Thanks for the replies everyone, i think the main topic of concern here is due to a bit of a typo on my part - they WERE in uniform, NOT 'undercover' as i wrote, just in an unmarked car.
I did consider asking to see some ID, but basically never got round to it due to feeling quite intimidated by the male officers temper, and i meant to take down the registration too, but again in the heat of the moment i forgot.
I have no problem with there being plenty of police actually on the roads, at all times of the day, in fact i think its great as speed cameras cannot pick up drunkerds etc.
However i did object to the manner in which they more-or-less 'harassed' me for approaching ten minutes before i pulled into my drive, before over-exercising their authoritarian egos. And yes, the quote about 'getting a traffic cop down here to charge you, take you to court and remove your license' is word-perfect.
I would have had no problem whatsoever with them pulling me after the incident with the amber light, mentioning the incident, and commenting that my speed at that point was slightly excessive (the "less than 40" bit) and sending me on my way - in fact i would have been impressed with their conduct.
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They were in A uniform but was it from your local theatrical suppliers? Seriously, their language seems a little odd - as IIRC you don't need a traffic cop, just a warrant, and licence removal is a court matter etc etc.
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Hawesy are you in Scotland by any chance ?
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The only other thought here is that they were a crime car of sorts and after Twocers. The way you were driving may have led them to think that you were trying to bait them into a chase, PNC would have showed nothing more than your car details which still meant that the car was unreported as stolen, this does lead to a certain amount of adrenalin and that was released when you stopped outside the address the car was registred to in the form of some sarcasm and threats, in the old days and in certain other countries might have led to a thrashing.
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Two sides to every story as DVD rightly points out. Not to mention the attitude test which I would suggest affects the nature of the verbals.
Also see
www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/display.var.443287.0.p...p
\"Police target bad drivers
Police in north west London are stopping cars and offering motorists a course to improve their driving skills.
The area has seen 13 deaths and 11 fatal collisions during November - mostly caused by bad or dangerous driving, according to traffic police.
Although part of the problem is drink-driving, other faults include tailgating, undertaking and speeding.
Specialist vehicles equipped with video cameras have been patrolling fast roads in the area - including the A40, A406, A1 and A41 - and have been stopping and reporting dangerous driving and offering courses at the London Driving Improvement Scheme.\"
Basically this consists of unmarked cars out to get lousy drivers and about time too!
Coming to a force area near you in 2004, allegedly.
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Ahhhhhhh. "The attitude test".
Is that the same Hawsey that goes spotting VELs on Police cars?
There seems to be a common theme here.
Fullchat
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I was stopped a couple of years ago as I was about to turn into the North Staffs hospital, by a police car which had been following me for 2 miles. They allaged that I had been speeding on the A34, which I had not. I was able to tell them the name of the street that they had pulled out of, detail the lane changing that they had done, and then asked them why I would speed if I so obviously knew they were behind me. I asked to see proof of the speeding allegation and also asked for their collar numbers so as to make a complaint.
They just said that they would let me go with a warning this time. As their car pulled off I noticed that a rear light was out. The cheek of it! I regret to this day not actually taking things further, but at the time I had to concern myself with visiting my terminally ill mother.
I think that's the point at which I started on a downer towards police action against motorists. Am sure that a less confident person would have accepted everything that they had said, and may well have ended up with a HORT.
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On Saturday night I was on the M55 heading into Blackpool to pick up SWMBO at 1am. I spotted from quite a distance that the vehicle in front was a police car. I kept my distance but matched it's speed, which fluctuated between 70 and 90 mph. It indicated to take an exit and did so, and a sixth sense told me that it was going to come down the other side and re-join the motorway behind me. I maintained 90mph and sure enough I saw a vehicle join the motorway behind me, so dropped the speed to 75. It slowly closed the distance and sure enough, when it passed me, it turned out to be the same police car (it had a rear light out).
I could only conclude that they were hoping I would race off when I saw them leave the motorway.
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Very common trick, that one.
Happens at Jn 2 on the M27 all the time, ditto Bullington Cross on A34
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You folowed a known police car at 90 MPH, you must be crazy, if they had VASCAR on boatd they could have clocked you between two bridges or exits and nick you. You were lucky mate.. Regards Peter
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Peter D, I don't know how well you can see bridges etc, at 1am, and establish when the car travelling some distance behind has passed under them, when all you can see are it's headlights. It was pitch black, so how could they tell with certainty that I had passed a fixed point?
I didn't realise that police vehicles could exceed the posted limit if not on a shout, so what was it doing at 90?
