Discretion. What does it mean?
Discussion
Streetcop said:
It's a bit of a simple idea this one....but hear me out...
What about...........obeying the speed LIMIT on the road which you are travelling on...perhaps..if the conditions warrant it...even travelling less than the speed limit...
Why do people find that so difficult?
Because they are not taught COAST properly! COAST means you drive to safest speed for condition at all time. ist a very simple method of driving - und ist German system too. It means using mirrors properly as well, making progress und driving at safest speed for condtions - which many not be at speed limit
may even be below 
ist simple = BiB uses wisdom und judgement - und if driving was dangerous - then he prosecutes. If driving was safe but just a little over limit - then he advises benefits of speed limit und gives a few COAST tips und hopefully driver appreciates gesture und ist a bit more reserved in his interpretation of lollipops for a while.
ist ganz einfach!
- gelt Liebchen? Streetcop said:
It's a bit of a simple idea this one....but hear me out...
What about.......
Why do people find that so difficult?
If they don't think they limit is for them....they should openly accept any fixed penalty as a result as an occupational hazard..not something to whine/whinge about....
doing the time, doing the crime and all that...
Limits are here. cameras are here. traffpol are here.
As i said. YOU may drive with COAST but many others do not, whilst people are still speeding.. still setting off the cameras then it will still be enforced. You say but if we all did the speed limit then the limits will be lowered.... Simple answer is no. you are in the mionority there anre may drivers who dont give a toss and would not abide by the rules regardless, its them that is causing the cameras to go up, traffpol tied up dealing with RTC.s not (hopefully) inteligent people on this forum.
It applies to the lowest common denominator.
^Slider^ said:
Streetcop said:
It's a bit of a simple idea this one....but hear me out...
What about.......
Why do people find that so difficult?
If they don't think they limit is for them....they should openly accept any fixed penalty as a result as an occupational hazard..not something to whine/whinge about....
doing the time, doing the crime and all that...
Limits are here. cameras are here.
Limits are lowered without telling people about them..
Scamera are ubiquitous und accidents are on increase.... ^Slider^ said:
traffpol are here.
where ... Despite Steviebabes (aka Pinocchio 
und just as wooden ) We are not seeing trafpol as frequently as we used to - und in Lancs ... they have disappeared completely... Never seen one - but see lots of bad driving - further south I drive.
^Slider^ said:
As i said. YOU may drive with COAST but many others do not, whilst people are still speeding.. still setting off the cameras then it will still be enforced.
If Lancs figures improve this year - then possibly it will be filter down of COAST drivers over past two years (they actually teach COAST on their DIS/Speed courses - reps at firm got invited to their speed course at 34 mph - that ist how I know for sure.)
^Slider^ said:
You say but if we all did the speed limit then the limits will be lowered....
Lot of speed limits are lowered up here - und we do not know why. Certainly only accidents we locals know of were not speed related ...
^Slider^ said:
Simple answer is no. you are in the mionority there anre may drivers who dont give a toss and would not abide by the rules regardless, its them that is causing the cameras to go up, traffpol tied up dealing with RTC.s not (hopefully) inteligent people on this forum.
It applies to the lowest common denominator.
Ist still down to 10-15% who cause 70% of all incidents - und we are not seeing accidents each day either.
Naja - muss weg! MM has returned und now I can go to bed.
>> Edited by WildCat on Monday 28th February 01:47
Wildy...
Trafpol are about but in limited numbers, but the fact they are dealing with the aftermath of silly crashes is tieing them up more and more.
I can only speak from my point of view, that is i always make myslef aware of the limit on that road, it isnt that hard to know what the limit is due to the regulations in force that TELL the driver the limit.
There may be more drivers doing advanced driving courses, but there are more new drivers acting the prat getting licenses than there are drivers advancing their training.
I know your views on cameras and speed limits and dont intend to argue them as i too am a driver. What i do disagree with it the numbers of drivers whom are getting caught or causing accidents, and as much as people dont like ot hear it, its these inexperianeced drivers that tarnish all drivers with the same brush.
I admit that im not the slowest of drivers, but if i were to be caught then i have to admit i didnt know the limit for the road and i exceeded it. I may not be happy but thats that.
I can appreciate your views, but i think they apply to the minority of drivers in the UK. Those that know and respect their limits of themselves and their vehicles/ surroundings.
If for example... everyone on PH drove as they do, getting no points, or having crashes, i dont think it would make a difference as these people know their limits, their abilities and the road limits. but there are lots more who dont give a toss. to them a license is earnt and its theres forever regardless.
You take a test, get a license and its your responsibility to keep it. We can and will revoke it if need be. To be honest of you get 9 points on a license the get disqual then you really need to ask questions of yourself and not blame everyone else for YOUR errors in getting caught speeding. People generally get 4 chances in 3 years. If they havent learnt by then should they really hold a license to dive??
I personally and have stated i dont agree with all placing of cameras or vans and would love to see more traffpol but reality is thats its not going to happen any time soon. It may change in the future as with all things policing things change. A bloody big circle. in 2 years it will be back to traffpol, but in 10 years it will be cameras again.
Bottom line is......
There are people that dont deserve to hold a driving license whom abuse the privilidge they have to drive a car or bike.
Ther are people that drive safely within the their limits.
its the people that cause the problems that make it hard for all.
Like at school, a small group leave school at lunchtime, get caught, then the whole school has to stay in at lunchtime!
The few penalised the many.. but with speeding, the many penalise the few!
Gareth
Trafpol are about but in limited numbers, but the fact they are dealing with the aftermath of silly crashes is tieing them up more and more.
I can only speak from my point of view, that is i always make myslef aware of the limit on that road, it isnt that hard to know what the limit is due to the regulations in force that TELL the driver the limit.
There may be more drivers doing advanced driving courses, but there are more new drivers acting the prat getting licenses than there are drivers advancing their training.
I know your views on cameras and speed limits and dont intend to argue them as i too am a driver. What i do disagree with it the numbers of drivers whom are getting caught or causing accidents, and as much as people dont like ot hear it, its these inexperianeced drivers that tarnish all drivers with the same brush.
I admit that im not the slowest of drivers, but if i were to be caught then i have to admit i didnt know the limit for the road and i exceeded it. I may not be happy but thats that.
I can appreciate your views, but i think they apply to the minority of drivers in the UK. Those that know and respect their limits of themselves and their vehicles/ surroundings.
If for example... everyone on PH drove as they do, getting no points, or having crashes, i dont think it would make a difference as these people know their limits, their abilities and the road limits. but there are lots more who dont give a toss. to them a license is earnt and its theres forever regardless.
You take a test, get a license and its your responsibility to keep it. We can and will revoke it if need be. To be honest of you get 9 points on a license the get disqual then you really need to ask questions of yourself and not blame everyone else for YOUR errors in getting caught speeding. People generally get 4 chances in 3 years. If they havent learnt by then should they really hold a license to dive??
I personally and have stated i dont agree with all placing of cameras or vans and would love to see more traffpol but reality is thats its not going to happen any time soon. It may change in the future as with all things policing things change. A bloody big circle. in 2 years it will be back to traffpol, but in 10 years it will be cameras again.
Bottom line is......
There are people that dont deserve to hold a driving license whom abuse the privilidge they have to drive a car or bike.
Ther are people that drive safely within the their limits.
its the people that cause the problems that make it hard for all.
Like at school, a small group leave school at lunchtime, get caught, then the whole school has to stay in at lunchtime!
The few penalised the many.. but with speeding, the many penalise the few!
Gareth
WildCat said:
Limits are lowered without telling people about them..
Eh?
They reduce the limit and leave the original limit posted on the signs then? OR is it that people who drive the new limits fail to spot it has been changed on the newly posted signs?
Wildcat said:
Scamera are ubiquitous und accidents are on increase....
I think you will find that has little to do with speed cameras and everything to do with more traffic on the roads. Speed cameras do not cause accidents. Drivers who plan badly have poor observation and drive with their thumbs up their arse cause accidents. Speed cameras are inanimate objects. They do not suddenly jump out into the road waving their poles at drivers
Wildcat said:
^Slider^ said:
traffpol are here.
We are not seeing trafpol as frequently as we used to - und in Lancs ... they have disappeared completely... Never seen one - but see lots of bad driving - further south I drive.
The answer has been posted on here many times before.
The public want crime addressed. They tell the Govt who direct the home office to pressure Chief Constables! CC's then use discretion in placing automatic enforcement in replacement of traffic police and use traffic policemen to deal with assaults eminating from minor domestic disputes because they are easy to detect.
Wildcat said:
Lot of speed limits are lowered up here - und we do not know why. Certainly only accidents we locals know of were not speed related ...
Because people are not capable of traversing those particular routes without crashing into each other at the permitted speeds that were previously regulating those areas.
Of course the accidents were speed related. If there was no speed, there would have been no accident. Speed is related to every accident. It may not have been a contributory cause to the accident occurring but it sure is a contributory factor in the outcome as you well know.
If your incident on the motorway had happened at a slower speed, you would not have received such terrible injury. It was unfortunate that the collision occurred as the result of an illness. The illness was the major contributory factor for the collision. The major factor in relation to the consequences was his speed at the time!
Wildcat said:
Ist still down to 10-15% who cause 70% of all incidents - und we are not seeing accidents each day either.
Naja - muss weg! MM has returned und now I can go to bed.
Better that they cause them whilst travelling slower then eh?
>> Edited by gone on Monday 28th February 02:29
safespeed said:
Discretion is the difference between a man and a machine.
Cops: Don't be robots. Be human and intelligent. You have been granted a valuable power of discretion for very good reasons. Use it.
Yeah, I know I know...
but I also have a job to do....the big difference between trafpol and speed camera is that I can also detect no insurance, no licence, disqualified driver, drunk driver...and best of all....you can't say you don't remember who was driving at the time....
Streetcop said:
Discretion is the difference between a man and a machine.
Cops: Don't be robots. Be human and intelligent. You have been granted a valuable power of discretion for very good reasons. Use it.
Yeah, I know I know...
but I also have a job to do....the big difference between trafpol and speed camera is that I can also detect no insurance, no licence, disqualified driver, drunk driver...and best of all....you can't say you don't remember who was driving at the time....
The big difference between trafpol and a speed cameras is that the trafpol can make a useful judgement about the real risks involved in the behaviour. If you don't do that you're a robot.
Your job is not to enforce technical regulations, but to make the roads safer.
gone said:
Your job is not to enforce technical regulations, but to make the roads safer.
Then you completely misunderstand the role of the Police.
That is exactly what our job is!
You have a power of discretion so that you can enforce the law in the public interest. As far as the roads are concerned the public interest is primarilly road safety. It's clearly your duty to allocate your own resources in accordance with risk.
>>>>>You have a power of discretion so that you can enforce the law in the public interest. >>>>>>
Errmmmm under which Act and Section is this like?
In actual fact BiB does not have power of discretion and as SC correctly states he reports, reports, reports, for that it what YOU employ him to do.
It is the Courts that have the power to exercise discretion and them only.
Get at the law not the people that enforce them.
DVD
Errmmmm under which Act and Section is this like?
In actual fact BiB does not have power of discretion and as SC correctly states he reports, reports, reports, for that it what YOU employ him to do.
It is the Courts that have the power to exercise discretion and them only.
Get at the law not the people that enforce them.
DVD
safespeed said:
safespeed said:
Your job is not to enforce technical regulations, but to make the roads safer.
Then you completely misunderstand the role of the Police.
That is exactly what our job is!
You have a power of discretion so that you can enforce the law in the public interest. As far as the roads are concerned the public interest is primarilly road safety. It's clearly your duty to allocate your own resources in accordance with risk.
It's like Gone has said....enforcing the law is EXACTLY the role of a the police....
If we as police officers, don't like the laws of the land, we should choose another occupation.
It's not about being a 'Robot' it's about doing the job we're paid to do. There are many times in the past that i've used 'discretion'..but in reality..i'm neglecting my duty when I do and that could be a discipline offence. Discretion is usually because you like the person you stop, you can relate to them, you empathise with them..etc etc..
Then you stop someone who is a pain in the arse, or who you don't particularly like and then you ticket them?
If that's not an example of a prejudiced system, I don't know what is...
The police have to use discretion concerning motoring offences because everyone who drives will at some point break the law. Its not feasible to ticket every single driver for every single offence so in the real world the job of Trafpol is to single out the worst offenders and ticket them. As already mention discretion is most often used prior to the stop. Cameras don't offer this discretion and catch everyone (for speeding only i hasten to add) which technically is a very good thing as it means the maximum number of offences are being detected and dealt with; in reality it causes resentment and even more disregard for the rules. The mantra of motoring in the age of the camera is: "thou shalt not get caught" instead of "thou shalt not crash"
Streetcop said:
so in the real world the job of Trafpol is to single out the worst offenders and ticket them.
Roy,
Although I can agree with you in principle, there really aren't enought trafpol to be selective nowadays, i'm afraid..
Eh? The tinner you're spread, the more important it is to make every minute count and NOT waste resources on purely technical offences.
safespeed said:
Eh? The tinner you're spread
Are you Irish Paul...
I know where you're coming from..and can agree in part..
However, there isn't enough of us to be going around 'warning' people and informing them of the "bleeding obvious"....
So it's a case nowadays...of .....if it's worth stopping...it's worth 'pegging'!
I am amazed at how this issue is discussed at length, put to bed and then crops up again a few weeks later and everyone seems to have forgotten the last discussion we had on it.....
Do TrafPol want to reduce the KSI statistics? or merely enforce the law? The former might reduce the number of death messages they have to deliver and the latter might actually increase it.
The under 25's are the group that have most collisions. Thereofre we need to educate them about the rights and wrongs of using speed. To do that means we have to get them into schemes like IAM/RoSPA. And to do that means we have to get rid of this old boy image that both of these organisations have. And to allow more discretion where advanced drivers are using speed over the limit but in total safety. If I am driving and I have a collision (that I could have reasonable foresaw) then I consider that I have failed as a driver.
Anyway, back to discretion.
As far as I am concerned you can enforce the law totally for all traffic offences with the exception of speeding.
For every piece of 'advice' that a TrafPol dishes out, turn that into a caution (or some other method so that it is recorded on the PNC) so the next time
that motorist is tugged, then the TrafPol knows they've had their Get out of Jail free card and they get booked accordingly.
One of the things that owrries me is that it is far easier to prosecute someone for doing 47 in a 40 than it is to prosecute someone for tailgating.
I think everyone agrees that there aren't enough TrafPol's on the road, but I think the last thing we want is for TrafPols to step back from using their discretion else all they become are, as someone else has already pointed out, robots.
Do TrafPol want to reduce the KSI statistics? or merely enforce the law? The former might reduce the number of death messages they have to deliver and the latter might actually increase it.
The under 25's are the group that have most collisions. Thereofre we need to educate them about the rights and wrongs of using speed. To do that means we have to get them into schemes like IAM/RoSPA. And to do that means we have to get rid of this old boy image that both of these organisations have. And to allow more discretion where advanced drivers are using speed over the limit but in total safety. If I am driving and I have a collision (that I could have reasonable foresaw) then I consider that I have failed as a driver.
Anyway, back to discretion.
As far as I am concerned you can enforce the law totally for all traffic offences with the exception of speeding.
For every piece of 'advice' that a TrafPol dishes out, turn that into a caution (or some other method so that it is recorded on the PNC) so the next time
that motorist is tugged, then the TrafPol knows they've had their Get out of Jail free card and they get booked accordingly.
One of the things that owrries me is that it is far easier to prosecute someone for doing 47 in a 40 than it is to prosecute someone for tailgating.
I think everyone agrees that there aren't enough TrafPol's on the road, but I think the last thing we want is for TrafPols to step back from using their discretion else all they become are, as someone else has already pointed out, robots.
ca092003 said:
The under 25's are the group that have most collisions. Thereofre we need to educate them about the rights and wrongs of using speed. To do that means we have to get them into schemes like IAM/RoSPA.
Morning ca,
I agree...and the u/25s are a 'target' group that me and my trafpol colleagues are 'gunning for'. As for education and so on...yep, agree...although not by the police. DSA, DfT etc etc maybe...but the police, no. IMHO
ca092003 said:
As far as I am concerned you can enforce the law totally for all traffic offences with the exception of speeding.
We'll have to agree to disagree there. I've often used my discretion in the past, but it's occuring less and less nowadays. Only recently, I advised a young driver about his speed....only to hear he had been involved in a fatal RTC where he had collided with a pedestrian whilst in excess of the speed limit. Should I have ticketted him on the first occasion? With 3 points on his licence, might he have driven slower knowing he couldn't get another ticket if he wanted to keep his licence...
ca092003 said:
One of the things that owrries me is that it is far easier to prosecute someone for doing 47 in a 40 than it is to prosecute someone for tailgating.
yeah, crap system for proving driving standards at times...i agree.
G
Streetcop said:
Eh? The tinner you're spread
Are you Irish Paul...
Cockney keyboard... drops 'h's
Streetcop said:
I know where you're coming from..and can agree in part..
However, there isn't enough of us to be going around 'warning' people and informing them of the "bleeding obvious"....
So it's a case nowadays...of .....if it's worth stopping...it's worth 'pegging'!
And if it isn't a safety violation, it isn't worth stopping.
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