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No one knows why you flash your lights. Perhaps your finger slipped or something. You can always say you flashed them to indicate that you were there.
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I am guilty of flashing my lights for no good reason when/after I drive daughters car if trying to clean the windscreen as her idicators/washers are the wrong way round!! Whoops, was that a speed trap just there?
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On the net and in local press round here, the camarea partnership people publish where they are going to be and when (down to maybe a road, junction and AM or PM IIRC).
Could you consider this to be the same issue?
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It is very very hard to believe that, with the shortage of police persons actually out on the street preventing crime or arresting criminals, that there is spare capacity to harrass and intimidate headlamp flashers.
Slight thread drift ' I recommend that people read "Wasting Police Time" by PC David Copperfield (pseudonym, natch) or goes to his policing blog. The first chapter in his book starts with him turning up for a shift at 0700 and due to leave, courses, sicknees, court appearances etc he is the only uniformed person on duty in a town of 60,000 people! Over 6 hours to process the arrest paperwork for two drunks etc. Snowed under with Home Office paperwork!
Just google for "David Copperfield + police blog" and all will be revealed.
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After reading this thread, I re-assert my feeling
British legal system simply sucks!
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Can't remember if anyone's been convicted of obstruction - there is also potentially pervert the course of justice - doing an act tending to or intending that the course of justice is perverted. A bit thin, but a possibility.
Going onto Armitage Shanks - David Copperfield has it almost exactly right. It's a very good book in all sorts of ways, but there are a number of things that are spot on. Well worth a read to see how your money gets wasted...
O
--
Career: (n) Job, profession.
(v) Downhill, rapidly, out of control.
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Can't remember if anyone's been convicted of obstruction - there is also potentially pervert the course of justice - doing an act tending to or intending that the course of justice is perverted.
The point I made earlier - the police could not prove anyone slowed down.
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"Your honour: In my judgment the car coming in the other direction was drifting over to my side ofthe road, so I used my headlights to help him notice my presence."
Then again, why should you have to perjure yourself when you are warning someone of a proven accident blackspot?
V
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I dont think you even have to be driving a car, didn't some guy get prosecuted for standing on the pavement holding up a sign?
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Yes, he got banned from driving (despite being on foot) for holding up a placard saying 'Speed trap ahead, slow down!', because drivers were driving far too fast past a boot sale where lots of pedestrians were about.
Interesting that he gets prosecuted while trying to improve safety by getting drivers to slow down immediately, but the people caught by the police wouldn't have known anything about it until several days later when the NIP dropped on their doormat.
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Continental motorists flash oncoming drivers on a regular basis to warn of speed traps.
Re mobile speed traps - the main Preston paper mounted a very successful campaign a year or two back to highlight the dangerous parking of some of these vehicles and, eventually, Lancashire Police had to take the necessary steps to eliminate the offenders.
The paper backed the campaign up with regular stories and photographs of the offending mobile speed trap vehicles and operators.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Couple of years ago Police were operating a speed trap on a country lane leading to a car Boot.
Whilst checking vehicles a chap ON FOOT foot started to wave to motorists warning them of the check ahead.
That chap was reported for obstructing the Police and convicted. In addition he was DISQUALIFIED from driving under Section 146 Power of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.
There was an appeal and I seem to recall it was not upheld (cannot find my case note on this) and stated was the fact that to substantiate the offence of obstruction then there had to be evidence that vehicles were exceeding the speed limit coupled with the attempt to warm these speeders of the check ahead.
So from what said do not understand the offence of misuse of headlights but looks as if there could be an offence of obstructing the Police?
dvd
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Cheers DVD, that's pretty much what I thought. I just wondered if there was a 'misuse of headlights' offence which I didn't know about. Sounds to me like the police are just trying to put the wind up this guy, otherwise why wouldn't they have threatened him with a real offence?
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...but looks as if there could be an offence of obstructing the Police? dvd
agreed.
if police are aware of a speeders, and set up a trap a to catch them, is it ok for the public to warn the potential criminals and stop/prevent the crime before it actually happens?
if police are aware of a planned bank robbery, and set up a trap a to catch them (as they did at the millenium dome for the diamond robbery), is it ok for the public to warn the potential criminals and stop/prevent the crime before it actually happens ?
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if police are aware of a planned bank robbery and set up a trap a to catch them (as they did at the millenium dome for the diamond robbery) is it ok for the public to warn the potential criminals and stop/prevent the crime before it actually happens ?