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Hi pdc, the police passenger can just look back and trigger Vascar as your head lights pass underside of the bridge and it falls rapidly into darkness. Regards Peter
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Hmmm.
You're doing less than 40 in a 30.
You're going too fast for the conditions and can't stop for the traffic lights as the road is slippery.
You do 70 in a 50 zone.
And you're complaining about the Police!
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"The ONLY time i broke the law was when i feared i was being followed dangerously by persons unknown who i had reason to suspect intended me harm."
Lol
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If it's a good enough excuse fo Jack Straw then it's good enough for everyone else.
Blue
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Fullchat - What's a VEL?
FiF/PU - Ah, interestingly, i live in Watford, and the part of the A405 i was followed on is about 1/2 mile from the A41 - mentioned by FiF as one of the roads targeted by police offering improvement courses. However no mention of that to me on Saturday night. I assume it's a case of "Do this course or take 3 points and a fine"?
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Hawsey
Did you get pulled anywhere near the Police station on the 405 adjacent to the Kingswood estate? If so would have thought that they could have nipped back to get a breathalyser kit if they wanted?
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No i was eventually 'spoken to' in Bricket Wood, 2-3 miles further down. If you know the area, the amber light was the one between Garston Lane and St Albans road, with me turning right out of Garston Lane. The unmarked car followed me through these, then past the M1 junction, into Bricket Wood.
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Bearing in mind the number of cars with defective lights, tailgating drivers, and dangerous speeding happening on our roads (and that's just the police cars), I don't think there's an excuse for the way the police behaved.
Trouble is, if you criticise you're seen as anti-police. It could of course be you're in favour of a good, intelligent police force and feel we don't have one.
Their image has sunk to a new low over the last week. I believe a silent majority now believe it's a difficult job done badly.
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Graham,
Without trying to sound like i am condoning dangerous driving, i post the following:
The road wasn't 'slippery', it was damp.
The amber light i went through came on too late for me to safely stop for, i had an unknown car too close behind me, and no ABS to aid me in stopping swiftly and safely on a wet road. The lights are at a 'T' junction, where i was making a fairly tight right hand turn, so as i passed the light, i was not only doing a legal speed, but also an appropriate speed for the corner, the same speed as someone who had slowed from 30 would have been doing.
As for 'less than 40 in a 30', yes it was illegal, but this was a wide road with wide, deserted pavements, to the best of my memory i cannot recall a single car going in the other direction. As it's nearly xmas it would be fitting to say 'Not a creature was stirring'. I feel confident in saying that i considered my driving perfectly acceptable at the time, and i suspect that 80%+ of other motorists would do and say the same. Add to that that the police officers did not mention any speeding offence other than the 70 in a 50 offence. I will continue to do 'less than 40 in a 30' under the same circumstances in the future.
As for 70 in a 50, yes this was illegal to the point that i should have been pulled for it, but again i considered it a SAFE speed for the time/location/conditions. It was a full-blown dual carriageway with no other vehicles around bar the one tailgating me, no side turnings and a long stretch without a roundabout. I would NOT have approached this speed had i not felt threatened by the car behind me, and would have felt far happier to have temporarily breached the speed limit and created a safety distance than i would have done by not responding at all.
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As for 'less than 40 in a 30', yes it was illegal
As for 70 in a 50, yes this was illegal to the point that i should have been pulled for it,
Well done.. I suggest you go to your local police station, ask them to charge you as by your own admission you have broken the law twice..
:-)
Personally 1. I would not admit that on a public BB as plod will no doubt read with interest
and 2.. by those statements you clealry show you know the law but hold it in contempt
and 3.. could these admissions be used to persecute you...?
Frankly anyone speeding late at night is just asking to be done by plod... and serves them right too...
madf
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Slippery was your choice of words not mine.
You either needed to stop or didn't. You were able to make a judgement about the car behind and the road conditions - and yet you were unable to deduce that the green light had been so for some time and may decide to turn amber.
40 in a 30 - obviously the law doen't apply to you. Sorry my mistake. 30's are usually in built up areas and for good reason. You've already said the road was slippery, or wasn't it now?
70 in a 50. If someone is tailgating you then anyone else would have slowed so that it was no longer dangerous. i.e. so that they could slow to avoid you if you had to pull up sharpish. But you went faster aggrevating the situation. In what way were you threatened - was it because you're afraid of the dark? If you felt threatened why did you go home, where presumabley you would be getting out of the car - alone. Why didn't you straight to the Police Station?
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Graham - I apologise, i did indeed post 'slippery' initially. However the road was simply damp, not unusually treacherous.
"and yet you were unable to deduce that the green light had been so for some time and may decide to turn amber."
I was perfectly able to deduce that, and as i have already stated, the light changed to amber after i had crossed what i considered to be 'the point of no return', so therefore i continued through the junction. This was no borderline case - there was no "oooh that was close" thought as i passed through, simply that i had caught the very end of the light phase. Nor did i speed up in order to squeeze past in time. When the police brought this up i said the same thing, and they did not argue my reasoning for not stopping.
"40 in a 30 - obviously the law doen't apply to you."
Yes the law applies to me, and yes i consciously went ahead and broke it, but i did so in a manner which i considered acceptable for the circumstances. I would wager that every single person here has exceeded the speed limit at some point in their driving career.
Which would you consider worse - ignore the law, just concentrate on the hazard perception here - illegally driving at *less than* ie. not exceeding 40mph on a road with good all-round visibility at 3am, or driving 29mph past a narrow parked car-lined road adjacent to a school at 3pm. This subject has been discussed in depth in other threads so i will try not to get into it again now.
Again it might be worth noting that whilst i disagree strongly withe police officers actions that night, they did not mention my speed in this section of road at all, so clearly they found it not to be excessive or untowardly dangerous.
"70 in a 50. If someone is tailgating you then anyone else would have slowed so that it was no longer dangerous."
Would they? That could
A) Be seen as aggressive itself, in that you are goading the other driver
B) Be dangerous, as remember it is 3am and i already had cause to doubt the other driver's ability to drive - if they had been a drink driver there is a fair chance they would have simply gone into the back of me, no?
I chose to trust in my driving abilities to prevent an accident occuring during a spurt of speed over those of the other driver. As i have stated beforehand this is a proper dual-carriageway, the other driver CHOSE not to pass me over a good mile of dual-carriageway, instead choosing to tailgate me. I could see that there were at least two people in the car, and i was on my own. I was worried.
"Why didn't you go straight to the Police Station?"
In retrospect i should have done, but your mind never quite works like that when you're actually in the situation. I guess i was hoping that they were on their way somewhere, and were getting a kick out of scaring me until their route naturally took them in a different direction.
In reply to whoever it was posted that i should be careful of admitting speeding on this site, i have surely already been tried for these sins, and received the verbal warning on saturday night as a punishment?
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For what it's worth, I think that certain people here are being extremely hard on Hawesey. I would urge these people to look long and hard at their own driving. If they can honestly say that they have never driven at "less than 40 in a 30", or sneaked through traffic lights just as they change to amber then fine, criticise Hawesey all you like.
However, I'll bet that not one of us here can swear that we have never been guilty of these things. Therefore, we have no right to have a go at someone else for doing it.
As far as I am concerned, the police in this instance acted unfairly and unprofessionally (I acknowledge that I have only seen one side of the story though) and if I had been in the same situation I would not have taken my 'punishment' as calmly as Hawesey did.
Cheers
Rob
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It is so heartening to know that drivers such as Graham never so much as break any motoring rule, or limit by so much as even 1mph! Well put Rob.
Paul
BTW, Still on holiday, found a useable net link for the first time in a month!
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Dare I sympathise with Mr Hawesy over this matter.
Having suffered a similar experience on a deserted dual carriageway in the wee small hours, but with nutter white van driver harassing me, I can confirm it is not a pleasant experience, and a dab of the loud pedal is certainly an instinctive reaction.
Ed.
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"Why didn't you go straight to the Police Station?"
because most are only open 9 to 5, Monday to Saturday maybe?
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Well I've learnt something from this, if a car had tailgated me and followed every turn I made I would have put my foot down as well. Driving to the Police station isn't something I would have thought of under pressure. I will make note of it as a possible strategy if the same ever happens to me.
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I wouldn't bother going to a Police station, 90%+ will be closed with no staff inside. amd the main ones usually just have an empty front desk with an intercom which no-one answers.
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Glad to see some support for Hawsey. I sat and drafted three posts which I didn't Enter because they might have offended, but as usual I am gobsmacked that there are people who (claim to) never ever commit a transgression of any law whatsoever.
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I exceeded the speed limit today - I feel bad.:-(
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Feling some empathy, I also think Hawsey has been harshly dealt with in some responses.
Hopefully non one will condone breaking the law - but there should not be any element of nastiness in dealing with the public, particularly those who are clearly not public enemy #1 and whose support will genarlly go to the police as long as they themselves are treated reasonably.
