Police cutbacks what a joke

[creampuff]

InitialDave said:

Which I agree with as an appropriate way for businesses to remind people of the requirement, I just disagree with it being a legal requirement and fines being issued for it.

If no one is smoking in a workplace, the important part of the rules is being obeyed, so if that is happening without a sign to enforce it, I don't care if they don't have one.

The legislation appears to be that you need to have a 'no smoking' sign in enclosed work places. An office is enclosed, a factory with walls and a roof is enclosed and a van is enclosed. Yet I have never seen the council inspect this, much less have the council turn up with the police inspect anything.

A short time on Google leads me to stories where local council enforcement officers have approached company van drivers on the street and handed them a £200 fine. So it seems to me that enforcement of stickers in vehicles, however sporadic, is quite possible for the council if they want to do it.

So I'll say it again: having the council tag along to a police/VOSA/DVLA operation and hand out petty fines is a complete waste of time. It means the police/VOSA/DVLA can do less other things even if they are not directly involved in the 'no smoking' sticker part of the operation and it reflects badly on the police, because it is the police who stop you.

[pavarotti1980]

creampuff said:

The legislation appears to be that you need to have a 'no smoking' sign in enclosed work places. An office is enclosed, a factory with walls and a roof is enclosed and a van is enclosed. Yet I have never seen the council inspect this, much less have the council turn up with the police inspect anything.

A short time on Google leads me to stories where local council enforcement officers have approached company van drivers on the street and handed them a £200 fine. So it seems to me that enforcement of stickers in vehicles, however sporadic, is quite possible for the council if they want to do it.

So I'll say it again: having the council tag along to a police/VOSA/DVLA operation and hand out petty fines is a complete waste of time. It means the police/VOSA/DVLA can do less other things even if they are not directly involved in the 'no smoking' sticker part of the operation and it reflects badly on the police, because it is the police who stop you.

You mean the other things like checking for insurance/license/MOT, dangerous vehicles, general criminality with access to roads all day every day.
Surely this is a great way of doing this? Or should the "other things" not be related to this? Im sure it was mentioned in another thread that there should be more enforcement on the roads but then when they do thats also a waste of time and refelcts badly

[creampuff]

pavarotti1980 said:

You mean the other things like checking for insurance/license/MOT, dangerous vehicles, general criminality with access to roads all day every day.
Surely this is a great way of doing this?

That is already understood by everybody. That is the understood purpose of this big police, VOSA, DVLA day out, which the council tagged along to in order to enforce no smoking sticker rules. Enforcement of all of the above happens without involvement of the council and with or without the presence of no smoking stickers.

[pavarotti1980]

creampuff said:

That is already understood by everybody. That is the understood purpose of this big police, VOSA, DVLA day out, which the council tagged along to in order to enforce no smoking sticker rules. Enforcement of all of the above happens without involvement of the council and with or without the presence of no smoking stickers.

So whats your issue with the police then? Im not sure you quite understand the term multi-agency can involve the council. This will most likely be the same department that enforce other things like taxi licensing so will be regular visitors to such days

[pavarotti1980]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

[creampuff]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

So I take it you just didn't bother to read any of my post, which have made the context of my comments clear. Then just read an commented on the last one, without engaging brain first. If you are going to do that, why bother posting?

[creampuff]

pavarotti1980 said:

You also haven't read most of my post or most of the thread. I said that this was a multi-agency day out with objectives other than no-smoking signs several pages back. I just thought I'd be polite in saying that this was understood by everybody, instead of suggesting you read the thread to keep up.

[pavarotti1980]

creampuff said:

You also haven't read most of my post or most of the thread. I said that this was a multi-agency day out with objectives other than no-smoking signs several pages back. I just thought I'd be polite in saying that this was understood by everybody, instead of suggesting you read the thread to keep up.

You also said this:

creampuff said:

So I'll say it again: having the council tag along to a police/VOSA/DVLA operation and hand out petty fines is a complete waste of time. It means the police/VOSA/DVLA can do less other things even if they are not directly involved in the 'no smoking' sticker part of the operation and it reflects badly on the police, because it is the police who stop you.

Come on keep up

Edited by pavarotti1980 on Friday 25th May 10:52

[Clive-sz8cz]

I'm with the OP here; if I has handed a £200 fine rather than a verbal warning to remedy the situation I would drive away thinking petty-minded s and if in future the Police needed my co-operation but it was going to be of no benefit to me then they can fk right off. Why do we accept little bureaucratic morons relieving us of disproportionate amounts of hard earned cash for the slightest transgression?

[iDrive]

I think the solution is that the Police should post on internet forums that "I was stopped and the Police were checking whether we had a no smoking sign in our van", possibly making comment at the outrageous waste of Police resources.

Not actually do it, just post on internet forums that "they" had been stopped for this.

That would have the effect of creating a belief that the issue is being Policed.

Also - When conducting operations to target travelling criminals, publicise it as being in place to tackle mobile phone use - this has an effect on those likely to be using a phone whilst driving (actually kills more people than the travelling criminals...) whilst making good use of ANPR, Intelligence etc to bring in the criminals.

[pavarotti1980]

Clive-sz8cz said:

I'm with the OP here; if I has handed a £200 fine rather than a verbal warning to remedy the situation I would drive away thinking petty-minded s and if in future the Police needed my co-operation but it was going to be of no benefit to me then they can fk right off. Why do we accept little bureaucratic morons relieving us of disproportionate amounts of hard earned cash for the slightest transgression?

Read the thread, fine nowt to do with police. Why hold it against them?

[Rovinghawk]

pavarotti1980 said:

So whats your issue with the police then? Im not sure you quite understand the term multi-agency can involve the council.

I'll answer that by repeating my earlier comment:

earlier answer said:

Not talking about the police so much as the country in general- we have too many people who don't want to actually produce anything when it's so much easier to check, criticise and fill in silly little forms. And then everyone wonders why we produce so little.

"Everything in short supply except rules."- Tolkein.

There are many higher priority items than little stickers in vans. Let's focus on important stuff and disregard the petty, pointless items regardless of the wonderful income stream they provide the council or whatever other parasites are extracting huge amounts of money where they could just issue a sticker & charge a few quid for it.

I note that I could get convicted of theft, assault, etc and get a lesser penalty than for a petty administrative oversight.

[Dibble]

Clive-sz8cz said:

I'm with the OP here; if I has handed a £200 fine rather than a verbal warning to remedy the situation I would drive away thinking petty-minded s and if in future the Police needed my co-operation but it was going to be of no benefit to me then they can fk right off. Why do we accept little bureaucratic morons relieving us of disproportionate amounts of hard earned cash for the slightest transgression?

So you get fined by the council but wouldn’t help the Police investigate something? The police don’t “benefit” from the investigation, the victim (potentially) does.

Additionally, how many verbal warnings should be dished out to the same person - for anything - before enforcement starts?

[Greendubber]

Rovinghawk said:

pavarotti1980 said:

So whats your issue with the police then? Im not sure you quite understand the term multi-agency can involve the council.

I'll answer that by repeating my earlier comment:

earlier answer said:

Not talking about the police so much as the country in general- we have too many people who don't want to actually produce anything when it's so much easier to check, criticise and fill in silly little forms. And then everyone wonders why we produce so little.

"Everything in short supply except rules."- Tolkein.

There are many higher priority items than little stickers in vans. Let's focus on important stuff and disregard the petty, pointless items regardless of the wonderful income stream they provide the council or whatever other parasites are extracting huge amounts of money where they could just issue a sticker & charge a few quid for it.

I note that I could get convicted of theft, assault, etc and get a lesser penalty than for a petty administrative oversight.

I'm sure plenty of other offences were dealt with on the day.

I've not done one for a few years now but VOSA, local authorities, customs and the police took loads of unroadworthy vehicles off the road, locked up some wanted people and dealt with all manner of offences.

It was almost like shooting fish in a barrel.

Edited by Greendubber on Friday 25th May 14:02

[pavarotti1980]

Rovinghawk said:

There are many higher priority items than little stickers in vans. Let's focus on important stuff and disregard the petty, pointless items regardless of the wonderful income stream they provide the council or whatever other parasites are extracting huge amounts of money where they could just issue a sticker & charge a few quid for it.

I note that I could get convicted of theft, assault, etc and get a lesser penalty than for a petty administrative oversight.

So what is more important for VOSA, HMRC, local authority regulatory enforcement and police roads policing teams to do then?

[Derek Smith]

I think it would be better if the council, and by extension the police going by some of the posts on here, asked offenders whether they felt it reasonable to report them for the offence they were committing. If they said, for instance, the police should only concentrate on burglars and not thefts then they should be let off of the theft, unless they had entered premises with that intent of course.

Similarly with the council. Not paid your rates? What do you think the council should have been doing instead of chasing those who refuse to pay their way?

Then the council and the police could tell the government that, for instance, those who flout health and safety regs would really like it if they were removed from the statute book. Police could ask the government to make theft illegal so that they could concentrate on assaults.

It used to be a regular feature of life in my original for for us to assist customs with their need to stop vehicles. The number of jobs that they got out of it was remarkable. Overstayers were common, the occasional illegal, customs evasion and more. Anyone who wanted more work wanted to be on those stops. What a waste, eh? They could have been doing something else, like speeding.

It is always those caught for a particular offence who want that particular offence to be excluded from the legislation. Funny that. Who'd have thought.

[InitialDave]

Derek Smith said:

It is always those caught for a particular offence who want that particular offence to be excluded from the legislation. Funny that. Who'd have thought.

I haven't been caught for it. I'm not going to be caught for it. I think it's stupid that it exists as an offence in and of itself. It's illegal to smoke in a company vehicle, there's good arguments for why that should be the case, so fair enough. If businesses are managing to maintain adherence to that law, who cares if they don't have a sticker about it.

I don't understand how people can be so bloodyminded about the law being the law to not look at the OP's situation - a non-smoker owns a van for his business and all the employees who would be in it are non-smokers, but he must have a sticker saying no smoking or he'll be fined two hundred quid - and not see that it's more than a little inane.

There's no need for multiple layers of legal requirements to make people - already doing what you want them to do, doing the bit that actually matters - do it a specific way. This kind of excessively controlling minutiae is just annoying.

This isn't like people who are stealing things wanting the police not to deal with people stealing things. The equivalent to this would be people who are not stealing things being annoyed at it being an offence in itself for you not to be carrying a Stealing Things Is Very Naughty reminder card in your wallet.

[Red 4]

InitialDave said:

I haven't been caught for it. I'm not going to be caught for it. I think it's stupid that it exists as an offence in and of itself. It's illegal to smoke in a company vehicle, there's good arguments for why that should be the case, so fair enough. If businesses are managing to maintain adherence to that law, who cares if they don't have a sticker about it.

I don't understand how people can be so bloodyminded about the law being the law to not look at the OP's situation - a non-smoker owns a van for his business and all the employees who would be in it are non-smokers, but he must have a sticker saying no smoking or he'll be fined two hundred quid - and not see that it's more than a little inane.

There's no need for multiple layers of legal requirements to make people - already doing what you want them to do, doing the bit that actually matters - do it a specific way. This kind of excessively controlling minutiae is just annoying.

This isn't like people who are stealing things wanting the police not to deal with people stealing things. The equivalent to this would be people who are not stealing things being annoyed at it being an offence in itself for you not to be carrying a Stealing Things Is Very Naughty reminder card in your wallet.

Well said.

It's not like companies need to display a "No phones - hands free only" sticker or other such nonsense.

It's a petty law and a 200 quid fine is taking the piss.

[rambo19]

Red 4 said:

InitialDave said:

I haven't been caught for it. I'm not going to be caught for it. I think it's stupid that it exists as an offence in and of itself. It's illegal to smoke in a company vehicle, there's good arguments for why that should be the case, so fair enough. If businesses are managing to maintain adherence to that law, who cares if they don't have a sticker about it.

I don't understand how people can be so bloodyminded about the law being the law to not look at the OP's situation - a non-smoker owns a van for his business and all the employees who would be in it are non-smokers, but he must have a sticker saying no smoking or he'll be fined two hundred quid - and not see that it's more than a little inane.

There's no need for multiple layers of legal requirements to make people - already doing what you want them to do, doing the bit that actually matters - do it a specific way. This kind of excessively controlling minutiae is just annoying.

This isn't like people who are stealing things wanting the police not to deal with people stealing things. The equivalent to this would be people who are not stealing things being annoyed at it being an offence in itself for you not to be carrying a Stealing Things Is Very Naughty reminder card in your wallet.

Well said.

It's not like companies need to display a "No phones - hands free only" sticker or other such nonsense.

It's a petty law and a 200 quid fine is taking the piss.

How do the police know the drivers are non smokers?

[Cat]

rambo19 said:

How do the police know the drivers are non smokers?

They don't, but as the police don't deal with smoking ban offences it doesn't matter.

Cat