Maneatingcheesesandwich should choke on this story. Who should police the police if they won't police themselves properly? It could be described as a local derby, played out on an unlevel playing field between the Derbyshire Police formula 1 team and the Derbyshire Police criminal injustice unit. The Police won 59 to Nil. This is quite an unimpressive score. The losers are the public. And, the police wonder why the public hold them in such low esteem. Here we are talking about just one road in one area of the country. I would hate to think what the real score is nationwide? Such lawlessness by the force of law and order makes a mockery of justice. There needs to be an independent body set up to prosecute such blatant lawlessness. Are we going to wait for more examples of this this and THIS before something is done to curb this kind of abuse of power?
The problem here is that some of the speeding will be justifiable and some perhaps won't. I say it's a problem, because it makes it more difficult to identify the ones who were taking the piss and putting other people's lives at risk unnecessarily, even if it's just one out of the 59.
ReplyDeleteEven with the lights and sirens on, there's not always enough justification to crank up the speed. The blues and twos are there to help you get through traffic, not to roar over the top of it....balancing out the risk to the victim of the job you're attending, against the risk to the general public whilst you're en route is a very subjective thing. Some people make carefully balanced judgements, most make instinctive decisions. A few are obsessed with driving fast. Hardly surprising, since we're just Joe Public in a uniform.
With the lights off, as seems to be the case in the majority of incidents here, the decision is just as subjective. Contrary to popular misconception, the law doesn't say that lamps and bells have to be switched on to show there's an emergency. Consequently a police car, marked or unmarked, could roar down the road at 90mph without so much as a toot or flash, as long as it was lawfully justifiable - ie a life and limb emergency. Easier to justify on the motorway or on a long wide country straight - more difficult along the busy High Street.
In what circumstances can I envisage exceeding a speed limit on duty, without putting my blues on? A fair few - attending alarm activations at night, when the roads are fairly clear and you don't want every bugger to know you're coming (and a good handful of collars as a result) - trying to locate a car that's slipped out of sight just before making a crafty turn (likewise, you don't always want to advertise your interest too early) - attending a job that you know needs swift action, despite the radio controller thinking otherwise (nothing to stop the lights being on or off, it's the driver's decision) - and more. Have I ever done it ? Absolutely.
What I haven't done is tear around town at 90mph in an attempt to be first at the scene of a two-bit job where no-one's been at risk. Conversely, I have roared down a motorway at 90mph for no good reason (off duty) and have three points to show for it. On duty, I have driven at speeds in excess of 100mph in cars patently unsuited to the task, in attempts to lock up the bad guys and protect the innocent - etc, etc. Sometimes it turned out to be totally justified, with the time shaved off the journey being the difference between mayhem and murder. There are countless incidents I could rattle off, where I and others have "made the difference" by getting there faster. Sadly, there are even more where the whole trip was a total waste of time. On those occasions, the benefit of hindsight allows us to mark the speeding as an unjustified danger to the public.
Sadly, as long as people do bad things, other people will expect the police to get there and do something about it. If we observe the speed limits all the time, loudly announcing 'nee-nar' to all and sundry, the victims and witnesses will sometimes be more at risk than if we arrived swiftly and silently.
In many areas, officers are now forbidden to pursue vehicles - the result being that, even for the most petty of offences, the bad guys roar off in a cloud of dust. If a speeding policeman is a threat to safety, a slow one is a complete waste of time.
A couple of queries from me though...Firstly, the RoSPA commentator suggests a trained MoP would be just as safe at speed as a trained police officer. Correct - but what life and limb emergency would said MoP be attending at the time? If they were speeding to save life and limb, or whilst under duress etc., the law would stand in their favour as well. (Sooner or later, we all get to escort the car with the birthing mother on board..)
Secondly, during your escape walk, you assessed the risk of capture etc against the benefits of most of your actions, I'm sure. To steal a wallet or not, to burgle a scout hut or not, to thumb a lift or not. We all do it, nearly every day. Admittedly, your walk in the air was of more risk to yourself than anyone else, so it's not the best comparison, but the decision making process differs very little.
The officers attending the area, to form a cordon, would be attending at speed, having been told, no doubt, that you were a danger to the public. Your walk in the air could have put lives at risk all over the local area, due to police driving, whereas your physical presence was presumably no threat to them at all (the objective being to get elsewhere pronto). But that, as they say, is someone else's problem....no-one could have made their decision for them.
