Safe Speed Forums

I’d only been in America a day and a half and I’d already been caught speeding my motorbike on their freeway. “I reckon you were running about one-twenty back there,” said the highway patrolman.

My mind turned to the possibility of extraordinary rendition back to Britain – via a short holiday in Romania, one involving the use of electrodes.
But instead he said: “It means I can impound your motorcycle and haul your ass to jail.”

The circa 1970 cop-show dialogue had been a source of mild entertainment up to this point, but the thought that very soon I’d be sharing a cell with a big bloke called Bubba, while in possession of an English accent and leather trousers, took any humour right out of our encounter.

“What kind of motor-sickle is this anyway?” he demanded from behind mirrored aviators.

“It’s a Triumph,” I said, figuring that Triumph Rocket III sounded a bit provocative. Then I ruined it by adding: “It’s got the largest engine of any production motorcycle in the world, and it’s British.”

“What? Bigger than a Harley-Davidson?” “Yes,” I said, “quite a bit bigger: it’s 2300cc.” “Twenty-three hundred cee-cees, you’ve gotta be s******* me!”

Aha! Now I knew precisely what was going on: he was offering me the chance to talk my way out of jail. So we began to chinwag in depth about bikes, speeding, cars and engines, and I must say we got on famously.

Eventually he said: “Here’s what I’ll do: I’m going to write you a ticket for exceeding 65mph. You’re obviously a gentleman who’s aware of his machine’s performance.”

Many of you will believe that what he did was wrong. After all, the speed he stopped me for was twice the posted limit. But do you know what? It worked – I slowed down, so I was surprised when, 50 miles up the highway, my mirrors were again filled with a patrol car.

“Is there a problem, officer?” I asked. “No sir,” said this second, much younger, cop. “I just noticed your out-of-state licence plates and wanted to warn you about this road: it’s treacherous at this time of year, especially for a motorcycle. You ride safe, okay?”

These two encounters got me thinking about the differences in road policing in America and Britain, and they gave the lie to the misconception we have in Britain that the American police are a bunch of humourless trigger-happy rednecks who shoot first and ask questions later.

In fact the opposite appears to be true, and if you delete the word “redneck” you have a description of Britain’s own road police, otherwise known as speed cameras.

As I landed back at Heathrow, word broke that we are to get a new type of speed camera, one that is digital and so never runs out of film – a fact that could double the revenue from fines. Also, these new cameras take the picture of the vehicle from the front, so identifying both car and driver.

All very clever, but still it can’t discriminate between a driver who has strayed over the limit and one who’s drunk, on drugs, or driving a stolen car with a bootful of firearms. The speed camera neither discriminates nor cares.

As I walked from the terminal into the unseasonably warm English weather I couldn’t help thinking that if we had a police force a bit more like the one the Americans have, our roads might be slightly friendlier – and above all safer – places.