'We have record numbers of police involved in enforcing traffic offences at the moment'
I agree with Armitage, they do have record numbers, in nice cozy offices supping tea and sending out fixed penalty notices to nice middle class people who pay up.
On the roads, nada.
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Officially - NO
Spoke to Staffordshire Police this morning about the dangerous situation on the A38 where the average speed through some temporary road works is 60-70 despite being signed at 30 and the answer was . . . .
"We do not have a traffic division"
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Well I confess I did see a traffic car recently.
Shame it was parked outside a Subway sandwich shop in a pedestrian only area (the two plods cleary visible buying their lunch!)
If only I'd had my camera on me...
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Can't remember the last time I saw a police vehicle cruising when doing the university run. Plenty of static 'safety camera vans' parked on bridges over the M4 though!
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The only 'official' vehicle I see now is the VOSA people carrier that is always parked on the roundabout junction with M40 and A43. He actually parks on the roundabout obscuring traffic emerging from the services area which in my opinion is a dangerous position for both them and us.
Oh well...
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when passing the scene of an accident nowadays it seems at least half the cop cars are unmarked type.
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*dander up mode = on*
I do wish people would cut the police some slack sometimes. They might have just finished scraping a child off the road and telling the parents about it. Or had some drunk throw up all over them. Or been involved in a knifing. Or any other of the horrors these people have come their way on a regular basis.
By no fault of their own they are understaffed and under pressure to keep smiling and do their job. They don't like doing paperwork to the detriment of hands on crime prevention or detection any more than anyone else. It's just the deal under the current system at the moment.
And then someone is unhappy because they are buying a sandwich to get them through the day? Frankly, these people can come and double park across my driveway and leave their cars in the middle of my living room for all I care.
No, I don't mean they can break the law with impunity. No I don't mean all are paragons. But I do mean that MOST of them MOST of the time have what I view as a darned awful job that is at the least highly stressful and pressured, and at the worst is stuff nightmares are made of, and if that means the price I pay for having these people around at all is they leave their cars on a double yellow line or whatever for five minutes whilst they refresh themselves then it's a price I'm prepared to pay, because there's no way I'm made of the stuff that they are.
I have no idea whether those kind of extenuating circumstances apply in that case. But then, the point is, neither does anyone else.
*end dandering with apologies*
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Mr Stick
You will find on here that most if not all appreciate what Mr Plod does. In fact we all want MORE real policemen, in cars, on roads, to give us a little lecture, to catch the scroats without insurance and to generally police in a sane and sensible fashion.
We DONT want hundreds and thousands of faceless pen pushers sorting through speed camera pictures and masquerading as an "increase in police numbers"
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Hear hear Dipstick. It's a national obsession to have a go at the police force in almost all areas but what would we do without them? Think about that one next time you see one doing a bloomin' good job...which will probably be tonight on your way home.
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and leave their cars inthe middle of my living room for all I care.
I'll bet you wouldn't;).
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I don't think many people on this forum criticise the traffic police, but they do criticise the lack of them.
I have posted on a number of occasions that, having driven over 200 miles on motorways, I have never seen a police car. Indeed, why introduce so much legislation that can never be enforced? When taking my dog for a walk I see numerous people driving with telephones held to their ears. There are many other examples one could cite.
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I don't think many people on this forum criticise the traffic police, but they do criticise the lack of them. I have posted on a number of occasions that, having driven over 200 miles on motorways, I have never seen a police car. Indeed, why introduce so much legislation that can never be enforced? When taking my dog for a walk I see numerous people driving with telephones held to their ears. There are many other examples one could cite.
You don't necessarily see them until they pull you for speeding. The only time this happened to me, coming in off the M40, I saw nothing until they appeared behind me and blipped their blues. They said I had simply passed them, but they were lying: they'd sprung on me out of a slip road. They were however extremely pleasant and even engaging, with a small handpainted sign on the front bumper of their Rover that said: The A Team. Fixed penalty, can it have been as little as £20 in the late 80s? and a couple of points. Pretty well painless. They'd clocked me at 88 which was frankly a relief.
