Was Stopped by the police...

lucarocks92 said:
You guys are lucky over in Britain, here in Ireland they will look for any excuse to give points and a fine on the licence. The young cops are the worst always trying to be like Robocop and uphold the law.
Click to expand...

The new generation are absolutely terrible. However there are still some decent lads left. I've experienced them myself, and so have others.

One chap was caught doing 177km/hr and was let off after agreeing to paint the gardas local GAA grounds haha.

Another lad very close to me was caught with no insurance (genuine mistake). The traffic corp scum got him, but the local Garda dealt with it, as they had the mind to actually employ some discretion.

But its a changing world. Shame more of those camera vans are not burnt out.
 
So if you got hit and injured by an uninsured driver, you'd be fine to give them discretion and just put up with your injuries because it was a genuine mistake?

Some things yes a good telling off and you will realise you did something stupid, but there should be no discretion when it comes to things like an uninsured vehicle, because people like me end up having to pay for all the damage they cause.
 
sports_brah said:
The new generation are absolutely terrible. However there are still some decent lads left. I've experienced them myself, and so have others.

One chap was caught doing 177km/hr and was let off after agreeing to paint the gardas local GAA grounds haha.

Another lad very close to me was caught with no insurance (genuine mistake). The traffic corp scum got him, but the local Garda dealt with it, as they had the mind to actually employ some discretion.

But its a changing world. Shame more of those camera vans are not burnt out.
Click to expand...

Total and absolute bile.
 
Phantom Shadow said:
So if you got hit and injured by an uninsured driver, you'd be fine to give them discretion and just put up with your injuries because it was a genuine mistake?

Some things yes a good telling off and you will realise you did something stupid, but there should be no discretion when it comes to things like an uninsured vehicle, because people like me end up having to pay for all the damage they cause.
Click to expand...

An uninsured driver is one of the few things I absolutely despise. Tax is one thing, even NCT (MOT), but to run willfully without insurance is absolutely wrong because of the sheer impact it can have on someones life.

No question about it.

This chap however, had the insurance paid for by his father, drove the car believing that he was insured (waiting for tax disc). The insurance company had cancelled his insurance because they didn't his NCB through the post. They claimed (though they later admitted there might have been an oversight somewhere) they sent a letter saying why. He never received it (and I truly believe him on this).

Now, when pulled over by the traffic corp for a routine stop, didn't have the disc displayed on his windscreen like he should have done, he was asked to produce it within 10 days.

Only then did he find it was cancelled.

Obviously that very same hour he plunked down a lot of cash to instantly buy insurance.


Now the question is, should he have been taken to the letter of the law? In my opinion, the other Garda showed some truly good policing by letting him off. They understood the situation instantly, saw he had an impeccable history, and understood that a lack of insurance was a court appearance, 5 points on license and up to 1000e fine.

He was fully insured by the end of the day, proved it, and is now absolutely neurotic about making sure everything is fully insured up to the hilt.

Criminalising someone like that would have been stupid. (imo)


Obviously Sin_Chase disagree's, but looking over his posts, he doesn't appear to have the wherewithal to actually employ discretion.
 
You don't have a clue, in short. You post your rose tinted glasses stories, which set out an absolutely angelic 'offender' who did EVERYTHING right and just got screwed by the system.

Poor little motorist, does not comply with terms of insurance, gets cancelled, never got any of the (no doubt numerous) letters that would have been sent, there is some kind of an 'oversight' but the only real crime he committed was driving without displaying a tax disc.

Everyone is entitled to do what they want as long as they do it in good faith. The Police are just a bunch of law enforcing scum who have no idea how to employ discretion. Right?

You seem to think that discretion should be employed EVERYWHERE. Illegal tyres, no insurance, anything else you want to add to that list? Discretion is circumstance, officer and offender based.

Had your 'friend' not been tugged he would have driven without insurance indefinitely it would seem, on the basis that he THOUGHT he was insured. Would you be defending him with the same old "Poor chap, did not know" sob story if he found out he was uninsured after an accident?

Posts about 'friends' speeding like idiots, stories about corrupt officers who let off speeding for labour work (Which you seem to appreciate). Then again, who knows what to believe. You are recounting a story as told by someone else.
 
Last edited:
Sin_Chase said:
You don't have a clue, in short. You post your rose tinted glasses stories, which set out an absolutely angelic 'offender' who did EVERYTHING right and just got screwed by the system.

