I drove into London today.
saw two patrol cars on the roads, one possibly an ARV. Also saw two marshalling a busy road junction whilst the Luton marathon was on, probably specials.
All of these I saw in the first mile of the journey. Didn't see another in the rest of the sixty mile round trip.
As to how many we need, I guess that "sufficient" is the right number. Don't shout too loudly for them to be more effecicient, it often comes to the detriment of being effective.
Most of the police who've stopped me over the years have been courteous, polite and have realised that they will always leave each encounter with a member of the public having either made a friend or an enemy. Sadly this isn't always the case but I do hope its an issue that's being addressed. As I understand it, current fitness requirements mean that the police are more likely to retire early, which is a shame, people skills grow as you age regardless of teh job you do.
As to how many we need, well consider that perhaps one in ten of us will suffer from crime each year. If each crime requires one man day of police effort, then with a population of 60 million then we need 6 million man days of policing. With 200 working days a year, then this works out at 180,000 police.
I've no idea how many police there are in the UK, and the one in ten figure is only an informed guess, but that number should be sufficient to be organised into a force that could allow us all to live in a peaceful and regularly organised society.
Another way of calculating it would be to consider what response times we would like for each type of crime, use the historical data of each crime type and do the calculations accordingly.
Both of these approaches are reactive, not proactive, but should provide the numbers for more proactive use of the resource available.
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I read often, only post occasionally
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1/ It is time we had a National police force. Too much money is wasted in local leadership and police HQ's, etc. National Police force, single computer system etc etc.
2/Re the motoring.
We need a Highway Patrol type force. The role the Highways agency is currently ramping up to but a step further.
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When I was squashed under a car, two traffic polic turned up in less than a minute. If we get more, they should go on the motorways to get the drivers flying along at 95MPH+.
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We already pay handsomely for more police (26% extra on the council tax in Northants last year), better schools, hospitals, and so on. I don't know where they are though.
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Maybe midlifecrisis or one of his learned colleagues can answer this.
I, along with the majority here, probably get fed up with people breaking driving "rules". I am talking things like foglights, non-functional lights, seatbelts, phones etc.
My question is, what is the minimum time that the police could deal with such a problem ie. from stopping, pulling over, dealing with, and getting away again? I suspect the amount of paperwork tied up in doing such a stop is probably stopping coppers from dealing with these offences; and I would also suggest that it cheeses them off as much as us.
So what can they currently do, or what would need to be changed to "fasttrack" these offences ie. stop, pull over, radio in car and driver details, form handed over, copper gets away?
What about a standard £50 fine for these sort of offences? Every 3rd offence that gets logged against you, you automatically get 3 points?
It, of course, gives the police the "opportunity" to check out any other aspects of the car and /or driver if they so wish?
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Issuing a plain seatbelt ticket only takes around five minutes. I personally usually target likely 'crime' vehicles. I would rather stop a specific car with a good chance of a dizzy driver etc than pull Mrs Miggins driving to the Supermarket. A couple of sundays ago, I had a debate with one of my colleagues. He was boasting at giving out a dozen seat belt tickets during his shift I had given out one, but arrested two drink drivers in the same time period. He felt he had 'contributed' more. As he is new to the department, he was suitably advised.
I don't agree with the points system as it stands, nor with the current re-vamp. The flexible points system is just an excuse to hit motorists harder. 6 points for 40mph in a 30 limit, ridiculous.
The Police are now run on statistics. Hence it's more important (to the bosses) to give out x numbers of tickets, than arrest x number of drink drivers. The ticket numbers can be given out to 'demonstrate' the percentage of offences detected. It also explains why there are far fewer uniform officers. Lots of them are now in plain clothes collating and researching, with a view to increasing 'detctions'. Nothing will change until politics is removed from the equation.
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I don't agree with the points system as it stands, nor with the current re-vamp. The flexible points system is just an excuse to hit motorists harder. 6 points for 40mph in a 30 limit, ridiculous.
As far as I can see, the most recent govt formulation of the proposal is in the DfT discussion paper dated 1/9/04, at tinyurl.com/6qlrk -- where the proposal is for the 6point/£100 penalty to kick in at 45mph, not 40.
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Its a question of prioritising and trying to give some quality of service.
On a personal note I find that I have very little actual free time to patrol and for want of a better word 'hunt'. I work in a busy city centre. I have a tray load of 'hit and runs', normal collisions for statements and process, crime reports to ivestigate and on and on. It doesnt stop. You get rid of one and another two appear. CPS wont prosecute without a shed load of statements even though I could give a verbal summary of an accident including witness accounts in a couple of minutes. I am generally doing or en route to something. Not forgetting responding to ongoing calls for service.
Its a case of managing your own workloads and keeping your head above water. I think you would be hard pushed to find may bobbies just ambling about these days.
