Rich and Mini

Mate, just admit it, you know you're in the wrong

Rich

Gooner

What a load of Bollox being exchanged here!
Lets have some more pictures of the police and the antics they get up to trying to catch the poor old motorist out.
I had one of those mobile vans go screaming past me today, well above the limit (70mph) on the A421 Bedford bypass, A letter is already on the way to the Chief Constable!

scoobynutta555

Keep stacking the shelves in Asdas, come and see me when u get a real car

Rich and Mini

Asda? Oh please!










It's Tesco

Rich

Tracey

For information only, the speed camera car that was in the pic for the Daily Mail was again on the A38 this morning, but he was not parked in the usual spot half on kerb, half on road with double yellow lines. Someone has obviously had a word with him, he was parked on the grass area out of everyones way today

Cheers

Tracey

Diesel

Most all coppers are great - another sweeping observation, and based totally on my personal experiences.

I think most of the beef here should be addressed at the policymakers, not the 'wage slaves' that have to carry them out in much the same way as we all do what your boss/government say. Some of us rebel - me most definetly! I rant and rave at the mobile speed cams and blind police persecution of the motorist. Truth is the more ignorant/rude/indignant/dismissive/aggrieved you are if you are collared for breaking a law that you are full aware of, well the more likely you are for another human being to apply a set of rules decided by others, and generally fully agreed by parliament... By understanding the situation society has you in you can work this either to your disadvantage or disadvantage... Read getting off with 116 - the copper KNEW there was no little girl wandering that motorway at 4am... Also a cup of tea and a biscuit before a night in the cells, bless em!

Cocky young things will always be cocky young things whether they are working in Kwik Fit or in a Panda car. If they chance upon another cocky young thing then there's bound to be friction...

You either work the system or fight it - one route takes much more energy, anger and ultimately is futile. Facing up to the policy makers would bear more success I'm sure. All this analysis from a man who was gonna mountain bike pissed to a speed cam van wearing a full face lid and do it in Be a rebel with a cause - choose metal not coppers. Our coppers are probably still the best in the world and by far the least corrupt




That's just the wat

ByeByeGti

Ex_Pug - Shut up!

There is one yellow gatso, 20 yards from that a mobile speed trap and another 20 yards from that! (not pictured). The one not pictured is one set up for traffic lights.

********edited to remove abuse*******


[Edited by Josh L - 6/7/2003 11:14:33 PM]

scoobynutta555

Pug when you get a life ask for a dictionary as well.

While I'm here, 100 mph on a basically clear Mway in excellent conditions, yes it's the end of my life, think I'll become a monk in Tibet and flog myself with bamboo canes.

Better still I'll put an application form into the police and become a photographer with equipment paid for by my massive rise in poll tax/fines generated by speeding from otherwise law abiding members of the public. At the same time I'd sleep well at night knowing that most of the public hate me now.

Makes me absolutely sick that devious and highly questionable acts are used to catch people speeding in areas where there are no accidents. I have noticed many speed limits in 'safe' areas have been lowered over the past few years. Not mentioning the fact that many roads away from built up areas have speed limits that are too low anyway, eg, motorways.

As for this nonsense:
"I don't even know what to say to that, other than to hope that you're not hypocrytical enough to ever call on the services of the police when something goes wrong for you in future. Very sad indeed."


2 of the houses I own have been broken into and a thousand pounds worth of damage done to my car with no-one brought to 'justice'. Rest assured I won't call on a worthless service that picks easy targets and doesn't bother going after real criminals.

Now plod off.

[Edited by scoobynutta555 - 6/7/2003 9:45:10 PM]

Ex_Pug

Well put indeed. To suggest that all Police officers are in some way bad is completely nonsensical. I'm all for placing the blame in a bad incident where it's due, but when people start to generalise, and point fingers without thinking it through properly, it only serves to needlessly contribute to the already suffering relationship between police and public. It's as irresponsible as bad policing in my eyes, and is equally anti-social.

If someone like scoobynutta555 can continue the precedent set by Danbo, and convey in a logical and concise manner reasons why it is fair that all Police officers in all departments should be considered "Tossers", then I would very much like to here it.

[Edited by Ex_Pug - 6/9/2003 12:53:15 AM]

Danbo

Another thing to remember is that even as a Petrolhead Police officer, I am still bound by the same rules and laws regarding to motoring (and anything else) that everyone else is........if i choose to break any of them i will receive the same if not worse sentance than anyone should i be caught.

We do not get special concessions that people think we do.......It's a myth.

(and before anyone starts spouting about the chief constables who get their sentances reduced etc..........so do pop stars and other famous people......and there are very few of them.......)



[Edited by Danbo - 6/9/2003 12:25:45 AM]

scoobynutta555

Interesting find on a quick search on the net Dated June 2003




Robert Gifford
PACTS
3rd Floor Clutha House
10 Storey’s Gate
London
SW1P 3AY
Dear Mr Gifford,

Your letter to Oliver Letwin MP

I see displayed on the Internet at http://www.pacts.org.uk/Letwin.htm a copy of a letter you sent to Oliver Letwin MP on May 7th. Your letter portrays an entirely false view of the facts about the relationship between speed limit enforcement and road safety.

You say:

Speed, whether excess (breaking the posted limit) or inappropriate (driving too fast for the conditions), is a contributory factor in one in three road deaths. That amounts to about 1,100 deaths per year. Many of these deaths would have been avoided if drivers had remained within the speed limit.
How very deliberately misleading! I observe the following errors and distortions:
It is certainly not proven that one in three road deaths have “speed” as a contributory factor. The majority of figures available place this at 15% or under.

It is misleading (although I accept difficult to avoid) to lump together excessive and inappropriate speed. Best estimates suggest that two thirds of these accidents take place within the speed limit and are therefore out of reach of speed enforcement.

Drivers who will always ignore any speed enforcement measures cause a significant proportion of these deaths. They might be drunk, driving stolen cars, criminals escaping from the scene of a crime, police drivers on emergency calls, or otherwise driving recklessly or dangerously. It is entirely false to imply that these groups might somehow be rendered safe by speed enforcement.

The word “many” in the last sentence is intended to imply a large number, when the reality might well be a very small number.

No amount of enforcement will produce 100% compliance with speed limits, so enforcement will always fall short of eliminating deaths contributed to by excessive speeds.
So more realistically we might get: 550 “speed related” deaths per year, of which one third (180) were in excess of the speed limit, of which half (90) were caused by drivers who were otherwise obeying legal requirements, of which half (45) might have been avoided by doubling speed limit enforcement.
But wait a minute, since we started installing speed cameras in 1993 the long term downwards trend in the UK fatal accident rate has stalled completely and looks about set to rise when 2002 figures are announced shortly. Do you not find it remarkable that despite massive increases in speed enforcement over the last decade we've seen no improvement in fatal accident figures?

Of course, there are good reasons that our flawed policy has failed to deliver reductions in road deaths:

Firstly, exceeding a speed limit alone is an insignificant accident causation factor. TRL 323 has excessive speed as a definite causation factor in just 4.5% of accident reports. In some of those reports there will have been obvious causes of both the speed and the accidents; recklessness, escaping criminals, drunks and so on. Two of the reports were suicide attempts, and although we are not told if they were also excess speed accidents, they probably were. You might recall that TRL323 lumps together excessive and inappropriate speeds, so of course any remaining percentage needs to be reduced by perhaps 67% to account for the proportion of accidents that take place within the speed limit.

Secondly, increases in speed enforcement have some negative effects on road safety. I'll quote to you five major effects that are inadequately researched. At lower speeds driver concentration may be reduced. Impacts on “drivers’ priorities” where at a critical instant they might be more concerned about compliance with a legal speed limit instead of an unseen dangerous situation developing ahead. Risk compensation: Where a driver at a lower speed may unknowingly preserve risk values by driving closer or more aggressively. Attitude effects: Where increasing the restrictions on a driver may make him care less about his driving in general. Traffic displacement: where an increase in speed enforcement on one route causes drivers to chose an alternative route which is more dangerous. I maintain a list of 17 factors that may cause danger to be increased when automated speed enforcement is deployed. All of them are inadequately researched.