Poor little motorist, does not comply with terms of insurance, gets cancelled, never got any of the (no doubt numerous) letters that would have been sent, there is some kind of an 'oversight' but the only real crime he committed was driving without displaying a tax disc.

Everyone is entitled to do what they want as long as they do it in good faith. The Police are just a bunch of law enforcing scum who have no idea how to employ discretion. Right?

You seem to think that discretion should be employed EVERYWHERE. Illegal tyres, no insurance, anything else you want to add to that list? Discretion is circumstance, officer and offender based.

Had your 'friend' not been tugged he would have driven without insurance indefinitely it would seem, on the basis that he THOUGHT he was insured. Would you be defending him with the same old "Poor chap, did not know" sob story if he found out he was uninsured after an accident?

Posts about 'friends' speeding like idiots, stories about corrupt officers who let off speeding for labour work (Which you seem to appreciate). Then again, who knows what to believe. You are recounting a story as told by someone else.
Click to expand...

Who said I didn't appreciate the friend being tugged? I'm not disputing for a second he was in the wrong. I'm glad he was pulled across so that it was flagged up to him. (And for the record, no he didn't get the numerous letters, hence the point about the oversight).

The point I was making was that a bit of discretion has meant that he now has the chance to make sure it never happens again. And I know for a fact it never will. The alternative was hauling him through the courts and ruining his life?! What good would that possibly achieve?

Personally, I've only sped a bit faster than the speed limits when I was younger. I've got a fair bit more responsibility now, and would rate myself as pretty safe driver. This doesn't preclude me from seeing how a light touch can be more appropriate than a slam.

Out of curiosity, have you never sped yourself? I seem to remember reading you had a Honda S2000. You never exceeded 70mph? 80mph? 90mph?

The illegal tyres was something we were discussing in a theoretical context, another situation in which you blindly wouldn't consider anything other than black and white.

You might say I'd employ too much discretion, but I reckon you don't employ any.
 
sports_brah said:
Who said I didn't appreciate the friend being tugged? I'm not disputing for a second he was in the wrong. I'm glad he was pulled across so that it was flagged up to him. (And for the record, no he didn't get the numerous letters, hence the point about the oversight).

The point I was making was that a bit of discretion has meant that he now has the chance to make sure it never happens again. And I know for a fact it never will. The alternative was hauling him through the courts and ruining his life?! What good would that possibly achieve?

Personally, I've only sped a bit faster than the speed limits when I was younger. I've got a fair bit more responsibility now, and would rate myself as pretty safe driver. This doesn't preclude me from seeing how a light touch can be more appropriate than a slam.

Out of curiosity, have you never sped yourself? I seem to remember reading you had a Honda S2000. You never exceeded 70mph? 80mph? 90mph?

The illegal tyres was something we were discussing in a theoretical context, another situation in which you blindly wouldn't consider anything other than black and white.

You might say I'd employ too much discretion, but I reckon you don't employ any.
Click to expand...

I'm actually going to ignore you and cease replying to you, reverting back to my original point. That being, you've not got any real clue. Cya.
 
Much better to use discretion in my opinion, unless of course they check and find you're a repeat offender or maybe have some other type of criminal history that suggests that just a friendly warning is not enough.

Have not had any issues with speeding etc, but I think if I ever did I would react far better to a warning to cool it than a fine etc. I know I generally respond better to the carrot than the stick, the stick tends to get my back up and to be honest I kind of take pride in not having any traffic offences or criminal record.

But perversely I think if I ever got something that would be a bit of a slippery slope as I would no longer have the motivation to care about keeping a perfectly clean record. Tend to be like that in other things too, if I meet my original higher targets then I am motivated to keep meeting them, but if I miss them then I often drop my targets and standards for example in exams.
 
Sin, Sports, you both have good points, I don't think you fully understand each other.

Play nice!

Too many well known members are quibbling at the moment. :p

My personal view is that flexibility and discretion should be exercised at times. It depends entirely on the context of the situation. The history of the person (whether they have a record of similar offences or seem like a decent chap with a good record), how obvious it was that they were breaking the law (one tyre below the limit on the inner edge vs. some bald ones for example), how they react to the allegations (whether they try and deny/argue, or acknowledge and are genuinely apologetic) and if they have a reasonable and provable excuse (my mum is dying in hospital and I want to say goodbye, vs. the shop is about to shut and I want some beer)

If you gave someone points and a fine for driving 85 in a 70 in the middle of the night to see their dying mother, would you be able to sleep at night Sin?

If you gave someone with below the limit tyres permission to drive to the tyre depot and later learned that they had lost control on a wet roundabout and killed two pedestrians, would you be able to sleep at night Sports?
 
Last edited:
Oh sorry I also forgot my own story about being pulled over.

I was keeping left going from lane 1 to lane 2 and so forth. Got off the Mway and blue lights came on.

He explained that me moving from Lane 1 and 2 back and forth was dangerous and I should stay in lane 2 and keep driving there.........I bit my tongue.
 
I tend to find I get handled with a pretty serious lump of discretion. I was gunned by a guy in a Volvo here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s0xxFBksiouWRIt7vSO0eAw!2e0 I can never remember if it was 74 or 84, but it's a 40 limit and he only felt 3 pts/£60 was appropriate. I suspect the combination of it being about 6:30 AM and a bit of a ridiculous 40 limit helped.

Another is a time I zipped along here at quite a lot more than 30, and the car coming the other way was some dog unit estate car: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s_nGleoKL3kthfQrBVxfaHw!2e0 He turned around and followed me for quite a way, eventually pulling me over to "check it wasn't stolen".

Another was popping out from this underpass at also quite a lot more than 30, completely adjacent to a police Fiesta joining from the left: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sIXf0t1JwlUiEJ0Ze5vg54g!2e0 Pulled over, not even much of a telling off. I chatted with one of them about how crap the Fiesta 1.3 engine was while his colleague checked my details. It was the day I bought my 330i was it was still registered in Cambridge.

The only one that's been a bit hmm is when I received my CD10. One of the officers was so pumped from what he seemed to think was the greatest police chase in the history of the universe it was like talking with a four year old. Luckily the more senior officer just sort of pushed him away :p
 
pepsilol said:
Oh sorry I also forgot my own story about being pulled over.

I was keeping left going from lane 1 to lane 2 and so forth. Got off the Mway and blue lights came on.

He explained that me moving from Lane 1 and 2 back and forth was dangerous and I should stay in lane 2 and keep driving there.........I bit my tongue.
Click to expand...

Dear god :(
 
I drove "normal" cars for for around 5 years without any issue until I bought a Skyline when I was in my late-20's and suddenly I was getting pulled monthly around Lincoln by everything from Pandas to Bikes to Traffic Cars. Happily it was always "for a quick check Sir" rather than for being caught doing something stupid. I even got pulled on the M40 in it because I taxed it in the morning after being abroad for 6 months and the DVLA computer hadn't updated yet. The Policeman didn't even check anything, he just ran up to the passenger side looked at the disc, gave me a thumbs up and drove off :D

I sold it after 6 years and haven't been stopped since!
 
Was stopped last year by an unmarked car which followed me for a couple of miles down the M42 at 95mph and then up the A435 at around 90mph at 3am in the morning.

Had the whole "come sit in the back of our car for a chat" routine while he checked the car details out. He then said the main reason they'd stopped me was because it was a fairly new Audi being driven at speed at 3am and, since there'd been a lot of thefts lately, they wanted to check. He then said my speed was slightly excessive and I just agreed and apologised and said I had no excuse but was just in a bit of a hurry. He let me go on my way :)

I think it helped that I was driving "correctly" despite being well beyond the limit. I was sticking to the correct lane and indicating properly despite there being little other traffic around. Luckily, as I'd approached my exit on the M42, I was gaining on a truck doing around 70 in the inside lane and opted to just slow down behind it before taking the exit. For a moment I was contemplating pulling out, overtaking and then cutting back across to the exit. Had I done so the police might not have been quite so understanding :)
 
Last edited:
Gahhh i just took my GTD out for a spin about 30mins ago and got pulled over by the police. Didnt even realise it was behind me but was doing about 80 on a 40 road:eek:. Absolutely utterly stupid of me to do such a thing so soon as i was asked to get out of the car, i was confronted by 2 policewomen who werent pleased with the speed i was doing. Damn you DSG box in sport mode:p...anyhow held up my hands and apologised profusely. Got told off and told not to speed again...phewww lucky escape there.

So i guess apologising and holding your hands up makes a difference as she was ready to issue me with a ticket for speeding. And no before any of you ask, she wasnt fit or anything...she was blonde and had a rather butterface on her...her colleague wasnt that much better looking either:p
 
Getting away with 80 in a 40 at 11PM is probably going a little too far with the discretion IMHO.

Google maps of the road?
 
Going down a hill I let the car roll up to 50 in a 40 zone and got caught by police hiding at the bottom doing speed checks. I pulled over next to them, apologised, and went on my way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom