One for the police...
Discussion
So you're driving on a clearish motorway good conditions etc, 70mph in an unmarked car. I come swanning past you at about 90ish in an apparently well maintained looking 911, signal, move back across and accelerate into the clear road ahead. You speed up and notice that you're maintaining distance from me when you're doing 120.
As I gain on the next few cars I ease back down to 10-20mph quicker than the cars, signal move past, signal, move in then accelerate again. No late braking, no mad swerving across lanes. Obviously trying to be smooth and safe.
What would you do?
SM
As I gain on the next few cars I ease back down to 10-20mph quicker than the cars, signal move past, signal, move in then accelerate again. No late braking, no mad swerving across lanes. Obviously trying to be smooth and safe.
What would you do?
SM
i did someting rather similar in my old mini, i didn't notice the plain clothes police car behing me, he pulled me over and nicked me for speeding, but said he'd make a note of the manner of my driving, and that it wouldn't go against me. it was mentioned again in court when the charge was read out.
A friend of mine got pulled at over 110 and showed his IAM card along with his licence. The policeman said he’d been following him for some distance and was impressed with his lane discipline and the way he’d maintained a safe distance from other vehicles. In view if this he said he’d state the speed on the ticket at 95 and just give him a fixed penalty £60 fine and 3points.
The Officer who dealt with TSS' mate is a total prat. Imagine the ticket then being contested in Court. Is that Officer then going to commit perjury by standing in the witness box and lying, saying he was clocked at 95? There is nothing wrong, IMHO of letting someone off doing 100+, done it myself several times. What an Officer should never do, whatever the good intention, is commence a course of justice based on a falsehood.
I've had mates who *allegedly* have been followed at very high speed by unmarked cars in my biking days. Once stopped the officer has bollocked them and offered them the chance of a fixed penalty for a non-bannable speed. They weren't riding dangerously in their accounts, just bloody fast. All have accepted with good grace. Remember, these are fixed penalties we are talking about, so they wouldn't be challenged in court. I think it's what most of us are on about when we refer to discretionary policing.
Seems like the officer was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Sort of.
If he had any faith in the magistrate being fair, he'd have told it like it was happy in the knowledge that his expert opinion would be respected and the punishment would fit the "crime".
But when you've got magistrates working to dumb formulas ("over 100 is a ban"
, the choice he had was to drop it completely, which in his judgement was unsatifactory or lie about the whole thing to stop the guy from possibly losing his livelihood, a penalty he obviously considered was too harsh.
What to do?
IMHO if the guy wasn't being dangerous he should have been left alone. After all I'd rather be tooling safely down a motorway then being stopped on the hard shoulder any time!
SM
If he had any faith in the magistrate being fair, he'd have told it like it was happy in the knowledge that his expert opinion would be respected and the punishment would fit the "crime".
But when you've got magistrates working to dumb formulas ("over 100 is a ban"
, the choice he had was to drop it completely, which in his judgement was unsatifactory or lie about the whole thing to stop the guy from possibly losing his livelihood, a penalty he obviously considered was too harsh. What to do?
IMHO if the guy wasn't being dangerous he should have been left alone. After all I'd rather be tooling safely down a motorway then being stopped on the hard shoulder any time!
SM
xxplod said:
The Officer who dealt with TSS' mate is a total prat. Imagine the ticket then being contested in Court. Is that Officer then going to commit perjury by standing in the witness box and lying, saying he was clocked at 95? There is nothing wrong, IMHO of letting someone off doing 100+, done it myself several times. What an Officer should never do, whatever the good intention, is commence a course of justice based on a falsehood.
I totally agree.
Personally I think he should have let him off with just a talking to but I guess then he's not doing his job as per government requirements. It'd be nice to see some common sense being used but when the law isn't then what can we expect?
xxplod said:
The Officer who dealt with TSS' mate is a total prat. Imagine the ticket then being contested in Court. Is that Officer then going to commit perjury by standing in the witness box and lying, saying he was clocked at 95? There is nothing wrong, IMHO of letting someone off doing 100+, done it myself several times. What an Officer should never do, whatever the good intention, is commence a course of justice based on a falsehood.
xxplod
An excellent point. Can I delive a little deeper?
If the driver accepts the fixed penalty there and then (and is able to produce their licence) is the speeder in a position to change their mind later on? i.e. opt for a court appearance?
I can forsee the scenario where someone is caught doing say 100.1mph and the officer has decided he needs booking but maybe not a trip to the magistrates, what options are available.
It seems that 99.9mph could be dealt with by warning or FPN but 100.1mph needs either a warning or a court appearance.
volvos70t5 said:
The Officer who dealt with TSS' mate is a total prat. Imagine the ticket then being contested in Court. Is that Officer then going to commit perjury by standing in the witness box and lying, saying he was clocked at 95? There is nothing wrong, IMHO of letting someone off doing 100+, done it myself several times. What an Officer should never do, whatever the good intention, is commence a course of justice based on a falsehood.
xxplod
An excellent point. Can I delive a little deeper?
If the driver accepts the fixed penalty there and then (and is able to produce their licence) is the speeder in a position to change their mind later on? i.e. opt for a court appearance?
I can forsee the scenario where someone is caught doing say 100.1mph and the officer has decided he needs booking but maybe not a trip to the magistrates, what options are available.
It seems that 99.9mph could be dealt with by warning or FPN but 100.1mph needs either a warning or a court appearance.
When I was pulled over after being zapped by an LTI2020, I immediately contested the speed I was quoted to be travelling, and said that i would not accept what I was offered and would want to bring the case to court. After that I was told that I could take the fine and points now and change my mind in the near future if I wanted to take it to court. Dunno what the procedure would be in this scenario, but I am sure that the CPS solicitor would of course bring this up in court to the detriment to the defence case.
I believe that that limit of fixed penalty to court appearance is 26 mph in a 70 limit. Thus the breaking point is 96. I suppose that in the scenario that was put forward the guy could have took the £60 and 3 points, then took it to court. The CPS would then have to get the officer to come to court and basically lie about the evidence gained to win the case.
However, I guess the PC thought that his decency would be reciprocated... I suppose it depends on your moral standpoint and conscience!
>> Edited by justinp1 on Wednesday 1st February 20:47
jamesson said:
Re TSS's comments. Do other PHers think this is fair, or that he should have been let off entirely if his driving was that good, or that he should have been reported for summons for driving at 110? Discuss...
If it was only excess speed, but driving was of a very high standard otherwise, then yep, fair play, let off.
My cousin (years ago) got pulling at 135mph on the M6 at 2:00am on the inside lane - the outcome, "perhaps you could keep you speed below 100 Sir" ...
Also, 15ish years back, I was tootling along at 60 (in a NSL) and passed a 30 sign which applied to a side road. Unfortunately the police biker behind me thought it applied to the main road. He pulled me and before I could get a word in said that as it wasn't dangerous he'd say no more about it. I explained that I was unsure of the sign etc... and we turned round and went back, he realised his mistake, apologised, and went on his way.
Generally, don't think you'd get that today, but it does demonstrate that excess speed is not necessarily dangerous.
Martin
>> Edited by mph999 on Thursday 2nd February 00:33
justinp1 said:
However, I guess the PC thought that his decency would be reciprocated... I suppose it depends on your moral standpoint and conscience!
The friend who got done is a really decent guy, drives about 30K miles per year and needs his licence to work. I expect the officer could see he wasn't a scumbag and choose to take the very small risk that he would bother to contest it in court.
Anyway, in order to exceed 110 he would at some point have needed to do 95. So surely the officer can write a ticket for 95 with a clear conscience and ignore the greater "crime" of 110.
jamesson said:
IF it were up to me, and unfortunately it's not, we would follow Germany's example and have no speed limits on our motorways where appropriate. If the driving was as described - and I stress this is only my personal view - I wouldn't stop him. There's bound to be someone else who's more worthy of my attention.
*AWAITS POSTS SAYING THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME AND THAT THEY BET I WOULD THROW THE BOOK AT HIM*
That'll do for me. Now if that approach could be applied more widely, we might then be starting to make better sense of things.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
supermono said:
So you're driving on a clearish motorway good conditions etc, 70mph in an unmarked car. I come swanning past you at about 90ish in an apparently well maintained looking 911, signal, move back across and accelerate into the clear road ahead. You speed up and notice that you're maintaining distance from me when you're doing 120.
As I gain on the next few cars I ease back down to 10-20mph quicker than the cars, signal move past, signal, move in then accelerate again. No late braking, no mad swerving across lanes. Obviously trying to be smooth and safe.
What would you do?
SM
Back to the original post - out of interest, would you consider doing this if it was a full marked up traffic car?
If not, why not?
Don't know if this is the same sort of thing, but a few weeks ago I was trundling along the A14 between Newmarket and Bury. The traffic had been pretty slow until we reached the three lane section (this part is clear of scameras) where the pace picked up. Once the road cleared, I moved the needle up to 90 and sat at that in the outside lane with trafic inside me doing 70-75. Plenty of room in front of me and making allowance for other vehicles.
At this point I spotted a marked volvo about half a mile behind me, but moving pretty fast (it was his speed that caught my attention at first).
After a quick '
' under my breath, I let the speed ease off and (safely) moved back into the centre lane.
The BiB pulled along side me a few seconds later and kept pace with me as the two of us exchanged looks.
He gave me a good hard stare before pulling away and letting me carry on.
I said to myself that it wasn't true what everyone said about the BiB's father and thanked him.
So .... is that fair and reasonable on the Polis' part?
At this point I spotted a marked volvo about half a mile behind me, but moving pretty fast (it was his speed that caught my attention at first).
After a quick '
' under my breath, I let the speed ease off and (safely) moved back into the centre lane. The BiB pulled along side me a few seconds later and kept pace with me as the two of us exchanged looks.
He gave me a good hard stare before pulling away and letting me carry on.
I said to myself that it wasn't true what everyone said about the BiB's father and thanked him.
So .... is that fair and reasonable on the Polis' part?
I'm having great fun at the moment. They've let me out of HQ providing nights PACE cover. I've swiped a traffic Volvo T5 and I'm having great fun on motorways. When the flash of the headlamps to the lane 2 numptie doesn't work, the blue strobes do! Also came up behind a BMW driver doing c100 mph, the blue lights must have given him the fright of his life! He pulled in and slowed to 70 and I pulled in in front of him and set the cruise control to 70. I'll qualify that - it's a royal PITA when Police do 70 on motorways, it just cuases congestion, BUT, what else can you do? You have to set an example if you're not responding to anything.
Little does Jo Public know that I'm not trained to use the Vascar in the car so they've no chance of being prosecuted for speeding!
Little does Jo Public know that I'm not trained to use the Vascar in the car so they've no chance of being prosecuted for speeding!
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