Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3559932.stm



A very lame excuse in my opinion. It would have given the public more confidence in the system and the police, had the officer been banned, demoted, and never allowed to drive on police business again. What was he doing with 9 points on his licence anyway? I thought that a police officer getting convicted of a driving offence was taken a very dim view of.

I would have thought he would have carried these white paper coveralls and rubber gloves in his car, if not, why not?

Was there something wrong with the sinks and water supply in the house?

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Strange how we are constantly told "speeding won't get you there any quicker".

Note the wording of this. A magistrate should disqualify a driver with 12 points on their licence unless it will cause them "exceptional hardship".

Surely, in this case, the actions of the driver on the night of the offence are irrelevant to their being subject to exceptional hardship. If the officer would lose his job/family/house etc through a ban, that would cause exceptional hardship. But I believe the argument put forward in this article should be insufficient for any driver to retain their licence with 12 points on.

Incidently, these same rules apply to any motorist - a driver may not be banned from driving if it would cause hardship (e.g. a lorry driver would lose their livelyhood/family/house etc if banned - I've come across a few who have more than 12 points).

What's most interesting about this article is that the officer already had 9 points on his licence. Apart from being a bad example, surely this demonstrated he is a repeat offender!

Speaking from experience of handling corpses .... not nice.

You do not know how old the corpse was. The stench permeates through the protective clothing and you feel it in nostrils and back of throat for some time - depending on state of corpse in question.

Can well "understand" how come he got pinged at 7 mph above the speed limit here.

Would you like to do this? Touch and feel a decomposing body close up - even with gloves on? You still feel it through the gloves! The smell of rotting flesh gets through the latex. I can see how clever lawyer was able to get him off hook here. :roll

Do not know anything about two of the three previous (or margin of overspeed for each one - even) - but one was under identical circumstances.

Dratasabasti mate ..

He would not have been able to use bathroom in site of discovery -owing to forensic requirements .

Arguably - he could have got colleague to take him back to statiion for clean up - but we do not know whether neighbourhood was suitable to leave his car.

As for offences - we are subject to same laws and choice of good lawyers as any one else.


A ban may have made his job too difficult and led to loss of job just the same - thus "hardship" - but this does not appear to hav been reported.

However, we are told to be careful as we are supposed to be "ambassadors" of the Law and our employers (Joe Public) expect certain standards of excellence. Most of us are - but in these days of scameras - even cops on a shout have to prove they are on genuine shout!

I have to agree that the circumstances the offer was in are unfortunate and dealing with decomposing bodies is not a pleasent experience.

However, the wording of the article makes thi look bad. This could be the fault of the journalist, or the process that has been followed, or a combination of both.

However, the fact remains that it gives details of the reason for not banning the driver ("exceptional hardship") as having come across the corpse and needing to get home. That is not exceptional hardship that would be caused by a ban - just extenuating circumstances for excessive speed.

Fact still remains, here's a story of a copper with 12 points on his licence - no matter how he received them!

Sorry it doesn't wash (no pun intended)

It is not justification for breaking the law, if he was that traumatized he shouldn't have been driving, if he didn't notice he was speeding what else didn't he notice. Since by their own (I admit I am grouping the police with the law makers) guidelines the cameras are in accident black spots, it was surely a dangerous place to exceed the limit. I'm assuming he isn't a traffic officer and is therefore unlikely to be trained in advanced driving. I'm sorry if it sounds harsh but the hypocrisy stinks. If the people that make and uphold the laws don't suffer the same as the rest of us how the hell are they supposed to appreciate the effect it has on us. Make ridiculous pedantic laws and then expect only the public to obey them.

I can imagine the scenario where the Chief Constable calls him into his office and says "Right son you f**** up lets see what we can do" he pulls out his list of excuses and runs down the list. "Being stalked, no David Beckham's used that one, Pregnant wife, no that won't do, ah here we are the old corpse handling one, haven't seen that used for years, yes that'll do nicely"

Max

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Tailgaters - Please Pass
You have an Accident to go to!

Quite frankly, I'd rather have a trained copper 'speeding' home at 37mph after doing whatever he'd done for the day for the good of the public, than Mrs Jones pootling around everywhere at bang on 40mph.

The hypocrisy is quite scary - if anyone of the posters here were caught doing 37mph in a 30mph zone, I'm sure there would immediately be a thread decrying the limit, explaining how safe you were and trying to get out of it. At least the copper in question here stood up and took it on the chin, rightly or wrongly!

As for whining about a BiB with 12 points on his licence - how many people here have 6 or 9? Well you're only a talivan or two away from being in the same position - 12 points in a day is not wholly unlikely any more, and is certainly no indication of dangerous driving.

A better way to look at the whole thing is that we now have another member of the force on-side.

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Carl Prescott

[quote="CarlP"]The hypocrisy is quite scary - if anyone of the posters here were caught doing 37mph in a 30mph zone, I'm sure there would immediately be a thread decrying the limit, explaining how safe you were and trying to get out of it. At least the copper in question here stood up and took it on the chin, rightly or wrongly![quote]

Damn right. And let's face it, he has provided one of the funniest woeful excuses in the history of nepotism. It's almost poetry and has quite made my day. Do you think he provided a body of evidence? He must have proved stiff opposition to the prosecution. Etc etc ad nauseum :D

Well, not exactly. It's not the coppers fault: I don't think he really did anything wrong. It's the magistrates that I hate. Speeding is supposed to be an absolute offence, under the ridiculous law. You did it, you're guilty, you're banned. But suddenly it seems if you are a member of the police or courts, you are allowed to offer a defence explaining why the circumstances you were speeding make it ok. And have it accepted. A member of the public would not be allowed even to have the circumstances considered.