Argh! Even the bloody Police are doing it!
Discussion
Driving home last night there was a traffic car parked half way down the slip road on to the dual carridgeway. This is part of a not infrequent speed trap with another copper usually on a bridge further up the road. I have no problem with this - if you can't see a blue and yellow battenburg cake parked on a bridge in time to slow down you really have it coming.
My problem was that as I passed the Police car on the slip road I saw that he had his fecking front fog lights on! At three in the afternoon, dry roads, light cloud - no reason to have any lights on much less fogs.
This guy must be one of the most highly trained drivers on the road and yet he still has his bloody fogs on. The cause is lost - lets all do it.
My problem was that as I passed the Police car on the slip road I saw that he had his fecking front fog lights on! At three in the afternoon, dry roads, light cloud - no reason to have any lights on much less fogs.
This guy must be one of the most highly trained drivers on the road and yet he still has his bloody fogs on. The cause is lost - lets all do it.
There may have been a reason for him having them on. I turn mine on when I am about to go on a shout as every available source of visibility is a bonus. He may have just been cancelled from a shout and not turned them off as he stopped and then you came around the corner.
He may have been a numptie.
The days of the proffesional traffic Police Officer have long gone. With Govt pressure to get results on detections for crime, traffic departments have been removed of specialist officers dedicated to the job they were trained for and replaced with nothing more than fast Panda car drivers. There are a few dinosaurs remaining but in the main the traffic cars these days are crewed by those that are tasked to catch street robbers and deal with burglary offenders.
There is a marked drop in standards for reasons that I will not disclose on this forum.
That is not to say that there aren't some excellent drivers still coming through the system.
He may have been a numptie.
The days of the proffesional traffic Police Officer have long gone. With Govt pressure to get results on detections for crime, traffic departments have been removed of specialist officers dedicated to the job they were trained for and replaced with nothing more than fast Panda car drivers. There are a few dinosaurs remaining but in the main the traffic cars these days are crewed by those that are tasked to catch street robbers and deal with burglary offenders.
There is a marked drop in standards for reasons that I will not disclose on this forum.
That is not to say that there aren't some excellent drivers still coming through the system.
When I went down to the Motorshow on Saturday, a policecar seemed to be actively baiting the traffic. What he was doing was: speeding up to 80 mph, staying at that speed for a few minutes then slowing down to 65. Then repeating.
What you ended up with was a number of cars "following" him as no-one would overtake him when he was at 80mph. You could see this "ripple" effect going on throughout the column of traffic as he did this over and over again.
Surely not legal, decent or honest!
What you ended up with was a number of cars "following" him as no-one would overtake him when he was at 80mph. You could see this "ripple" effect going on throughout the column of traffic as he did this over and over again.
Surely not legal, decent or honest!
fatbutt said: When I went down to the Motorshow on Saturday, a policecar seemed to be actively baiting the traffic. What he was doing was: speeding up to 80 mph, staying at that speed for a few minutes then slowing down to 65. Then repeating.
What you ended up with was a number of cars "following" him as no-one would overtake him when he was at 80mph. You could see this "ripple" effect going on throughout the column of traffic as he did this over and over again.
Surely not legal, decent or honest!
Police are allowed to exceed the limit for Policing purposes. That is the law as it stands at the moment.
There may have been reasons for them doing this. They may have been tasked to look for a particular vehicle or problem further on along the motorway that was known by someone else to be ahead of them.
To drive at 130mph may cause them to miss the problem or the target they were looking for. To overtake all the traffic ahead of them at a reasonable speed makes it a lot easier to identify what you are looking for.
From the descrption that you give, it sounds very much to me that this is what they were doing, maybe they had been informed by someone on a mobile of a particular incident that had happened down an embankment, a pedestrian or other excluded type of traffic, an injured dog, who knows unless you were one of the Police crew or te control operator.
