Local Plod bagging up on illegal motorists.

[55palfers]

Just read an article in our local free-sheet.

Seems there has been a multi-agency operation (Op Roland) on one of the main roads near me.

Report states that out of the 41 vehicles they pulled over; 20 had no tax, 11 had no insurance, 5 had no MOT, 1 had exceeded driving hours and 2 had vehicle defects. Some had multiple offences.

One driver was reported as owing £800 in back tax.

How do they select the vehicles to stop - ANPR? Gut instinct? It's great hit rate anyway.

50% of vehicles with no tax is amazing. Is that a national average I wonder? Has that % increased since the removal of the tax-disk?

25% with no insurance is scary!

A day well spent.

[bad company]

Nice to hear of your local plod doing their job. I saw similar in Halstead, Essex a few weeks ago.

[otolith]

With that sort of hit rate, ANPR, no doubt.

[Soov535]

I'd be most interested in the stats on this.

[mph1977]

otolith said:

With that sort of hit rate, ANPR, no doubt.

and much to the chagrin of the hand-wringers no doubt, targetting the kind of area where this kind of criminality is socially acceptable .

[2Btoo]

Looks like this:

https://westmercia.police.uk/article/18827/Operati...

Dearly wish they'd do something like that around my way.

[thehammer]

mph1977 said:

and much to the chagrin of the hand-wringers no doubt, targetting the kind of area where this kind of criminality is socially acceptable .

More like a particularly main route up towards the Motorway, so less to do with the area that it was being carried out in and more to do with being a location with high volume of traffic from multiple areas

[rsox87]

TVP do this once every couple of months in Oxford - there's a part of the ring road with tight roundabouts at either end and wide side roads coming off it, so by the time you're in it and have seen them you can't get out, and there's plenty of space for them to pull you over out of the way and have a word. They have ANPR vans at each end and spotters with radios for other things (like, cough, RX8s with teeny tiny front number plates, it was like that when I bought it officer!).

At the other end is the stupid battenberged ANPR van that sits broadside to the road in the layby between Milton and Abington on the A34 some mornings, blocking off half the layby for anyone that needs to get in to it, and causing a jam as people come round the corner at 80, see the battenberg van in the distance and slam on their brakes.

[cb31]

Fantastic result but with the clear success of this operation why don't they do it more often?

[Riley Blue]

otolith said:

With that sort of hit rate, ANPR, no doubt.

If only each speed camera was also an ANPR camera, the number of illicit vehicles and drivers would soon be reduced.

[otolith]

Unfortunately, I imagine it would just rapidly clog up the court system with people who can't/won't pay.

[DMN]

Used to see this a lot on the A64 towards York from Leeds. Just after Tadcaster there would be a white lorry with various cameras/sensors looking onto the road, and most of North Yorks traffic Pol sat in various laybys for the next five miles ready to pounce.

[Essel]

Thats close to me. Probably about the same time, I came off the next motorway island heading into Redditch. As the road was empty, and we were in my wifes new car, I opened it up a bit down the dual carriageway to "a bit naughty". As I slowed at the end, looked in the mirror and had a marked up car behind me, which I was sure wasn't there at the start. Cue the twitchy feeling and getting ready with the grovelling! Got followed along the main road for a while, then saw 2 marked up cars and a van parked up where he pulled off. Must have had bigger fish to fry, thankfully.

[battered]

otolith said:

Unfortunately, I imagine it would just rapidly clog up the court system with people who can't/won't pay.

Easy to fix, seize the vehicle. This happened to a neighbour of mine, he'd let his tax disc run out, wasn't using the car but forgot to SORN it. It had been on his drive, one day he stuck it on the road in time for it to be spotted and towed. I don't even think they fined him, just crushed the car. He didn't do that again.

As others say, the place to do this is on a busy feed to a trunk road, with an ANPR van and half a dozen trafpol. Lack of insurance isn't solely the preserve of poor areas, after all.

[walm]

Shouldn't the hit rate be something like 100%?
They didn't pull over 41 random cars and 50% had no tax!!!
ANPR checked all the cars and pinged ones likely missing something in the various databases and the police pulled THEM over, no?

[mph1977]

walm said:

Shouldn't the hit rate be something like 100%?
They didn't pull over 41 random cars and 50% had no tax!!!
ANPR checked all the cars and pinged ones likely missing something in the various databases and the police pulled THEM over, no?

no doubt they were also randomly pulling vehicles in trafpol snooker as well on the basis of 'looks like worth a stop ' ...

[Durzel]

battered said:

Easy to fix, seize the vehicle. This happened to a neighbour of mine, he'd let his tax disc run out, wasn't using the car but forgot to SORN it. It had been on his drive, one day he stuck it on the road in time for it to be spotted and towed. I don't even think they fined him, just crushed the car. He didn't do that again.

As others say, the place to do this is on a busy feed to a trunk road, with an ANPR van and half a dozen trafpol. Lack of insurance isn't solely the preserve of poor areas, after all.

Don't really get why the rules aren't more strict on this. For a great many of the people stopped I would hazard a guess that the only thing they care about is the car and the means to get about. Paying for tax, insurance, MOT, etc isn't something they are concerned about.

[ALT F4]

OP - if only all these speed cameras that were put up to replace cops in the field, could be replaced with cops in the field.

[anonymous-user]

Why does the press release bore on about 'education'? Drive without insurance or tax, lose you car is the message that should be sent.

cb31 said:

Fantastic result but with the clear success of this operation why don't they do it more often?

Resources, basically. One hand takes from the other. Although the Special Constables do help.

[otolith]

battered said:

otolith said:

Unfortunately, I imagine it would just rapidly clog up the court system with people who can't/won't pay.

Easy to fix, seize the vehicle. This happened to a neighbour of mine, he'd let his tax disc run out, wasn't using the car but forgot to SORN it. It had been on his drive, one day he stuck it on the road in time for it to be spotted and towed. I don't even think they fined him, just crushed the car. He didn't do that again.

As others say, the place to do this is on a busy feed to a trunk road, with an ANPR van and half a dozen trafpol. Lack of insurance isn't solely the preserve of poor areas, after all.

Yeah, but you can't tow them away with an unattended camera. You'd need actual people doing it, and due process.