and the fact that he was found to be paying monthly insurance installments on the car.

The minicab driver who tried to avoid 5 speeding fines in total (between June and December 2013) by inventing another motorist has been jailed for 8 months by Manchester Crown Court.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of perverting the course of justice (for the 5 speeding fines) and one of providing false information (for producing a falsified a registration document).

It is highly unlikely that he will ever drive a minicab again