Pulled over

[Flumpo]

If your speedo says 75 you were probably not even doing 70. I have overtaken quite a few marked cars on the motorway at 75 and used cruise. Never had a problem as you are not speeding.

If your account is a accurate and I have now reason to doubt you, it sounds like you could have had a bad cop. He could have been power playing, in my experience there are far more bent/bad/not suited ones than decent ones.

or the guy is human and was maybe having a bad day. He could have had someone tear him apart and with our tied laws couldn’t arrest them. He sees you coming by overtaking him and snaps. Maybe takes it out on you.

You will never really know what he was thinking, just be glad you didn’t get any points. And next time you need the police for something urgent, remember, they won’t come as they are pulling someone over somewhere else for doing 75.

[Bennet]

ghe13rte said:

On what grounds do you think passing a police car at 75 in a 70 is not something that can be prosecuted?

Forgive my possible ignorance, but maybe on the grounds that the guidelines for prosecution seem to be 79mph:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic...

said:

ACPO threshold for:
a fixed penalty or a Speed Awareness course: 79 mph
summoning: 96 mph

Or even if 71mph can technically be prosecuted, that common sense would prevail when it comes to miniscule percentage infractions. And lo and behold, he wasn't prosecuted, but it seems odd to still bother with the bking.
I agree with the poster above. Sounds like someone was having a bad day.


ETA: Can't believe "bking" is a banned word...

Edited by Bennet on Thursday 22 March 09:14

[vonhosen]

Bennet said:

ghe13rte said:

On what grounds do you think passing a police car at 75 in a 70 is not something that can be prosecuted?

Forgive my possible ignorance, but maybe on the grounds that the guidelines for prosecution seem to be 79mph:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic...

said:

ACPO threshold for:
a fixed penalty or a Speed Awareness course: 79 mph
summoning: 96 mph

1) ACPO doesn't exist.
2) The guidance was that if action hadn't been taken by that time that it should & the guidance (only) was a recommendation as to what action should be taken.
It was also clear that it didn't prevent an officer taking action that they considered necessary/appropriate in the circumstances outside of that guidance. The only real necessity is that the offence is capable of proof.

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

So I was thinking...I bet the OP drives a BMW.


I'm almost never wrong.

[mandos_01]

I had similar a few years ago, a marked police car was in the first lane doing probably an indicated 70mph. It was late at night, the roads were fairly empty so I saw him from a distance (was probably doing around 80mph at this point).

I eased off, the few cars in front of me slowed to an indicated 70 in the first and middle lanes, we crawled along at that pace for a while

My younger self had enough of this, accelerated to an indicated 75 and overtook the 3 cars ahead and eventually the police car at that speed.

He immediately pulled me over, and asked why I was overtaking a marked police car at 80mph (I knew I wasn't going that far as I was more or less staring constantly at the speedo)

I just said that I was concentrating on the road as it was dark and the lighting wasn't great, and hadn't realised my speed had crept up that high,

He grumbled a bit, checked my licence and insurance, then wandered off without saying anything. The female officer just told me to watch my speed and get home safe

Waste of 10 mins

[HantsRat]

cmaguire said:

75 though?

75 or 135. It's still breaking the speed limit. No need to moan online about it. He wasn't given a ticket, nothing happened other than stopped and advised he was exceeding the speed limit.

[vonhosen]

mandos_01 said:

I had similar a few years ago, a marked police car was in the first lane doing probably an indicated 70mph. It was late at night, the roads were fairly empty so I saw him from a distance (was probably doing around 80mph at this point).

I eased off, the few cars in front of me slowed to an indicated 70 in the first and middle lanes, we crawled along at that pace for a while

My younger self had enough of this, accelerated to an indicated 75 and overtook the 3 cars ahead and eventually the police car at that speed.

He immediately pulled me over, and asked why I was overtaking a marked police car at 80mph (I knew I wasn't going that far as I was more or less staring constantly at the speedo)

I just said that I was concentrating on the road as it was dark and the lighting wasn't great, and hadn't realised my speed had crept up that high,

He grumbled a bit, checked my licence and insurance, then wandered off without saying anything. The female officer just told me to watch my speed and get home safe

Waste of 10 mins

So an indicated 70 was far better progress than 75 & a 10min stop.

[mandos_01]

vonhosen said:

So an indicated 70 was far better progress than 75 & a 10min stop.

With the benefit of hindsight, yes!

