I once saw a similar "training" pursuit on the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh. My concern was that if there was an HGV driver that sees a car being chased by a squad of traffic cars then he might want to help bring it to a halt!
Wonder what would happen in that case
a. If it was a real chase
b. If it was a training exercise
and a lorry had forced the car off the road, into a barrier etc thinking he was doing the police a favour?
Maybe the police need to drop their T5's and buy a fleet of HGVs to bring these chases to a halt :)
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The "nudging" is a psychological tactical manouvre. Its telling the driver " you aint going nowhere mate" and physically pushing the car into the box and up against the lead car. Providing its a tight formation there is very little damage.
Surprisingly over two years the training cars have only sustained minor cosmetic damage and a few rubber marks. The biggest problem is windscreens which regularly get pinged by debris on the hard shoulder. I think we went through 40+ last year!
We have the Subarus back you will see more of them in coming episodes.
The Training has encountered some 'helpful' members of the public but up to press they have not caused any real problems. We run a safety car in there with a Matrix display in the rear window.
The Stinger site perhaps in hindsight would have been vunerable to the coach. Just recently we had a bobby from Grimsby hit by a car driving well onto the verge whilst he was deploying Stinger. A timely reminder maybe!
Dont think there is any specific rulling about couples working together providing everything is professional.
I must say I started to think that they had overdone the lady thing a bit, having said that there is a large percentage working in that particular Traffic area.
I dont know if its me but our local customers are a real class act set apart from the rest of the country. It has something to do with the geographical location and generational interbreeding, - I kid you not! Keep watching and give me your thoughts.
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Re the bumping in the training pursuit - modern plastic bumpers can take quite a bit of it without being damaged.
Well my 98 Mondeo bumpers are just totally hollow thin plastic skins and my rear one split very easily. I assume the later versions are stronger :-((
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Well my 98 Mondeo bumpers are just totally hollow thin plastic skins and my rear one split very easily. I assume the later versions are stronger :-((
The amount of MK1 and MK2 Mondeos you see around me that have frton and rear bumpers that have split and they've just been patched up with insulation tape........
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Some kind person was seen reversing his car into my VW's front "bumper" at a local supermarket for several seconds before driving off.
My car (now seven years old) had a small hole punched into the bumper but that's all - the rest of the bumper has retained its shape and the paint is undamaged apart from a handful of millimetres around the hole.
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Taking a bus was an interesting one - big stuff is always difficult to stop in my experience (of Grand Theft Auto / Getaway on the PlayStation 2!)
But did the driver really think he'd get away? It's not as if you can nip down an alley and hide, is it?
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The amount of MK1 and MK2 Mondeos you see around me that have frton and rear bumpers that have split and they've just been patched up with insulation tape........
Spot on there, I was going to mention the same. Since I bought one with a cracked bumper I've been noticing others as you do and a clear majority of Mondys of that age have a cracked bumper. They are easy to damage, doesn't take much.
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>>Mondeo bumpers...
or the centre of the rear bumper violently vibrating because the little centre bracket ( previously two were specified) is not attached.
Wonderful designs. :-((
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It was interesting to see the number of local 'yooves' who appeared fully clothed at 5 in the morning when the guy did a runner from the van and entered one of the houses.
Were they all delivering papers and milk or were they off for an early shift on the docks?
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I liked it ------ it always amazes me how the police retain the patience they do in dealing with some of the 'characters' that clearly have no respect for the law or anyone else for that matter.
The husband & wife team was 'interesting' ---- No doubt they work very well together but I would ask the question that if a really dangerous situation develop would the natural instinct to be protective cloud Mr's judgement?
Perhaps not and they did come over as very proffessional, but I know I couldn't work with my wife so hats off to 'em
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I wish your boss would get a shave - hiding behind hair always makes me wonder what they're hiding.
Other than that I thought they came over well. None of this "no hands on the wheel, changing gear whilst on the phone" or chucking chewing gum paper out of the window.
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Will you be making an appearance ?
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Do I reserve the right to anonimity? No I will not be breaking cover.
My moment of fame came in, wait for it - "True Grit". A documentary about road gritting or the perceived lack of it in the Humberside region. My fee? A free bacon sandwich supplied by ITV at a local cafe.
