What's in it for the Police?

[Corranga]

I've been stopped twice in my life, ones after a 9pm finish at work in my old Mini, and 2nd in the Elise.
They put the Mini under a fine tooth comb but could come up with nothing other than "we had to travel double the limit to catch up with you, that is a 20s plenty zone for the safety of the family's living there" and weren't impressed when I asked where they turned around and pointed out that they were travelling in the opposite direction meaning they must have travelled nearly twice the distance I had! They held me up for about 20 minutes whilst they called in to ensure the car was insured or something.

The 2nd time, I was in the Elise with one of my then girlfriends cousins in the car. She was 10 or 11 I think. They quizzed me about the speed I was doing and the limits on the 3 roads they watched me drive along multiple times, and did the walk around the car again. What angered me was that if they really had watched me on the 3 roads they mentioned, they would have stopped the Mondeo that passed me at 60 in a 40 limit, before I turned off the road.

Both occasions were a few years apart, and I was within the limit (or 10% of) and both occasions were by cars with 'Police Dogs' on the back window

[Sanjøy]

Like all jobs there are good uns and bad uns. If you are not happy is there not a complaints procedure?

2p

[j2 lot]

They slapped a £40 fine on him for carrying an open container of alcohol, even though he wasn't drinking it and it was in a bag,

I had no idea that was a law / by-law. It seems like a ridiculous bit of policing,

An open bottle or an opened bottle?

I simply wouldnt believe a teenager carrying an open bottle around the streets wasnt drinking it.

Opened bottle - room for doubt. The by-law is almost certainly drinking in public rather than carrying an open bottle.

Unfortunately ignorance of the law is no defence. People who have to put up with teens drinking on street corners etc & associated antisocial behaviour wouldnt agree it was ridiculous Policing

BTW not saying your work colleagues son is anything other than an upstanding citizen but sometimes looking at the bigger picture changes the perspective.

[BiggestNizzy]

Like every profession the police has it's fair share of arseholes, Think of the people they work with every day, scumbags, junkies etc.

I know a bloke in his 50's who was pulled over for having a loud exhaust in his f-type jag, he not so politly told the officer that if he had an issue with it he should direct it towards jaguar as it's the one it came with. and that was the end of it.
I have had the police tell me to get a stick on number plate and been told of the new s1 number plate plinth that stops it from getting ripped off on speedbumps

But when I was t-boned by a police car in my youth the first guy on the scene couldn't have been nicer (the guy who hit me was a dick) but they guy who was there first couldn't have done more for me.

[graeme]

I''ve been pulled over 3 times, all for speeding, since I was 17. First with a radar gun, doing <40 in a 30, quiet time of night, fair cop. The other two were more like, "Blimey, he looks like he's making a bit too much progress... let's turn round and have a word".

All 3 times they were polite (one a little grumpy at having to catch me in an Astra Diesel, but still polite enough). All three times I got a driver/vehicle check, a polite word of warning, and sent on my way, efficiently and respectfully.

Sounds like you got a wrong-un, but the whole force is far from out to get us.

[Ferg]

I'm a firm believer in that you get out what you put in. Be polite and calm and that's what you get back. It can sometimes be the difference between a warning or something worse. But sometimes you just have to accept it if get have you bang to rights. As said above though, you get good and bad examples in any public facing job, in fact any job. Unfortunately some people are just dicks.

[jason]

Important to stress I'm generalising here, not addressing Gordon's experience in the slightest, David.

...I often feel great sympathy for some public service workers. They're every move is scrutinised to the unfair nth degree in a way most workers just aren't. It has to be tough at times. Not often you read bad press or forum chat about "that dickhead in the office who just bullied the young lad at the photocopier", etc.

Like Sanjoy says, there's good and bad in every job.

[Callummarshall]

I've been stopped 15-20 times In my almost 5 years of driving (some rightfully, some not so). Young lad in a modified car or a sports car is always a seemingly easy target, some cops are fair others just want to screw you over. It's the same in every profession there are good guys and wanks.

At the end of the day I find the best approach is to be helpful and polite, it can make the difference between a warning and prosecution or an unfavourable statement and a favourable one. But it also important to never admit to anything until shown evidence.

[hiscot]

Program on tv once where young lads would meet to show off their slightly modded cars ,
The police where crawing all over them to see what they could issue tickets for , these where hard working young lads not thieving bag head scum .I thought what a shame easy targets whilst the scrum roam free

[flyingscot68]

I just used to do a runner, but then they started cheating by using helicopters, took all the fun out of it


Sent from somewhere using something

[pete]

And a nice story.

One of my 17 stops...

I was living neat Bournemouth and me and my flatmates had been into town and I was designated driver. 2300 and I was being egged on to get back before the Chinese closed.So car full of young guys, (Opel Ascona SR with a K&N) clattering along through Boscombe when we passed a Police bike going the other way.

I saw it and slowed but as he disappaeared in my mirrors without slowing I accelerated again and off we went. A few minutes later I saw the blue lights in my mirror, slowed down and stopped.

"Do you know why I've stopped you?" He asked.
Before I could answer my mates in the car answered for me, "Because he drives like a nutter! NICK HIM." they shouted "He always drives like this!" followed by hoots of laughter.

The next ten minutes was torture, more like a game show than a traffic stop as the crowd (my mates) heaped scorn on my driving, told the cop they were glad he had saved them by stopping me, that they were scared, that they kept telling me to slow down but I wouldn't listen - all punctuated by hails of drunken laughter.

In the end he let me go and was spot on about the whole thing...

Fifty something on the VASCAR, braking for the traffic lights.

[Matelotman]

The form would've been a VREC (Vehicle defect RECtification).

It requires for a 'defect' to be rectified and the form stamped at a MOT station and returned to the address on the back . If the defect is just written as 'exhaust' then I'm sure an inspection of the 'exhaust' by your friendly MOTer would see it fit for the road and the form stamped and returned within the allowed time with minimal drama.

[robin]

Minimal drama other than the utter waste of time organizing the visit to MOT station (not open outside of normal working hours, so for most people it means time off work to organize).

Are all MOT stations required to perform VREC inspections for free?

If not, who pays when it turns out there was no fault to rectify.

Just sayin' ... of course if you mention any of this you might be accused of wasting police time

[David]

In the end Gordon had to pay for a mini MOT and took the form to the police station. I just feel that there was no need for this - done purely for a 'because we can' attitude towards a young lad who was doing everything he could to keep a car legal on the road. As said earlier, the police have achieved nothing other than give a very negative first experience of the police.

[woody]

For balance (I've copied & pasted from elsewhere out of laziness), happened mid October:

I had the clutch fail on a car 12 days ago in Glasgow city center on one of the steepest hills (Bothwell Street turning up Pitt Street). The traffics were just behind and could not have been more helpful. They stopped all traffic, pushed the car up hill (with me in it) to a point where I was able to free wheel to a safer place before setting the car up to tow it to an empty parking space & then dropping me off at my destination. Got their numbers & emailed them in a thank-you as I doubt they get many.