Safe Speed Forums

Two articles here, that were forwarded to me by a friend in mid-Wales the last couple of days... Apologies for what will likely become broken links!
Both Fixed - S

Link 1

I was hysterical... they took my keys
Jun 25 2007



by Rona Wasiuk, Daily Post


A PREGNANT student nurse was left stranded at the roadside in the pouring
rain after police pulled her car over, claimed she had no insurance, and
seized the vehicle.

Helen Parry, 29, was driving her father’s car through Deganwy and was
stopped in a roadside check.

The sobbing woman told officers she was fully insured but they insisted she
was not on their database and was driving illegally.

She was issued with an on-the-spot fine of £200 and six penalty points and
ordered to hand over her keys.

The police refused to take her back to her home in West Shore, Llandudno,
and she had to phone her mother Maureen Smith to come and get her.

Mother and daughter could only watch in disbelief as the car was hauled on
to a pick-up truck and driven away.

Mrs Smith, of Rhos on Sea, had to pay police £105 to have the car released
from a car pound six miles away.

Helen told the Daily Post last night: “A policewoman asked if I had
insurance and I explained how I was insured to drive my dad’s car.

“That’s when she told me ‘You’re not insured.’ She said her database said I
wasn’t insured. I couldn’t believe it because I knew I was doing nothing
wrong.

“Another female officer checked and said the same thing.

“Then they said they would have to take my keys away. When they said that, I
went hysterical. I was getting so cross. They just weren’t listening to me.

“I said sorry, and that it was because I was hormonal because I was
pregnant, so they knew what the situation was.

“But they just took the car. There was no offer of a lift, nothing. I
couldn’t believe it. I still can’t really believe it.”

Helen said that, during her wait with police, she called her husband to
check with her insurers.

Within minutes, he confirmed she was insured.

Helen Parry has refused to pay the fine and costs and vowed to fight the
matter in court.

She added: “I just want the police to apologise for a start. But we haven’t
had anything of the sort yet.

“I want them to realise they can be wrong at times.”

A North Wales Police spokeswoman said it was up to Helen Parry to go to
court if she did not accept the decision.

The spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that the vehicle was seized. The
driver of the vehicle can elect to have the case heard in court should they
wish to dispute the matter.”

MP David Jones, who has seen Helen’s valid insurance certificate, last night
hit out at the police actions and promised to raise the matter in the House
of Commons.

“As a matter of simple humanity, how could the officers in question allow a
lady in Mrs Parry’s condition to stand in the rain without arranging
transport for her or, at the very least, giving her shelter in one of their
vehicles?,” he asked.

He said it was another example of how the public were expected to “prove
their innocence” against the sometimes incorrect word of a computer.

Mr Jones said: “I want to raise this in the Commons because it is an example
of the way we are going in this country, with the word of a database being
preferred to that of an innocent member of the public.”

Mrs Smith turned up before her husband’s car was taken away and the police
refused to hand it over.

She said: “Helen was left terribly distressed standing on a street in
Deganwy in the pouring rain miles from home, and being accused of something
of which she was totally innocent.

“There was no interest from the attending officers as to how she was to get
home or anywhere else for that matter.

“Our police force would rather listen to and believe what a machine tells
them than listen to a real person.”

Mrs Smith said that at Llandudno police station, she was astonished by a
duty police officer’s response.

She added: “I explained that all this came about due to Helen being wrongly
accused of being uninsured to drive my vehicle, the officer quite flippantly
said ‘This happens all the time madam’. I was furious.”


Link 2

Cops blame insurers over stranding Helen



Jun 26 2007



by Roland Hughes, Daily Post



A PREGNANT driver whose car was towed away because of a computer error has
had her fine and points wiped by police.

Helen Parry, 29, was stopped by officers who claimed she was uninsured to
drive her father’s car.

They towed the car away after it was stopped in Deganwy, and landed her with
a £200 fine and six points on her licence.

The two female officers also refused to drive Helen, who is 20 weeks
pregnant, the few miles back to her home in Llandudno.

Police chiefs last night claimed the move was down to an error by Mrs
Parry’s insurers, Direct Line, and agreed to drop her fine and points.

