Police advice to motorists blocked by tree

[AlexJ]

During the recent storms in Britain, the BBC posted the following image on their website:



Now, there's a blinking great tree across the road and their advice is merely to slow down! Stopping would be a better idea.

[Harrison]

With all the Police cost cutbacks I expect they couldn't afford the right sign!

[J T]

"Police slow"

Yeah, aren't they just

[Harrison]

Except where catching motorist speeding is concerned. They are not too slow at catching them as it gets them a quick profit!

[AlexJ]

Well they don't actually have to any work for speeding - the council and police put up a camera and take the money. The govt. then take a share of the profits.

[Harrison]

Unless you take the motorway police into account of course, lurking around in their unmarked cars!

[AlexJ]

Unless you take the motorway police into account of course, lurking around in their unmarked cars!

And the speed camera vans I suppose as well. But apparently it isn't proper police officers that operate those. Any person (with a driving licence) can be employed to operate the camera vans without going through the police training etc.

[Submeg]

Really? you have to be a police officer over here to operate speed cameras

[AlexJ]

Really? you have to be a police officer over here to operate speed cameras

No, the UK have decided otherwise. A quick google search turned up the hideosly designed Norfolk Safety Camera Partnerships website which states: "The safety cameras are operated by additional dedicated civilian operators thereby not abstracting officers from other policing duties." (Safety cameras are what the govt. and police call speed cameras)

It's almost like a legalised vigilante - if those people are dedicated speed camera operators, then chances are they are anti-car and as such not use common sense.

The worst one I saw was a van on a motorway bridge at 11:30pm, when I'd come across one car in the last 5 minutes. Now in these conditions, I doubt anybody does 70MPH (113k/h for those of you outside the UK & US). Lucky I spotted him fairly early (it's a common bridge for the van to be on) so slowed in time. On the other hand, a police car passed me on the motorway a few weeks back,again late at night, I was doing significantly more than the speed limit and saw him come past but he just carried on. There wasn't any danger to other being caused so he saw that a ticket was pointless and carried on (going himself at a speed above the limit, which he thought was reasonable). Common sense prevailed.

[Harrison]

It's the same around here. The police don't normally bother stopping anyone going over the speed limit on the motorway if there is not much about. I normally see them shoot past me doing well over 100 MPH some nights.

When I travel to the west country it always seems the camera vans are around down that way early in the morning from 5am catching people. Have to really be careful sometimes as they are often just around bends.

I didn't know civilians operated the camera vans either. I always remember my uncle, who was a Police Officer before he recently retired, complaining if he got sent on camera duty. He hates traffic police and he was a police officer himself!

One funny thing is that he was in charge of the placement of the speed cameras near where he lives, so made sure there were none near his routes to work. He also likes to go past the slow down speed warnings to make sure they are all working correctly.