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"I dont know if its me but our local customers are a real class act set apart from the rest of the country. It has something to do with the geographical location and generational interbreeding, - I kid you not! Keep watching and give me your thoughts"
I told you so!!!
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having spent a year in "south humberside"
and a year
in "north humberside"
i agree
a strange lot
however i loved my year in hull ( working for a retailer, not any college, apart from the one of life)
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I had to smile at the one where the lad was holding the occupants of a house up with a knife, then plod realised there was soemthing fishy and eventually nicked the occupants as well - the man was charged. I guess you just get a bit of a nose for things...
It's kinda sad though when you see some of these youngsters who are destined to be life's losers.
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>>i agree a strange lot however i loved my year in hull ( working for a retailer not any college
apart from the one of life)>>
Oi! I resemble that remark :-) Glad to get away from Hull though it is getting a bit better up there.
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Whats you local Traffpol like?
I have had dealing with various ones, and my experiences are thus.
Surrey, A bit snotty - but respond well to someone showing contrition and passing the attitude test. Boy racers at heart and all hark back to the time they had some scoobies on the fleet.
The Met. NO real traffpol to speak of, all upset they dont have any nice fast stretches of motorway. Hate surrey police as the main Met Pol social club is in Surrey and the local boys try and nick them for DD.
Leicestershire. Had dealings with them hauling myslef out of the wreckage of the Laguna. Non judgmental, cool, calm profesional, (Didnt try and breathalise me, wasnt required. I saw one cop raise an eyebrow to the paramedic, and the replying shake of the head from him was enough.
Thames Valley. Nasty bunch. Wouldnt trust them as far as I could throw them. Strut about shaven headed like members of a paramilitary force. They have more tattoes than the customers.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thames Valley. Nasty bunch. Wouldnt trust them as far as I could throw them. Strut about shaven headed like members of a paramilitary force. They have more tattoes than the customers.
I got pulled for speeding by Thames Valley at Denham on the M40 once. They were driving a white Rover SD1 with a small handpainted sign on the front bumper that said: The A Team. They didn't react when I giggled at that, but were otherwise impeccably polite and even rather charming. Of course I was relieved that they had only clocked me at 88.
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as this thread is Basically about Traffic Police, i shall take a liberty and stick this "snippet" here, it comes from a rather facinating larger article in the North West Evening Mail (last nights) concerning Police caught speeding.
Quote:
Last year 90,000 Police officers were caught speeding, or jumping red lights, 354 were punished.
A quarter of the incidents involved Police on emergency calls with blue lights flashing, but most of the others had tickets cancelled by senior officers.
Paul Smith of Safespeed said:
These figures add significantly to the public suspicion that its one rule for them, and another for the rest of us.
unquote.
Reading the article leads one to believe that the actual source of these facts are the Police themselves.
Billy
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They are from the police as it was a Freeom of Information request to them - who else would hold such information? It was a typical Daily Mail piece so only useful for wrapping my chips in.
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? It was a typical Daily Mail piece so only useful for wrapping my chips in.
>>
Meaning?
That it therefore, by definition - untrue? Inaccurate? Misleading? Biased? Irrelevant?
And another thing! When did you last get your chips wrapped in old newspaper?
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>>It was a typical Daily Mail piece so only useful for wrapping my chips in.>>
Means that because the DM expresses the so often ignored views of the majority of members of the public, rather than the Left wingers, Guardianites and spin of those who wish to gain more and more control of our lives.
There are some who, not unsurprisingly, feel that the police are becoming more and more a political arm of those at Westminster.
Which is why some senior police officers who have expressed concern over the use of speed cameras apparently being used purely for raising revenue rather than road safety, have been jumped on from a great height.
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Misleading? Yes
Biased? Yes
Irrelevant? Yes
Why? Because just before 5pm on the day the story was in the DM 5live actually gave someone the chance to give the other side of the story, which included items on specialist Police driving operations - try driving through London without stopping and without setting off a camera. It was a request under the FOI Act with the intention of creating 'news' for the front page which was senstionalist rather than journalism. It's the main reason I don't buy any newspaper.
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And 90000 p.a. is 10 per hour for the whole of England, but 10 per hour doesn't sound sensational.
I live on a busy road which has a large police station. From the main entrance you enter a 30 zone and within 250 yards in both directions there is a camera. Not a night goes by without a police car going by with blues and two going, so the majoriy of these will trigger the camera.
