Safe Speed Forums

I understand 'random' in this case to mean 'without reason for selection'. So if you pull every car (roadblock style) or every fifth car, then that's random. If you drive around looking for trouble and pull it when you see it, then that's anything but random.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'm confident that the 49 sober drivers who were stopped randomly would not represent a waste of time at all. If any of those 49 harboured any doubts about the ability of the police to detect them if they were tempted to drink/drive a few of them might think harder having been stopped when they didn't expect to be. And they in turn will propbably recount their experience to their colleagues who might also think twice.

On saturday night before Xmas I went to get my son from Albrighton in the fog, and on the way back down the M54 was passed by a vehicle being driven very erratically. Speeding up, slowing down, nearly collided with the rear of a truck it was trying to pass, wandering on to the hard shoulder. My son and I both said together...drink driver!
I was beside myself with frustration in that i couldn't properly see its licence plate and didn't have my moby with me so I could stop off at a junction and call the feds. I did call the local 24 hr number when i got home (the car had headed off towards Shrewsbury) but after 5 minutes ringing gave up as there was no reply!

Then you are a manipulator and thus worse than you condemn.

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I have no doubt IG will post up his take on this. As far as I'm aware from him in the past.. Co Durham do randoms as part of their "campaigns" and I ;ve no problems.


I did post how a drink can influence and a google at thisismanchester should take you to a review of a simulator exercise where journalist was a bit "merry"


I think IG's guys from what he says pull if reason to suspect and check every 6 th car in a random. I am privy to what he told me and my wife.. and will say he says in passing to us when we plague with questions



I think I have to yield to that "nose" to be true to myself.

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

so reading the link again it was base PC involved as well (i take this a military police,) in a 5 day operation in the morning rush hour at the bases gates, then a final operation on the day the base closed

visibility presence should in theory deter the occasional DD, IMO the CO would be used to check for the glazed look

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Facetious comments like that are unnecessary, and unwise considering you are clearly unaware of the makeup of the audience here!

The real beef is not with the enforcement of the law in this instance, but with the perceived manner in which the armed forces are being targeted; of course we are not going to be driving unregistered cars through speed traps, and are not going to be 'chancing our arm' at some absurd legal loophole when one of our core values is Integrity. This makes us 'soft targets', as pointed out in the thread on PPRUNE, to meet scameraship targets and generate revenue with a minimum of aggro.

If you put speed traps right outside the gates of a mosque parking-lot throughout Eid (a high volume time no doubt!) then your asses would be in front of an equality commission faster than you could say 'speed kills'!

It's certainly a reasonable argument, but I don't believe it's right. I can't really offer any evidence either way, but it helps me to consider the 'proper role' of the Police.

I don't think they should be 'an advertisement' for the possibility of capture. I think they should capture as many as they can (best use of resources) and leave 'advertising' to government departments.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

So, what does BRAKE have to say (when is another matter)

http://www.brake.org.uk/index.php?p=921

Brake seem completely obsessed with getting the police to breath test as many sober drivers as possible. I can't see that as anything other than a waste of police time.

I notice that they don't give the percentage of positive tests in any other country. Perhaps that's because the proportion is miniscule. Oh wait - yes they do. With 2 million tests in New Zealand they prosecuted 27,000 drivers. That's 1.35% or 1 in 74.

In the UK the figures are (2004) 103,000 positive or refused / 578,000 tests. That's 17.8% or 1 in 5.6.

Does anyone want to argue that New Zealand are doing better?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

A much lower percentage of New Zealanders drink/drives?

I doubt it very much. Although on present information it's possible.

We could get a better idea if we found NZ contributory factor data. Standby - I know a man...

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

if you get your head out of the sand you might realise that the drink drive aspect of this operation was conducted by th police, with the base police involved as well, the speeding issue was used in conjunction and no doubt the police cars had ANPR fitted as well but some people never want to look at the wider picture

ok this event was at a military base, it could have been held at any port, car factory, distribution warehouse facility, after any pop concert of sports event, in any town / city centre

as for the military being a soft target FFS next thing you will be saying the military should not go to war as it is against their human rights (apologys to any people with family friends overseas),

as for the situation outside a mosque from my angle the driver id is secondary to the vehicle reg, so i dont have a problem, but whilst on this point many plod i know are reluctant to stop ethnic minoritys in case they have a racism claim against them,

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The fact that the RAFP were also involved is what has peed off a lot of people there.

Conversation 1
Local feds: We're going to set up a random breathalyser session outside of your base on the last working day and grab some of your lads/lasses as they leave for xmas.
Station Commander - Okely dokely, want my coppers to help you jerk them around? You can even use MOD property if you like.
Local feds: Sure, thanks a lot

Do you really think the same thing would have been set up outside a local plant or factory....

Conversation 2
Local feds: We're going to set up a random breathalyser session outside of your factory on the last working day and grab some of your lads/lasses as they leave for xmas. Mind if we use your land and could your security guys chip in as well.
Site manager: Fuck off and die



As I said above, the military are an easy target because these things can be conducted with the assistance of the base management.

This says 109 drink drive deaths in a NZ year. If we put that as a percentage and compare it with the UK percentage then we'll have a fair picture. 405 NZ road deaths in 2002 (same year) making drink drive prresent in 27% of fatalities.

In the Uk it's usually quoted as 25%. But having just checked the recent contributory factor data, that has it as 9%. But they recently said 540/3200 which is 17%. I'll have to dig a bit deeper, but I think we can be pretty sure that the New Zealanders are worse drink drivers than we are, if only slightly. And absolutely not 13 times better!

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

in case you're interested here are the NSW stats:





I think deaths with drink as a factor are claimed to be around the 30% mark of the roughly 500 annual deaths in NSW.

Now figure that the 200K breath tested is just for the Christmas period and that they're also shooting anyone who strays over the speed limit and that the toll hasn't dropped in the past 5 years and you can see just how effective all of this is.

And the percentage of pedestrian KSIs' who were drunk at the time is ?

Isn't it about 30% ?

If we did it the same way as NZ, and scored 1.35% positive refused, but still caught 103,000, we'd have to test 7.6 million drivers annually. Let's say that's 7 million more than we're testing presently.

If a breath test takes 15 officer minutes (and I reckon that's seriously optimistic) we'd be spending an extra 1.75 million officer-hours.

If an officer does 48 weeks*40hours = 1,920 hours per year, that's 911 police officers employed full time testing sober drivers.

I thought it was bad - now I know it's insanity.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I reckon a (traditional) roadside breathtest would take about 5 minutes, unless the Constable needs to wait due to the driver having had a drink or smoked a cigarette in the last 20 minutes.

This would include a moving vehicle check and chit-chat with the driver.

If the drivers fails then it is to the station for the 'proper' test.

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when was the last time you were breath tested? A negative test takes about a minute.