Like most of the law, it looks like it should be black and white, but it isn't, it's subjective. Not too keen on the black box going missing though......
Sorry - it wasn't the RoSPA commentator, it was one from the Association of British Drivers.
ReplyDeleteOh - and I've just noticed - you said "Here we are talking about just one road in one area of the country." Mercifully for the potential residents of the road in question, the article seems to be referring to incidents throughout Derbyshire, rather than the home straight in Matlock.
As you say, some will take the piss. And, those covering their arses for them are also taking the piss. I think it is more a case of the law showing contempt for the law.
ReplyDeleteOnly 90 mph on the motorway? Had your car broken down? I've done 80 on narrow, and winding country roads. I did 146 mph on the A15, and would have gone around the clock 155 mph had it not been for the car I saw in the distance in front of me and eased up.
Admittedly, it was the ultimate machine and the road holding is just unbelievable. On the country roads, I would see the skid marks leading into the ditches and I suspect that it was boy racers with their silly little 1.2s and their big noisy exhausts who had come a cropper.
When I was in the back of Cat "A" vans, sometimes there would be 5 police cars as escort. I was very impressed with those from London how they managed it with all the traffic. It was like watching synchronized swimming or ballet dancing. Mind you, they were not very polite when a lady was trying to pull out of a side road with her little mini, one of the cars darted forwards and blocked her path and I could still hear his shout above the noise of the "twos", "Get back c*nt!". Her face was a picture...
I'll admit to a bias. I lost my licence after getting 2 x 3 penalty points for speeding on dual carriage ways in Hull, 50 in a 30 mph on the ring road where there are no houses etc, and 50 in a 40 mph on the A63 coming into Hull. The 40 sign I feel is too close to the 70, and just behind that I saw the camera van, and also the bastard who was tailgating me. Still, they were my fault and I should have been more careful. The last one was 2 weeks away from the 2 year period. Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1997, 6 penalty points within 2 years and you have to take the test again! It was meant for young hot heads not grumpy old buggers like me!
90 was what I was ticketed for. On the day in question, I was dashing home to my pregnant wife, who had been scared half to death by her midwife. As I peeled off the motorway (where I had been doing twice the limit) I slowed down to about 120 for the long bend. As I came out of the bend I saw two vehicles in the nearside lane and, to my horror, one pulled out to overtake the other. Thankfully, I slowed down so that once their overtake had finished, I could roar on past. Just as I was about to squirt some more fuel I saw the camera van on the bridge ahead. I took my foot straight off and eased the brakes on. Zapped at 90. The car in question had a big lump under the bonnet which leaked oil at speed. My boss at the time could tell when I'd come to work in a hurry, based on the cloud of oil smoke outside.
ReplyDelete145 was my bottle point, and it took 30 minutes for the car to stop smoking. I've been in traffic cars at higher speed, but thankfully only when riding shotgun for our force's driving god. I have never felt safer - even when a Cosworth was trying to play chicken with us. They clucked.
All very bad - I am an older, wiser man now. I TRY to behave, but my car whispers bad things.....
maneatingcheesesandwich: That sounds like an emergency to me and is a better excuse than I bet most of them have got for transgressing.
ReplyDeleteThose midwives can be quite scary. I have visions of Hattie Jaques...
It is quite scary at that speed and at the same time quite exhilarating. I remember doing 135 in the 60s in a Merc that some ex Sgt Major sold me for a cheque from a chequebook that wasn't mine. For 3 days and nights I drove it up and down the M1 and A1 only stopping for petrol and food and the toilet. I was near Nottingham at one point and there was a Humber in the outside lane bang on 70 and no amount of hooting or flashing lights would get him to move over. So, I undertook him and looked across to give him a piece of my mind. Ooooops! Four of the biggest bastards you have ever seen were in it, and the driver had that much scrambled egg on his peaked cap it had to be the Chief Constable himself. I got off at the next exit just in case!
Tut, tut, fancy blaming the innocent car distancing oneself from responsibility. The times that I have read reports accusing me of doing just that. What got me trying for the max was the radio and TV report of the man on the A1 in a BMW with the accelerator jammed at 135 mph. They said that it was top speed, and that it was a new car. I thought that he had been sold a dummy. I proved my point to myself what I thought she was capable of if I let her have her head...