Mr T. We'd be looking a bit peeved, too.
We don't claim to know too much about the law as it relates to obstruction of police officers, but Grimsby magistrates could hardly have done more to invite contempt for the legal process here on PH than by fining a chap who flashed his lights in the vicinity of a police speed trap.
Certainly not those members of the driving public who feel let down (and often stitched-up) by a policing 'strategy' for UK roads that relies on dumb, lowest-common-denominator logic, the replacement of trained and experienced traffic officers by camera-toting jobsworths in high-vis jackets, and an apparent free pass to any idiotic, stupid or dangerous driver with the wit to drive a car that's registered incorrectly on the ANPR database.
Police speed traps have never found favour with motorists, and they probably never will. We consent to put up with them as voters and taxpayers, because British society has traditionally accepted an intelligently nuanced approach to traffic policing.
We all know how that consent is eroded, little by little, every time a speed camera flashes on an all-but-empty road. Perhaps what this ridiculous case against Michael Thompson serves to illustrate is how the age of digital speed measurement appears to engender a similarly binary approach to enforcement in the minds of (some, at least) police officers on the ground.
This is not a development to be welcomed, obviously, although at least when it's out in the open we've got a chance to rail against it.
Meanwhile we'll continue to flash our headlights to warn fellow motorists of perceived hazards on the road when we feel it's appropriate - and hopefully you'll keep doing the same for us!
The PH forum thread is here...