My 22 year old self disagreed - for what its worth, I've done the same countless times since doing 30k miles a year for the last couple of years, and not had an issue

Edited by mandos_01 on Thursday 22 March 09:57

[Bennet]

I suppose next time people on PH mock those that sit behind police cars at 69mph for miles on end, afraid to overtake, and claim they've overtaken police cars at +-80mph many times before with no trouble, we can just point them back at this thread.

Honestly, I am inclined to be "pro" police, but it's difficult to see being pulled over for crawling past a police car at 75 as anything other than a "don't you dare overtake me" attitude.

[Paul Dishman]

theboss said:

I overtook a marked up car at 90 once. The bugger made it more awkward than it needed to be, by matching my speed and sitting next to me for several miles.

It was a BTP marked car with two guys in it - not sure if they are able or were just disinclined to get involved with a speeding offence. I figured they were probably travelling between two rail sites and didn’t want to stop for anything else.

That reminds me of the classic PH post here a good few years ago now. A PHer got stopped by a BTP copper who informed the PHer that because of his speed, the BTP man was considering giving him a ticket.
PHer responded to this with "As I don't want a Super Saver Return, I'll be off" and drove away.

Cool story bro' etc, I have no idea if that's true or accurate

[vonhosen]

Bennet said:

I suppose next time people on PH mock those that sit behind police cars at 69mph for miles on end, afraid to overtake, and claim they've overtaken police cars at +-80mph many times before with no trouble, we can just point them back at this thread.

Honestly, I am inclined to be "pro" police, but it's difficult to see being pulled over for crawling past a police car at 75 as anything other than a "don't you dare overtake me in excess of the speed limit" attitude.

FTFY

[cmaguire]

If they want to issue a ticket for 75 then let them try it.

If not they should just stop pissing about. They're just making a nuisance of themselves.And they really have got better things to be doing.

[HantsRat]

cmaguire said:

If they want to issue a ticket for 75 then let them try it.

If not they should just stop pissing about. They're just making a nuisance of themselves.And they really have got better things to be doing.

They may not have anything better to be doing. May have been a slow day with not much going on. You or I don't know that.

[xjay1337]

Dashcams are great for this.
Enable the speed readout, although if you do speed this can be used against you !

[Kuroblack350]

jmsgld said:

I crawled past a marked police car at 75 on a dual carriageway and to my surprise got pulled over.

The guy was driving like an idiot, way too close to the car in front on the single carriageway leading up to dual, cut someone up on a roundabout, not someone I want to be near on the road...So I overtake him at a steady 75 on cruise he starts flashing his headlights so I disengage cruise and let it drop to 70 and on go the blue lights. I pull off the dual and into a layby on a blind bend. Anyway his reasoning was that his speedo was showing 78 therefore I must have been going over 80 to overtake him. I didn't want to get into an argument so just nodded appropriately whilst denying speeding. He even said that I can't have slowed when he flashed me as he didn't see any brake lights...

Retard then makes a 3 point turn on the blind bend and stalls part way through... made me chuckle.

He obviously didn't have any speed measuring device or he would have known my true speed. Should I have entered into an argument with him about the fact that he was wrong, or could he give me a ticket for speeding? Would it have held up in court?
There were 2 of them in the car...

Sounds like he was trying to remind you who is boss - lamely I might add from your description. Also sounds rather amatuerish - you'd never sit at 70 as you unintentionally create a traffic bottleneck, easier to sit at 60/65 and let the traffic flow past. Even the stop sounds like it wasn't well thought through - are you sure he wasn't just a standard plod with a days driver training?

Every occupation has a few bell ends, does tend to tarnish the rest though.

Edited by Kuroblack350 on Thursday 22 March 12:16

[johnao]

Bennet said:

Honestly, I am inclined to be "pro" police, but it's difficult to see being pulled over for crawling past a police car at 75 as anything other than a "don't you dare overtake me" attitude.

Surely, overtaking a police car which is doing precisely 70mph is likely to bring about, in the mind of the police officer, consideration of an "attitude test". The speed of the overtaking vehicle, combined with other policing priorities that may be relevant, will determine whether or not the officer decides to invoke said test. I can quite see why some officers would not bother to stop an overtaker whose speed was less than the prosecution guidelines - unless there were other, more egregious, aspects of bad driving involved. Equally, I can quite understand an officer taking the view that the overtaker was entering the territory of "taking the p**s" and pulling the driver over simply "pour encourager les autres"; (ie. the other drivers around who had witnessed the p**s taking).

