Double standards

[philipwalker]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7130028.stm

[S4TAN]

"Overall, the BBC investigation uncovered 26 cases between 2003 and 2006, where South Yorkshire police officers caught speeding on duty failed to admit they were driving and cases were dropped."

Corrupt bastards.

[SimonFV8]

And they expect respect from us and other motorist. Well we all know what to do if we get caught on a speed camera now!!

[derdle]

But with the new law, if the registered keeper cannot divulge the name of the driver, then the regsitered keeper gets 6 points and a fine. So Police Chielf Constables will be losing licences hand over fist we hope. Hold on, silly me, there is probably an exclusion built into the law to exempt them.

[rikrose]

The article says that they were all on duty. If they're speeding on duty, then their car's black box and positioning system loggers will both say what speed they were doing,a dn the black box will also have recorded the in car and radio cahtter, so if they were sent to do something or chase something, then that'll be recorded there. In addition, the control room logs will back that up. That covers the "sent to do something" cases.

On top of that lot, actions taken "at the time", such as investigating another vehicle up the road that's driving badly/suspiciously or might be a stolen vehicle won't be logged on the radio chatter, but is still a valid reason for not being convicted of anything - they were on police business.

Now, this can be abused slightly, but then you also have to bear in mind that there are several levels of police driving training. There is (at least) the following sets of training:
- Police teaching you how to drive because you hadn't got your licence before joining.
- Police teach you how to drive fast, to respond ot an incident quickly
- Police training you how to chase someone safely.

Note that if you've only done the first level, you end up in tha hilarious situation of having the book thrown at you if you break the speed limit - including when you have the blues on. It also lets you know what you can and can't do. There are recorded instances of un-trained drivers ending up rear-ending another police car because they weren't trained properly for what they were doing, and (if I remember correctly) losing their job over it.

On top of all of these sets of training, there's also that the block box data from each car is saved and revieweda few days later, to see if you were doing anything stupid.


It's amazing what you happen to learn when you spend the day with a police pursuit driver playing Rainbow Six: Vegas and chatting about random stuff all day.

[Turbo Joe]

Steamroll the coppers!

[johnny11]

I remember a few months ago i was going down the A217 in Sutton towards rosehill, its a dual carriageway and as i was next to a police car i stuck dead on 40mph then as we both approached the gatso the police car floored it passed the camera making it flash then he slowed down and came to a stop at the lights. As i came to a stop next to them i looked at them and all of occupants were laughing, so all i can think of they were making a point of "look what i can do and get away with it". This really annoyed so its a shame they got reported by me

[derdle]

This really annoyed so its a shame they got reported by me

Well done. I hope they got what they deserved, but somehow..I doubt it!

[JohnRet.]

rikrose has it about right.