Safe Speed Forums

I had a very strange (and rather scary at the time) incident this morning on the way to work.

I'd decided to take the bike in for the first time in ages, and along one particular stretch of road was what looked like a diesel spill (it was probably water but I wasn't taking any chances). This particular stretch is narrow with no central white line and the road surface is pretty poor, so the spill was right along the line I wanted to ride on. As a result I was riding fairly slowly (50-55mph) as I was forced to ride closer than I would have liked to the centre of the road. There was a silver grey BMW behind me, keeping its distance.

I got to the top of the hill where the road opens up and streightens out and at this point the spillage stopped, so I opened up to about 70mph. At this point the BWM sped up and I looked in my mirrors and to my horror saw flashing headlights and an array of blue lights under its grill . Thinking I was going to be pulled for speeding I braked and pulled in to the left, at which point the car floored it past me. There were no flashing lights or anything unusual on the back of the car. At the time I assumed that it was an unmarked car that had got a shout and wasn't interested in me at all.

After my heart had stopped pounding, I carried on as normal and caught up to the car in question, who was tailgating a Ford Escort. Just as I got to him he pulled a rediculous overtake on the approach to a blind bend!

Was this a police car (I got the registration, but I'm not going to post it here), in which case he deserves a severe bollocking for his driving and the improper use of his blue lights, or was it a private car with illegal blue flashing lights?! It certainly scared the hell out of me - I've never actually been pulled yet!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

A lot of BASICS Doctors have covert blue lights fitted to their own private vehicles, although these are meant to be accompanied by a rooflight too (usually magnetic). Also fire officers often have them fitted to their own cars.

I think its an offence to use a blue light that isn't visible from 360deg and a set distance above the road, so the use of front grill lights by themselves is technically illegal - although police would appear to be excempt from this...

I don't know Sixy. It'd be pretty stupid to impersonate a police officer, but I dare say it has happened.

I can suggest an alternative explanation for both parts of the story.

He used headlights and blues to pass you because he'd perceived that your sensible avoidance of the contaminated road was poor control of position. He waited to pass until the road was wider and clearer to give you extra room.

When he caught up with the Escort he adopted the close folowing position prior to overtaking. As luck would have it a gap in a hedge afforded an excellent forward view prior to a bend and he overtook smartly.

On the second part it is really very hard to know what another driver can see. Sometimes good vision is impossible - sometimes you can win a good view. There are some left hand sweepers round here where most drivers seem to think overtaking is impossible - but moving to the right is enough to allow you to see right through the bend.

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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

Paul, all valid points. Let me answer them.



I'm tempted to contact the local constabulary, explain what has happed and ask them politely to either have a word with the officer in question, or nick the bastard for having illegal lights. They ovbiously aren't going to confirm whether or not it WAS a police car, but at least they might deal with it internally. (Incidentally, does anyone know whether or not police vehicles show up properly on the DVLA vehicle information site, or whether they have to have rear-facing lights of some kind as per T2006's reply?)



If he was paying attention to the road then he would have seen the spill, and he was a good 3-4 seconds behind me at that point anyway. What I ommitted was that we came accross a horse part way along the stretch which I duely slowed for and passed as wide as possible. A properly trained police officer should have been able to tell that I was in full control of my vehicle.

At the point where he passed me the road is quite wide enough for overtaking. When I pulled into the left of the road he barely moved over, positioning himself in the middle of the carriageway rather than over to the right.



He was about 4 feet from the rear of the escort and square on to it. I understand your point Paul, but I drive this particular road every day and I know every single overtaking point along it. This time of year, with the hedges and verges in full bloom there is no way he had enough vision around the corner to overtake safely. There are also several sideroads along that stretch (visible from the point he began the overtake). I find it very hard to believe that a police trained driver would overtake in such a situation.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Equally all valid points. Ta.

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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

traffic officers are not the only police drivers who use unmarked cars. I have a contact in the anti terror unit who is a very poor rider and driver. Yet he holds a high performance ticket.

what I will say though (and as a biker I'm sure you know what I mean), is that it may have looked very different from his view than yours. He may well have seen the bend open up and noticed an overtake. He may also have been 3 staging it and not decided to pass until the bend opened even though he moved to position 2 and out of your site

edit: I see paul got there first

if there are side roads was he actually passing on a solid white line?

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

I just phoned the local copshop and it WASN'T a police car! Someone's going to be in BIG trouble!!!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Are they sending someone round to take a statement?

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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

Sounds very much like a fire officers car to me. An old mate of mine used to drive his dads Jaguar that was fitted with blue lights in the grill as he was a senior incident controller or some such thing.

Shouldn't that read "....they TOLD me it was'nt a cop car"

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

Hmm...maybe - but they did take my name, address and contact phone number... Oh you've spoiled my fun now!

Capri - you might be right, but apparently you can buy kits off ebay.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

i imagine you can buy most of the bits from maplin if you were so minded....

..hmmm.. i'll be back in a bit

Got a friend quite high up in NCIS (think they've just been disbanded now and reformed as SOCA?) who tells me that any vehicle check on one of their cars automatically gets reported back to them... Makes sense, I suppose...

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

Oh well - best step up the search for the firearms and drugs then

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.