GavM

Saw a written off red impreza on Monday morning on the A303 and wasn't till i passed it saw blue flashing lights in grill. Presume it was one of Hampshires Prodrive ones.
There was also a Volvo estate marked police car on the M3 written off from a rear end shunt. Not a good day for chief constable!!

Lee

perhaps we should send them on dick's sidc driver improvement course ??

WAL

That'll be the second time this year they've destroyed that car, i'm sure it will return....

Steve Howat

Second time this year but not the second time in its use by the police!

It will return beyond a shadow of a trout!

Steve Howat

I should have said that its been smashed more than twice by them (in case anybody wanted to pick the bones off my last reply)!

WAL

Just saw a bit in the Pompey News about said Scoob. It seems some careless lorry driver drove into the back of it whilst Scoob was stationary...oops. We shouldn't doubt our local Police forces driving skills, I certainly don't envy their job.

DAZ

been funny if it was stolen :-)

MorayMackenzie

Isn't it Hampshire Police who want to get an STI or two because the STI is becoming more common on out roads and they (Police) don't want to be outdone/outclassed on the road by mere civilians? Looks like they should look into more serious advanced driver training before they get one of those things signed off!

Moray

MorayMackenzie

WAL,

The previous time we heard of this car being "written off" (then resurrected), I seem to recall reading that the driver lost control whilst chasing an XR2i.

Moray

GavM

Car was not hit from behind!! Had all the drivers side missing, and i will be amazed if it comes back to life this time.

Phil R

Im from Hampshire and it really pee's me off.... thats our money they are they are wasting....
Maybe they should learn to drive their Nova's first

Huxley

I wont be seeing that scoob in Bakers of Oakley any more while they are having one of there long tee breaks!

Paul

They still have a black Scoob out there !!

WAL

Sorry only reported what paper said, didn't see the car myself. I think the statement that the guys that drive the Scoob are incompotent is complete rubbish. From my info only the top grade (class 1 I think) drivers get the Scoobs, T5s etc, and that means better skilled than the vast majority of us. It is true they wrote it off chasing an XR2 but we've all seen the way these "joyrider" morons drive when cornered. I don't think many of us would honestly want to try and aprehend these idiots on the road the way the Police have to. I'm not a Policeman myself and these views are purely my opinion.

ari

wal
i agree with you
i drive a police car everyday and i can tell you that there is not the question to have or not have done driving practise,when you are running to catch some,for any reason,from stupidity,till homicide,that are running as fast as their stupid brain tells them,you only think to catch them in the minor time that is possible,all over to avoid anyone gets hit by him or even by yourself.
and when they begin shooting,they point straight to your head!!
it is not a great job to do,but a lot of satisfactions,i'm in italy,and i dont know your local police's way to do,but i dont agree with them when i hear that they push from behind to make citizens accelerate,it is not correct,but i think that no one that makes his job at the best loves to hear incorrect critics probably by people that dont even know what and who they are talking about.

ari

ScoobyMan

Driving isn't about a piece a paper. We all have past the driving test, but we all still speed, crash and don't pay attention at times. Driving is a state of mind, an attitude. Some of the worst driving I have seen high speed, tailgating, rapid lane changing, cutting up, failure to give way, illegal use of hard shoulder, one handed driving have all been done by marked high performance police vehicles with presumably class 1 licences. The class 1 licences merely shows that someone has the ability to be a good driving when they CHOOSE to be one.

Steve Howat

Well Chaps I'm afraid it lives!!

A traffic cop friend offered me some parts off the red impreza (engine bits, Prodrive ECU etc) but when he double checked with his fleet manager (if you call them that) he was told that instead of binning the car as expected they are going to rebuild it. This is quite unbelievable cos I saw the car in a compound in Andover and it was trashed! Apparantly it isn't old enough and is still low mileage!!! I pity the poor bugger that buys it when it's eventually sold.

Also they have on order a new one in green so keep your eyes open!

Steve.

MorayMackenzie

Good! If they are spending the money required to rebuild a badly damaged car they won't be able to easily justify an even higher performance STI vehicle, so that means Joe Public may be a little safer on the roads/pavements around Hampshire, which is good.

Wal,

_I didn't say incompetent_, I said they should look to more advanced driver training rather than getting faster cars than the ones they are already having trouble handling.

Surely you would agree that losing a Scooby in pursuit of a front wheel drive luke-warm hatchback is not the best advertisment for _that_ police driver's ability? If the XR2 was being driven in such a manner that it wasn't possible to pursue it in a safe manner, why wasn't the pursuit abandoned?

Just how often is each patrol car supposed to be severely damaged over it's service life, once, twice, eight times?

Ari,

Do you have equivelent to Class One police driver training over there? I am suprised by you implication that driving training and practice is not a factor in your police pursuits! To be honest, _your response_ tells me two things, in Italy the Police are armed and they don't like the idea of the public questioning how they do things. No Italian holidays for me then.

ScoobyMan,

I was going to agree with you, but I am suddenly worried about over-zealous policemen with guns!

Moray

Mike Tuckwood

Nott's Police have recently got their 'fleet' of Imprezas on the road, fully liveried (4 of them).

They would have been on the road months ago but somebody lost the keys.

I still wave anyway. (They probably just don't understand why).

Mike.

Steve Howat

Robbie.

The fuzz had pulled the other car over (into a coned off part of the dual carraigway!) and the only person still in a car was the police driver. He (unbelievably) walked away with minor injuries, so I believe. I will try to find out what happened to the lorry driver and what he was doing hitting a car in a coned off area (probably ogling the luverly police car)!

Steve.

Robbie

Anyone given any thought to if the driver and passenger(s) were injured instead of gloating?

ari

Moray First of all sorry for the late reply,but i was away this month.
My last reply was to point the attenction on the work that every policeman on the road has to face everyday.
It is obvious that me like every other driver of fast service cars,has obbligatory to pass a driving instruction period,this seems the first thing....
But reading the posts of happyness for a police crash i felt to make them understand that the police work is not only what you see on tv,i dont know there but here there are people that shoots to you only to enjoy your blood,but people often dont understand what you do.
I'm disappointed reading about police cars unmarked that comes back to you pulling to make you go faster,it is not a good thing,if we should do something like that ,be sure the driver will immediately brake half the road,go to you and kick your *** for a mile away.
I don't know if i was good expressing my thought,i hope.

Cheers
Ari

pwebb

I'm a bit sceptical about all this 'training' police drivers are supposed to get - I read recently that cut-backs have meant that this can be down to just a few hours on the road for some new recruits due to lack of funds - there isn't even a requirement for the driver to have been driving regularly since passing their test!

My real gripe is how much money is spent on police vehicles in the UK - how come the French Police can do the same job in Renault Traffic vans (old renault 4 vans in rural areas) Is there any real need for 'pursuit' type vehicles ? - doesn't this just end up being a red rag to the bull for the average hooligan joyrider ?
What are police radios for?

As has been said - this is our tax they are spending - personally I would like to see far more coppers on foot - stopping people nicking cars in the first place.

cheers,

Paul W - in controversial old git mode again ;-)

Jon Stewart

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[This message has been edited by Jon Stewart (edited 25-02-2000).]