f1

I'm disgusted at what I've seen tonight. Here's what I've posted on 5ive-o.com....this may sound bizarre, but tonight coming home from cinema I witnessed some of the most dangerous POLICE driving I've ever seen, by not 1 but 2 cars !!! Driving along a single carriageway 50mph zone, about 8 cars doing same speed,I look in my mirror and see a POLICE Zaffira over taking, on approach to a blind bend. He cuts in front of me and I give 'em a flash to show my disgust, he pulls out again and away he goes again. Approaching traffic he puts on his lights, swerves in and switches them off. Then seconds later, a car comes along side me, passenger smiling and does the same thing, right on the blind bend another car appears he swerves in with literally feet to spare !! Both these incidents were done with NO lights or sirens on !!! My question is, what's the best way to start my complaint / report. I've got the cars number plate, but not Zaffiras ? Both vehicles were marked up and were obviously late for refs. or something. I am really disgusted at what me and the Mrs have witnessed tonight. No other word for it but disgusted. When we got into a 30mph zone, the car just booted it, no lights / sirens or anything again.

DRUNKNORGY

What do you expect from a bunch of brown nosers. I'm sure Imlach and co would fully endorse them as they have had special 'advanced' training for this . Can't help with this i'm afraid, but FYI, no police cars are insured as no underwriters would touch them. Any accident payouts caused by their cavalier attitude will be paid for by the taxpayer (You, me and everyone else underwrite their risks).

Don't expect any help from the plod on 5ive-o.com as they will just close ranks .

Dazza01

Neither are the Armed forces.

drumsterphil

iTrader: (1)

Police Complaints Authority.

I've just had a complaint upheld against a police officer who's driving put me in potential danger. Complain online and they will listen! (I got a call from the Chief Inspector of local traffic division when I made my complaint and he was taking it VERY seriously!).

f1

just e-mailed PCA and I'm also writing to Duty Inspector and PCA just to make sure !!

Mr.Cookie

I almost got killed by a police transit going very quickly on wrong side of road on a blind corner, i was on a push bike, he clipped my arm with wing mirror nut it could of been soo much worse.
First thing i did after getting home and calming down a bit was call woking police station, i'm still waiting to hear anything some 5 years later [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] he also had no lights or siren on.

Si

Luke

Fukking traffic wardens on acid.

Chris29

Don't know circs so aint standing up or closing ranks with anyone.

Only explanation i can see is helicopter assisted pursuit, i.e. the chopper is overhead calling the corners and traffic. Not sure who would be doing it and why but maybe?

If it makes you lot feel any better i was almost taken out by a range rover on wrong side of road on my way home tonight. Quiet word in the shell like tomorrow i feel!!

imlach

DRUNKORGY - I would prefer if you did not post my name in relation to any assumptions about what you may/may not think my views are.

Thank you.

imlach

btw, DRUNKNORGY, most large companies don't insure their cars except for 3rd party. It is cheaper for any claims to come out of the company coffers than pay the high business insurance rates.......so, the police are not unique in this.

I imagine you also get annoyed at the RAF ejecting too early in their fighters and hence writing off the odd £15m Tornado or two? Again, taxpayers money. At least one of our Scottish friends managed to land one yesterday without undercarriage, hence saving a cool £15m write-off.

imlach

FYI, the police are not fully exempt from any road traffic laws when in pursuit or on their way to an incident. They have to justify their behaviour and can be prosecuted in the same manner as you & I if found negligent.

Behaviour as described by the original poster in this thread is worthy of attention to their superiors.

Turbohot

Funny enuff i had seen a very well behaved cop-car on *** chester this afternoon.He was stuck to the speed limits amazingly!
Rare site though!

StickyMicky

thats probably becuase he was vascaring sumbody, the stinking gits

f1

just want to put this bit in. I don't have a thing against Police, understandably there are always some rotten apples. This incident in my mind should not go un-noticed and hence the reason for posting (and to get it off my chest!). Please guys don't think I'm a police hater, that's not my intention, and sorry if it appears I am. :-)

Crapaud62

I had a similar incident a few years ago.

Very badly driven police car appraoched a junction far too fast to stop. He obviously expected to be able to fly through even though he was supposed to stop at exit from minor road onto major road. When he saw me coming along major road he panicked and locked up the brakes and skidded across the junction. Only my quick reactions prevented a nasty crash.

