Holy Ghost

any speed you like. but on a track. there are plenty suitable about. if he's a member of a close protection unit or some such specialist rozzer road outfit, then fair enough. doesn't look like it though doesn it? if he was, it could easily be justified as necessary real-world experience. as he isn't - and wasn't on an emergency call - it just looks plain bad and doesn't do squat to help the public's waning respect of the police.

mart360

Lets look at this fairly and present the case for the prosecution...

1) The officer involved drove at speeds far in excess of the proscibed limits
2) The officer drove at excess speeds in residential areas..
3) the officer claimed to testing the limits of the car

ok cant say much more about these statements...

now lets apply some logic to them


How did the officer substantiate his defence

1) accepted the officer may have to drive above the proscibed limits.. but how many persuits is he likly to be involved in where he would or could achieve the 159mph speeds he achieved.... and can the officer warrant without doubt that he would not be a danger to other road users???
once he had caught the other vehicle then at what speeds would he have driven?? is not current guidelines to back down in the event of any risk to the public.... surely this officer himself was the risk to the public..

2) The fact that these speeds were reached in residential areas beggars belief... regardless of who whis bloe is or training he has recieved.. red mist was the order of the day.. i ask any resident fed to provide clear evidence of how there trianing can prevent 1 ton of motor vehicle from hitting a pedestrian should the pedestrian or child step out without warning... and what method of training defies the laws of physics, and divert this forward momentum away from a contact situation... abs and training wont prevent an out of control car from hitting static objects

3) testing the limits of the car....

lets look back over the last 3 weeks

pc milton 159 mph residential areas late night not guilty and freed

Sailor from islington 155mph A3m midnight banned 8 weeks

Police driving instructor 112 mph mway midnight banned 8 weeks



of the three our esteemed fed had the highest speed and the biggest chance of causing a major incedant should he have lost control....

the one here i would have said was the most qualified was the police driving instructor.. after all he is doing it daily unlike our happy chappy who in all honesty will never need to use those speeds..

and people wonder why public feeling is turning against the bib???

M

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

In teh end of the day, if an officer wanted to test his new car. Then what is wrong with the MIRA proving ground (not that far from Telford), Donnington park (even closer), Silverstone, Oulton Park etc etc????

If I was a mechnaic and took a Ferrari Enzo out for a test drive because the customer said it misfired at 160mph...would I be allowed to do it on the road? No matter how highly trained I was as a driver? Answer: NO, so a copper, who is not responding to an emergency or in pursuit is the same case.

I'm glad the media pressure has made them review his case. Stick him behind a desk and do some other copper's paperwork too cool him off a bit - like some other plods, he probably has an adrenalin addiction which he can't manage

PJ's Scoob

Just a thought but.....

If your wife/girlfriend/mother is in a house and a guy breaks in, tries to rape her, she escapes and locks herself in a room and the guy continues to try to get in and she calls the police......

or your 'kiddie' is trapped in a car after a serious accident and screaming for help and its a life or death situation......

How fast do you want the Police to drive to get to the scene? 30/40/60Mph

How about light speed......if it helps the two above situations i'm happy with 159mph if they get there. Its impossible to drive safely at high speeds unless you practice.

For everyone who condemns this PC...YOU'RE ALL HYPOCRITES. Everyone speeds and scooby owners are as bad as everyone else. Yes you may want to see this guy lose his job or get banned but when you're on the floor and taking a kicking from a bunch of d##kheads in a pub or someones 'nicking' your Scoob, you'll be only too happy if this guy rushes to your rescue.

Then again its only a idea. Next time you call '999', I hope they walk to your house!

PJ's Scoob

How do you train for real life situations on a test track?

OllyK

This really is a double edged sword. Yes people need to practice, but that shouldn't be on their own, when they fancy it, it should be in controlled conditions and noted back at the station that that is what is being done and they should preferably be accompanied at the same time. What happened just smacks of "I'll have a blast because I can"

The other issue, is yes, a lot of people on here would like to see speed limits raised, or discresion used in assessing speeding cases, however, when this is done for one but not others it pi$$es people off and rightly so IMO. So, again IMO - we either need to have discretion for all or it needs to be strictly applied for all - you can pick and choose.

jasey

Here's another one - 30 Kiddies (including your own) crossing the road get mown down by a ******** copper doing 86 past their school - to get to a crime scene.

Hypocrite - get yourself a dictionary mate - PC knobend is the Hypocrite - how many times would he have stopped people doing 45 in a 30 and told them they could kill someone etc etc etc

KEVWRX95

Jasey

What school would they be going to at 3am, is it a school for vampire children !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jasey

It's the New Labia school for chav scum burglars .

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

How do you simulate a real life sitution safetly at 156mph on a public highway?

You obviously havn't been or seen what facilities Mira have, they can simulate almost every road condition known...that is the place where you should "test" a car.

Not a public road, not at those speeds, I'd have forgiven him for doing over 100ish on the mortoway, but the speeds of 60mph+ on residential roads is nothing short of what joyriders do.


In a real life emergency no problem. but for sake of TESTING a car at such extreme speeds on residential roads is unforgivable.

In fact, the prototype Gsi Vectra probably had a good blast round Mira or some other proving ground anyway to make sure it was safe for Vauxhall to put a 150+mph car into production: The last thing they want is them having a law suit beacuse the tyres burst at 100mph bacause they can't cope with the combined load and speed (re: Ford vs. Firestone ). If it wasn't safe, it would have its top speed limited - like the Ford Explorer as a prime example.

Patriot

Any speed he like as long as it wasn't on a public highway....plenty of tracks to test cars out.
Hope he gets at least the same as me for doing 79 on a motorway.

Martin

Rioja

By reading the article there are two charges; exceeding the speed limit and dangerous driving.
exceeding the speed limit is a measurable quantity, and can be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Hence a fine, points ban should follow.
Dangerous driving is the contencious issue here; I for one don't know the roads around that area and can't say weather his actions were safe or unsafe at the time. He must prove his actions were safe.
I don't think this will make a blind bit of difference to the scameras; they are only assesing you against a measured quantity, not your standard of driving. Which in my opinion is wrong, wrong, wrong. I hope this case highlights that fact.

OllyK

When was the law changed to say you are guilty unless you can prove your innocence?

jasey

1. Anti terror laws
2. Speeding caught by camera and having to incriminate yourself in order to be found guilty (They don't have to prove you were driving you have to say who was driving etc)

That's two off the top o' my heed - I'm sure there's plenty more !

OllyK

I appreciate the NIP oddity.

Care to enlighten me on the Anti-Terror Laws I didn't think they had managed to push through the held indefinately without judicial review yet? I appreciate it isn't innocent till proven guilty, but getting denied bail whilst waiting for your day in court could be classed as being treated as guilty if you want to nit pick?

jasey

I was nit picking - It's Friday - I'm bored .

The NIP is a real problem with the principle of Innocence until proven guilty. If you get a NIP you cannot just return it saying "I've no Idea who was driving my car - **** off you money grabbing arseholes" !

OllyK

I do agree this is wrong, however, it makes prosessing the 1000's per year that much more difficult if you actually have to take the time to prove their guilty as well. If you force them to accept it or make it really hard for them to prove they are innocent, mostly the problems goes away and the coffers fill nicely.

jasey

Indeed - the trick is to become a highly trained police officer and break the speed limit by 56mph (in a 30) or 89mph on a motorway then you can have your day in court and get off ! Actuall when you say "break the limit by 89mph" it sounds even worse - Hang the **** .

I think we've gone full circle now - time to start mellowing for the beers ahead

Rioja

Good point, I didn't word it very well did I?!

I meant to imply that, rather than a finite measure, the manner in which the vehicle was being driven at the time of the incident is subjective. The court will try and prove it was dangerous; the officer will try and prove it wasn't. Whoever has the strongest arguement wins!

OllyK

Very well put!

jasey

Or whoever is higher up in the Masonic Lodge. When The court & the defendant are on the same side you're unlikely to see justice it would seem .

Iwan

The police do a lot of their training off the road don't they, on skid pans and the like?

I agree that on-road training is needed, but this guy wasn't training. He was 'familiarising himself with the car', basically planting the throttle on empty roads in the middle of the night. Something that i suspect lots of people (myself included) have done.

