140 mph Police "Follow"

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by Lozzo

Put in simple terms, so everyone and his blind rabid dog can understand, the police allowed this follow to continue for far too long, and put the lives of members of the public at risk by doing so............etc etc

..............They could have planned in a road-block at the same time and got him off the road sooner, putting fewer lives at risk.

I hadn't realised you were such an authority on such matters Lozzo.
As such you ought to know that the police are not allowed to set up "road blocks" under such circumstances. There are some fairly strict rules about pursuits and how they are concluded, especially those involving motorcycles, which is why several persons on here have pointed out this wasn't a pursuit because the police were making no attempt to stop the rider. A "follow" as the incident was described by the original OP (Blue Pete, and he should know) is where they monitor the progress of a vehicle in order to report it's location and to gather evidence, and that's exactly what the police rider was doing.

Now all the questions about why they kept up the follow for so long are good ones and I've already said that I thought it was unnecessary, however we don't know the full story or circumstance and to condemn it out of hand based on nothing but the video is a little reckless. Videos such as these are released into the public domain for lots of reasons by lots of people, sometimes legitimately, sometimes not. The end result is that we can all learn something from this, even if it is just a different view of police riders. What i do know is that a large number of adult male motorcyclists who should know better manage to kill themselves each year by riding like idiots, and strangely enough very few of them are policemen on unmarked motorcycles, which tends to suggest they aren't doing things to far wrong. Nobody is perfect and I'm sure both riders in this episode came away with a different point of view, however to slag off an entire police force based on one incident is no better than slagging off all motorcyclists based on this riders behaviour.
Why don't we all lighten up a bit and use this video for what it was intended, a little bit of entertainment, but a whole lot of education.

Originally Posted by Red Herring

...however we don't know the full story or circumstance and to condemn it out of hand based on nothing but the video is a little reckless.

The rider in question will be banned based on that video evidence. It clearly shows him riding like a loon.

Why should we not judge the Police riders actions based on the same video?



Out of interest, has anyone approached the Police in relation to this and asked these questions directly to them?

[ethariel]

Just typed war an peace out and deleted it.

1- trained does not mean 'I am right all the time'
2- Being followed at fast speed often eggs you on to go faster.
3- One rule for us and one rule for them even without lights/sirens or the use of a helicopter.
4- Lets all join the plod to get our jollies acting like a plonker and be able to say 'But i was just seeing how fast it would go incase i ever needed to do 190!, you see, i'm 'TRAINED' i am!!!!'

Originally Posted by Red Herring

I hadn't realised you were such an authority on such matters Lozzo.
As such you ought to know that the police are not allowed to set up "road blocks" under such circumstances.

I'm not an authority on these matters (your sarcasm was duly noted and ignored), but I do know that I have been the intended subject of a road block set up by Bedfordshire Police after a similar follow by an unmarked car. This was some years ago and I was found not guilty in court after I proved the police officer following blatantly lied about his ability to hold with us in his statement.

In my case they blocked the road at Brogborough Hill with two Police Vauxhall Senators after a 7 mile follow, part of which was done at reasonable speed through traffic and a then fast blast along an empty dual carriageway. It was effective - they cut short the situation and got their suspects with no fuss.

Im surprised that the Police can no longer block the road to catch a suspect whose driving or riding is considered dangerous - whose stupid idea was that?

No such thing as a follow, if you're chasing someone its a pursuit. At those kinds of speeds particularly.

Originally Posted by robchester

No such thing as a follow, if you're chasing someone its a pursuit.

Might depend on the force but in Sussex (and Cleveland come to that) it only becomes a pursuit if the offender fails to stop when ordered. Since an unmarked bike with no lights would have no method of ordering him to stop this could never have been more than a follow.

As for the cost of the helicopter, Sussex don't charge their own cops for calling it out, although they take Kent for around £1000 per hour if it goes over the border. More likely it didn't turn up because it was broken.

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by Lozzo

I'm not an authority on these matters (your sarcasm was duly noted and ignored)

Sarcasm?..... me?

Come on Lozzo, your opening sentence was just ever so patronising don't you think?

Under current national TPAC (Tactical Pursuit and Containment) guidelines a road block (or solid stop) has to be authorised by an extremely high ranking officer and would never be considered to stop a speeding motorcyclist. The only Force I know not currently signed up to these guidelines is the Metropolitan, and even they can only use such force as is reasonable in the circumstance... If it happened to you then it was either years ago (Vauxhall Senators rather gives that away) before TPAC guidelines came in, or it shouldn't have been done, or you had done something far more serious than you are letting on.....

That copper aint a proper biker IMO.

His riding was WORSE than the 'villian'. The training the police get may be intensive, but they are also taught to distance themselves from the situation mentally, and so not seeing red mist, this cop saw it big time. As for B&T's, there weren't any, other than behind the vectra at about 8min when he flashes them.

I might not have much experiance (10,000 on a 125) but from talking to my uncle (a class 1 police biker ie: the best) i can tell straight away the copper isnt using the machine he has to the best of his ability, he should be moving in the lane alot more, and waiting for the HGV's to pass rather than going inbetween

Me = not impressed
Uncle = annoyed at how someone can let the standards down, but then again, my uncle could just be a rareaty, a good 'un

just putin my 10 pence in here
first in lancs where i live the police bike boys seem to be a decent lot and dont really do the unmarked bit the more you see them the better behaved you are seems to be their stick
its also my understanding that twice over the limit let alone 3 times is an instant ban
at first i thought it was going on that long to set up a stop further along but obviously not but just a quick one to throw out there its not unheard of for a "higher ranking officer" to hint that a longer video that could be used for public information purposes could be useful if an officer came across such an incident and "thought it safe" to continue

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by amnesia

The rider in question will be banned based on that video evidence. It clearly shows him riding like a loon.

Why should we not judge the Police riders actions based on the same video?



Out of interest, has anyone approached the Police in relation to this and asked these questions directly to them?

There is a thread running on the ADUK forum where a police driving instructor has offered some advice....unfortunately he doesn't appear to have yet actually viewed the video, but I'm working on that.....

http://www.advanced-driving.co.uk/bb...=2111&start=15