Paint's not sufficient evidence, since there's insufficient information recoverable to do more than say "It was painted with this paint formula and colour". It does no more than a discription. Good for corroboration but not enough to build a case on. Now, if you can find the other car with matching paint and damage, that's evidence, but they didn't have any confirmed details of the other car to go by, just hearsay unfortunately.

Neither were you to say otherwise :wink: :P :lol:

But ime the police mostly give attitude when they get it.

What I meant, and should have been clearer, is from the thread - it hadnt been raised as an issue and ime its a component of most stops. Sorry.

But ask BigApe about attitude tests and what hes got away with. :wink: :lol:

But its not rocket science. Get lippy with a copper who's pulled you, expect all sorts of grief and rectification notices. Be polite, civil and courteous and more often than not you'll get away with it.*

Thats not saying they dont have their off days, but Id lay money the proportion is more stroppy, victim mentality bikers eagerly giving attitude than bad tempered cops*.

*To reiterate - thats a rule of thumb and doesnt apply to every case before anyone starts. And neither am I saying the thread starter was. But in my personal experiences of the police, good attitude = let off.

take your medicine like a man

the end.

Well within your right to moan but your numberplate was illegal and so they had you fair and square. You could say it was a waste of everyones time and money but so be it.

It is like me with parking tickets :D I hate that when it happens...but so be it.

As stated above they could have checked the damage on plate given and if it was the correct car it would have been plasted with paint and plastic from my wife's car.

I think it's more to do with the fact that it would have taken time and effort to gather the evidence in the prang case,and the driver might have been a real crook who could cause the rozzers grief.With the number plate they have to just wait by the roadside (easy job)and pull a respectable middle aged pleasant guy who gives them no aggro and pays up.No contest really is there?
As some wag said---If you can't catch the criminals,make criminals out of those you can catch.
I'm firmly in the" No respect for these wast of space police "camp I regret to confess.

Yep, but realistically you can't expect them to chase after a tenuous link like that. "My sister in law saw a car that looked the same"? You'd need a perfect correlation of damage and paint to make that a presentable case, so all it takes is for the other driver to have removed damaged parts and there's no case at all.

Yep.Makes far more sense to sit around looking fo small plates than investigate lunatic driving habits.
Is it just me who thinks the world has gone barmy?

:roll: Maybe if they'd had an actual eyewitness report of a reg, from the scene, instead of hearsay, things might have been different.

Couldn't agree more that there are better things they could be doing than checking for plates, but it's not that simple is it? Traffic cars spend a lot of their time fundamentally doing nothing at all, just waiting for things to happen. They can do that in a layby reading the Sun, or they can inconvenience bikers, or other road users, and enforce the law- which is their job. You don't send the traffic cars to pick up shoplifters, you get them to police traffic. And it's not as though they only stop bikers.

Its definitely not gone balmy 8-[