Safe Speed Forums

As I'm an ol git who dislikes vandals/yobs and the like I'm also one of the neighbourhood watch co ordinators.( Also helps me be truthfull when I fill in my home insurance quote on whether a scheme exists -get a little discount ).

Anyway ,as part of the scheme ,we get e mails on incidents .One that is becoming more common , is the theft of lead on bay windows ( protecting the top from weather /water).To my mind it's pro rata the increase in the quantity of mobile scrap merchants prowling the town .

Might help some poster waking up to find a costly repair .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

What to do apart from sit on the front lawn with a shotgun though.

The lead was stolen off the roof of the place where Mrs Zippo works, the building is on a main road and overlooked by tenement style houses ... nobody saw or heard a thing ... its the second time its happened, the lead has now been replaced by grp.

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

Nail it down with nails every half inch....only joking...

It is worrying though, I have lead covered bay windows on the front of my property.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Talking to someone who had theirs stolen - the bay window is underneath their bedroom - they heard the noise as if the lead was torn ,but by the time they looked out the T leafs had gone .If you've ha any problems -might be worth asking if you can have part of the lead marked with Smartwater - scrappies are checking now .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I favour the shotgun approach myself - smartwater is expensive and thwarted by dodgy scrap dealers.

One of our local rural churches has just been targeted again.
http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/9346876.Grange_church_roof_lead_stolen___again/?ref=la

And at Shap, a local druggy took £1000 worth of lead from the roof - and left £33,000 worth of damage.
http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/cumbria/eden/9133233.Man_jailed_for_stealing_lead_from_Shap_church_roof/
This is what these scum look like...


Despite the defence claiming he thought there would be "no victims", I doubt that the scum think anything other than how much money they will get.

A real risk of them being shot on sight is the only real deterrent - and some are so stupid that they will even ignore the risk to their life too - as witnessed by the cretin who was fried to death on a live 22,000 volt supply from a sub-station he was trying to steal!

I led to believe the thieves use google satellite views to find roofs with lead on them, and routes to rob them.
Do we REALLY need people like this in our society, compromising OUR human rights at every opportunity? We don't hesitate to poison vermin such as rats or cockroaches, so why draw the line at others?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I must say that my very very big guard dog helped to make me feel safe. many are now going down this route too.

I reckon they should make him go 'cold turkey' and then with supervision (and he works to pay that salary off too - through a prison type scheme), he has to repair the entire roof by himself - probably take him a year. That way he learns the hard way to respect other people's property - he learns an 'honest' trade and he repairs ALL the damage that he did. If he does another crime he then has to give back double the time back and so on!
Most of these chaps cannot have learned morals and respect. Somehow society has to give it to them in a hard one off lesson (preferably).

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I am sorry, but I have to disagree. He is a drug addict - all that matters is his next fix.

Any morals and respect drug addicts may have learned go out the window once they become hooked.
They will steal from family and friends to fund the next hit.

It is a terrible burden for their families. Even when a treatment program is made available, too many cannot adhere to it, and revert back to their chemical of choice.
It is like watching a badly wounded animal struggle - as much as you would like it to survive, you know it would be kinder to put it out of it's misery.
My sister in law took several years but eventually succeeded in drinking herself to death - a terrible blow for her friends and family - but at least they are now able to get on with their lives.
At the end, she knew she was not going to survive but still continued to succumb to the urges.

Drug addicts cost the country a huge amount of money - but the families pay a far greater price in my experience.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I am sorry to hear about your sister that is very sad.

You think that going 'cold turkey' will fail totally ?
If they are 'driven' by a drug and a 'victim' of their own former failings (original bad life 'start', or bad circumstances etc), then are they doing so out of genuine ability to 'chose' or are they seduced into doing appalling acts to serve their habit ?
I certainly know only what you have written (linked to) about this chap, and certainly I agree that he is not of good character, but does not everyone (at some point), deserve a 2nd chance?
I agree that punishments are of seemingly little deterrent in this Country.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

This has followed a large highly publisised explosion of cable theft from local track .Unfortunately they did not realise that one cable carrie 65ov AC and was live to earth .Two incients lalter -two fry ups and it stopped .At the same time the lead thefts started .
On the drug topic - better to target both the druggies and the dealers .Problem is that with police resources being reduced and the amount of survellance needed ( one old Sergeant said that it was cheaper to park an old marked car nearby than keep tabs .The car kept customers away and dealer went out of business)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Lead is very easily melted down, would the smartwater survive that?