Speeding is one of those offences where you either did it or you didn't, you can't argue circumstances as it's effectively a yes/no question. A traffic law barrister explained that to me once .

Maybe the law should be changed, so that he's guilty of the offence but there's no punishment/comeback if he was on official business?

Regarding the two bikers whe were jailed, AFAIK you can't be jailed for speeding. You need to be charged with 'driving without due care' or 'dangerous driving' to receive a custodial sentence.

As the law stands, if he was charged with speeding and was indeed doing 159 in a 70 and 86 in a 30 then he's guilty. Maybe they should have charged him with dangerous driving, because that charge allows you to argue mitigating circumstances like advanced training etc.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

OH G*d, forty-nine people missing the point in close formation.

Right, AGAIN: the police have a blanket exemption from obeying the speed limits where obeying the limit would interfere with their ability to do their job - as do the fire brigade and ambulance services. This case was soley about one issue: was he on police business?

OllyK is halfway there when he says:

The short answer is: the case collapsed because it turned out that West Mercia had no guidelines of any kind as to what was police business, and when officers could speed. Without that the court had to fall back on the fact the officer was on duty in a police vehicle. Since nothing in force protocols removed his exemption, that expemption applied and he had not committed an offence.

Do we understand yet? It doesn't matter that you don't like the law, because the law doesn't care. What matters is that that is the law. If you want to complain about something, complain about the law, not about the officer who had doen nothing wrong in law, whatever the morals of his act.


M

CLSII

Well said Meridien

mart360

really??? since when...

the understading i was aware was that in posted 30 - 40 limits these must be observed, unless they are on a shout... the nat limits they use discretion, the caveat being should they be involved in an incedant, they can and will be subjected to the law or lack of int this case the land.

re your last statement. the complaint is about this officer, and the way he used his position to obtain an advantage to escape prosecution...

meridian,, i see the old "only following orders, and no guidlines inplace as poor attempt to wriggle of the hook.

Just because procedures wernt in place, or orders were being follows dosent and never will exempt anyone from prosecution...

I believe this was the whole crux of the nurenburg trials, which without shadow of a doubt, overturned such a crap statement.

whts the term the feds use with great delight...

"ignorance is no defence"....


it would appear that the more this case is probed, more of the so called prosecution arguments for a vast majority of cases are being exposed as flaws..


becasue of this case there are now valid technical reasons to argue certain cases.. unfortunatly the judge is this case set a prescident that hmg wants to rapidly overturn to close out the loopholes.

if it wasnt for the fact that the bib involved came over as an arrogant twit
most people wouldnt have given it a blind bit of notice....

what winds people up is the way that when you or i get pulled it the patronising way you get treated...

"do you know why ive stopped you sir.... "

if we did we would be clairvoyant and wouldnt have been stopped in the first place....

unfortunatly the feds will band together, and even if this bloke was doing 200mph and killed 50 schoolkids, they would still proclaim his innocence. its being part of a team...


M

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

I quote:


Note: no caveats, no if, no buts, no hedging, just an exemption as long as the officer is on police business. Any police business. That is why it is up to the force to decide what business is, and thus when an officer can speed. Management incompetance came home to roost big style at West Mercia because they hadn't bothered to think about such things. Yes the driver was an idiot, but no he wasn't breaking the law.


M

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

He didn't escape prosecution - in case you'd forgotten it was his own force who sent the file to the CPS, who did prosecute. Again: the case was thrown out because the judge decided (correctly) that he hadn't broken the law because his own force had forgotten to tell him that he couldn't play Test Pilot. Which meant he could.


And if he had killed children while playing test pilot I doubt his exemption would have saved him form some serious jail time. But we'll never know thank G*d.


M

Sprint Chief

I wouldn't hire you as my defence lawyer

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

That is technically incorrect. Whenever a Police car ( or ambulance or fire engine at that) is caught by a Gasto or similar device speeding. Any case where the vehicle is not involved in an emergency response/persuit is reviewed as to why they were speeding. In other words they can't go around speeding because they feel like it (although there was a time they could, which the consistant moans an old traffic cop I know keep on reminding me ). So there are guidelines. How strictly they are enforced is another matter, and also how the law applies to it.