When people phone incidents in on mobiles, they do not know where the hell they are except when asked where the incident happened " I'm between junction 16 and 17, it happened near a bridge/telephone mast etc"
Some horrifically do not even know what motorway they are travelling on
If there happens to be 20 miles between the two junctions and several bridgs or phone masts, then all have to be checked and on both carraigeways.
That is why if you ever see and need to report an incident on a motorway, unless you know exactly where it is in relation to the marker post number or the name of an overbridge etc, you should stop at the next available motorway phone and use it. This way the control operator will know exactly where you are and can instigate a quick response, rather than a medium speed search by two traffic officers that are looking for a needle in haystack
[quote
The days of the proffesional traffic Police Officer have long gone. With Govt pressure to get results on detections for crime, traffic departments have been removed of specialist officers dedicated to the job they were trained for and replaced with nothing more than fast Panda car drivers.
How do we give this problem a higer profile !!! this is the sort of thing the press should really pickup on, not the fecking speed kills mantra leave it all to speed cameras cos the only offence ever commited is speeding....
Every traffic cop i met when i was a youngster ( and there were a few oops) was very knowledgable about motoring law and motoring and i was often advised how to be less of a danger to myself and others rather than just a nip through the post that doesnt teach you any thing...
you begin to wonder if the Government actually wants to prevent motoring crimes or just habd out speeding tickets.... well actually you dont...
its like the hiding speed cameras bit... i thought the idea was you put a speed camera in a visible place at an accident blackspot, or school ect, then people will see this and slow down past the danger even if they speed up later on, atleast they are taking more care at the danger point... but what is the point in haveing a hidden camera at that point which just catches people that do speed through the danger point ????
still off soap box now, ias i mm stranded at birmingham new street waiting for peeps..
classic 3 trains from 3 different places and only one gets there !!!!!
G
The days of the proffesional traffic Police Officer have long gone. With Govt pressure to get results on detections for crime, traffic departments have been removed of specialist officers dedicated to the job they were trained for and replaced with nothing more than fast Panda car drivers.
How do we give this problem a higer profile !!! this is the sort of thing the press should really pickup on, not the fecking speed kills mantra leave it all to speed cameras cos the only offence ever commited is speeding....
Every traffic cop i met when i was a youngster ( and there were a few oops) was very knowledgable about motoring law and motoring and i was often advised how to be less of a danger to myself and others rather than just a nip through the post that doesnt teach you any thing...
you begin to wonder if the Government actually wants to prevent motoring crimes or just habd out speeding tickets.... well actually you dont...
its like the hiding speed cameras bit... i thought the idea was you put a speed camera in a visible place at an accident blackspot, or school ect, then people will see this and slow down past the danger even if they speed up later on, atleast they are taking more care at the danger point... but what is the point in haveing a hidden camera at that point which just catches people that do speed through the danger point ????
still off soap box now, ias i mm stranded at birmingham new street waiting for peeps..
classic 3 trains from 3 different places and only one gets there !!!!!
G
madcop said: There may have been a reason for him having them on. I turn mine on when I am about to go on a shout as every available source of visibility is a bonus. He may have just been cancelled from a shout and not turned them off as he stopped and then you came around the corner.
He may have been a numptie.
The days of the proffesional traffic Police Officer have long gone. With Govt pressure to get results on detections for crime, traffic departments have been removed of specialist officers dedicated to the job they were trained for and replaced with nothing more than fast Panda car drivers. There are a few dinosaurs remaining but in the main the traffic cars these days are crewed by those that are tasked to catch street robbers and deal with burglary offenders.
There is a marked drop in standards for reasons that I will not disclose on this forum.
That is not to say that there aren't some excellent drivers still coming through the system.
Absolutely spot on. When I joined Traffic, apart from having done a three week standard course to drive panda cars, I then had to do a three week intermidate advanced course, then a four week advanced course at the Regional police driving centre, and then a six week advanced instructor course, and then a three week intermidiate advanced bike course, 4 week advanced bike course and then every two years back for a two years back for a two week refresher.
In addition, we obtained our HGV 1 licence, PCV, qualified as vehicle examiners, I also did accident investigation, and our law course was 10 weeks which was as long as our initial recruit training.
There were specialists within a specialist Department, but there was also the pride factor. If you so much as put a dent inthe car you were suspended from driving for a minimum of four weeks, and if your car or bike was not maintained bearing in mind that Traffic cars are the flagship high profile representatives of most forces, then questions were asked. When we joined, we did so because we love the work, and to be honest we could have probably been issued with horse and cart and we would still have been happy.
In my force they introduced tenure of service, so after 7 years on the department you were returned to beat duties. Now taking into account the money spent to train us, the expertise gained over many years service, suddenly it meant nothing and experienced guys ended up back on Division either in an office job or walking around the streets with a pointy hat on shaking door knobs in the early hours of the morning. In their place, guys with limited service were recruited. They did a three week advanced course and a 1 week traffic law course, and in most cases they came on to the department not because they wanted to be on Traffic but in many cases because they fancied driving a flash car for a few years, so the days of the professional experienced traffic officers were numbered.
I was fortunate in so much that I was retired on medical grounds 9 years ago, I still managed 20 years on the department and I enjoyed every minute, tenure was introduced shortly after my retirement, but, now being in a position of being on the outside looking in, the standard of professionalism in my force has dropped to a level where I am almost ashamed to say that I am ex traffic, and the moral is so low, that guys who i joined with are literally counting down the days to when they can get out.
The bottom line is that the pride has gone, the professional standards are no longer there, the cammaraderie no longer exists and certainly in my old force it can become somewhat embarrasing.
I went past a plain white vectra with just a blue light on top about 4 months ago with 4 coppers (1 instructor and 3 pupils ?) in a layby they were stood out side of the car and he was obviously giving them a talk on driving , then i went past in the astra doing about 95 , looked in my rearview mirror to see them scrabbling to get into the car like the keystone cops 
, they never did catch me 
, they never did catch me
dennisthemenace said: I went past a plain white vectra with just a blue light on top about 4 months ago with 4 coppers (1 instructor and 3 pupils ?) in a layby they were stood out side of the car and he was obviously giving them a talk on driving , then i went past in the astra doing about 95 , looked in my rearview mirror to see them scrabbling to get into the car like the keystone cops
They would not have been the slightest bit interested in what you were doing unless you were driving at 95 because you were the getaway driver from the armed blag you had just been involved in.
If it was a driving school car, they do not involve themselves in anything that is other than extremely serious. To get involved would take precious time away from the expensive business of training.
They would not have wasted their time bothering with you. When you are on a driving course you tend to get plagued by those wannabes that think they can do just the same, They follow you in excess of the limits and mimic your positioning and lines, even when there is a sticker in the rear window explaining what the vehicle is. It becomes a challenge to them. They can tell everyone how they kept up with a Police training car and did him at a junction
It is interesting to see that after a change over of driver, if you then come up behind the same driver some miles further on, their positioning and lines are absolutely all over the place.
That is the reason why most driving school cars are unmarked, so they are not diverted from the purpose they are trying to achieve by having to deal with the public and a certain amount of botty wiping, that you find when on normal patrol.
I understand that now, most forces driving schools have even resorted to removing the sticker in the rear windows as it has been shown to reduce the number of racers that want to take them on.
once, I had the unfortunate task of counting cyclists for a morning. The spot was on the A414 Longabout (aka Dogbone roundabout) Smallford, Hertfordshire. I was taksed to stand there for 2 hr and count all of about 5. After half hr, along comes training cop car unmarked full of uniformed plods, and does a lap of the longabout, then another and another.....they would dissapear and then come back..they must have done a hundred laps that morning.......kept staring at me too, as I was them
Gassing Station | General Gassing [Archive] | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff