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I get up to all sorts while driving, like today I was late for a quote and while speeding there I realised I needed a slash so I releaved myself in a Volvic bottle while driving. 😛hone:
 
A guy (decent, respectable, middle-aged chap) told me when he had went to a garage to get fuel, or whatever, then when he got into his car & drove across the forecourt to leave, a passing police car on the main road spun around & drove into the place & said he wasn't wearing a seat belt. They said he was in a public place & he was heavily fined etc. Think I would have fought it.
The irony is, if he had have reversed across the garage forecourt, without wearing the seat belt, he would have been ok!
What bugs me is all those police programmes on tv, where some total law breaker, with a wreak of a car & no licence, no mot, insurance etc, races through busy streets nearly killing people & often hitting other cars & finally gets caught by loads of police & gets a slap on the wrist basically.
 
A guy (decent, respectable, middle-aged chap) told me when he had went to a garage to get fuel, or whatever, then when he got into his car & drove across the forecourt to leave, a passing police car on the main road spun around & drove into the place & said he wasn't wearing a seat belt. They said he was in a public place & he was heavily fined etc. Think I would have fought it. The irony is, if he had have reversed across the garage forecourt, without wearing the seat belt, he would have been ok! What bugs me is all those police programmes on tv, where some total law breaker, with a wreak of a car & no licence, no mot, insurance etc, races through busy streets nearly killing people & often hitting other cars & finally gets caught by loads of police & gets a slap on the wrist basically.
A guy phoning in to a TV program in the week said he was driving past two parked-up speed cops on bikes and waved because he thought he knew one of them. Apparently, they didn't know him, and he got followed and pulled over and booked for taking his hand off the wheel to wave, i.e. driving while not in proper control of the vehicle. The ironic punchline to the story was that he said he got the ticket scrapped because he knew the Chief Constable!

Those car chases on TV really are the pits: usually some young kid in a fiesta being chased by a couple of BMWs, a Ranger Rover or two, several Pandas, and a helicopter. Such chases are supposed to be supervised by a senior officer who has authority to pull the plug if the pursuit is clearly putting the public at serious risk, so how do they justify filming such chases when they are obviously putting life and limb at risk?

Cops with cameras and all the rest of the cruddie police TV shows are just another example of what entertains a lot of people these days, i.e. they love to watch someone getting into trouble on some vicarious power trip. Beats me as to how Chief Constables can think that filming a bus load of coppers dealing with traffic incidents can be good publicity. Or how badgering some young kid until he says f.o. so that they can throw him on the ground and cuff him (usually requiring at least four coppers) can seem like worthwhile TV entertainment to so many people.
 
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Basically police have targets to hit both high and low. What this means is if a particular crime is in the media lets say driving without due care after a high profile fatality then every man and his dog gets arrested for this over trivial things like stereo too loud. Eating at wheel etc. This then makes the crime appear disproportionately common so big public awareness campaign then all of a sudden the crime rate for the offence drops overnight. What is really happening is they then look the other way allowing joy riders to get lesser charges. Hiding the figures this way is called cuffing.
It happens across the board as well. A neighbour complains of noise after man and wife argue. He gets arrested for domestic violence yet never raised finger. Opposite side of the street a month later a guy knocks his wife about badly and gets arrested for public disturbance. Basically from one week to the next the charge and the sentence depends on whether there is a crackdown on a crime or a desire to prove that the rates have fallen due to police activity

It stinks but there you go. Didn't expect anything else did ya?

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Traffic offending is revenue generating.

With the increase in speed cameras (fixed and mobile) has come a decline in the number of speed limit signs.

Nowadays, the norm is to see a speed limit sign as you enter the limited area, and then not to see another one until the limit ends or changes.

The police always use the same spot in our area for generating revenue, it's a rural and straight piece of road with a slight but long incline. The speed limit sign is miles away, but there are lamp-posts that are mainly concealed by roadside trees.

To stay at 30 you have to use your brakes because of the long slope downwards, and the police always site the speed check at the bottom of this slope.

Most locals know it well and make sure they brake, but as it's a link road to a main arterial road it gets used by a lot of non-locals who are set up for making a contribution to public funds as they edge over the 30 limit while descending the slope.

There is no reason at all why the road should be subject to a 30 limit, but as it is, if they were to put a 30 limit sign half way down the slope so that people checked their speed I reckon very few people would exceed the limit. But then of course public funds would be short of a nice little earner.

Off the top of my head I can think of three road junctions within five miles of me that have multiple sets of traffic lights that can be quite confusing, even to locals. They've put a camera at each site to catch anyone who might get confused. The money would have been much better spent on redesigning the lights so that only one set can be seen at a time, but they've chosen not to do that.

Satellite technology and computerisation have created the potential for every car to be constantly monitored for speed, but will the authorities ever bring it in, bearing in mind that if people know they can't get away with speeding very few will even try, but then what about the loss of revenue due to minimal opportunities for fining people?

By the use of satellite technology drivers can automatically be alerted and warned that they are speeding, but will the authorities ever require every vehicle to be fitted with such technology?

A regard for road safety and the potential economies for policing would suggest that it would be "criminal" to ignore such advances, but then without a law to cover the act there is no offence.
 
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Oh, to be a policeman these days.

On the one hand 99 out of 100 of us moan when they pull us over for a minor traffic offence. One that tickled me above was the hand off the steering wheel. In the highway code taking your hand off the steering wheel to indicate your intended direction of travel to a policeman or traffic warden is what you're meant to do!!

Then when it comes to families we're outraged when it turns out that the toddler did just fall off the slide and wasn't beaten up by the parents who were arrested and held in cells overnight, after a call from a third party who was concerned about the child.

Then we're even outraged when they fail to respond to a domestic dispute and someone later dies.

And if there's a major fight on a Friday/Saturday night are we bold enough to intervene and break things up? Who do we call?

Then there are terrorist attacks which, due to the police work, are fortunately extremely rare and loads of arrests/deportation actions occur without us commenting at all.

Oh, to be a policeman.

I was done for speeding many, many years ago on a fairly empty motorway and was huffing and puffing. But if I got home and found squatters in the house, I knew full well who I'd be phoning to help me.

Sometimes this plumbing game seems such as easy life!
 
you can be done for smoking while driving if you have your *** in the right hand and you change gear because you have not got a good grip on the steering wheel while changing gear.

I did have sympathy for some until a good mate of mine's mother died in a car crash because the other driver was not paying attention to the road. I see know reason to use your phone, read a map etc.... while driving when it takes 10 seconds to pull over safely but i see idiots doing it every day.
 
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