Law on Police cars speeding and DWDC etc.

Originally Posted by BillyC

I think the rules are simple.

A Police, or any Emergency Vehicle must obey the laws of the road, in the same way we all have to. The exception for this is when they are on an Emergency call, and are using sirens and lights appropriately. If it's late at night, and the traffic is light, it might be acceptable for no siren to be used - but lights must still be flashing.

ive heard that ambulances and fire trucks still arnt allowed to exeed the speed limit even when they are on call.

[Biker Biggles]

Not correct.They are exempt from many road traffic regs while on a call,but they have to use those exemptions safely.Watch how an emergency vehicle crosses a red traffic light.You could probably walk faster,as the rule of thumb is that if there's a prang its going to be the emergency vehicles fault.There is also an unofficial speed limit,typically 30 above,so if you see an ambulance doing more than a ton down the M25 they are breaking the rules.

There seem to be 2 separate issues here, neither of which IMO discredit the police :-

1) Of course the police need to be allowed to exceed the speed limits when pursuing law breakers (including, unfortunately, speeding bikes), otherwise no law enforcement would be possible as the law breakers could just speed away.

2) When not in pursuit a policeman is just as entitled to get away with exceeding the speed limits as any other road user, I don't think he should be singled out to be reported any more than you or me. There is a lot of hypocrisy on the road, we all want to be allowed to speed but object to anybody else getting away with it, especially the police.

My understanding, and I stand to be corrected, is that the police are allowed to speed enroute to an incident. If they choose to use their lights/sirens to help them, by getting other vehicles out of the way, then fine, but they are not required to.

Luckypants, how did you know the car wasn't on the way to a shout which then got cancelled, or another unit got there first. They then stopped to fill up before getting on... just a possibility.

Dont forget, their speedometers will be far far more accurate than yours, just because yours says 30mph, and they are still going faster than you doesnt mean that they are always speeding.. they may be doing a TRUE 33mph...

my dad was a fireman, and he use to say, if you were flashed or caught above speed limit, you better pray you were on a call, as youd end up getting the points otherwise... if it were proved you werent ona callout, then it was take the points/fine time...

hhmmmm-
very close to the bone here!-will give you my unbiased police officer view -police officers are under the same rules of the road as anyone else-but when there responding to an urgent call they have to use there own judgement on how fast/safe it is to proceed-manys a time when I've had to respond to an emergency call with blues and twos going to get called off before we get there- then its back to normal speed-but to joe public standing at the side of the road they don't have any idea what calls came over the radio- as for coppers speeding about willy nilly if you have a valid case that you think they were out of order then yes go and complain about it to your nearest station-its your right and the police are here to serve the public first and foremost and should be held accountable for there actions,BUT makesure your complaining for the right reason.
On the otherhand I still give it plenty when I'm out on the bike but only when I'm away from areas that I'm likely to get tugged-if your gonna speed(no matter by how much or how little) its up to you where and when you do it,we all have a speedo infront of our faces so its up the the rider/driver if there gonna take that risk.If a coppers driving about like a pleb when he's on normal patrol and you see it, then do what you thinks needed,its your call!

husky

At the moment police have an exemption in law with regard to speeding, but they can still be prosecuted for due care, dangerous etc..

As of April the law will change and that exemption will no longer apply, those allowed to exceed the limits must be trained to that standard, i.e blues and two.

The thing is, no normal member of the public will know who is trained to what level, but come April it will force police forces to make sure every response officer is trained to respond..so they will be covered for exceeding the legal limit.

There are reasons on occasion not to have all emergency lighting on, but these are few.

I know all Hampshire police vehicles have a black box, this records all data of the vehicle, speed, location, what lights are on etc etc and allows the controller to deploy the nearest vehicle to an incident. But it can also be used to look into complaints and accidents involving police cars, to prove or disprove fault, blame, malicious allegations etc.

All i can say is that police cars speeding un-necessarily will soon be a thing of the past, big brother is watching not only the Members of public but the police as well.

I am sure your all happy to wait alittle bit longer for police to get to you if you call 999.

Regards

Fraser

Originally Posted by fraser01

I am sure your all happy to wait alittle bit longer for police to get to you if you call 999.

My point exactly before. They can happily speed as much as they like (and hopefully some more) when on an emergency call, if coming to me or not.

My personal view on it is that if the police are caught speeding by the police, then they should be treated the same as everyone else. You speed & get caught, you get points (unless you're on an emergency call).

I wouldn't report a biker (or a car driver) for speeding, so why the police? However, dangerous driving is another matter, and that's not so much a report, more a complaint (but that's a technical difference I suppose).

can only speak for ambulances, but i imagine the old bill must be similar

We are exempt from max speed restrictions whilst responding to an emergency call (blue lights and sirens) - however if an accident occurs or we are caught on camera our speed is taken into account and may be deemed "innapropritae for conditions" - so in essence we can be done for driving without due care even when responding to emergency calls. -

what the "approprite speed" for conditions is a very grey area - hence most ambulances wont go more than 20-30 mph over the speed limit.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by oldjack

There seem to be 2 separate issues here, neither of which IMO discredit the police :-

1) Of course the police need to be allowed to exceed the speed limits when pursuing law breakers (including, unfortunately, speeding bikes), otherwise no law enforcement would be possible as the law breakers could just speed away.

2) When not in pursuit a policeman is just as entitled to get away with exceeding the speed limits as any other road user, I don't think he should be singled out to be reported any more than you or me. There is a lot of hypocrisy on the road, we all want to be allowed to speed but object to anybody else getting away with it, especially the police.

I have no beef with speeding under blues and sirens. I also understand there are times when the police need to speed without sirens (but still using lights?) to an emergency in a 'stealthy' manner in order to catch the culprits in the act. Of course I expect the emergency services to get to an emergency ASAP. This was not the point of my OP.

My point is that seeing police cars without lights / sirens speeding, parking illegally, on the phone etc undermines my respect for the police an the traffic laws they are apparently allowed to break because none of their colleagues would book them for it. It smacks of one rule for us and one for them. I wanted to know if I see this kind of behavior who should it be reported to? That point was answered.