They said the incident was “regretted” but insisted the two officers had
acted properly.

A North Wales Police spokeswoman said: “Two female police officers who dealt
with Mrs Parry checked the insurance details provided by the Motor Insurers
Bureau to police forces across the UK to assess whether or not she had valid
insurance.

“Two checks showed that she was not insured on either her parents’ insurance
or her own insurance to drive the car.

“An investigation by North Wales Police has now revealed that the data
supplied to police forces via the Motor Insurance Bureau by Mrs Parry’s
insurers, Direct Line Insurance, was incorrect and that the company has
failed to ensure the accuracy of its own data on which the police had acted.

“The understandable distress caused to Mrs Parry by Direct Line’s apparent
failure is very much regretted by North Wales Police especially in view of
her pregnancy.

“It was drizzling with rain while the checks were being made and because of
Mrs Parry’s condition the officers invited her to sit either in her own car
or in the police car until her mother arrived to pick her up 15 minutes
later. Mrs Parry was naturally upset.

“The officers acted perfectly properly and correctly in seizing the car
according to the law and data supplied by Direct Line.

“North Wales Police shares Mrs Parry’s concerns about the inaccuracy that
led up to this incident and will be cancelling the ticket, reimbursing the
family and supporting them in their efforts to get the insurance details
recorded correctly.”

Last night Helen’s mum Maureen Smith, of Rhos-on-Sea, who had to pay £105 to
have the car released, said: “I have had the money back.

“It was the way this was handled which was upsetting.

“The officers were very polite, but the attitude was they had to go through
a set procedure.

“If we had been given just a little bit of time we could have produced the
documents and proved what we were saying – but we were not allowed that.”

Mrs Smith said she was visited by police chiefs last night and told there
would be a nationwide review of procedures dealing with similar situations
at a police chief forum.

Direct Line said the error was corrected last night, adding: “We can only
apologise to Mrs Parry for the inconvenience caused.”

Oh dear, why is it that nobody seems to be able to use their brains anymore? This sort of thing just brings the police into disrepute.

A "producer" would have been quite adequate as no other offence is alleged.

I notice it is dated at the end of the month. A bit short of pulls, perhaps?

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

It reminds me of a time many moons ago when I worked for the Dept of Employment when we were having a new computer system that would replace all our manual forms.

After the presentation I asked "What contingencies will be in place for when the system is down?"

the answer, "It won't go down.."

_________________
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

And they probably print off a copy of the computerised version just in case.

_________________
Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

And the same paper's leader column on this incident:

Link

A case of highway robbery?
Jun 25 2007



by Mark Brittain, Daily Post


SO you’re driving along, minding your own business, looking forward to getting home because it’s raining, when you get pulled over by the police – in this instance North Wales Police.

The reason for the roadside check is that the police computer database has thrown up an apparent discrepancy over your insurance.

Unable to convince the police that you are, as you have every reason to believe, entitled to be driving your father’s car on your own insurance policy, they take the keys from you and arrange to have it towed away.

To add insult to metaphorical injury (note: it is sadly necessary to spell out what is a metaphor when dealing with such matters) you are issued with a fixed penalty fine for £200 and will have six points added to your licence – unless you decide to go to all the trouble of contesting the issue in the courts, which, incidentally, you fully intend to do.

Oh, and by the way, you are a 29-year-old nurse. And you are five-months pregnant.

Nevertheless despite the rain and your being a lone, pregnant female, there is no offer forthcoming from the police of a lift home (a mere matter of a mile or two which wouldn’t take them more than a few minutes). Instead you have to be rescued by your family, who then have to recover the car from the pound – and pay £105 into the bargain.

But it is not, of course, a bargain. On the face of it, such cavalier treatment by our police of law-abiding citizens – nurses, even – on the basis that what they are told does not tally with what their computer says (despite common sense suggesting otherwise), is not remotely acceptable. Even if the lady had not been insured, being prepared to leave her abandoned by the roadside, pregnant or no, suggests a remarkable degree of insouciance.

