Traffic Officer tells me I must always, always, indicate!

[RobM77]

waremark said:

RobM77 said:

Firstly, I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about the Advanced Driving Community. However, I am fairly typical, so the two amount to the same thing.

You think you are typical? You overrate the AD community!

Thanks Mark. Having sat with you and a few others I can only assume I've been lucky to have seen the high standards that I have.

I think that the most important thing by far is that we're having this conversation and thinking about what we're doing.

[vonhosen]

johnao said:

Stuff

Seems like we are in broad agreement then.

1) People should be checking all around.
2) People should be considered & thoughtful in relation to the timing of their signals & whether they may mislead.
3) Habitually signalling without thought is not a good thing.
4) Not signalling when there is nobody around is not problematic.
5) Signalling where there is nobody around is not problematic.
4) Giving a signal without somebody else being around may not be good evidence that all around checks haven't been performed, the driver may just be operating to an alternate philosophy that gives them personally better results.

[johnao]

vonhosen said:

johnao said:

Stuff

Seems like we are in broad agreement then.

Wow! That really is a genuinely contentious statement.

Anyway, why on earth has someone dragged up one of my posts from the depths of historical forum ramblings of eight years ago and set all these hares running again? The original post was never intended to be about the rights and wrongs of signalling under certain circumstances, on that subject there was never any doubt as obviously I knew that I was right! No, the original post was about the use of a spurious and ill-conceived pretext by a traffic officer to pull me over to find out if I'd been drinking. In my case the officer's grounds were spurious because it was patently obvious that he would not have benefited from a signal (he hadn't even entered this very large roundabout at 6 O'clock when I was exiting at 12 O'clock. There was nobody else about). At the next roundabout he aggressively tailgated me off the roundabout (I obviously signalled for this exit as I considered he might benefit from a signal before he crashed into me!). The tailgating was completely unnecessary, very close and very aggressive. It was as though he was deliberately trying, unsuccessfully, to intimidate me. The lecture he then proceeded to give me once he realised that I hadn't been drinking was delivered in an extremely, and unnecessarily, aggressive manner. He knew, and I knew, that he had the right to stop me under no pretext whatsoever in accordance with the road traffic act in order to check documents, etc. So why did he bother to use such a spurious pretext? And, is this a pretext that is often used by traffic officers who decide to stop members of the public?

I think I know the answer but don't want to appear a smart arse!

Edited by johnao on Friday 16th November 18:02

Edited by johnao on Friday 16th November 18:11