People often ask me if Traffic cops have nothing better to do than nick bikers for speed or smal number plates. Well, this may address some of those points. In the last 12 months in my oold force, traffic Police (sorry, Roads Policing officers) were intrumental in making 268 arrests across Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire. Were involved in the recovery of stolen vehicles across the Force area worth over £230,000. Removing 194 vehicles from the road for being driven either while uninsured or by an unlicensed driver. Being involved in the recovery of over £3million worth of class A drugs. In one stop-check alone recovered £2.5million worth of heroin and cocaine. Whilst it does not tell the whole story, as they are also dealing all the fatal and serious injury crashes and enforcement, it does show some of the othr aspects of police work that my former colleagues are involved in.
Yeah, all the above is great to know. However speed as and where appropriate does no great harm, as does a slightly smaller than standard number plate. Unless it's the size of a cig packet !!
I never thought is that all they do just that I wish they are around more when you get idiots going through reds and on bloody mobiles
Were involved in the recovery of stolen vehicles across the Force area worth over £230,000. so across Bucks,Berks and Oxon they recovered £230,000 worth of stolen cars.... is it just me that thinks thats a tad pathetic
Its good to hear they are doing something positive but for me there are just to many negatives.... My bike was stolen last year in October, brand new R1, they told me they would come round to take a statement but I'm still waiting. I did contact them a month later asking why they hadn't been to take a statement only for them to apologise and promise someone would come for a full statement and an explanation as to what action was being taken to recover my bike... Still not turned up yet..... A friends bike was also stolen last year and an hour after it had been stolen a friend of his phoned him to say that some young pond life scum was pushing his bike through a local park. He phoned the police back and they said they would get an officer to him asap. A short time later a female police officer phoned him to ask where the bike was or had been seen, he told them it was currently being push through a local park to which the officer replied, "I'm just going on my dinner break so will have a good look when i get back in about an hour". I kid you not this was true as i was stood next to him at the time..... We went to the park and recovered the bike....
Keep trying to inform people that quoting statistics without the means to interpret them is useless. However, draw your own conclusions: 83% of the drugs recovered was in 1 bust, which was pure luck and, 1 very, very, very, expensive cars was stolen or, 2 very, very, expensive cars was stolen or, ...repeat until bored or you lose the will to live. ............and there is no mention of driving offences. So, you may conclude, yes they have nothing better to do than nick road users for minor offences as this is where the bulk of their revenue is generated, and the majority of which I'd guess has little to do with 'safety'.
Or they recovered my car over 127 times On a more serious note I used to have respect for the black rats when they were there to make the roads safer, and not there to ponce around in sunglasses handing out speeding fine and sanctimonious lectures.
I was overhearing a conversation between 2 guys at the Whistle stop café last Wednesday. What one guy was saying was that the police around our area are hell bent on pissing off every biker they can, so bikers will not want use our roads anymore. The reason being was because it costs so much to clear up after a crash.. I believe there is an element of truth behind that statement, because we have at least 3 unmarked bikes, countless unmarked cars and that bloody Helicopter.Ive stopped going up to Seaways(Fridaythorpe)because of the overwhelming police presants,not once have I ever seen a car pulled for speeding btw. The sad truth is, it looks like its working..
I posted this as an example of the other areas of Police work that traffic cops get involved in. For many years my patner and I held the record for the most number of arrests in one set of nights (over 50) and they were all for the likes of Burglary, Drugs, TWOC, Drink Drive et al............ But that was back in the day when we did not have the restrictions that are in place now. That is not to mention that most traffic cops see more dead bodies in a year than your average superstar (sorry CID officer ) sees in the whole of their careers. So whilst you may get upset about being nicked for speeding (and I agree that speed initself is not a killer), at the end of the day, if you choose to ignore the speed limits or ride wth a small plate, then sorry, but you only have yourself to blame as none of us can pick and choose which laws we ignore (and before anyone says it is impossible to ride at 30, sorry, but that is total cr@p) At the end of the most people only ever have dealings with a traffic cops when they are in a conflcit situation having been stopped for a breach of one law or another, and whilst I am no longer a fan of the way the Police operate, I can at least speak from a position of exprience, whereas most (not all granted) speak from a position of listening to what their mates say down the pub or myth.
i dont mind getting nicked for speeding,i do the crimne and all that,but slightly smaller then standard plates is a bit of a piss take,ok letter box style plates do take the piss,but getting pulled over for nothing more than a small plate is taking the piss slightly. but,at the end of the day,if you break the law then you should accept the consequences or be ready to be pulled over.it's that sometimes it does seem a little stupid. the last time i was pulled on the bike was about 5 yrs ago,going into a 40,from a 60.i get done at 46,i didn't slow down enough,but was following a car doing the same speed,which didn't get stopped,ok fair do's. but it was the reason given to me that pissed me off.when i asked why he stopped me and not the car,the reason given was 'today we are targeting bikers with small number plates'.ok,buthow the fuck do you know i have a small plate on from the front???.i got a fine a for speeding and for a small plate (and we are talking slightly smaller,not letter box style).not bothered about that,as i said,you do the crime and all that,but it's the fact bikers were being targeted for a relatively minor offence,not to mention the fact thats the main reason i was stopped,on the off chance i had a small plate.