Doubt it ,but one of the other advantages is that anyone touching it is marked too.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

So what is smartwater and how does it work ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Melting the lead destroys the Smartwater - and it is SO easy to melt lead.

2nd chance...?
Every drug addict has many chances.
They CAN get off drugs, but it requires will power - and strength of character - the lack of which is probably what led them to take drugs in the first place.

In Cumbria you can contact CADAS - Cumbria Alcohol and Drug Advisory Service, who despite being starved of funding, do everything they can to get victims off the drugs.

You can go to your GP, or any health clinic - but at every step you will be targeted by the dealer, whose income depends on selling the stuff.

Often the dealer is also a fence - handling stolen goods his customers have taken - or advising them on what to take or how. They will not give up easily!
Of course some dealers are addicts themselves - and sell to finance their own habit.

Alcohol is unfortunately as difficult to combat as illegal drugs, as it is so easily obtainable, and is also socially acceptable.
When my brother took his wife's credit cards away to stop her buying booze, her "friend" advised her to report the cards as stolen, and she obtained replacements. The "friend" also advised her not to listen to family members who were urging her not to drink, and that she was an adult and should be able to do as she liked!

Needless to say, the friend is not the one that is dead.

Drug dealers and people who steal metal for personal gain are amongst the lowest of the low, just above child molestors.
As I said in an earlier post, they are vermin - but society has evolved into something that lacks the desire to act in the only way that will cure the problem.

Only this week a failed asylum seeker, who has committed many offences while in OUR country, was told by a judge that his human rights had been infringed, because the UK Border agency had detained him longer than was necessary, in order to try and find out which country he was from to deport him to!
Apparently the first part of his detention was OK, but once they realised there was little prospect of deporting him, as they were unable to find out which country he was from, the UKBA should have let him go!

Is this REALLY why I work hard and pay my taxes? Don't MY human rights count?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Few years ago I had to stand up in court to defend an appeal against a council decision to evict a tenant over failure to comply with tenancy conditions .Basicly ,his sons were thugs etc - his hose was the home from hell .First on the agenda was his QC stating that his human rights had been infringed . QC for the council was smart to argue that the rights of dozens of tenants should count ahead of his .

But when Cameroon & co stand up and look like getting rid of this stupid bit of law -I back them -for good reason . I've seen the application of this stupid act in action .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I totally agree that much of our system has become so twisted that it needs a strong character to sort it out and put common sense injected back into it by the bucket load !
That is mad that a person who needs to be deported is or 'should be' set free, as they don't know what Country s/he is from ! I do understand that the Court has to work within fairly tight guidelines/ rules, but surely they ought to have been able to at least deport to a named Country by the individual ? As in they have no choice they go to one of our choosing or theirs.

So if smartwater a chemical paint that can have a clear 'colour' so that it can easily be ID'd later - their website is v slow for me at the moment. How does it actually work pls ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I rang them up and they say that the forensic element remains even after smelting. With it's ID verifying who owns the product or item stolen that trace-ability helps police close cases. If I understood the chap correctly the the UV product lasts about 2 yrs but may not survive smelting but as the forensic bit will all is still 'safe'.

Most interesting. The signs alone act as a serious deterrent by themselves.
They would charge £59 for a standard 4 bed house (of goods) and application is best by brush, but for larger premises the product is applied by an auto spray via sprinkler systems once triggered (via an alarm).

They do however want to charge a yearly subscription to enable the Police notification to retain the deterrent which I think is a rip off and totally un-necessary, as it ought to come out of their profits.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Last I heard it was free to Neighbourhood Watch groups .But that was before any hint of cuts .Possibly varies between Police areas .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

And gets a wonderful opportunity to "case the joint" for his mates. Would you really tolerate scum like that working on your property?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown