Van driver fined £200 for not having a no smoking sign...

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...in his commercial vehicle - four times what it would have been had he smoked in said vehicle!

I can't understand the mentality of these people.

These minions of the state do have a way of helping to strangle business.

You can't smoke in a vehicle? What?

Nanny state

You can't smoke in that company vehicle (i.e. a vehicle used for business) in England and Wales if they are ever used to transport members of the public, or these vehicles are used in the course of paid or voluntary work by more than one person – regardless of whether or not they are in the vehicle at the same time. So if you own a business and you occasionally use the van to go on rounds with an employee, you can't smoke in that van - even if you haven't smoked in it for weeks or months before.

In Scotland, it's an offence to smoke in any vehicle used for work, unless it's a car.

Here in the US I think you aren't supposed to but I've had multiple cab drivers ask me if I didn't mind them smoking while I was in the cab. They all talk on their cell phones while driving too even though it's illegal in my state.

I could understand it if he didn't have the sign and was smoking in the van as that's breaking the law, but not being fined simply for not having the sign.

The thing I don't get about it is: why didn't they say to him that he can either have the £200 fine or he can spend £2 on a sticker?

Tax, yo.

Government needs more money than what "we" give them, so enter silly little laws and whatnot and with the fines included.

Once more, government runs amuck.

ruveyn

I think HRM might object to being called a "Nanny"...

Especially since he had just picked up the van from the garage & was taking it back to work, and could probably prove that. Probably his work would have a supply of the stickers. Why couldn't they have given him a chance to put it right before enforcing the fine?

I think that's probably a lot to do with the mentality of people enforcing the rules.

For better or for worse, the signage is mandatory, and Mr. Beasley knew or ought properly to have known that this was mandatory.

We would not countenance him driving without other mandatory equipment, so what is it about the sign that is in a different category of mandatory from, say, safety equipment, number plates, insurance coverage, or any of the other things that the law requires be in place before putting a commercial vehicle on the road?

As for the magnitude of the fine, I suspect that we are in the realm of legislation that creates a basic level of fine for any breach that is not specifically assigned a higher penalty. And given that this legislation is directed at business, the level of fine appears reasonable for a regulatory breach.

On the other hand, the smoking ban itself is directed at individual conduct, in which £200 would be considered far less reasonable. Comparing the penalty applicable to a business for failure to comply with regulations, and a penalty applicable to an individual for a contravention might serve to explain the difference in magnitude.

And as for nanny-statism. Well, workplace safety is a tough nut to crack. Are mandatory hard hats on contruction sites nanny-statism? Where is the line to be drawn? The signage requirement might go too far, but on the other hand, when business complies with mandatory signage, then no one can pretend, "I didn't know that I couldn't light up."

In a previous job we had fire officers regularly inspect the building (pre 1950 the job would have involved highly flammable material). The fire officers insisted that we put up a regulation non-smoking sign, rather than the painted wooded one that had happily sat in the room for decades.

Confusingly the conditions that the local council give for the operation of the building state:

even though the running man symbol has been part of the building regulations for over a decade.

I think I can understand there mentality if we assuming there's a political and economical motive behind the fine.
Considering that central government is cutting local government funding, fines like this are just another source of income of local government. Basically its a tax, and I guess we'll see more of theses fines happen while the country is facing austerity.