According to the press West Mids police plan to start stopping many honest, decent, legal drivers and informing them
to "please remove you sat nav system when you park as it is likely to be stolen"
now
i) are they legally entitled to do mass car stop campaigns against ordinary folk who have done nothing wrong, slowing down their journey etc
ii) why do they not focus their attention on catching the criminals nicking sat nav systems?
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i) yes they can
ii) because it won't do much for their stats/KPIs/Home Office targets/CC's pension
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Wouldn't see it as a problem - prevention is better than cure, as our Gran always told us!!
& it might dicover some untoward activity,by some not so innocent motorists - if the Police get lucky!!
VB
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My boss moved from Holland to the UK last year and had his year old sat nav system nicked out of his car after less than four hours. It's a pretty major problem.
I do wonder if the police's time might be better spent doing sting operations in car parks or otherwise investigating the criminals behind it.
Cheers
DP
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I seem to recall a sting operation along these lines. Or maybe it was a company touting the technology to enable easy tracking of a GPS unit.
Basically the GPS device is turned into a trackable unit and the police lie in wait. Scumbag steals the unit and they catch the thief. A new way of making use of GPS :-)
Sure someone can find a URL.
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this sort of thing does happen........but embarrassingly the 'track' can be lost....
and then there's the significant costs i.e the car, the window or door (that gets broken), the numerous staff employed for God knows how long until someone does something, in the covert or hired vehicles, etc
not as easy as you would imagine....... and as for the penalty the miscreant will recieve (maybe) that's another depressing story
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Damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Merseyside Police have been offering such advice for a little while, plus advising Mondeo and Focus owners about how easy it is for the toe rags to break into these models (as my best mate knows to his cost; didn't even set the alarm off) to steal the Ford radio units.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Sting operation, pft! would never get past the risk assessment stage, they might cut themselves on the glass or have a fight with a have a go hero.
This is just the biggest rubbish, just when you thought you'd heard it all. I have never seen a sat nav in an unattended car.
I have seen plenty of criminals hanging around parks and things at night.
Sounds like the Police now just think they'd rather busybody around decent people than tackle yobs and crooks. What's more, I can imagine some commitee of 'indoor police managers' saying to each other what wonderful 'high visibility community engagement' this will be and how it will 'reassure the community'.
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all the politicians are interested in is the crime figures, politicians nowadays dictate to the police chiefs specifics that need to be achieved and so it comes down trhough the system..........if by stopping people and preventing them from leaving a satnav in the car glove box or centre console and thereby from being stolen, then the local police will achieve better figures and 'all' will be happy..........won't they?
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Well ...... A constable still swears an oath to prevent and detect crime in that order. They really can't win can they.
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Every taxi and private hire around here seems to have a satnav of some sort. Now I don't want to generalise in any shape or form, but taxi drivers are usually , ahem,willing to partake in any special deals doing the rounds?
There must be a huge market for the thieves to sell these units on. I assume that there is no tracking (excuse the pun) of these units like with mobile phones whereby you can get them disabled if they are stolen?
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all the politicians are interested in is the crime figures,
That's because WE are all so interested in the crime figures. Every time a new set is released they are published in the papers and there is much comment on whether they have gone up/down, what the reason is etc etc. I am a great believer in the old saying that we 'get the politicians we deserve'. Almost every aspect of government policy is determined by public opinion nowadays - that's my problem with the current government (and indeed the opposition parties) - they have no underpinning ideology. They are like the board of supermarket - test marketing, running focus groups - basically trying to find out what the 'customers' want and giving it to them. They should all be leading and shaping public opinion, not following it. Unfortunately most of the population are so brain dead from watching junk TV, shopping and boozing that they happily go along with it.
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I have never seen a sat nav in an unattended car.
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Are you serious?! I walked past a parked Mazda6 in our local Morrisons this evening and it had a TomTom stuck in the windscreen. See unattended sat-navs quite often - some people still aren't getting the message.
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yes its true the out of place stereo, speed camera warning device, and GPS in many a taxi look very suspictious
I wonder what a random check of serial numbers would reveal?
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Instead of warning drivers wouldn't the policeman be better walking VISIBLY around the car parks making sure the theives know he is there - will be far more use as a deterrent, or don't they like walking around these days?
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