I was very annoyed as I had wife and kids in car. I took down registration and called into local police station on way home. Desk copper was very keen to record details of potential evil motorist. Only when he asked for any details of the car and its colour did I mention that it was white, with an yellow stripe down the side and the words "police" in big letters.

At this point he ripped up the report and told me that there must have been a good reason for the police to be driving fast and they must have been responding to an emergency. I later found out it was not an emergency, just a very minor RTA that was blocking a main road.

I was firmly told it would not be in my best interests to pursue the issue any further.

Poor Guy

police round here are terrible with crap driving.

I did see a rather funny incident involving a police 307 HCI piece o junk and a scoob, while i was at a bus stop.

Police HDI 307 was HAMMERING it with blues and twos. i mean killing the engine, as in nova boyracers fashion. scoob just over takes the thing in a heartbeat without touching 4.5krpm.
looked like a busa vs. a 1.1 paxo.

why do all our police have oil burners? not even turbo oilburners. they razz the nuts off them every where in a silly fashion with the boy-racer-hand-on-gear-lever-hand
-on-top-of-steering-wheel.

Leslie

The Police are still responsible to avoid accidents even if they are on call. There is no excuse for the style of driving described by F1. Since they had no lights and sirens on then it can only be assumed they were not on call. I hope they get caught for it.

Les

DRUNKNORGY

It wasn't the value of their own vehicles or their own drivers I take exception with, Its the 3rd party liability which the taxpayer has to soak up with the starsky and hutch driving style gone wrong. If a copper bins his panda car doing something stupid, gets injured, and is retired on medical grounds, who will pay his pension .

They should treat traffic lights as give ways even with the blues and twos. The only time I see them observing the speed limits rigidly is when they are clocking other drivers.

talizman

iTrader: (1)

F1, Do you really expect an adult and unbiased answer on SN in realtion to your question?????

DRUNKNORGY
Dream on mate. The REAL reason that Police cars don't need insurance are due to the following, taken from the Road Traffic Act....


Exceptions from requirement of third-party insurance or security.

144.—(1) Section 143 of this Act does not apply to a vehicle owned by a person who has deposited and keeps deposited with the Accountant General of the Supreme Court the sum of £15,000, at a time when the vehicle is being driven under the owner's control.

(2) Section 143 does not apply—
(a) to a vehicle owned—
(i) by the council of a county or county district in England and Wales, the Common Council of the City of London, the council of a London borough, the Inner London Education Authority, or a joint authority (other than a police authority) established by Part IV of the [1985 c. 51.] Local Government Act 1985,
(ii) by a regional, islands or district council in Scotland, or
(iii) by a joint board or committee in England or Wales, or joint committee in Scotland, which is so constituted as to include among its members representatives of any such council,
at a time when the vehicle is being driven under the owner's control,
(b) to a vehicle owned by a police authority or the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police district, at a time when it is being driven under the owner's control, or to a vehicle at a time when it is being driven for police purposes by or under the direction of a constable, or by a person employed by a police authority, or employed by the Receiver, or
(c) to a vehicle at a time when it is being driven on a journey to or from any place undertaken for salvage purposes pursuant to Part IX of the [1894 c. 60.] Merchant Shipping Act 1894,
(d) to the use of a vehicle for the purpose of its being provided in pursuance of a direction under section 166(2)(b) of the [1955 c. 18.] Army Act 1955 or under the corresponding provision of the [1955 c. 19.] Air Force Act 1955,
(e) to a vehicle which is made available by the Secretary of State to any person, body or local authority in pursuance of section 23 or 26 of the [1977 c. 49.] National Health Service Act 1977 at a time when it is being used in accordance with the terms on which it is so made available,
(f) to a vehicle which is made available by the Secretary of State to any local authority, education authority or voluntary organisation in Scotland in pursuance of section 15 or 16 of the [1978 c. 29.] National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 at a time when it is being used in accordance with the terms on which it is so made available.

It really is a shame that so many of you feel the need to be so bitter.

talizman

iTrader: (1)

DRUNKNORGY

Again, you are UNINFORMED.

The Police Force's budget "soaks up" every 3rd party claim as well as damage to police vehicles... its called devolved budgeting!



A "copper" pays 11% per annum towards his/her own pension. It is self contributory, so the answer to your stupid question is, THE COPPER.
How much do YOU contribute to your pension?

Your opinions would be as well kept to yourself, cos you are just spouting bull$hit!


