Safe Speed Forums

It would appear that some of my service colleagues down at Lyneham are feeling a little hard done by. A speed trap in the village resulted in 30 prosecutions and 60 cautions and (apparently) a 'random' breath test session was conducted on the day most personnel went off on leave for Xmas.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=256964

Thoughts?

i havent followed the link but i dont see the problem. they know the score, if they get caught, they cant blame anyone else for it

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

if you do follow the link, you will find most posters dont have a problem with the event

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now retired

I was staying at RAF South Cerney in July 1969 and remember visiting RAF Lynham seing Concorde 002 and flying in a C130 Hercules from Lynham! lol

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

The 'random' breath tests appear to have resulted in zero positive tests, from the forum reports. Another triumph of proactive policing

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I was unaware that breath tests were permitted to be 'random', thought they had to have suspicions that were confirmed or dispelled by the breathalyser.

They aren't, but as we all know the police have little regard for the niceties of the law.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

To be fair, the law in this area is something of a blank cheque, and we can't really blame the police for cashing it.

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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

Indeed, there are no credible circumstances under which a policeman who wanted to carry out a breath test would be prevented from doing so by the law.

Which makes you wonder why they are constantly asking for "unfettered discretion" (something that is entirely different from "random breath tests").

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I think the present law prevents a 'roadblock: test everyone' approach. Personally I think that's a good thing - I'd much rather see precise targeting of finite resources than any blunderbus approach. It's so much better to give 5 breath tests and score three hits than to give 500 breath tests and score two hits.

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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 does, but if the police want to they can get round that. What they would typically do is to set up an checkpoint, and then stop vehicles at their discretion - which they are perfectly entitled to do. They will then ask the driver whether he has been drinking. If he says "yes", or "just the one", then they have grounds for suspicion and will administer a breath test. If he says "no", the police officer replies "then you won't have any objections to taking a breath test, will you Sir?" While the driver is entitled to refuse, most people - particularly if they were confident they had nothing to fear - would decide that discretion was the better part of valour, and accede to the test. Few people want to be branded as a troublemaker in the eyes of the police. Therefore in practice the police can carry out 'random' breath tests.

Obviously unless the objective is to send out a general deterrent message this approach is likely to be a waste of time and resources, but apparently it is still often employed in the run-up to Christmas.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Correct, they don't do they! There are even a few spurious whinges about being targetted even though they're doing their bit for queen and country.
However, someone in the middle of the thread makes a point.. wonder what the reaction would have been had they set up the same thing outside of the Honda plant, or the EMI plant or the WH Smith distribution centre.

Makes me chuckle. People whinge about speed cameras, and say they want more TrafPol - yet when said TrafPol turn up and enforce then it's "easy pickings".

I'm all for targetted and random stopping of cars to see if people are DUI. They need to do it more often, not just at Christmas.

I don't think random stopping is any good at all. If we guess that perhaps 2% of drivers are pissed, that means that 49 out of every 50 stopped at random are a waste of time. I'm confident that the time spent dealing with 50 random drivers could have nicked more than one targetted drunk.

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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

By "random" I really mean roadblock style testing rather than Police officers pulling over isolated vehicles.

They should set up a "ring" every now and then on all major routes at night and stop any suspicious vehicles in a lay-by. Apparently they do this a lot in the States and Canada and have quite a high level of success. Plus there's the deterrent factor.

Paul

I suppose it depends whether each stop (either via roadblock or random) ends up with a producer being issued.

Personally, I have no problem with a roadblock type approach and think that these initiatives could be led by non-TrafPol, leaving TrafPol to concentrate on unsafe driving behaviour.

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All views expressed are personal.

Are you aware that drunk drivers normally are easily recognised by characteristic 'drift and snatch' steering and by braking distance judgement errors? So good observation of traffic provides good targeting.

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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

My 'problem' is really to do with resource utilisation.

I have some concerns about pulling hunderds of entirely innocent drivers, but I'd suspend that absolutely if I thought that road blocks would be really effectiving in reducing drunk driving.

It seems to me that the more innocent motorists you pull the more resources that you have wasted.

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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

Yes, I was aware of the steering deficiencies - maybe a roadblock method coupled with a few patrolling vehicles in the vicinity - if I was drunk driving the last place I'd go through would be a Police roadblock, I'd go the back streets. A few strategically placed cars would see to that.

I think I should have clarififed what you meant by random stops. Did you mean stop vehicle after vehicle until you find a drunk driver? Or just be 'out and about' on general patrol until you come across 'something'.

Personally, I want to see the latter and do not want to see TrafPol issuing producers just because someone says they have to justify their work rate.

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All views expressed are personal.