Safe Speed Forums

Did anyone see "Traffic Cops" last night?

Guy driving a Clio, no seatbelt, some of the worst tailgating I have ever seen (flashing, trying to force past) but happily all done right behind an un-marked Police BMW!
The officer couldn't stop him safely once he eventually got past, so he had to follow him for several miles. Watched him doing nearly 100mph along a busy D/C with poor sightlines, undertaking and generally driving like a nutter.

Entered a 40 limit section doing 70mph, but then came across a fixed camera - hard on the brakes and passed the camera at 40 exactly!

Pulled just after by the BMW (his face was a picture when he got out!).

Had the unmarked car not been there - nothing would have happened, typical.

Yeah, that one's been on before.

It was the reaction of the tailgating arrogant jackass in the estate (last part of the program) that made me think...
The prat:

Acted all petulant
Wouldn't get out of his car and passed the officer his licence through a slit in the top of his wondow (I'd have let it blow away)
Tried to claim the Chief Constable had been done for the same thing
Told the copper to stop patronising him, (got the feeling he was going to say this regardless of what the copper had said to him)

He got another 6 points to add to the 6 he already had, but escaped a ban

The guy was indeed triving like a tw*t, but I also came away feeling that the copper behaved like a playground bully.

I thought the copper remained remarkably calm considering the deliberate provocation from that twat.

Yeah, I thought so too actually in fact I often wonder, when folks complain about the attitude of the trafpol that stopped them, how many times its their own petulant attitude that was the catlyst. The trafpol in question did say something like "I don't have to do what you say, you have to do what I say in situations like this" which sounds a bit arsey on its own, but was almost certainly said in response to something we didn't hear from the outside.
A police officer should be polite but, at the end of the day, he doesn't have to fawn over his 'customers' as if he is selling them a TV or serving them dinner. Ultimately, if he's pulled someone over, he's giving them a telling off and guys like the jerk in question seem incapable of accepting this; out goes the botom lip and on comes the attitude, often ending with the pathetic "I pay your wages"

You may gather that I have no time for tossers like that.

Whenever I've had any dealings with the police, I've found them to be polite (sometimes quite jolly) if I am polite.

Except when I lived in London, where my experience of the met was that they were unnecessarily rude. I was once stopped and searched walking home from a friends in the small hours, and even when it became clear that I was not up to any mischief, they continued to treat me very aggressively despite the fact I tried to be as cooperative and cheerful as I could.

I came away with the impression that walking through Earls Court at night would be illegal if they only had the power to make it so.

On another occasion a colleague and I came upon a policeman blocking the road at at junction in Victoria. We wanted to go right (which was shut) but he wanted us to go left. My colleague (driving) leaned out of the window and asked for what distance the road was shut, in order that we know how wide a diversion to make. The policeman's response was "piss off, just move", despite there being no-one waiting behind us.

My friend replied "I just want to know how far round we should go before rejoining the road" to which the PC's response was "Are you f***ing deaf, I said piss off, now f***ing move"

Charming!

I think I posted before that respect begets respect.

If you treat a suspect with anything less than politeness - he can challenge the arrest and even escape justice as a result.

Hence - the training to the lads and lasses is one of "keeping their cool no matter what the provocation as they are the "professional and must be seen to be so"

Odd thing - it appears to work You never seek to alienate the public - even if you are pulling them for something. Professional means just that! Keeping calm and treating with respect and just ignoring or accepting expletives as a normal human reaction which needs to blow off some steam. I always accepted that as a more junior officer and still do.

If I pulled someone and they raged at me .. I would politely ask if they had spent their anger and if they needed some more time to swear at me - I would close my ears until they had calmed down and then decide what to do. I sometimes used discretion but ii did depend on what I observed in any case . I suggest this strategy to trainees and it appears to diffuse an awkward situation

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Sadly, the Police (Thanks to government policy) have *already* alienated the public!

I saw a scamera van the other day that was done out like a riot van! Steel mesh over the windows, side skirts the lot!

I dont know if this was a "One Off" or the shape of things to come.

Those in a position to influance these matters should be thinking *Really Hard* about the, possibly irreversable, damage being done to the relationship between the Police the People and the mechinisim of state! for the sake of, at best, very marginal safety improvements (*) and, at worst, short term revenue generation!

* If there were *significant* safety improvements, they would be sufficently obvious that there would be no room for debate. The fact is that they are not!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

probably was a riot van most cannot tell the difference

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now retired

Which just goes to prove that there's good and bad 'uns in every force - my experience (from two first-hand encounters, plus witnessing their behaviour with many other people) with the Met is quite the opposite.

