Over time maybe, but the reality is you ALL KNOW that most coppers dont have anything to do with catching speeders, yet tar all police officers with the same brush......

Paul

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Mycroft - I think peoples regard for the police is partly to do with this and media twisting etc .....
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I can't see how you can say that with all the 'positive' cop shows that abound... I really do see it that it is how things are perceived from people who know people who encounter the force as a whole... that is why I like the cop-shop car-park eye-to eye stuff, that is the perfect remedy to bad encounters... hundreds and thousands of 'positive' encounters...

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i doubt this would change many peoples view of the police, unjustified or not.
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I on the other hand genuinely do!

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When you say tool of the state - do you mean "revenue generator"
as all public servants are "tools of the state" to some degree?

As you know (cos i've told you many times) I dont generate revenue...so you dont think that of me do you
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I am not selecting you as an individual but as the 'voice' of a group just as I have to occasionally at work put forward the views of my colleagues as a group also. Please do not personalise this... I merely articulate a consensus in the many forums I belong to... you may not be as an individual a Revenueman or Highwayman but that uniform will open you to such comments... I would like to change that...

Redkop,

You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine so let's agree to disagree.

Moderator or not I still think you should have read my post properly first - I just would have thought that being a moderator you might be more inclined to do just that.

tiggers.

Jye’s experience and yours palls into insignificance with the disillusionment and bitterness I could have against the police. But I am adult enough to accept that you cannot base an overall opinion of all police officers to be classed as the same.

A fair few friends of mine died because of police ineptitude and justice is still being campaigned for and how the authorities controlled the aftermath to relieve them of any accountability!!

my only experience of an unmarked police car - a few years ago my mother's house was burgled (for the third time unfortunately, though that is irrelevant). Police arrived, very promptly as it happens. After an hour or so the marked car went on its way, leaving the scene of crime chaps in their unmarked car who did what they needed to, and then spent an additional hour or so advising on security, alarms, and various other things. As the unmarked car drove off they happened to drive past a car which matched the description of a car seen in the area. They followed it and it turned out to be the burglars, who were arrested on their own doorstep. So in this case, the unmarked car was a definite advantage - if the burglars had seen a marked car they would not have stayed around. Alternatively it could have led to a chase, endangering everyone else on the road. So a big thumbs up for unmarked cars from me. And a big thank you for the general professionalism of the policemen concerned.
oh and medders - unlike some on here, if I saw you were on fire, I wouldnt hesitate to pi55 on you :D

Steve

Redkop,

From your username etc. I know what you are alluding to and you're right - those events do indeed make most other's experiences seem a little trivial.

However, and I'm not about to get into a game of my experience is worse than yours, but I can tell you that one of the events that has left me feeling the way I do was extremely unpalatable and occured partially because an entire police station full of officers failed to do their job.

I am sorry, but in nearly all my dealings with the police I have more often than not been left with a bitter taste in my mouth and hence I have become jaded towards all of them as a group. In much the same way as if you were bitten by 10 dogs out of a pack of 12 you're not about to embrace the other 2 I am suspicious of all police because the majority I have come into contact with have made me that way.

If it is not 'adult' enough for you then I apologise, but that is the way I feel.

tiggers.

BTW, I’m with Tiggers on this one, that is only one ‘experience’ I have had with our countries finest. I was actually ‘fitted up’ by two traffic cops for speeding four years ago.

They pulled out from a lay-by in a 60 mph limit and followed me for about a mile. They then put the blues lights on and stopped me telling me it was for speeding, even although I was doing about 55 in a 60 mph limit. I told them the limit was 60 mph on that particular road and they then said, ‘oh, but it wasn’t this road, it was another road’.

When I asked for my GF to witness an obvious fit up they actually physically moved her and made her stand about 100 yards away, telling her if she moved she would be arrested for obstruction.

I then asked the police what the name of the road was I was supposed to have been speeding on and they wouldn’t tell me. I think this was due to the fact that they would have had to go back the way I came and look at the speed limits and to get their ‘story’ right. Unfortunately there was only one road leading in from the road I was on and it ‘was’ a 40 mph limit and this was the road that was named on the summons.