[Edited by talizman - 12/7/2003 12:33:31 PM]

tiggers

talizman,

This is not a dig, but the police really should ask themselves why people feel so bitter towards them!! I have my owm personal reasons for mistrusting the police that, as I have said before, I am not going to go into here, but when Joe Public seems to have no faith in them whatsoever then maybe they need to take a long hard look at themselves.

Serious question - where do you think the police force's budget comes from? Hint - I see a large deduction on my over inflated council tax bill towards policing - note the word tax - see where I'm going with this?

tiggers.

talizman

iTrader: (1)

Tiggers,

Why should the Police in general ask themselves why people feel so bitter towards them?

It is a very small minority of cops that make people feel bitter and resentful, so why should the rest of us deal with the associated flack?

From where I sit, it seems that people who have a go, are those that perhaps have had very few dealings with the police, which have unfortunately, not been to their satisfaction.

The bottom line is, that most ScoobyNetters don't have a clue what us decent cops do during our shift and that pi$$es me off.

We are far too good at generalising and tarring everyone with the same brush. Not exactly fair, nor mature is it?

With regards to Council Tax.... do you think Cops are exempt? lol

We pay council tax.... we pay Tax (too bloody much)... we pay N.I.... and lastly, we pay 11% to OUR OWN PENSION!

People need to stop thinking that "I PAY YOUR WAGES" etc etc, as though cops pay **** all.

Boost II

iTrader: (1)

My Mum and Dad nearly got mowed down by a police car which lost control on a country lane. Not in pursuit of anything and no sirens - just driving too fast, skidded over to the wrong side of the road and then aimed towards my parents to avoid hitting another car coming the other way. Them in their 60's had to literally dive into a hedge for safety and so could not get any car details to report this.

At the time I did some digging around in the statistics of road accidents and it turned out that Police drivers are many more times likely to kill somebody in the car than the public. This was just from looking at the number of drivers in the UK, the number of Police in the UK and then the number of road fatalaties in total vs the number of fatalaties involving Police drivers.

Anyway no wonder we are furious when we see these reckless types out with the speed guns trying to calm us down on the roads. Take a good long hard look at yourselves....

Tim-Grove

Correct, the company I work for (Midlands Electricity) do this. They recently have had to pay out to rebuild someone’s house because one of our HGV drivers forgot to pull his hand brake when leaving his vehicle and the lorry rolled off down the road and demolished someone’s house.

IanW

And just to put this into a bit of perspective.

The figures below are for a fresh out of traning school police officer (Metropolitan Police Service) all figures are approximate.:-

Basic Salary :-
£2300
Deductions:-
Income Tax - £350
NI - £180
Pension - £215

Total Deductions - £745 (approx)

NET pay - £1555

I personally will not be doing the job because of the 'great' pay that you get, hell I earn a lot more than that in IT. However I will be doing the job because it is what I WANT to do. £1555 a month to live in London is nothing at all. Take out of that council tax, rent, bills etc and there is nto a lot left!

With regards to the inital post, I would have been in touch with the local station and logged a complaint that way.

ProperCharlie

tbh it is this sort of attitude that makes it hard for the image of the police to improve. Why should we question ourselves? It's not our problem, it's that "bad apples".

The fact is, if the police are held in low regard by the public, it's the problems of every serving officer. How far would a private company get if they took the attitude that it they did not have to question why theior customers were unsatisfied?

i've worked in public service and so i've had all the rubbish about "i pay your wages" often from people who never f*cking earned an honest day's pay in their life! but at the same time i did not behave as though i was immune from the problems of the organisation, and the low perception that people held of us. i tried to change people's perception by doing the job as best i could. i'm sure it's a hard graft to be police, but that doesn't make it wrong to criticise where it's due.

just my 2p.

DRUNKNORGY

I should have made myself a bit clearer Talisman, Obviously you have employee contributions, but index linking is a public sector benifit. Any funding shortfalls will be met by the taxpayer long after you retire.

Testy bunch you lot, you should consider an anger management course to compiment the advanced driving courses

Diesel

I am pro police and think they get often get taken cheap pot shots at - particularly by indignant teenagers here on Scoobynet. However as is suggested above they have a DUTY to look into deeper issues of perception and public resentment and not short sightedly dismiss these as non issues. I posted the following on a police forum recently, and although the debate there raged for a while, some of the traffic cops eventually took on elements of some of my points, (and Christ was that a SLOG - they are SUCH a team on and off the pitch; guess they have to be...). You might be pleasantly surprised as to how they really think though - once you put the knife down that is...

