buy bike - get stopped for speeding
 

Well, what a productive day yesterday was!

Cheque came from the insurance company at last, so in the market proper for a replacement bike. after draggin my mate round various dealers in South East London, went to see a very nice chappy down at Steve Jordan's in Leatherhead. 2 hours later rode out of his shop with a (fairly) new blue SVS. Chuffed as nuts. (Sorry Furkuk - you just live too far away and I really needed it for this weekend. But good luck). Excellent service, really nice bloke and most helpful. :D

THEN - after picking up the girlfriend from work and taking her home, got stopped by the police who were lurking just over the flyover on the A5 into Hendon. The first question before anything else was said was "Do you speak English?" :shock: Apparently I was doing 47 in a 30 zone. Didn't like to tell him that a) I had only bought the bike 3 hours previously and b) I am attending a speed awareness course next Wednesday for going past a gatso at 40. Anyway, the copper in question was "simply stopping me to let me know", and then spent 10 minutes chatting about different helmets and their noise reducing properties!!! What a nice bloke he was, Thanks very much to Barnet Constabulary (Traffic Section) for your leniency and general niceness. :P

So now I am possession of a very nice blue pointy SV650S K4 and 3 fewer points than I should have.... let's see how long that lasts :roll:

Heh, that reminds me of this morning.
My usual spirited romp round the bypass to get into west Swindon. Toe down on a lovely bend and up the hill. Started braking for the traffic and I hear a siren. I'd gone past an unmarked car on the dually and now he was chasing me.
Got to the roundabout and went straight over cos there was nowhere safe to stop; he switched his sirens/lights off and turned left! He was just telling me off.
Got to work 15 minutes late cos I was so chilled out for the rest of the ride.

Early Christmas present for both of you then. :thumbsup:

Yes coppers has discretion, scameras are simply revenue colletion tools.

Sounds like you got one of the good uns and not a plod with a target. I saw a good one the other day. Reflective jacket on and hidden behind a wall, a laser gun in one hand and a home made 30 sign in the other. I was fortunate he raised the sign to me

Good news that there's some good coppers out & about.

Got pulled over last night on the way home (gusting winds according to met office website of up to 47mph). I was struggling to keep the bike in a straight line, and in my lane, so I knew I definately wasn't going to be speeding. Did that stop the muppet in the van pulling me over to tell me he thought that my "vehicle is unsafe to be on the road in these conditions"? No.

My response was just "OK, you get a bike trailer out here to take me home, at her majesties cost, and I'll be VERY happy to jump in that van with you." Did he do it? :toss:

Saying that, I have been stopped by nice coppers too in the past. So they aint all bad I suppose.

Sounds like the season to be jolly, it's good to hear the good news stories with so many bad ones about.

That's fast work... I'm sure you have an expensive riding career ahead of you :)

Coppers having discretion actually annoys me, why should it come down to how good a mood the copper's in, or big your bazooms are, or whether you remind him of the guy that's ****ing his daughter and that he'd secretly like to castrate, or just whether or not he likes or dislikes bikers/teenagers/blacks/etc? I know a big part of it is common sense, ie, letting you off for 80 on a motorway, or ticketing you because you were speeding by a small amount but in unsuitable circumstances, but it does irritate sometimes.

Need to get those stabilisers put back on! :lol:

I'd rather have a copper that I can brown nose than a camera that's already taken my picture.

I love it.
Once in a car I pulled out to overtake without seeing a police car with Blues & Twos on (I hate those pathetic blue lights that are not the proper strobe ones).

I think I was so humble that he let me off once he'd checked my details.

I would rather take my chances with the mood of a policeman than the chance a camera has no film in it.

Re: buy bike - get stopped for speeding
 

Oh and by the way. Fantastic bike Absolutely the right choice :D Enjoy and hope to see you around.
Glad it went well at SJ's.

stu.... looking at your avator... is that something like what you did to get away with it !

Yeah, I'd just sooner it was fair and sensible across the board... But then I don't think that's ever been a priority :)

:shock: Just goes to show that the speed awareness thing they have set up is a complete waste of time and tax payers money!!! :(

Why? Cos the OP is on one, but still speeding? :? 47 in a 30 is pretty shocking and he is very lucky to get away with it.

yes, twosizes is still speeding BADLY so the course is having NO effect on him, wasting my money and everyone time ... if it was 35 then fair enough, give the man a break, easily done, but you don't do 47 in a 30 by accident/without realising ... and if you know you are in the bad books already you pay more attention! ... or you simply don't care ... which I have to presume is the case here??

He was very very fortunate ... I would have hoped that if the copper had realised twosizes was on probation (as it were) he would have ripped him a new one!! :P

I am particularly bitter about this as I have never failed to get a new one ripped whatever I am doing and however polite I am!! Absolutely no slack given at any point!! :cry:

p.s. You are one lucky man twosizes!! Good to hear you met a nice copper ... but I never seem to :(

Er ... had to bend the other way :oops:

OK lets bring in speed control by GPS and we'll all be happy Eh?

That's not fair - he hasn't been on it yet!


PS Can I have the option next time pretty please

Sorry for 3 should have read all before posting :oops:

Ah yes, he said he was going on one not been on one, you are right, my mistake :oops: ... so that's a fair point. However if you know you have been caught and due to be sent to a remedial class as punishment/education, you at least keep more of a check on your speed for a while surely? Either that or the threat of the remedial action means nothing to you??? ... and if he doesn't care now, what is a few videos about people getting splatted going to do for him??? ;)

I'd say that they are likely to be wasting their time and my/our money!! :(

BTW I don't think one of them courses would have any long term effect on my riding either, but I'd much sooner go on one of them than get points!! :roll:

Blue, I agree, most people would. There are some that don't though.

Like a guy I used to work with, who apparently got banned for drink driving. He had the option to shorten his ban, by taking remedial classes. So he did, and paid a lot of money to do the course (and rightly so, the idiot was drink driving to get into that position).

According to him, there was a cute girl in these classes, and they got to talking. Ended up where he was picking her up and taking her to the classes, then dropping her off home afterwards. Saved them both having to get the bus he said. All whilst still banned from driving.

To this day, he assumes the police car that stopped him merely got lucky. :-$

oh cr*p..it always happens when you least expect it!.

BTW it was Steve that looked after you yesterday..i was off sick in bed with a chest infection so Steve was on the shop floor for the day!...think he enjoyed it...bit of a break from the spanners for once :lol:

Enjoy the bike!

Nah, lets have speed limits that make sense and strike a balance between safety and practicality, and lets have people who speed despite that know that if they get caught, it's their fault, but they'll be treated the same as the police chief's son or someone with whiter skin than them.

If only your suggestion had more chance than mine :roll:

Yeah, I know :) But just because it's blatantly never going to happen doesn't mean we should give up hope ;)

You missed "and having fun" from your equation. :D

:? :?

It would appear I have caused a disturbance here of which I did not mean. Okay, I WAS speeding. But I was on a dual carriageway and it was fairly empty. No, I have not been on my speed awareness course yet (it's on Wednesday). I would imagine that after it I will be a paragon of sensible riding and never ever speed ever again.

I was not boasting about my excess speed and getting away with it, merely sharing my good fortune. It could have been different I know and the policeman concerned would have been well within his rights to do me.

As for where this thread is going, speed and safety are completely relative.

I would just like to say that the tax payer isn't paying for it, I am. It cost me £72 in replacement of the £60 fine I would have otherwise been given

Did you still get points on your license ?

I believe you don't and you could even risk that 3 points won't affect your insurance quotes (i.e choose the cheaper £60 and no inconvenience of attending) - big risk though if offered the course - interesting to know the cost of it, thanks.

Worth going, if:
a) you learn something (which we all can)
b) you don't get the points on your license, coz for me thats the killer

"Dual carriageway with little traffic"
So why the 30 limit?
If it's the road I'm thinking of it's a dirty great big bridge over the North Circular(The one the IRA blew up some years ago)and doing 30 on it is likely to get you rear ended.Daft limits and daft law lead to this nonsense and it seems the copper realized that for once.

Evasion's half the fun though :) TBH I don't want the limits on b's and fast a's to be as high as I like to ride them sometimes, since everyone else would go at the same speed and there'd be a Clio in every ditch :)

good point! but probably won't go down well!

I suspect not :) But, my record speaks for itself, every time I've crashed I've been well within the speed limit! Once I was barely moving...

proves that you need to max out at all times then :wink:

Exactly. That's scientific proof.

Also, I reckon in any given hour, I've got maybe a 1/5 chance of just randomly falling off for no reason. So if I go at 120mph instead of 40mph, I'll crash 1/3 as often. Just sense, isn't it.

twosizes - it didn't come across as a brag or anything, don't worry. :) It did come across as intended, i.e. in a positive manner that you had good fortune and there were actually some nice traffic coppers out there!! So its all good on that front, don't fret ;)

But I did read into the situation and the fundamentals behind what went down ... i.e. bearing in mind you are currently having a slapped wrist; to be blatantly still disregarding the speed limits is bad. Then to get caught and just let off is teaching you no lessons when you already obviously have no regard for speed limits!!! (Not saying I don't speed or am a saint, but if I had only just got done you can rest assured that I'd keep a check on it for a while ;)).

So a one off 'let the boy go' is refreshing to hear, and no problem with that (just wish they would do that for me once in a while :(), but bearing in mind you are already/recently in trouble for speeding I'd want to see you ripped a new one!! Sorry!! :oops:

So it cost you £12 more (and save you £many in insurance premiums over having the points) ... I can guess that that is still subsidised or like speed cameras or speeding fines that money goes back into a big pot, not the expenses pot for the people who run the scheme!?!?

Sorry for the sporadic responses, lack of available internet.

No Tomcat, no points awarded.

Biker Biggles, yep, that's the place, just entering West Hendon towards Halfords.

Okay, yep, I suppose I do deserve the abuse I guess - ha ha. I'll let you know how the course is. It's run by an independant agency - DriveTech, who I would imagine are an independant company doing just what any other company in the world is there to do - make money. It's a 2.5 hour course with probably (I would guess) about 10-15 people attending each one. At 72 quid a head, that a hell of a lot of dollar for half a morning's work for anybody, and so I therefore guess that it is in no way subsidised by the government.

Anyway, as I said, I'll let you know Wed afternoon...