The reason for so many negative comments on here is simple, for the average citizen, the only time the normally come into contact with the Police Service is either through a motoring offence, ie speeding etc etc, or as a victim of crime. Then at that point, the general feeling of most people is that the Police have become totally ineffective to low level crimes that plague most of us and are not interested other than to use it as a stats gathering exercise and as such most law abiding citizens are on their own when it comes to protecting themselves, their families or their possessions. Just think of the number of burglaries that go undetected, ie most of them, but tweet anything that looks like offending someone from a minority and the boys in blue are proudly announcing that they were knocking on the door in under 2 hours, largely they have become willing political pawns and seem to relish in p*ssing off most of the general public. So much easier to throw your weight around with law abiding people than scrotes who know every trick in the book. Onto motoring offences, it's simple, you break the law you leave your self open to prosecution and/or a fine. The issue now is that 'education' from the Police is long gone, every time someone is pulled over the book is out a ticket being written before the first words are uttered, and the Police have largely alienated themselves to themselves to the general public, the same people that used to respect them and give them most support. As far as the comment of traffic officers seeing lots of dead bodies, yep not nice, no one enjoys that, but it goes with the territory, so get over it or move on, when was the last time anyone heard of an undertaker moaning about the number of stiffs they deal with?, its part of the job.
It wasn't "myth" that cost the life of Jean Charles de Menezes or wrongly sent Stefan Ivan Kiszko, the Birmingham 6, Guilford 4, Bridgewater 3, Cardiff 2, just to name a tiny few, to prison destroying their lives and those of their loved ones. It was police corruption.....
TC, would you issue a ticket for an offence that you yourself were committing? A friend who works in a local bike dealers recently got a ticket for a small number plate. The officer who issued the ticket was in the dealership to get his own bike serviced, which was fitted with a small plate. In a fuck you too moment they removed the small plate and fitted a correct sized one and added it to the invoice. The officer in question was far from impressed with their antics, but reluctantly relented for obvious reasons. I have had many positive encounters with the police (older, wiser) also, but if enforced the rules should be applied to all parties! I totally agree with your statement about riding at 30, if you couldn't you wouldn't have passed your test!
I am not suggesting for one minute that everyone is a saint or that there are no jobsworths, you get that all in all walks of life and you get bad apples in every profession. I have come across corrupt or bent coppers, and in fact one the DS's involved in the Guildford 4 was my next door neighbour for many years. The are a number of issues though, that in my opinion had wrecked the reputation of many traffic cops as a collective rather than as individuals. Firstly, there is less room for discretion. When I served, the atitude of my boss was that often a "severe talking to ) would often be more effective than a court apearance, but if they wanted to argue the point then we always had the option of reporting and let them argue in front of a court. The majority would accept the "severe talking to" because I thnk in the main they knew that we knew what we were talking about and had the expertise. These days however, trafic cops do not get the training that we had (and I don't mean that to sound big headed), because many get a 3 week driving course and a 1 week law course against our 12 weeks + and 18 week traffic law course. Roads policing is no longer considered high priority, hence we no longer have the career traffic cops as I was, or the back up from up top, which in turn means that there are fewer and fewer traffic cops Many coppers are only interested in traffic work as a short term aim to get promotion, and so use it as a stepping stone, which again goes back to lack of knowedge and exprience And lastly, too much emphasis is placed on the guys from those above to lick and stick anything and everything that moves (KPI's I believe they are called) so again it goes back to my initial comment that the power of discretion is diminishing on a daily basis.
That is a very subjective question. On the issue of a small number plate, well I have never had that problem becuase I think small plates look twattish, and they are the size they are for a reason, but that said, I only booked people who had the micro sized plates, and even then I would give them a defect rectification notice to get it sorted within the 14 days, and if they chose to ignore the opportunity to get it done, then they really had no argument when a summons dropped through their letter box. But in the case you mention, I certainly would have no problems if I found myself in that situation. Unfortunately though in this day and age, there are some who feel that it is one law for them and a different law for everyone else, which stinks. But in respect of speeding, you show me someone who reckons that they have never exceeded the speed limit (myself included) and I will show you a liar. I am like everyone else, give me a decent bit of GLF road and I will use it If I get caught, then I have nobody to blame but myself as nobody forced me to exceed the limit. That said, I do always comply with 30, 40's and 50's as that is where you are most likely to get caught, and it is quite a smug satisfying feeling when you get passed by the bloke who thinks that the limits don't apply to them and a mile down the road there they are at the side of the road getting the preverbial 3 points and a fine.
TC, you sound like a man I ride with on occasion that's a former bike cop, who is a thoroughly decent guy and in reality does far more for safety now he's left the force. It's a pity all the decent guys are reaching 'pension' age, leaving and being replaced by faceless boxes, vans etc etc. You'd think someone by now would have asked the authorities to revise their approach based on public preception, but they obviously just dont care.
