Thanks To Police Patrol:

[MrMessy]

I was out on the bike yesterday going through a village in the Dales, when a Police Patrol Car travelling in the opposite direction waved at me to slow down. Confused at first because I was only doing 30? Got further up the road and there was a speed camera van! Thanks lads for that.

[Geodude]

Nice one, must be a biker :D

[Heorot]

Not my experience of Derbyshire police. Caught speeding twice in a day by them, one of which was a laser pointing at a bend to catch people driving around it into a village.

[Red Herring]

Most speed camera vans are operated by partnerships, and they tend to have slightly different priorities and objectives to most front line police officers. It might be considered a mistake to assume there is any degree of love between the two organisations......

[SV650rules]

Most speed camera vans are operated by partnerships, and they tend to have slightly different priorities and objectives to most front line police officers. It might be considered a mistake to assume there is any degree of love between the two organisations......

Spot on,

Although where police are concerned they always deny they have targets to meet during their shift I seems obvious that they do, and depending on whether they have done well or badly that day, or are on their way back to station at end of shift and can't be ars#d to deal with paperwork you can get lucky (or not , as the case may be).

[Blapper]

I was talking to the officer who drives the Medway area Police mobile speed trap. He's a nice guy and he told me that he sets his gear to 37, 47 and 57 MPH so you are properly speeding if you get caught. He went on to say that you get a speed awareness course up to 43,53 or 63 and fine + points for driving over those numbers.

Seems pretty fair really. He went on to say that is only the way he does it and other areas may vary though.

Next time your area Police HQ has an open day, it's worth going along to see what your local officers do.

[SV650rules]

it makes life easier for police if speed is set on high side as a lot of lawyers are smart at querying calibration if their client gets done too close to limit (the safety nutters keep asking for zero tolerance on speed but it wastes both police and court time as a lot get off, and only the lawyers get rich). If you get caught at 6 or 7 miles over the 30 limit it is much more clearcut, and it misses genuine people who just drifted up a bit from 30.

[Blapper]

For sure.

[Red Herring]

I was talking to the officer who drives the Medway area Police mobile speed trap. He's a nice guy and he told me that he sets his gear to 37, 47 and 57 MPH so you are properly speeding if you get caught. He went on to say that you get a speed awareness course up to 43,53 or 63 and fine + points for driving over those numbers.

Seems pretty fair really. He went on to say that is only the way he does it and other areas may vary though.
.

Compare those figures to the ones we used to use a few years ago if you want to see how things have changed.... Unless they were driving like a complete tool we didn't even bother stopping them in a 30 until they were doing 40, they then generally got away with some advice until 45 (there was always the odd exception who managed to talk themselves into a nicking before that), then it was a ticket at 45 and a summons over 50. In nearly thirty years I never had anyone contest a ticket and only ever ended up in court once for just a speeder, and he was only arguing if it was over the ton or not.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is drivers rarely just got nicked for excess speed, they got nicked for bad driving that involved inappropriate speed. There is a subtle difference, and in answer to the other post, no we never had quotas. We were allowed to nick as many as we liked..... :D

[SV650rules]

some forces do have quotas though, they admit it

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-47442/Police-told-meet-quotas-motorist-fines.html

[Red Herring]

some forces do have quotas though, they admit it

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-47442/Police-told-meet-quotas-motorist-fines.html

Small point of order, I believe that article was originally written some thirteen or fourteen years ago and the figures they are referring to are older than that....

The hypothecation scheme it refers to, where forces were allowed to keep a percentage of the face value of tickets issued, was introduced by the government in order to encourage development in certain areas of policing, however senior officers realised they could also use it to make easy money leading to exactly the kind of behaviour the article highlights.... and it was soon taken away from them.
This was also the era of "performance indicators" where they believed they could measure what a police officer did in terms of figures, and that was equally subject to abuse.

The truth is that as soon as you start to treat policing as a business you will expose yourself to all the corruption that attracts, and yet they persist.....