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Well I confess I did see a traffic car recently. Shame it was parked outside a Subway sandwich shop in a pedestrian only area (the two plods cleary visible buying their lunch!) If only I'd had my camera on me...
>>
That's why I always carry my camera phone with me. Might just be able to take a snap of this sort of behaviour - it will give the Police Complaints Authority something to work with and nail them.
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The point of starting this thread was of course to bemoan the lack of traffic police, not to criticize the police. We have politicians who are either not in touch with the real world or are not in touch with the truth, or both. They legislate without providing the resources for enforcement and they think their job is done. They spin any information to defend their own position, even when what they say flies in the face of the facts we see every day, e.g. the absence of traffic police on the roads.
I echo TVM. I bet the majority of participants here agree with us. No, I couldn't do the policeman's job and I take my hat off to them.
For the sharpest observation of what's happening around Whitehall these days, try In the Thick of It on BBC2.
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I really don't believe there can be less traffic police than 8 years ago, when I accopanied a neighbour on a couple fo shifts. In the whole Thames Valley region there were only two traffic police out for much of the time.
I think someone above hit the nail - more plain cars these days.
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>> Well I confess I did see a traffic car recently. >> >> Shame it was parked outside a Subway sandwich shop in a >> pedestrian only area (the two plods cleary visible buying their lunch!) >> >> If only I'd had my camera on me... >> That's why I always carry my camera phone with me. Might just be able to take a snap of this sort of behaviour - it will give the Police Complaints Authority something to work with and nail them.
>
The swine - Caught eating huh... They should be thrown out of the force with no pension. Thin end of the wedge, they will be expecting toilet breaks next
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I will admit to gripes sometimes re our police force, but I always remember when I was at Uni in London and used to go to the famous Brick Lane beigel shop... the police are a permanent fixture in there, and there is NEVER anywhere to park. I used to park up, go in and say "that's my Uno behind your car, don't book me" and all they ever said was "fair enough mate there's never anywhere to park here". Seemed a fair enough situation to me! No doubt there are people on here who would drive 4 miles and park in a designated area, using of course the change they have in their dash-mounted coin meter in their valeted every week car, but in that part of London you'd have to drive to... probably Essex before you could park. : ) And yes, it WAS too far to walk.
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Here's one car that they are unlikely to catch:
tinyurl.com/8svmz
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Never mind traffic police, do we have enough police in general?
Just back from a nice break in New York and I have to say I have never felt so safe in a big city. Why? Maybe it has something to do with the high profile policing and the sheer numbers. I picked up a little fact while I was there and it is that there are 11000 officers in Manhattan, that covers an area of approximately 30 square miles.
It has been nagging me since I came home so I done a little digging. On the GMP website they boast of having 8106 officers. Manchester City Council alone claim an area of almost 500 square miles. That figure of course does not include the area covered by the 9 other boroughs that make up the Greater Manchester area.
Looking at it on a,bobbies per square mile basis:-
Manchester a paltry 16,
New York (Manhattan) an astonishing 366.
Obviously the above figures are a loose calculation but the gulf in numbers is significant any way you look at it.
It certainly underlines the current lawlessness that pervades the streets of the UK at the moment.
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Since the higways agency took over traffic acidents etc i have seen very few motorway patrols (marked or unnmarked.
As was said most of the police are probably deskbound raking in camera revenue.
Paul
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It has been nagging me since I came home so I done a little digging. On the GMP website they boast of having 8106 officers. Manchester City Council alone claim an area of almost 500 square miles. That figure of course does not include the area covered by the 9 other boroughs that make up the Greater Manchester area. Looking at it on a,bobbies per square mile basis:- Manchester a paltry 16, New York (Manhattan) an astonishing 366.
Er No.
The City of Manchester is no way 500 sq miles. That would mean it is ten miles wide and 50 miles long. No. Greater Manchester is 500 sq miles (all nine metropolitan boroughs).
However, I would agree that the visible prescence of the cops in NY makes it feel a very safe place to be, even late at night, where Manchester can feel rather threatening.
--
Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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There might be an argument that US cities have higher crime rates and therefore need such a high level of policing?
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According to Wikipedia, Manhattan has a population of 1,537,195. That's 7 cops per 1,000 population in New York.
The City of Manchester had a population of 392,000 at the last census, but doesn't have its own police force. GMP serves a population of 2.5 million people with 8,000 police officers and 3,500 support staff -- or 3.2 cops per 1,000 population.
I dunno how well a direct comparison works, because factors like overtime, numbers of support staff etc may alter the balance, and those figures compare the predominantly suburban GMP catchment with the most urbanised area of New York.
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So why do you think plod has helicopter support then? :-)
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Or maybe that a city like New York crams a lot more citizens into one square mile than a place like Manchester?
Think very high rise buildings versus the few storeys at most that you find in many British cities....
Blue
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New York? pah beat this
City Of London has 800 operational officers. There are 6,000 residents in the city of london. Thats one officer for every 7.5 people!
(ok Ok I know its a troll post but they are the "bare" facts)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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New York? pah beat this City Of London has 800 operational officers. There are 6,000 residents in the city of london. Thats one officer for every 7.5 people! (ok Ok I know its a troll post but they are the "bare" facts)
Yes, City of London police should be measured against daytime population rather than just residents -- same goes for Manhattan, which has billions of commuters pouring in from outside the boundaries.
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Loads of Traf Pol last week on the M25. On wed they had ANPR cameras at Clacket Lane services facing west on the CW M25 with 4 cars, one of which was a C Class merc & 2 Motorbikes all in full livery. Then on Thursday they added extra cameras facing east on the same bridge with 2 more cars a little way up. And of course the numpty brigade have to slow to around 30 to rubber neck the police cars on the hard shoulder, Arghhhh!!!
Jim
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TVM,
OK, as an infrequent visitor and even less frequent contributor and thus not a member of the inner circle of this forum, what exactly is a "troll" post? Should I be offended?
Espada,
You are quite right. The figure I quoted for square miles for Manchester is a direct lift from the city's own government website where they boast of having 127603 hectares of land in the Greater Manchester area. The city itself is 11565 hectares or 45 square miles.
It still doesn't change the GM bobbies per square mile ratio but it will certainly affect the number of police per population if you take in the number of people in the GM area.
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It still doesn't change the GM bobbies per square mile ratio but it will certainly affect the number of police per population if you take in the number of people in the GM area.
Counting police per square mile is a bit of an irrelevance if you are comparing a sprawling area like greater Manchester (which has lot of rural and semi-rural districts) with the Manhatan, which is one of the most concentrated business districts on the planet.
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Stick "define:troll" into Google and it'll spit out the answer. :)
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Judging by the response to my previous, the 'one rule for us and one for them' is happily accepted!
Silence doesn't imply acceptance. There was also at least one quite lengthy response which responded directly to your post. And posting simply to "score" a response (a form of trolling) isn't well thought of in these parts
smokie, BR Moderator
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I maybe should have made it clearer - I was indeed refering to the two previous posts that answered my post!
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I believe the problem with the police is one of definition, a uniformed administrator is not a police officer in my opinion, a police office engages with the public and doesn't sit in an air-conditioned office shuffling paper. So this business of 'record numbers of police officers' is meaningless, there is record amounts of paperwork. As for buying a sandwich, the police around my way even buy chips, it's a good way of talking to the public in relaxed surroundings, something to be encouraged I'd have thought.
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I've just had contact with the 'police' to report a wagon driver for failing to stop after demolishing a fence around an industrial estate we manage. At first the call centre operative didn't think a crime had been committed. Then an appointment was made to see me when I was out, they didn't call me to see if I was in. They then asked for an alternative time and I said this afternoon or tommorrow afternoon. Receive a call back to say someone would see me at 11am tommorrow! I give up.
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