It bodes ill indeed for the introduction of any half-baked government ID card scheme over the next year or so. And it flies in the face of common sense, common decency, intelligence, the very function of what the police should be doing as public servants and protectors, and the idea that British citizens are not expected to have to prove their innocence.

We expect drivers without insurance and MOTs to be identified, apprehended and stopped from reoffending, but the laws were intended to give police powers to save us from organised criminals or boy racers (lack of insurance should never be dealt-with by fixed penalty anyway, it is far too serious).

Have our police instead become highway robbers? How very alarming. How very sad.

Why did they issue a fixed penalty without properly checking her story first? The evidence was nowhere near sufficient.

Because they can? Because, in the eyes of Brainstorm, all motorists are evil criminals?

Click this link to find out what's been said about this on the No2ID forum.

http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=17261

_________________
Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

At least in Merseyside they phone the company you say you are insured with.

I was pulled in a general check, when they pull all cars for whatever and told them my name which obviously matched with the DVLA but it did not match the insurance database.

Mmmm, having just renewed the insurance I knew I was OK but the BiB would not let me go until he had sorted it out.

Various calls to his H.O, then asking if I knew someone about 300 miles away and then eventually asking again who I'm insured with.

Eventually, they got through to the insurance company and he came back to me said , ok of you go, apologised saying the insurance database was not up to date.

Strange I'd had the car 3 years with the same insurance company. The database must be well behind.

I'd try to sue them for distress, agitated robbery, inconvenience or whatever a solicitor could think of. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

I read the article in the paper, the hard copy.

To allow Brunstrom to continue makes me wonder if the government understands the meaning of anarchy or whether they think it's just something which happens in other countries.

Will some country please take England over? We don't have the backbone to do it ourselves but if you try I promise I won't resist and I think you'll find few others will either. ANYTHING is better than what we currently have.

anarchy
noun - a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government)

We're just about there now lads...

_________________
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I'm sure there's more than a few Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Iraqis, etc that would delight in pointing out the falacy in the emboldened statement

_________________
Prepare to be Judged

wow, so plod can now judge dread & jury you at the roadside then say it's not their fault when they're using known dodgy data cos it's someone elses responsibilty to keep that data accurate?

Personally, I'd be talking to a hotshot lawyer about sueing big time for compensation, emotional trauma the whole nine yards. Not the "proper" thing to do, but sometimes you have to resort to communicating with people on a level they can understand to make yourself heard.

_________________
Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

I'm 100% with you on that.

I used to have a reasonably relaxed approach to the police....so what if the shoot the odd bloke carrying a table leg....we're only human and they're doing a difficult job.

Since agressive speed enforcement and now this cr4p then I have zero tolerance of any of their failures.

If that was my wife I'd be going balistic. Brunstrom would be kissing my backside on national TV before I gave it a rest.

It's not just our lords and masters who can exercise zero tolerance!

People seem to forget that you govern and police by consent!

http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/dai ... _page.html

Police favour Mercedes driver
Jun 27 2007

by Roland Hughes, Daily Post


TWO policewomen who refused to take pity on a pregnant “uninsured” driver happily gave the benefit of the doubt to a man in a Mercedes, it has emerged.

Helen Parry, 29, of Llandudno, was left on the roadside in Deganwy after police seized her car, saying she was uninsured.

Mrs Parry, who is 20 weeks pregnant, told officers she was fully insured, but their database claimed she was not.

She was issued with an on-the-spot fine of £200 and six penalty points, and ordered to hand over her car keys.

North Wales Police later agreed to waive the fine and points.

The force blamed insurance firm Direct Line for the error and insisted the two police officers had acted correctly.

Now it has emerged a Mercedes driver was also wrongly told he had no insurance at the same spot at around the same time.

Again, the officers’ database claimed he was not insured to drive the car.

The driver protested his innocence, and said he could prove he was eligible to drive the vehicle.

The two policewomen allowed the man to keep his car, and simply asked him to attend a police station later that day to prove he was insured.

The man’s passenger, who did not want to be named, said: “I’m sure it’s just because it was a Merc: how could we be allowed to carry on and she wasn’t?”

North Wales Police said they would not comment on the claims because the man was not the driver.

