Scaffold poles thrown at cars on Sidcup by-pass
Discussion
On my commute home today at 18:35 I saw a scaffold pole being hurled like a javelin into the sides of passing cars. After narrowly missing a bikers head it hits my front bumper and causes serious damage. The 10 or so youths doing it (13-17yrs old charvers) were right under the speed camera on the sidcup by pass opposite Esporta.
So I call old bill (999) and calmly tell them what's happening. That there are scaffold poles and (now) bricks being hurled into traffic and that serious injury will be caused.
I am told that a unit is "in attendance" by the dispatcher. I turn round at the next junction, hoon it back down the straight and park up under the trees on Esporta's entrance road...switch off lights and engine..and WATCH THE SAME GROUP OF YOUTHS CARRY ON DOING THIS FOR 25 MINS! Wondering whether I could manage to carry out a citizen's arrest without getting beaten to death by baseball caps.
Finally a brick goes through the window of a National Express coach and showers the front seat passenger in glass. Another call to plod. I am told that a car is "in attendance" and that they've had several calls by now.
55 mins after the orginal call, and with no sign of the youths any longer, a panda car turns up and out flops a seriously overweight WPC (who IMHO couldn't possibly have given chase). She tells me she wasn't dispatched from Bromley nick till 19:10. My guess is that she was taken of desk...or donut duty to attend.
Bloody useless. They took my address and told me how overstretched they were. She explained that THIS SORT OF THING USED TO BE LOOKED AFTER BY TRAFFIC UNITS. I asked her how that would be possible these days when there are only 5 traffic units for the whole of Kent. She agreed that this was true and told me to complain to the station. I put it to her that there were no traffic units any longer because cameras have taken their place. She agreed emphatically and suggested I contact my MP.
Tomorrow am I'll be writing to the Supt at Bromley nick.
Paul S - If you're reading this I'd like up to date casualty figures for Kent, and Bromley if you have 'em.
I might also make mention of the fact that I have seen 2 KSIs directly underneath speed cameras in the last few months. (1 is Sidcup and the other in T/Wells) They were both caused by drivers braking hard to avoid other vehicles at camera sites. One of the incidents saw the vehicle fly through 12ft wrought iron railings into a housing estate. No mention of this will be made in the statistics.
So I call old bill (999) and calmly tell them what's happening. That there are scaffold poles and (now) bricks being hurled into traffic and that serious injury will be caused.
I am told that a unit is "in attendance" by the dispatcher. I turn round at the next junction, hoon it back down the straight and park up under the trees on Esporta's entrance road...switch off lights and engine..and WATCH THE SAME GROUP OF YOUTHS CARRY ON DOING THIS FOR 25 MINS! Wondering whether I could manage to carry out a citizen's arrest without getting beaten to death by baseball caps.
Finally a brick goes through the window of a National Express coach and showers the front seat passenger in glass. Another call to plod. I am told that a car is "in attendance" and that they've had several calls by now.
55 mins after the orginal call, and with no sign of the youths any longer, a panda car turns up and out flops a seriously overweight WPC (who IMHO couldn't possibly have given chase). She tells me she wasn't dispatched from Bromley nick till 19:10. My guess is that she was taken of desk...or donut duty to attend.
Bloody useless. They took my address and told me how overstretched they were. She explained that THIS SORT OF THING USED TO BE LOOKED AFTER BY TRAFFIC UNITS. I asked her how that would be possible these days when there are only 5 traffic units for the whole of Kent. She agreed that this was true and told me to complain to the station. I put it to her that there were no traffic units any longer because cameras have taken their place. She agreed emphatically and suggested I contact my MP.
Tomorrow am I'll be writing to the Supt at Bromley nick.
Paul S - If you're reading this I'd like up to date casualty figures for Kent, and Bromley if you have 'em.
I might also make mention of the fact that I have seen 2 KSIs directly underneath speed cameras in the last few months. (1 is Sidcup and the other in T/Wells) They were both caused by drivers braking hard to avoid other vehicles at camera sites. One of the incidents saw the vehicle fly through 12ft wrought iron railings into a housing estate. No mention of this will be made in the statistics.
misternomer said:
On my commute home today at 18:35 I saw a scaffold pole being hurled like a javelin into the sides of passing cars. After narrowly missing a bikers head it hits my front bumper and causes serious damage. The 10 or so youths doing it (13-17yrs old charvers) were right under the speed camera on the sidcup by pass opposite Esporta.
now this is one you could use the 'merc test driver/kia driver' theory.....you run them all over (and back up and finish it off properly) and then state that you saw the pole being thrown towards your car and 'paniced',loosing control and running the perpetrators down (twice)
not that i would condone natural selection you understand!
p.s where are the 'lunatics with guns in their cars' we hear so much about when this sort of thing happens??
>> Edited by cortinaman on Friday 20th February 21:03
Unfortunatly this is the way the powers that be have F****D the System up!!! In the Whole of Sussex at any one time there are 4 Traffic cars!! IF they manage to catch these type of offenders their hands are so tied by red tape, human rights and european laws that normally they are wasting their time!!! If they do manage to get a conviction, The offender will probably only get community service, or a paltry fine that they will not pay! Kent at the moment has £30 million in outstanding fines 
Elaborate! 
Purple AK, did you ever wonder why police prisoners are so mollycoddled? Could it have anything to do with incidents such as reported on the television only today, where CCTV shows two police officers holding down a man with handcuffs behind his back, while another officer kicked him repeatedly?
V6GTO said:
Could it have anything to do with incidents such as reported on the television only today, where CCTV shows two police officers holding down a man with handcuffs behind his back, while another officer kicked him repeatedly?
tbh when i saw the footage i didnt realy think plod were that heavy handed,the bloke wasnt exactly small and i doubt if there would have been that many cops if the guy hadnt been a little 'tasty' during the arrest.
cases like this are often viewed as being like the story of rodney king who was beaten up by the lapd a few years ago,but it doesnt automaticly mean that this is the same,ive seen heavier use of force outside regals nightclub in uxbridge on a saturday night tbh.
btw,i do know about actual police abuse as my mate got a pair of black eyes,lost his 2 front teeth and got serious bruising and some nasty cuts when he was arrested by w.drayton cops a few years ago and he was taken down the side of 'unit2' and smacked about for giving lip.....but of course by the time it got to the station (30 secs away) he had 'fell over when he was getting into the van' and no charges were bought against the officers involved,even though my mate and his parents wanted a proper investigation.
so even though i know someone who has suffered at the hands of a pair of nob-jockey cops thats my opinion,if anyone was actually there and sober and can prove me wrong then i will stand corrected but if no-one saw it then my personal view sticks.
misternomer said:
Paul S - If you're reading this I'd like up to date casualty figures for Kent, and Bromley if you have 'em.
6 years' data for all counties in the following spreadsheet:
www.safespeed.org.uk/hypothecation2.xls
2003 provisional deaths in Kent: 103. (down about 10% on 2002, but well within the range of random variation.)
I think there are Bromley figures in the DfT link Kurgis posted earlier today in a thread titled: "SS".
I just can't understand why there are so few Police around these days - and not just road traffic. We're told Police numbers are up, so what the hell are they doing all day long? Filling in forms? Have we really become that inefficient that greater numbers end up delivering 25% of the former service?
BiB, What on earth are they asking you to do all day long? How has this changed over the last 15 or so years? Is it any one thing - like "admin" perhaps?
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed
www.safespeed.org.uk
paul,i thought i was having an acid flash-back when i saw 3 cops on foot in southend high street in a period of an hour!!.......pitty they are never anywhere other than that though!
my wifes mate works as a civvy on the desk of a police station and even though this person hasnt exactly been there long they have seen how the public are totally fed-up with the less-than-shite service they are giving in the nick this person is at.this person has had threats made towards them and their family from tossers in the front office,they have had verbal abuse on so many occasions that this person doesnt even bother reporting it anymore as sod-all is done and as a result this person is extremely close to saying balls and leaving,even though this person had applied a couple of months ago to join the regulars.....the thing is how can you make a diffrence to peoples lives from a canteen in a nick whilst the streets are left for the scum to infest!
>> Edited by cortinaman on Saturday 21st February 02:40
my wifes mate works as a civvy on the desk of a police station and even though this person hasnt exactly been there long they have seen how the public are totally fed-up with the less-than-shite service they are giving in the nick this person is at.this person has had threats made towards them and their family from tossers in the front office,they have had verbal abuse on so many occasions that this person doesnt even bother reporting it anymore as sod-all is done and as a result this person is extremely close to saying balls and leaving,even though this person had applied a couple of months ago to join the regulars.....the thing is how can you make a diffrence to peoples lives from a canteen in a nick whilst the streets are left for the scum to infest!
>> Edited by cortinaman on Saturday 21st February 02:40
safespeed said:
I just can't understand why there are so few Police around these days - and not just road traffic. We're told Police numbers are up, so what the hell are they doing all day long? Filling in forms? Have we really become that inefficient that greater numbers end up delivering 25% of the former service?
BiB, What on earth are they asking you to do all day long? How has this changed over the last 15 or so years? Is it any one thing - like "admin" perhaps?
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I can easily explain why there are no Police about despite the thousands of 'new ones' joining. Bacically back in the 70s there was a massive recuitment drive which resulted in thousands joining. These are all now retiring and are retiring faster than the new recruits are joining. This is fact as I'm ex Police and still deal through my current business with nearly all the current forces who all tell me the same. Fear not people it will get worse before it gets better.
As an example of how bad it is in the Police these days, my wife is a serving officer on a specialised post. She has stated that should she have to go back to uniform patrol she would leave, its that bad.!!!!!
Hold on a minute, I was asking a question and not siding one way or the other. My general view of the police is very good, I even had a girlfriend who was a traffic sergeant once. My opinion of the incident on the telly yesterday was that they used perfectly reasonable force, including the spray, to arrest him. It was totaly unjustified for the one officer to kick the man when he was down and helpless. I feel that, unfortunately, all too often that all officers get tarred with the same brush, these nasty little bast4rds are spoiling ( have soiled it ) for the vast majoriy.
I live in a Thames Valley Police area.
You never see any Police here during the day, but if you have a night out in the town,. they are waiting for any trouble when the pubs and clubs close.
My guess is that the Plod don't work during the day as they don't get paid overtime, night allowance etc.
So all the Plod here only work at night, as it's more profitable for their own personal bank accounts.
You never see any Police here during the day, but if you have a night out in the town,. they are waiting for any trouble when the pubs and clubs close.
My guess is that the Plod don't work during the day as they don't get paid overtime, night allowance etc.
So all the Plod here only work at night, as it's more profitable for their own personal bank accounts.
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