I would say yes, because until the offence is commited no crime has been commited, that is presuming it is not actually illegal to plan a crime ,just illegal to commit it.
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>>until the offence is commited no crime has beencommited
Erm, harumph, "going equipped", "conspiracy", "incitement", erm.
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presuming it is not actually illegal to plan a crime just illegal to commit it.
Tell that to poor old hanged, drawn and quartered Guido Fawkes, the Jacobean Catholic terrorist...
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Read this
tinyurl.com/2bag2h
The case was R v Glendinning 2005 and the crutial point made was
it has been held that a person who warns motorists of a police speed check is only guilty of obstructing a constable in the execution of his duty if the prosecution proves that the motorists warned were in fact speeding or were likely to be speeding at that location. [DPP v Glendinning (2005)
A piouint of note also was that at the initial hearing ans found guilty, despite not driving and on FOOT he was also disqualified from driving under S 146 Power of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.
So if Plod can prove those warned were speeding then there is an offence of obstructing the Police.
Not sure of the misuse of headlights offence ?
dvd
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the previous thread on this subject is here:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=37719&...e
Flashing lights as warning of speed trap - Thommo Fri 30 Dec 05 12:27
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Stupid if you ask me.
Under the same principle, if I am speeding and my wife or a passenger tells me to slow down because there is a speed trap in the area then she / they would be committing an offence!
Oh, and I should not tell my children not to shoplift either (not that they do btw), because, by extending the point, I could be done for perverting the course of justice or obstruction or whatever!
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Take the case of a bunch of youngsters out on the town on a Friday evening (walking, not driving). Some are a bit lively after a few too many drinks, and one of the more sober ones sees Plod up the street giving people on the spot fines for being drunk in a public place. He tells his mates to behave, and to walk past Plod quietly, which they do.
Has the sober one committed an offence?
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He tells his mates to behave and to walk past Plod quietly which they do. Has the sober one committed an offence?
Supposing someone sees a number of men approaching a bank wearing striped jersys and carrying bags marked 'swag'. He knows that there are police officers waiting inside the bank.
If he suggests that the 'robbers' stop what they are doing and go home because they will be arrested, he has stopped a crime being committed.
Has he committed a crime himself?
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>>Supposing someone sees a number of men approaching a bank wearing striped jersys and carrying bags >>marked 'swag'. He knows that there are police officers waiting inside the bank.
>>If he suggests that the 'robbers' stop what they are doing and go home because they will be arrested, he has stopped a crime being committed.
>>
>>Has he committed a crime himself?
Probably!
I suspect that if a driver was doing 30 in a 30 limit but was going to let the car coast (in gear of course) down a hill, where of course it would nudge, say 34, then sees a police trap and adjusts his speed, even if he was not speeding, he will be guilty of intention to speed and perverting the course of justice by applying the brake or by changing gear.
Also , no braking in front of a speed camera and no looking at speed camera warning signs as these could be considered wrong as well. Hang on, does this make speed camera signs illegal too?
Oh and for hevens sake - we should not be talking about avoiding the law as that may be conspiracy and trhe sentance of that is unlimited!
;-)
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The thrust of the "obstruction" offence is preventing a police officer going about his/her duties, including the gathering of evidence of a crime or crimes commited.
Flashing a warning way before a speed trap to encourage a motorist to slow down is difficult to prove in the first place (When is there a second PC waiting 100 m down the road to watch for "flashers"? how often is there ever a second PC, except in Scotland??) and cannot in itself constitute an offence unless intention can be proved.
However, as the Cannonball Run blasts through a sleepy village, if I decide to dazzle PC Plod with a laser, or throw a tarpaulin over the Gatso, then I'm preventing evidence-gathering and as good as helping the crime take place. Shouting a warning to the striped jerseys waiting in the bushes outside Barclays is similarly standing in the way of the law.
Just as radar detectors are now illegal, it's only a matter of time before flashing a warning is made a specific traffic offence, meaning points on licence and yet more swelling of coffers (as happened in Spain last year).
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How do local newspapers get the information so that they can publish the locations of speedcameras? From the police perhaps?
How can it be an offence then to warn about something that is already in the public domain?
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our local 'safety camera partnership' publishes the location of cameras on their website and lists the routes they're concentrating on in any given week.
tinyurl.com/33vy4g
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