Justice favouring the rich, eh?

Link

20-weeks pregnant nurse’s car was seized

Jul 2 2007

by Our Correspondent, Daily Post


A PREGNANT student nurse whose car was seized by the police because officers wrongly thought she had no insurance has been given flowers by North Wales Police.

Helen Parry, 29, who is 20 weeks pregnant, was left sobbing at the roadside at Deganwy after police refused to believe she was insured to drive her father’s car.

Police initially wouldn’t believe Helen or her mother Maureen Smith, who arrived later, when they both protested that she was insured to drive any car under her own comprehensive policy.

After at first insisting that Helen would have to go to court to prove her innocence, police later admitted that a database was at fault because her company, Direct Line, had not entered her details correctly.

A chief superintendent accompanied by an inspector from the force’s professional standards department visited Mrs Smith’s home at Rhos-on-Sea, Colwyn Bay, bearing bouquets of carnations and sweet peas for both Helen and her mother.

The officers spent more than an hour explaining how the mix-up happened.

But Mrs Smith’s anger has been reignited after learning from the Daily Post that another motorist stopped in the same roadside check, driving a Mercedes, had been given the option of producing his documents without his car being seized.

She said yesterday: “Perhaps Helen should have been driving a smart Mercedes instead of an old Passat. We’re still very angry that our word wasn’t accepted and it would be nice to have a letter from the chief constable saying sorry.

“I’m afraid that after hearing about the Mercedes we’ve written another letter of protest to the police. If they think I’m a little woman who can be bought with a bunch of flowers and a smile they’ll have another think [sic] coming.”

MP David Jones, the Tory member for Clwyd, has raised it in Parliament and he believes that as many as one and a half million British motorists could be at risk because of delays or mistakes in updating the British Insurance Bureau database.

Chief constable Richard Brunstrom said: “We can’t vouch for 100% accuracy of the information. We are alert to that all the time.”

FLOWERS!!!!!!!!

I'd have made the f**ker eat them before considering his apology!

How patronising. Give the little woman a bunch of dying flowers. That make it OK then. What if she has hayfever?





Then all the more reason to give producers. Surely the big clue to not being allowed to behind wheel in car & seizing vehicle on spot should be if the person has #
a) no licence to drive on record
b) car ist a heap with no MOT etc.

Of course there obligation on part of inuserers to update databases. But professional judgement should have realised this young lady telling them the truth - especially since she call home & policy details verified from policy as kept at home.

I keep photocopy of all policy of all cars inside handbag. I also keep a photocopy in the car service record booklet too. These are photocopies. Not original as I think originals best kept in safe place at home.

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Awe, you're just trying to bug me

The exceptions don't prove the rule dude. I know there are plenty of countries, like you mention, which are worse but I assumed it was understood that I wasn't referring to the radical/fanatical/extreme...

All I'm saying, perhaps clumsily, is that places like France, for example, stand up for themselves more than we do. Remember the petrol issue uprising some years ago, followed by our feeble carbon copy? We mumbled amongst ourselves about the pricing but it took the French to kickstart us into action. We were brow-beaten into submission almost overnight sadly, and walked away with our English tails between our legs.

Every other civilised country seems to have a democracy which gives the people enough freedom to demonstrate and, at times, overthrow stupid legislation.

We, on the other hand, just sit by with our stupid stiff uper lip while our rights and freedom are slowly being snatched away like a rattle from a baby's pram.

_________________
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

It is simply not acceptable to blame the 'database' there are many situations where a driver is insured to drive a vehicle that is not on the database.

If I was the victim I would pursue damages for thousands. I doubt any court would challenge the inconvenience and distress caused.

For anyone else when the officer says 'i am seizing this vehicle under section 59...' the answer is to refer them to sec 60 and tell them this is an unlawful seizure and that you will sue them for damages.

Thats pretty much my understanding of their powers.

I wonder how many uninsured drivers those two correctly caught on that shift?

If I had been in the same position but found out they had correctly removed 20+ uninsured drivers & cars then I might be a bit more forgiving.

Pretty unlikely though I suspect.

Do you think the police keep data on their hit/miss ratio?

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May