[yorkie_chris]

And it is the mail, and they do talk out of their ****...

[TamSV]

The truth is that as soon as you start to treat policing as a business you will expose yourself to all the corruption that attracts, and yet they persist.....


Policing lends itself to corruption like no business possibly could.

I come from a community where charges won't be pursued if the only evidence is the word of a police officer. A random selection of 14 of his peers will assume he's a liar. No more than a hired strike breaker at arms.

I also recall "you'll do, home for 2" and the subsequent art of lying in court. Many of the ridiculous rules the police have to live by are a result of the abuses of their predecessors.

All of this predates Tony Blair's targets.

The real truth is power and humans don't mix well.

[Red Herring]

There are some that believe that the attitudes of a police officer often reflect those of the community they serve, they are after all supposed to be representative of them....

I take the alternate view that you get out what you put in. If you treat your police officers with mistrust and a lack of respect then before long you end up with a police force that can be neither trusted or respected.....

[SV650rules]

Maggie Thatcher set an uncomfortable precedent when she decided to use the Police as her private army to break the miners union (as TamSV alludes to in his post). She recruited more police, gave them all a nice wage rise and set them onto the miners, nobody really trusted the Police after that they have been used shamelessly as servants of the government ever since. They have been caught too many times falsifying statement and colluding to have public trust, this goes right to the top - and everyone now understands that an internal police inquiry = whitewash. Most inquiries into police corruption and stuff-ups are delayed on purpose so that anyone implicated can retire on a fat pension long before the inquiry even starts, let alone finishes (and the difference in time between start and finish can be decades). The police must be the only people where retiring means that you are no longer guilty, for example, if you steal from a company you work for then retire, you are still liable for criminal charges, if you murder someone, retirement won't get you off (unless you are a member of the police force).

Some police often forget that they are the servants of the public and are not in any way above the law. By and large the Police are not set a good example by their masters (especially Ian Blair, who was first and foremost a political animal, and no more trustworthy than his mate and namesake Tony B liar.

[Blapper]

This forum needs +1 and -1 buttons.

[Red Herring]

Why? If you agree with someone just say so, if you have an alternative view then express it, hopefully with an explanation.

[madcockney]

I think what one poster is trying to say is that the police are the servants of the law and not the law, which is different to what they indicated.

I am one of those that criticise the police when required but also support them when they deserve it. (In every walk of life there are those that treat others with respect and others that are out for their own ends.) Whatever we say about the police we need them. When we get cover ups that we see, but actually go back several years or decades, that should be taken into account as to not consider every copper in the same ilk. (We complain about the public often regarding all bikers as being bad, based on the few bad ones that we would also criticise.( However these cover ups, etc. do colour the public's perception of the police and that is why it is important to unravel those and find the culprits.

Don't think that all police agree with what they are asked to enforce. For instance, looking at us as bikers, I know of at least one traffic officer that derides the local CC for reducing speed limits where they are not required. It also leads to disrespect of lower speed limits where they are required. When you see statements that speed limits are there for a reason, and the only reason is that the local CC thinks reducing all speed limits is a good idea with no rhyme or reason, well scientific reason, it brings the whole concept that "speed limits are there for a reason" into disrespect, yet the police are still expected to enforce them.

[SV650rules]

I think being a copper who deals with public on daily basis (as opposed to a desk copper) is probably one of the hardest jobs anyone could have in these days of political correctness and walking on eggs when dealing with the many 'minorities' we have in UK, some of whom think they have their own laws and that they don't have to obey the laws that are made by our parliament.

[yorkie_chris]

Most speed camera vans are operated by partnerships, and they tend to have slightly different priorities and objectives to most front line police officers. It might be considered a mistake to assume there is any degree of love between the two organisations......

I dunno how the scamera partnerships manage to get staff, what must they say when someone asks them in the pub? Rather admit to working for the tax man.