Here's the link http://www.forumco.com/offduty/topic...&TOPIC_ID=1810; here's the post (and if Scoobynetters post there use cold reason not emotion or ‘poor me done for speeding you rotten bunch of bugg-errs’ approaches) -

“Blame/responsibility for seemingly contentious issues to do with policing cant be batted away that easily I’m afraid. I’ve also feel I’ve been naïve again as I thought there might have been somewhat more common ground between police and policed; it is also maybe naïve of you to blame the press/media for everything >snip<

You said >> All the media ever bang on about as regards traffic policing in this country is that speeding motorists seem to be easy prey. Well I can tell you for a fact that static speed cameras in the UK are, for the most part, not the responsibility of Traffic Officers. Many are run by civilian employees and I would go as far as to say most Traffic Officers, certainly those I know and work with, agree that they are revenue earners and do little to reduce casualty statistics. Education is as important if not more so than mere enforcement.<<

Thanks for being so honest, though despite what you say above, I’m afraid that the policing of traffic and motorists is clearly seen as the domain of the police – particularly so when you go to produce and are ultimately prosecuted for 41mph in a 30 at 2am. I would love to see it as an implied obligation of your job to help avoid ordinary decent motorists being unnecessarily persecuted and prosecuted – my Spitfire pilot Wing Co mate on 9 points for example. I would imagine every motorist in UK has been prosecuted by now – do you seriously wonder why the backlash?

I also understand the distinction between Traffic Officers somewhat passive responsibility for the ‘wedge’ situation in the face of the over-active Chief Constable of North Wales who is increasingly renowned in the area for persecuting motorists as burglary detection rates go down and down. He’s simply lost a big wedge of his public’s respect and support because of this – nothing to do with the press, me or, ultimately - you… If an R1 pilot wants to turn himself into mince on a traffic free backroad whilst trying to get his leg down, do we do everything we can to stop him – even at the expense of ordinary motorists & police relations? There’s a balance – especially as he is much the most vulnerable.

You said >>I rarely, if ever, see any positive feedback in the press or on television regarding the fantastic work many of my colleagues do on a daily basis. There is never any praise for the family liaison work done following a road death, or the investigation of a major incident <<

I do empathise on lack of positive feedback and am sure you get that more regularly one to one. I guess it is simply because 99% of the public do not experience this practical and positive police support. Sadly 99% get NIP’s through the door and feel hounded. If it is of any consolation I have always stuck up for Traffic (as well as police in general) simply because my dealings with them over the years have been fair, pleasant, reasonable and always concluded with a fair commonsensical result or prosecution!. I do tell boy racers this all the time… I hope you don’t take that as patronising in any way.

You said>> So, as a "television producer", who is in a position to provide some positive coverage of my work but who chooses instead to bleat about us targeting speeding motorists, kindly don't preach to us about the wedge being driven between us and the tax payer.<<

Do you really think all those many PoliceCameraAction & single cam ‘fly on the wall’ type programmes portray you negatively? I would have thought they were brilliant at unbiasedley (sp?) showing the many positive and professional aspects of traffic policing. Including what you go through in RTA’s and showing the boy racers you reprimand in a hugely more productive way than any NIP. God I’m really lost now; who’s wedge was it?! Anyway, bottom line -

The average motorist cares much more about people driving without insurance, bad decisions to allow wide loads on bank holidays (sic), or that idiot stuck at 60 in the middle lane causing trucks to undertake and 1000’s of others to make unnecessary lane changes than they do about a rep doing 90 on the M4. You can bleat about me bleating, but at the end of the day the press create very little, they just report it. You can action it as the Chief Con just might just respond to you suggesting the a new speed camera would be better placed on Hammersmith roundabout to deter red light jumpers rather than gathering revenue on the unidirectional A3 southbound as it opens up from a dual carriageway to a three lane ‘motorway’. It would also actively improve relations – which is what we both want. So we agree then ;-)

>end<<
D



[Edited by Diesel - 12/7/2003 1:37:07 PM]

tiggers

talizman,

I was not suggesting you don't pay tax - what made you think that? You were saying that it is not the taxpayer who has to foot the bill for police insurance claims as it came from the police budget, I was merely pointing out that the police budget comes from the taxpayer (OF WHICH YOU ARE ONE - just in case you still think I don't realise that). Thats the problem with the public sector, you all seem to think the money you have to run your departments, pay your wages etc. comes from the magic money tree!

And there in one small sentence is everything that is wrong with the police in the UK today.

tiggers.