My first first-hand encounter was 18 months ago when I was test-driving my new camera at City Airport - I noticed a police van slowly driving around the area and eventually making its way over to where I was standing. We exchanged a few pleasantries and off they drove, happy that I was just another harmless photographer/spotter willing to freeze his nuts off on a cold December afternoon by the dockside just for the sake of a few plane photos. If everyone I met whilst out taking photos was as friendly and polite as those two officers, the world would be a much nicer place...

My second encounter was in significantly different circumstances, after a nutter in the carriage next to mine on a Central Line tube train started smashing the windows with a hammer. It had started whilst we were travelling through the tunnel between stations, with the first indication that there was any trouble coming when all of a sudden a whole bunch of other passengers burst through the connecting door between the carriages... We pulled into the next station and stopped, and the driver asked us all to leave the train - without the noise of the train moving through the tunnel, the hammer blows and shattering glass could clearly be heard, so it was now obvious something was amiss. As we were all milling around on the platform wondering what to do, a whole bunch of armed officers suddenly descended onto the platform, and though their orders to us were pretty short, sharp and to the point ("Get out of the station, NOW!") they were delivered pretty calmly and with a sense of respectful authority - yes, they had to get us all out of the way ASAP and perhaps if we'd been a bit slower to respond or had started challenging them as to why we needed to move then maybe their language would have turned a bit fruity, but as it was they got the station cleared without having to get aggressive or rude, and if my feelings mirror those of the other people on the train that day then there's several hundred people who now have just that little bit more respect and admiration for the police - or at least the frontline officers who put their lives on the line to keep the rest of us safe.

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Chris

Noo! This one had all the useual "Safety Camera" stuff on the side.

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

If you see it again, I need a photo.

Do you know what partnership/Police force area?

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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

It would be Hampshire operating on the A325 through Farnborough!

Now, while I accept that this is Airshow week, My observation was a couple of weeks back. And the thing that attracted my attention was not so much the "Armour plating" (You see a lot of that round here) it was actually the "Safety camera" stuff that was printed on the side. I found this *deeply* disturbing!

D

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Sounds like an ideal candidate for a sticky bomb

Seriously though, maybe they have been getting attacked?


(edited as I noticed I had an extra url tag!)

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

That same piece of shit van also operates on the A31 heading towards the A3 from the A331.

I saw the sneaky fuckers last Tuesday parked right up on the grass verge about a mile from the B3000, and they had picked the spot deliberately as they were hidden from view by a bush and there was no way you could slow down in time once you had seen them (although believe me, plenty of anchors were coming on regardless on an otherwise empty straight road which used to be NSL but has since had the limit dropped).

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

600 Gramms of liquid nitro!

Ye Gods!!

"Sensitive to shock!"

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

lol

i have had a complaint lodged at me for driving at excess speed, after the enquiry it turned out to be a dog handler on a 999 shout, intresting though as paul said a picture would be nice, unless of course they are targeting aircraft visiting the show (oops)

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now retired

I am not suprised Hampshire get abuse from the public. They break every rule
1 don't check the signs are correct or the road markings
2 wrongside of the duel carriageway, under power lines, over electric railway
3 ileagal parking, enforcing from hgv bay.
4 time discrepancies (man caught when at a funeral, truck drivers tachos disagree)
5 parked on cross hatches between lane 1 and 2 about 12" from traffic.

Thats enough for now, and ony the cases I can prove.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

The guy in Traffic Cops who refused to open his window mumbled something interesting when the police officer asked him about the 6 points he already had:

"the first for 47 in a 40 and the other for 35 in a 30"

This would suggest that he had been done by the SCP rather than the Police, as I doubt the Police would prosecute at those speeds. So, thanks to the Scammers, that's another motorist who hates the Police who has probably never had any dealings with them before (just some headed letters that actually came from the SCP).

Oh, and the best thing by far for camera vans is the RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher much favoured by the Taliban. No sneaking up required, just pull up after the van, pop the sunroof and WOOOSHH.....KA-BOOM!!!

Indeed, my point presisly!

Most people I know, thanks to speed cameras, wouldnt piss on a policeman if he was on fire, They wouldnt admit it "Publically" but it is how they feel! AND we are not talking about some chav infested sink estate either. (This is *Serious* leafy suburb £500,000 house territory)

This was not the case 15 years ago!

Even if the most optimistic claims of the speed camera lobby are true and they do *save* a couple of hundred lives a year, I feel that the cost to our socioty as a whole has been *FAR* too high!

I have to say, in all honosty, if I witnessed a couple of guys chucking a petrol bomb into the back of a Talivan I would deliberatly avoid looking too closely so that when later giving a witness statement I could truthfull state that " I didnt see there faces or notice what they where wearing".

I actually feel angry that a misguided government policy that, at best, doesnt work, and at worst is just an easy cash cow, has made me feel this way!

I feel I have been "damaged" by the government and that my socioty has been "Damaged" too!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"