Police driving standards

mejinks

mejinks

mejinks

Soldato
Joined
28 Oct 2002
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5,037
Location
Hiraeth
Picture the scene:

Late at night on a twisty NSL road, Im doing 40-45mph with a baby in a car seat and the mrs sat next to me. Its wet, so im deliberately keeping my speed down. From a side road a car wheelspins and comes towards my car so close that the headlights cannot be seen and proceeds to drive this way without overtaking or backing off for about a mile and a half worrying me and the mrs.

I pull in to a layby to let the idiot overtake, when all of a sudden, the blues and twos come on, not only pulling up to a sharp halt behind me, but also waking the baby I had just spent 30 minutes getting to sleep.

I young WPC dashes over to me window and asks me if I know why she pulled me over. :confused: "no idea" I replied, so she tells me with a straight face and with all sincerity "because you were excessively speeding" I looked at her funny and reminded her it was a national speed limit road with repeater signs and I was doing 40 - 45 at the very most. She then says "I know its a NSL road":confused: So I say "Im excessively speeding within the speed limit?" to which she answers the affermative.

At this point Im sorry to say I lost my tongue totally and asked if she was serious. She obviously retorted by asking me if I had been drinking. My reply to that was "I have a 20 month old baby in the back, who is now awake because you can't drive properly, have no valid reason for pulling me over and now realise you've made yourself look like a complete idiot. Do you wonder why nobody has any respect for the police?" On the back foot, she asked "if I would like a ticket for speeding" To which I asked if she wanted a complaint made against her.

If I hadn't had the baby in the car, I would have jammed on the brakes and then let the PCA deal with the fallout. Another example of terrible policing standards:rolleyes:

Conversely, Im glad there are still some good ones out there. Maybe the rubbish ones will be weeded out, but I doubt it.

Oh, and yes, I did report her to the sargeant at the police station.
 
LOL What a joke. I'd have asked her to proceed with issuing the ticket so we could discuss it further in court. I'd have loved to see her talk her way out of that one.

"The defendant was maintaining an excess speed of 45mph on a 60mph carriageway, m'lud" :D

I suppose if she wanted to be arsey she could go for careless driving due to the road conditions, but she'd have a fight on her hands. Was it a traffic car with video? She'd be hung by her own rope lol
 
sound like she was a Idiot that was bored. glad that you reported her too make it less likely that she'll pull the same stunt twice.

But just because the NSL is 60mph don't mean you should be doing 60 if its unsafe to do so. you can still be done for speeding but are more likely to be done for reckless, dangerous driving if the speed is inappropriate for the road and conditions.
 
Sounds like a bit of a poor police officer and probably a newbie - however, not saying your making stuff up, there is only one side of the story here.

I don't for one second think you were speeding with your young child and wife in the car and i'm glad you just didn't roll over and take it from her. I'd have loved to see her try and issue you a speeding ticket though. Would have been quite funny. But on a serious note, don't tar every copper with the same brush. People/the media love to jump on anything that police do, but then seem to ignore all the things the police do that no one else would want to do.
 
Not saying the copper was right, but the offence would have been "excessive speed for the conditions" not "exceeding the speed limit", so it's not as clear cut as some people in this thread are making out and unless there's video evidence would be your word against hers. All she'd have to do is say there was thick fog or that it was a lot wetter than it really was and you'd be screwed.

I assume you drive a 3-series based on your sig, was the copper in a crappy Vauxhall that would have no hope of safely doing 40 on the same road in those conditions, therefore obviously nobody could ever drive safely at those speeds (sarcasm, in case you didn't spot it, but plenty of people who drive crap cars genuinely believe this)
 
Lum said:
Not saying the copper was right, but the offence would have been "excessive speed for the conditions" not "exceeding the speed limit", so it's not as clear cut as some people in this thread are making out and unles
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We don't live in the sates, that isn't an offence, so they would have trouble with doing him for that one.
 
atpbx said:
We don't live in the sates, that isn't an offence, so they would have trouble with doing him for that one.
Click to expand...

Sorry I should have been more clear, it would result in a charge for something like reckless, careless, due care and attention etc. with the specific reason given in court being too fast for the conditions.

It's worth noting that when the xx% of accidents involve excessive speed figure is brought up as justification for speed cameras this figure includes speeds that are within the limit (and thus undetectable by cameras) but excessive for the conditions, for example the idiot who does 70mph in thick fog and/or ice.
 
Lol, I still own the 3 series in the sig, but I've been driving my current 5 series for about a year now, im just too lazy to change it :D

I was driving at 40-45 as I felt this more appropriate for the conditions (wet and cold) even though it was a NSL road. On the whole, I have the uttmost respect for the police (except GWENT police who couldn't detect their bums with both hands) and I don't tar all police with the same brush, but I felt the Daily Mail fury come over me when I wrote this post.

Yes it does seem one sided and my version of events, but thats what really happened with actual quotes. The fact she was driving so close to my bumper that I couldn't see her headlights would lead a reasonable person to believe she was driving dangerously and its for this that I reported her, not just the total lack of professionalism.

IIRC two normal police persons can make a judgement upon wether a car was speeding or driving dangerously, in fact a traffic warden can make the same call and issue me with a ticket. However, I would in this case take the matter to court and appeal (this is because in likelyhood it would go against me because JPs aren't actually law professionals, you need a proper judge for that)
 
It's a girl, she was probably looking at her rev counter and thinking you were doing 3000mph or something. Either that or she didn't like the colour of your car.
 
She went over my car with a fine tooth comb and proceeded to start writing a producer. I waited til about half way through and then asked if she would like to see my driving documents, V5c and insurance documents before she went any further. She hadn't asked you see.
 
Ive had crap like this before, some of them are so dumb. One was telling me how he had to break the speed limit to catch me up. Not going to catch me up doing the same speed is he. :rolleyes:
 
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