I find that one of the biggest problems is drivers who won't overtake a police vehicle doing 60mph in a 70mph limit. A recent example I witnessed was on an NSL dual carriageway. There was a police camera van travelling at 60mph (its legal speed limit) in lane 1. A car (legal speed limit 70mph) was sat at 60mph in lane 2 just behind the camera van. It took the car driver about a mile and a half to complete the overtake as traffic built up behind him in lane 2. The driver of the car crept past at what seemed like 61mph until eventually he was far enough in front of the camera van to pull back into lane 1. Now, you might think that this was simply a driver who didn't much like going above 61mph, but no. As soon as we were round a couple of bends and out of sight of the camera van he was off down the road well in excess of his legal limit of 70mph.

Edited by johnao on Thursday 22 March 15:06

[austinsmirk]

actually I'll hold my hand up to this: some years ago (when I had an impreza, which attracted attention sadly) I too overtook a police sprinter van.

it was doing 48/50 on a 50 duel carriageway. I do the longest overtake ever at 50. The carriageway then becomes 70, I go to 70.

blue lights come on and I stay at 70, letting him take an age to catch up and pull me over.


and what exactly was his point, goodness knows. I recall saying, if you can show me video evidence of me speeding, get on with it, other than that, what are we achieving here ? Do you think you've a successful case here for the CPS ?

I like the police, but this was officer bell end. But I suspect he pulled me over because of the car and because of where we were in the country, it should have had some lippy British Pakistani bloke in it, which would have led to a load of other things.

[jmsgld]

I was driving the landcruiser. I think he was just plod rather than traffic, i suspect quite green as well. He was driving more like a teenage chav than someone with any training.
Indicated 77 = 74-75 in the landcruiser. He was going about 70 but sped up slightly for the overtake.

I have a dashcam somewhere but it's never been out the box, if the local plod drive like this I should probably get it out. I would feel more comfortable pointing out his poor driving if I had it on film. Doing a 3 point turn incompetently on a blind bend of a nsl country lane has to be pretty close to dangerous driving.

[Ian Geary]

vonhosen said:

Bennet said:

I suppose next time people on PH mock those that sit behind police cars at 69mph for miles on end, afraid to overtake, and claim they've overtaken police cars at +-80mph many times before with no trouble, we can just point them back at this thread.

Honestly, I am inclined to be "pro" police, but it's difficult to see being pulled over for crawling past a police car at 75 as anything other than a "don't you dare overtake me in excess of the speed limit" attitude.

FTFY

So should we expect, and condone the police to take action over every single crime committed in the country, with no discretion applied?

Do we think the police are sensible in this case (which I take as described) to use their finite resources on stopping a car going every so slightly over the speed limit?

Reply "yes" if the police are never wrong, their power absolute, decisions infallible and this misdemeanor definitely warranted valuable police time, of which there's apparently plenty to go round; or

"no" the plod should have just let it go, he's achieving nothing and just on a power trip

[vonhosen]

Ian Geary said:

vonhosen said:

Bennet said:

I suppose next time people on PH mock those that sit behind police cars at 69mph for miles on end, afraid to overtake, and claim they've overtaken police cars at +-80mph many times before with no trouble, we can just point them back at this thread.

Honestly, I am inclined to be "pro" police, but it's difficult to see being pulled over for crawling past a police car at 75 as anything other than a "don't you dare overtake me in excess of the speed limit" attitude.

FTFY

So should we expect, and condone the police to take action over every single crime committed in the country, with no discretion applied?

Do we think the police are sensible in this case (which I take as described) to use their finite resources on stopping a car going every so slightly over the speed limit?

Reply "yes" if the police are never wrong, their power absolute, decisions infallible and this misdemeanor definitely warranted valuable police time, of which there's apparently plenty to go round; or

"no" the plod should have just let it go, he's achieving nothing and just on a power trip

Of course the Police are fallible, but you put yourself on offer by knowingly committing the offence in front of them.
Knowing it's within their power (& it's up to them as to whether they consider discretion is worthy or not).
A factor in the discretion decision may be inadvertently V wilfully.
Or a bit like if somebody who seeing them slips out of their sight to piss up a wall, rather than choosing instead to do it straight in front of them.

Some, knowing what potentially could happen won't, some will bet on it not happening so will.
Your bet, your choice.

Personally I look at their speed before making a decision. If they are doing 60 I decide they want me to overtake, if they choose 70 I decide they don't want me to.
The gain V risk ratio dictates to me with them doing 70 that I'll choose to stick with 70.
If you drift by them at 75 & don't get stopped I don't care. If you drift by them at 75 & do get stopped I don't care.

Edited by vonhosen on Thursday 22 March 23:38