It went to court and I defended myself (£400 a lawyer quoted me) and not surprisingly I lost. Even though one of the officer was caught perjuring himself in court (I must tripped him up with my vast legal skills hehe :D) the judge told me that he had to take the words of two police officers over the word of a scumbag biker like myself.

My GF’s testimony didn’t count, as she was obviously prejudiced towards me. I was fined £100 and given 3 points due to the fact I denied the charge and wasted court time.

I had also involved the pathetic Police Complaints Dept (the dodgy handshake crew IMO),but they were about as much use as a chocolate teapot. All the PCD is for is making sure they cover their own arses IMO. I’m sure they used our statements to give the two police involved some more info. Precognition my arse :(

If they do these sorts of thing for a simple speeding charge then what about more serious crimes?

I have 0 faith in the police now and never will have, as an organisation they are rotten to the core. Bloody career cops will do anything IMO to get to the top.

I carry a dictaphone type thing on me... it's electronic and although in all the time I have owned my Soarer I have never been stopped, I have been present in similar circumstances to those you have exampled... twice now people with me have had Court appearances cancelled after sending a transcript and copy of the tape to the CPS... I am now never without it... a couple my staff have them... those without if stopped now use their mobile and dial our 'record your message number' so it is taped... you can buy a tape machine with a 'signal on' system costing £40 plus one C60 tape £5... £15 phone a handset recorder... £60 and you have some very comforting 'back-up'.

Everyone should do this... attitudes would change all round...

Mycroft;)

IMO using un-marked police vehicles (although being sneaky) is a clever way of making good use of a police budget.
How many of you ladies and gents on here slow right down whenever you see a clean Volvo T5 or a Vauxhall Vectra in your rear view mirror. These are well popular cars amongst the public and the police force so you spend your time thinking... is this a police man or not???

I do agree with Chaz though. There should be a higher percentage of marked police cars, but un-marked cars should always be there purely to fcuk with your mind.
But what really p1sses me off about marked vehicles is that they travel at 69.9999 MPH on the motorway which means it takes about twenty miles to pass the burger and get out of sight.

As I have previously posted Onion, I think that there are very few of us who drive whilst keeping an eye out for an unmarked car. The sales rep who is on his mobile whilst eatimg a sandwich and making a note of a telephone number certainly isn't.

On a different note when will your car be back on the road?

N1 Mycroft,

I'll need to mind that deffo in future, cnuts :)

Feck m all m8, good advice like this is what we need like, not the egocentric pansy BS lovin crap like we get ATM ;)

Not got my cylinder head back yet.
Was hoping to get her back for this weekend.
Lost without wheels though. I don't know how you coped with out your Skyline. Saving petrol money is a bonus though.
Give me a ring if you are up this weekend, I could do with a taxi driver!

tiggers - could't have put it better meself.
A couple of years ago I had evidence that a neighbour had committed a burglary on another neighbour's house (he left a message on my phone trying to sell some guitars from the burglary although not actually saying where he got them!!). I took my phone to the local police. The kept it for 3 weeks, got me to make a statement, promised it would be treated in a confidential manner, mumbled stuff about witness protection, waited another 3 weeks (by which time all evidence was well and truly sold) then went round to the guy's house and told him I'd told them he'd been a-thieving.
Death threats followed (verbally) but the police "didn't see what they could do about it". I was about to move anyway but still can't go back there.
Why did they take so long? "Insufficient resources". The thing that really choked me - in the middle of it all I got an SP30 from a cop with a hand-held laser thingy for doing 44 in a 30 zone (on a clear day with no pedestrians around, no parked cars, nowhere a kid could jump out from etc.. - i.e. it was safe)!!
All the police have done is make my life hard. That's coming from a middle-class, reasonable income, own house, law abiding citizen. Want to stop kids on council estates throw bricks at you? Stop behaving like twats!!