The original thread was about the Humberside Police - look how long some of those chases take. Do you think the stolen car driver avoids roads with speed cameras?
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all of the 'police speeding' stuff is 'politics'.
i regularly nowadays get dockets sent my way that relate to my staff doing speed cameras or bus lanes. they are all on duty driving police registered cars/vans....
some years ago this sort of thing didn't happen, they were all hit on the head as soon as the registered keeper was shown as the 'Old Bill'.....for some reason they now get 'processed'
what a waste of time, endless staff chasing an endless zero result
you're supposed to call up when you set a camera off.......but often it's busy on the radio, so you don't feel you want to interfere and block something important...... so the worst case scenario would be a court appearance and a case thrown out within 10 mins
plus..... how many people under the Freedom of Informnation Act have asked for figures from the Fire Bigade and the Ambulance Service under similar circs?
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all of the 'police speeding' stuff is 'politics'.>>
That seems to be an expression that you've conjured up out of thin air...:-)
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>> all of the 'police speeding' stuff is 'politics'.>> That seems to be an expression that you've conjured up out of thin air...:-)
why do you say that? I can assure you that i haven't....my opinion, for what it's worth, is that some people like to slate the Old Bill, for whatever reason 'rocks their boat' and sometimes that is politics (with a small 'p') by which i mean it is an area that they pick and choose the facts they want to include and don't look at the full picture
the pick and choose being.......why not moan at the fire brigade,ambulance service, blood transfusion service, coastguard, etc.....or indeed why moan at all
the full picture = all day and every day police cars set off speed cameras, bus lane cameras and get parking tickets etc for valid reasons and your tax payers money is spent on investigating it...... what a complete waste of time.......i get this carp all the time over my desk........ IT WASTES MY TIME........
i can quote numerous occasions that a police vehicle might need to get somewhere sharpish, but wouldn't be travelling under a blue lamp or two tones... and with MDT and IDR (Mobile Data Terminals and Incident Data Recorders) which can track a vehicle for the past 24 hours showing speed, location etc......who in their right mind is going to sod about in one?
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I presumed, quite naturally, that you were referring to my comment earlier that:
"There are some who, not unsurprisingly, feel that the police are becoming more and more a political arm of those at Westminster."
As far as I am concerned, providing that all safety aspects are observed, members of the police, fire or ambulance services needing to break speed limits in order to reach serious incidents as quickly as possible have my full support; I'm sure that applies to the majority of the general public.
However, reverting back to my statement, some police chiefs are bending over backwards to please their political masters, rather than keeping out of this arena and do their job to which they were appointed without compromise or undue outside influence.
You, I and many others know perfectly well who those are to whom I am alluding.
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i can quote numerous occasions that a police vehicle might need to get somewhere sharpish but wouldn't be travelling under a blue lamp or two tones...
Could you explain this?
Nearly every driver on the road *wants* to get where they are going pretty sharpish.
I might have a meeting in 15 minutes time, and need to move quick to get there on time.
However if I speed an am caught, I would have no defence to speeding or bus lane infractions, and rightly so.
So I can't really see how the police are any different. If it is not an emergency, it cannot be a *need*. Yes, there might be a criminal to be interviewed or a meeting to go to or whatever, who are kept waiting, wasting public money, but this applies just as well to any other public servant needing to get somewhere by road.
Or perhaps I have missed something blinding obvious about why you *need* to break the law when it is not an emergency.
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The 'blindingly obvious' - is that an appointment is a pre-arranged event which should be scheduled allowing sufficiant time for the journey. An emergency call or requirement for the emergency services to attend or deal with an incident which is spontaneous and has no regard for time or distance to travel.
In my neck of the woods if you cant justify exceeding the limit then you face the consequences just like everyone else. AND it is written in law that emergency services are exempt if it would hinder the purpose of the journey. AND emergency services are specifically trained to drive safely in excess of the limits. Please dont start "Well I saw..." or "Police vehicle involved in collision" because sometimes drivers do make mistakes there will always be the human element.
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Here is another ?tongue ?in ?cheek ? view of this article,
A quarter using legitimate blues, = 22500
Est a further quarter needing to be somewhere ?sharpish? exc blues,= 16875
Total legitimate speeding offences = 39375
That leaves 50625 unauthorised speeding offences swept under the carpet by senior officers.