Thirdly, the supposed science supporting the so-called speed accident relationship fails to establish a causal link between speed and accidents. This isn't surprising, because no such causal link exists, yet even the TRL fail to come clean about it, and persist in claiming that reducing speeds will reduce accidents with no adequate supporting evidence. You might be interested to read correspondence with the TRL's Chief Executive about it here: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/trl.html.

Fourthly, rigid speed enforcement played no part in establishing Britain's roads as the safest in the world. In fact over the last decade we have lost much ground to some other European countries where speed enforcement has not become an obsession.

Fifthly, most accidents take place in areas of danger. In fact it is hard to imagine an accident taking place in the absence of road hazards. Billions of times each day drivers slow to appropriate speeds and negotiate road hazards safely at speeds both above and below the speed limit. Yet speed enforcement in general has its greatest effects exactly where dangers are least: on open roads away from hazards. So the greatest effects of enforcement tend to take place where road dangers are least.

You also said:

Figures from the report evaluating the first two years of eight of the speed camera partnerships published in February 2003 concluded that deaths and serious injuries had fallen by 35% on roads where speed cameras had been in operation, equating to about 280 people.
What a very strange document that is! It is untrustworthy spin for the following reasons:
It is highly remarkable that the document does not include any fatal accident figures, and prefers the much vaguer “killed and seriously injured”. One assumes that this is because the deaths figures did not support the case presented.

The document ignores the possibility of site level regression to the mean effects, save to include:

We could not obtain data for the before period for individual sites other than at camera sites. It was therefore not possible to check fully for regression to the mean at the site level.
Since it is clearly impossible to calculate properly qualified results without fully allowing for regression to the mean effects, this demonstrates with absolute clarity that the authors never had the data required to support the reports’ headline conclusions.
Based on all the above, I expect you will be revising your stance in the interests of real road safety based on truth. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely





Paul Smith

cc:
The Right Honourable Oliver Letwin MP
House of Commons
Westminster
London SW1A 0AA


Add to this some other gems I have found on a very quick search:
As many as 60% of accidents on motorways are caused by sleeping or drowsiness

In a recent survey, nearly 75% of all vehicles exceeded the 30mph limit in built-up areas. On motorways, 60% exceed the 70 mph limit

Motorways represent 1% of all roads but carry 15% of all traffic




[Edited by scoobynutta555 - 6/10/2003 9:21:29 PM]

Mycroft

I think that any coppers input into an enthusiasts site is tainted by our collective experience, you see our most common contact with you lot is via the road, there may be some half-decent humans in the force... but they are invisible, they don't write out the tickets!!!

The guy who writes the tickets is 'the forces face' and frankly that face is a young... snide... little ****... can you understand that... no matter how great some of you are you are in many eyes just part of a gang of pick-pockets... we earn the money and you act as pick-pockets for the Government... that is EXACTLY how I and thousands see you...

You want us all to forgive your thievery because you 'occasionally' put away a criminal, no, no, no, you are the biggest thieves of all, under the guise of a badge you are now the enemy, the Traffic cop is the modern HIGHWAY MAN... when you and your like 'get this' then you might just start to get to grips with the task that faces your service...

When you consider how much your service costs us the Tax payer to fund and then add the Highway Robbery taxes you enforce so willingly... you are an expensive and largely unwanted leech... simple isn't it!!!




[Edited by Mycroft - 6/11/2003 6:16:59 PM]

Mycroft

Mossey, it is so pleasing that we can rely on you to roll over and be shafted so readily... your mum would be so proud of her little boy! hahaha

Burr... I'm surprised but glad you like and agree with my posts.

F-P... nothing of value to add?

[Edited by Mycroft - 6/11/2003 11:23:31 PM]