Safe Speed Forums

Has anyone ever bothered to report a potential hazard being caused by another vehicle being driven with a fault? I did today but I don't think I'll bother in the future as I am definately left with the impression that I'm not qualified and they arn't interested.
I saw a car with a trailer driving with no rear lights working, dangerous to my mind. Now I will conceed is quite possible that the fault is with the trailer, which isn't always going to be on the car, but it could also be that the trailer has blown the fuses and the driver will remain blissfully unaware for,,,,,days, weeks,,,,until the next MOT. I didn't have the chance to let him/her know so when I got home I thought I'd phone the local cop shop and ask them to let the driver know. After a brief explaination the telephonists tone changed as she said "so you're not an Officer then!" Like I need to be. I have to say the police do themselves little in the self help department when dealing with the public like this. I guess if they arn't going to get their share of £60 it's a fruitless exercise.

I fully accept the good sense of your point, but there are a few factors you might not be considering...

1) The "currency" of Police work is offences. Yes it's an offence to have faulty trailer light, but it's a low value offence, and by the time they find the rig there's probably no offence at all - i.e. it isn't actually being driven.

2) The Police have a massive paperwork load these days that makes it hard to allocate resources to low value offences.

We really need to get back to the situation where the police aren't bogged down in paperwork, and the currency of police work is to preserve a safe society.

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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

I fully agree with that but it isn't going to happen until we get out of the litigation culture. At present everything needs to be backed up with a fully auditable paper trail.
All that really neads to happen in this case is a trace on the number and a polite phone call. Whether that is all that the bureaucracy requires is another matter.
I wasn't considering this from an offence perspective, I've been behind someone without brake lights before, if you don't realise pretty damn quick you might not get the chance. Given this guy had no indicators either he could carry out all the driver drills, and the vehicle behind could be 2-3seconds behind, anything over moderate braking for a left or right hand turn could catch out the best driver out there. A minor offence yes but with the potential to be a major incident, and whose fault???

A few years ago my wife reported a HGV with a loose load which she had seen on her way home. The person (officer?) said it would be looked into. Don't know if anything ever came of it but we certainly didn't get the brush-off.

"A few years ago" might be important. Many think that the situation is fast deteriorating.

Then of course there will always be exceptions, where you're lucky enough to hit someone who's really on the ball and not too target obsessed.

I'm very confident, from a body of different opinions, that many people are unhappy about the response of the Police to simple matters of public concern these days.

I certianly don't blame individual officers either. It's broken at the political and the upper level management strata.

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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

I'm with tinytim here. Obviously the police have to decide if it's a priority or not, but I'd hope thay also consider that a vehcile defect might be an indication of the owner's character. Sure, one faulty light probably doesn't mean much and might have been easily missed (rear number plate light for example). But two or three obvious defects should be spotted by any owner, even if they're in the majority that rarely check tyres, lights etc. That could mean they don't give a stuff about maintaining their vehicle. It might not of course, but it should be enough for the police to want to go have a look at the car if only to make sure there aren't more serious defects lurking under the skin.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I stopped at my local nick to report a vehicle being driven with so much smoke coming out the back that it was virtually impossible to see the vehicle. It was only when the guy stopped at the lights that the cloud thinned enough to allow me to note his registration.

Cops did say they would look into it, but I never found out what happened

We do try not to give a brush -off to these reports. If we can - we look into it.... we will radio through to all patrols to be on alert for this reported defective car.. But we admit we are more likely to stake out a tip-off for a drunk or drugged driver as these are potentially more dangerous.

Will agree tinytim - it is very frustrating when you go to trouble of notifying of potential danger only to get an an apparently callous reaction.