The revenue lost (assuming each is a standard £60 fine ) is £3037500.00, which if paid would ease quite a bit of the burden on the tax payer.
How many extra Police Officers wages would this figure pay, and allow forces to employ? However many it is, they would be virtually ?free? Officers, paid for by the Police , thanks to their camera partnerships.
Also, if points make prizes, what could they get with a ?potential tally? of 151875??.
o.k i'll go quietly!
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i can quote numerous occasions that a police vehicle might need to get somewhere sharpishbut wouldn't be travelling under a blue lamp or two tones...
Could you explain this?
The 5live rep did. Police carry out covert operations, high security transportation duties etc. These are carried out in unmarked cars with no blues and twos. My BIL has been part of operations moving high risk prisoners - they are 'no stop' trips and involve at least four police cars. Traffic cop programmes often show sting operations where unmarked cars are used to tail suspects - no blues and twos there either.
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Could you explain this?
Nearly every driver on the road *wants* to get where they are going pretty sharpish. So I can't really see how the police are any different. If it is not an emergency it cannot be a *need*. >> Or perhaps I have missed something blinding obvious about why you *need* to break the law when it is not an emergency.
I'll give you an example, last week. I go out on patrol, which sadly is not as often as it ought to be, a call comes out to some form of domestic with a man smashing the place up. The control room has difficulty finding a unit free (no change there then)....i wait for the sergeant to cut in to the equation to try to find someone (which he eventually does)..so one double crewed unit is sent on blues/twos to the scene. This is not ideal as that sort of call can get very weary and it would be standard practice to send two units...but I know it took long enough to get the one, so that will be all we've got....so i start making my way in that direction as well......i'm not going as an emergency response, so i don't use the blues and twos...but......i will travel faster than i would in my own car....because the officers might need help.......when i set off the 50mph camera doing 70mph up the dual carriageway others around me might well think i was extracting the urine.
So why was i not 'assigned' to that call or racing along with all the warning equipment....well A, if i assign myself, the control room will use me as the second vehicle, which is not ideal as i'm single crewed, B, i'm in charge of the whole set up, (at that time) and need to be available for a multitude of things, some of them set in law (Police and Criminal Evidence Act), so i can't get too tied down with specifics unless i really have to.....so tend to keep out of the control room system on purpose. This means i can change my mind and attend something else if it has a higher priority or more weariness potential.....e.g firearms incident... and C, you shouldn't drive in emergency mode unless you really have to as it causes more danger.
Our guidelines state i should call up on the radio and inform the control room every time i set a camera off.....but......if you can't get in on the main channel, which is often the case when it's busy......you'd need to take the radio off its' mounting on your jumper, look at it, change the channel, press select and go to a support channel......all of which i'd rather not do travelling at 70 mph in a 50mph limit!
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"you'd need to take the radio off its' mounting on your jumper, look at it, change the channel, press select and go to a support channel......all of which i'd rather not do travelling at 70 mph in a 50mph limit!"
Talking to a tamed Traffic Officer, I was interested to learn that some Forces are programming Airwave radios to allow officers to effectively ping when they activate a camera, this timestamps the caller's identity into Force CAD systems. Same Officer told me that his Force has banned the use of Airwave Handstes for radio work when driving threatening staff with Criminal investigations, they must only use Hands Free set ups whilst driving. I can't see the issue here, most of the 90.000 activations would be genuinely job related.
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The MDT, Mobile Data Terminals allow the control room to see in real time where every vehicle is. There is a little car symbol on a map with each call sign on it. You can also re-trace the steps of any vehicle for the past 24 hours and work out the average speed at any given time. If you wanted to, you could set up the map to set of an alarm if a car went into (or out of) an area you highlight on the map.
Then there's the increasing CCTV coverage managed by the council, but beamed into the police control rooms. A fair chunk of your area can be covered by that.
Real Big Brother stuff......although it has its' advantages. If you press your emergency button but cannot speak, it's easy to see where your car is on the map..... Although if you nip home to pick up your forgotten sarnies, that will be obvious to the control room as well!
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You have time to eat sarnies? Whats it coming to?? ;-)
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