No doubt outsourced to some contractor who are probably earning off the speed awareness courses too, hence the desire to catch lots of people rather than actually reduce the incidence of speeding.

[SV650rules]

That is always the problem when you privatise / outsource stuff - only have to look at the way our prisons are now run (or not) by G4S, Serco and the like - getting a worse service and taxpayers money lining shareholders pockets.

[Red Herring]

I dunno how the scamera partnerships manage to get staff, what must they say when someone asks them in the pub? Rather admit to working for the tax man.


I was offered a "promotion" opportunity a fair few years back which basically involved running our Force Speed Camera partnership. I initially declined on the basis that I was a "conscientious objector" but realised I was pushing against a firmly shut door. Instead I reversed my approach and approached the individual I was going to succeed with waves of enthusiasm about how I was going to transform the department, make huge savings with staff reductions and divert what resources that were left into alternative projects. A week before I was due to start I suddenly got reassigned to something completely new........

Wasn't all bad news though, the hole they tried to bury me in turned out to be the perfect opportunity ever to catch villains and I had the best ten years of my career!

Oh, and to answer your original question many of them are retired officers needing to prop up their pension so that they can pay two sets of alimony and a new mortgage..... ;)

[madcockney]

<snip>

Oh, and to answer your original question many of them are retired officers needing to prop up their pension so that they can pay two sets of alimony and a new mortgage..... ;)
:)

[Bibio]

what gives a police officer the right to speed?

yes there are some good cops out there but they are few and far between these days.

i have had traffic cop car pull up next to me doing 90 on a bypass and gesture to slow down then they burgred off at a very rapid pace without their blues and twos on.

[Red Herring]

Is that a serious question?
Nobody has the "right" to speed. There are exemptions from speed limits under certain circumstances so are you asking what those are? Incidentally there is no requirement that blues and twos be used, they are simply additional equipment fitted to the vehicle that can be used when appropriate.

[SV650rules]

Most police on the motorway routinely travel at less than 70, I assume this is so that they can clock overtaking traffic with their ANPR gear, if they traveled at 70 they would only ever get the plate directly in front.

I have seen coppers speeding on their way back to station, I used to work shifts and had to pass main Telford station on my way home, I had police with no blues or siren driving near the station go past me at 60+ in a 40 limit, and hardly slacken speed on the 30 limit on roundabouts = I assumed they were also heading back at end of shift. I also had a job in a small town overlooking main road, a couple of times a week on same days and roughly same time a car full of flat-cap police with a driver used to come through with lights and siren on - what was that all about if not abusing their power to get through traffic quicker to some meeting or other. As I said previously being a front line copper is not an easy job, but their superiors do not seem to set them a good example.

[Red Herring]

In my brief spell as a Traffic Sgt probably 50% of the calls I took from the public were to complain about the speeds of patrol cars. If they drive at 70mph nobody can overtake so you have a mobile traffic jam (seriously, people actually complained about police cars doing the limit...!) if they were driving at 80+ without blue lights they were clearly "speeding", not trying to make ground on a suspect vehicle ahead without giving themselves away, and if they were driving a 56 in front of a lorry they were being "sneaky" and nearly caused an accident when the caller had to brake sharply to avoid going past at 90... (I kid you not!)

Police cars regularly exceed the speed limit for a variety of reasons, and yes, some of the time it's just because they can! Bearing in mind that in this day and age pretty much every marked car is fitted with a little black box that records everything you might need to know the abuse is considerably less prevalent than when I was a young officer (we used to consider it unofficial practice, which principals aside was actually quite a valid point) so lets not jump to conclusions.

The car rushing back to the station may have a violent prisoner on board, or may be responding to a call for assistance at the station? Regularly goes past on blues and twos you say? Have you considered it might be a training car and they run regular courses, so the session of blue light responding always falls at 3pm Tuesdays and Thursdays?

Keep an open mind, you're pretty quick to slag off the police if they don't.......