So having said that whilst it may take only 10 minutes or so to dish out a ticket for some infringement, the process is adding to workload and it can be a case of trying to offload some of that pressure by ignoring minor infringements. Sad as it is.
For example some people get a bee in their bonnet about pedal cycles without lights and write in to the papers moaning about Police lack of attention and there are threads in this column about particular minor infringements which annoy people. In 25 years I have never been to a collision involving a pedal cycle which has not had lights on. As a consequence in the bigger picture bikes without lights are therefore not a priority, annoying as it may be to those who demand action.
Historically the Police have been a 'Can do' organisation but we are now in the ere of Performance, Targets and Priorities. Excessive demands are meaning that we are now Prioritising and actually saying 'No sorry thats not a Police matter' or stating that it is low on our priorities and will not be responded to. If I can give an example. Kids throwing snowballs or playing football. I know it can be annoying but isnt that what kids do? Traditionally we have always been responsible for escorting Abnormal Loads. That could be particularly time consuming. Now they have been hived off to the private sector, unless of course they are particularly large.
We are going to see some big changes in the next few years and Community Wardens and private motorway patrols run by the Highways Agency are only the start!
Fullchat
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I have just seen on TV the documentary of the murder of Ian Broadbent and the shooting of his colleagues on Boxing Day last year which showed original video/sound footage from the Police car. It had a remarkable similarity to an incident involving PC Sandy Kelly and SPC Glen Goodman who were shot on the A64 near Tadcaster. All the oficers were just going about their normal duties.
To see the profound impact on the survivours must surely have some effect on even the most ardent 'Police bashers'. Or does it?
Fullchat
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I watched the programme as wall. What struck me was that it was a replay of virtually every stop I make. But we'll all carry on just the same. Will it stop the Police bashers, of course not.
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Guys, for every police basher there is a much larger number of normal folks out here who reckon that the police (traffic or otherwise) are ordinary guys doing a pretty good job in a not very nice environment.
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Fullchat, an excellent post with some good "reminders" to us all that there are reasons why priority decisions are made.
Mods, might be worth putting this into a "sticky" thread for a while?
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there are those of us who are quite happy to let the numbers of traffic police dwindle as the speed camera lobby tells us it's all safe. all the while, everyone knows where the camera's are and slows down for them, then carries on at whatever speed we want safe in the knowledge that there aren't any bobbies about to nab them
on the flip side there is a growing number of people who think along the lines of "how do you catch the drunk/dangerous/drugged up driver when there are no police about.
i wouldn't pay any more tax than i already do to see more police on the roads, but thats another matter for discussion as to where all the tax money goes, but if they want more police they should get them rather than pay vast sums of money on frivoulus things like the dome, iraq, asylum, benifit scams, single mothers, the compo culture, you name it, it's getting paid out
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The thing I don't understand is why traffic coppers take such great pleasure in persecuting ordinary motorists for minor and insignificant speeding offences. My neighbour and good mate is a beat officer. He tells me that not one copper in his station believes that minor speeding makes the tiniest bit of difference to road safety. They are all well aware that it is serious speeding that is dangerous but those offenders are precisely the ones that either never get caught or if they do they get way with it because the little loves are 'vulnerable'.
I once started a thread myself on a bloke but the moderators removed it. Oh, and they removed this paragraph as well
[oops, non motoring bit removed]
Try breaking a minor speed limit though. Your on you own then son. No mercy.
Hope one or two people get to read this before the censors get to it.
[edits made by those that Jeds refers to as the "thought-police" and the "censors"]
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The thing I don't understand is why traffic coppers take such great pleasure in persecuting ordinary motorists for minor and insignificant speeding offences.
We need more traffic police. Of the ones we have, many are arrogant swine who need to be removed, perhaps re-allocated jobs as bus conductors (many vacancies here), or cleaning out the sewage tanks of inter-city trains. Anyway, once the Force is sorted out, they need, IMO, to concentrate less on minor (or even major) speeding, which *under the right circumstances* is not an issue, but just happens to be easily measurable, and more on anti-social and potentially dangerous driving issues - some things that spring to mind are MLOCMs, people weaving in and out of traffic to overtake on motorways, speeding in urban areas, tailgating anywhere, using the wrong lane at roundabouts, improper use of fog-lamps, 'phone usage, inappropriate "hand signals" and road rage, being discourteous, poor indicating, queue jumping, not paying attention, driving cars with heavily-tinted glass, driving pink or orange cars. Recorded stops (cautions) with fines/points/public execution for persistant offenders.
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"public execution for persistant offenders."
Is the Caxton gibbet still standing? Might come in useful if OB gets elected.
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Judging by the length of the list of capital offences, a guillotine or firing squad might be more efficient!
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