Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

This is something that Squirrel_Hunter and I have become incredibly aware of over the last couple of months. During Steve's redundancy period, we were regularly travelling to each others, which is a trip between J16-17 of the M4 and the use of the Chippenham ring road and Swindon by pass.

I am yet to make a trip where I haven't seen an unmarked car or three on that one stretch of the motorway.

About a month back I was doing a steady 75 on the babyblade and an astra van (silver) was overtaking me, pulling in in front, leaving plenty of room and slowing right down, but gently, not dangerously. I'd pass at 75 and then the same would happen again...but the astra would never get too close so I suspected maybe it was an unmarked car trying to get me to just lose my rag and get on the throttle. It followed me at the exit and with the lights red, I was able to see the dash and driver and yep...unmarked police car.

On one day I saw 3 blue unmarked Saabs and an unmarked black BMW X5 (prob the one that pulled us all over...lol).

DI a trip to Steve's where I saw two BMW 3 series, one silver and one charcoal on the hard shoulder having pulled peoples over with light boards in the rear windscreen saying "police" or with directional arrows.

On the way back to mine with Steve that same day, saw a grey BMW 3 series that had pulled someone on the opposite carriageway and two other marked cars.

Steve has also seen an umlarked convertible.

They are everywhere, so watch out in Wiltshire peeps.

Anyone else have the same in their region?

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Forgot to say, this is linked to this thread...

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=155175

I think the police presence on the roads may be due to the Cameras being covered!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

You're a lot better than I am at spotting unmarked cars. Swindon scrapped speed cameras ages ago, so maybe that's why they have more unmarked cars about.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Yep....it's crazy. Anyone riding/driving around here should watch their speed on the main roads.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Thanks for the tip. Our route to the AR joins the M4 at J17 after the Chippenham ring road...

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Yep...was going to post in the other thread, but you've see n now. Just keep your eyes peeled :-)

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Cheers for pointing them out, I've been doing quite a bit of driving on the M4 between Bath and Swindon recently so I'll take it easy!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

You've got to bear in mind that Wiltshire is the favoured retirement place for many ex-cabinet ministers, and some of them are awarded police protection for the rest of their days, particularly any who have held office as Northern Ireland Minister. That's why Wiltshire's police budget is always stretched to the limit and normal policing duties suffer. It's not uncommon to see lots of unmarked cars in the villages around that way, and you understand why when you find out who has an estate close by.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Ha.....I'm hoping we never have to find out ourselves, but apparently, when you dial 999 from our area, you can end up with police and army helicopters and police and army cars/trucks everywhere in no time.

All due to the fact that Ray Mill is at the bottom of the hill...about a mile and a half from ours and it's where Camilla lives. It's well known locally that her and Prince Charles spend a lot of their time there away from Highgrove which is about 20 minutes away as they prefer the peace and quite. Goodness knows why as Highgrove is hardly in the city...lol.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

That's the sort of thing I mean, it all comes out of Wiltshire Police's budget and costs them a bloody fortune for which they get no extra govt help

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

I can believe that!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Stay off the revenue-generating roads then?

Roads which are too twisty for them to get a good shot at recording your speed are more fun anyway :-D

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

What Yorkie said is true!

What Lozzo said was interesting!

What grunty said was informative!

What Allan said was pointless!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Anyway, does anybody know how to recognise unmarked cars? When I'm motorway-ing this is what I keep wide eyes open for. I normally start by looking at the car type, BMW/Saab/Mercedes, in silver, gun metal, black, plain colours, and the registration plates- so far I've only seen unmarked cars with the newest plates (so 2010's). Also, at the bottom of most plates is some writing, normally the name of the dealer etc., and I find on cop cars that this writing is still there, but minimal and extremely thin, almost only readable from a metre back at most.

If I'm feeling confident after all this, I'll very slowly try and get a view of the driver to see if they're a copper.

Does anybody else do this, and have ways of recognising them? I don't bring this up so I can do 160mph the whole time.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

The one that I came across up here was a silver 5 series Beemer, with small blue lights behind the side passengers headrests and a black display behind the middle head rest.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Allan.....you're looking for the right kind of cars, but beware as, as I've mentioned Steve and I have also seen a van and convertible.

I always look for the car first, then look for the oversized ariel and the black boxes on the dash and the lighboard in the rear window. You can also kinda tell because you're looking at cars that are normally used by field sales guys, yet they are tarvelling at 65-70mph....any self respecting salesman will have camera detection gadgets and be doing a fair bit above that speed ;-)

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

some have double rear view mirrors

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Oh...and the killer bit of info.....DON'T SPEED.

Seriously....you should not be looking so hard for unmarked cars as you need your attention to be on everything around you....so just don't be silly. I never go above 80 on a motorway, which means a little throttle off if I see one, but I'm not exactly shouting that I'm a lunatic....and I never go above the speed limit on the ring roads now.....due to being pulled after a month of having my license with Dan and Steve (Dans fault...lol) and getting let off. We were lucky, but I'm not doing that again.

I save it for the quiet roads where you can easily see the cars to watch...if they are even there!

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

If you're approaching from behind, look for a lack of a supplying dealer's sticker in the rear window and any form of dealer advertising on the number plate. Police cars generally don't have any of this, making them a little easier to spot amongst the sales reps.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

I also look for the number of occupants. Normally there are two, although that's not always the case.

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

Don't worry Grunty! I tend to hang at 77-79, but I just like to be safe..

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

I too notice all the unmarked cars (and the scamera vans in the bridges) when over that way to see the Mrs' family. I now tend to take the back roads and have never had any issues. I'll be heading down that way this weekend in fact for great Aunt so and so's birthday meal - oh joy. Hope fully I'll be on me new blade though :-)

Re: Police presence in Wiltshire!
 

That's a good one. I'd not thought of that. With my eye sight however, I'd be luck to spot the number plate, let alone the writing on it ;-)