I do support the police on principle, but it's no thanks to the bully boys who pulled me up and who actually looked angry that I had not been drinking.
There's also the question of provocation - I know I was provoked, and foolishly took the bait, and I infer that something similar was perpetrated on Hawesy (pls correct me if I am putting words in your mouth) - it is perfectly possible to observe somebody without them feeling threatened - also they should have pulled him up when he committed the offence, not continued to torment him.
Full support to the majority of police who sensibly deal with Mr and Mrs Average in a way that cultivates their support and goodwill - you have to say that if an encounter with the police leaves you distrusting their motives, then they have not done their job correctly.
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If I had been in the situation described:
Lock the doors and try to keep moving always leaving space to manoeuvre at all times.
Once I had decided I was being followed I would reroute along as major a road as available in an urban area if possible and AWAY from home.
Dial 999 if you have a mobile and sound distressed.
This should be recorded. Demand directions to the nearest Police station that is open and insist they warn the stain of your pending arrival. Give a running commentary.
From what you report I consider that they were unreasonable. I cannot believe it takes that long to build up a picture if you are following someone intoxicated or on drugs. They had seen you at the traffic lights so had reason to stop you there and then.
I would guess they were bored so it is something to do to kill time.
Sadly with two police in the car with that attitude and you on your own you are not in a good situation to complain.
We have seen examples of traffic bods on the TV over egging it while filling in the paperwork for fixed penalty notices.
Having experienced road rage several times I have formulated what I will do to reduce the risk. That includes dialling 999. On one occasion I felt so threatened I was about to do an emergency stop to brake test a bike chasing me but he gave up with a feeble attempt to kick in my door at speed. My skin is more important in these situations. Keep moving and leave space to manoeuvre.
In the above and another recent occasion the other party was completely wrong and took offence.
I first experienced serious road rage 30 years ago so I have had a long time to think about what I would do.
I carry an aerosol of fly squash or De-icer and as a non smoker have retained the cigarette lighter. I understand side windows are not too impact resistant.
I drive an old car at strange hours but rarely see any police.
so I will not temp fate any further.
I generally support the police. I think, in most situations, they do a good job with limited resorces and lots of aggro but they need to keep earning my trust.
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One thing I don't see here is the piece of advice always given where I live and where at dead of night carnappers or other scum are out looking for prey, and that's just pull into the first gas station or other brightly lit area.
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Good point Growler!
--
groups.msn.com/honestjohn/problems.msnw?Page=1 - Pictures say a thousand words.....
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A couple of points - if these were police officers they would not have known you were worried and that is why you exceeded the speed limit; secondly, there have been several instances in Liverpool city centre and surrounding areas recently of people impersonating police officers.
They have a flashing blue light which can be attached to the car roof and have been stopping motorists during the hours of darkness.
On the other hand, most police forces operate unmarked police vehicles for obvious reasons.
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About 12 years ago when I had just met my first wife I was heading home from her place in the New Forest in the early hours of the morning. The news had been full of a murder at a nearby beauty spot, where the husband was known to have killed his wife with a shotgun and was at large in his Cortina. I was driving down some back lanes only used by locals due to their narrow and twisting nature when a car with prominent rectangular headlamps came up close behind me and started tailgating.
Knowing the lanes fairly well I slowed slightly as there was a passing place just ahead. I signalled in to the layby and the following car just sat there behind me.
At this point I put two and two together and thought "rectangular headlights...... Cortina! Argh!" and got the hell out of dodge. I've never driven a car at such speeds down lanes like that before or since. Suffice to say that after a few corners taken sideways I settled on one of the few straights and got up to 90 when a set of blue flickering lights appeared in the rear view mirror.
Somewhat relieved, I pulled over and got out of the car as the Volvo 240 (yup, rectangular headlamps) slewed to a halt and two officers grabbed me fairly securely by the arms.
I explained my initial fear to which they scoffed that they had caught the chap about an hour previously. I asked if this was common knowledge as only ten minutes previously the local radio news had said police were still hunting the chap. Cue red faces and a noticably hostile attitude.
They proceeded to check my car over (removing everything from the boot, including the spare wheel) and gave me a grilling on my whereabouts and activities of the previous 24 hours. They then lectured me on driving the way I did to which I responded that if they hadn't driven in such a threatening manner the incident wouldn't have occurred. They were all set to book me there and then when I asked if I could record their numbers to make a formal complaint. Their tone and attitude changed completely and I was on my way as soon as they had neatly restowed the contents of my car.
I still fume at the way they tailgated me in the way they did, but it cheers me to know me and my humble 1.6 Orion were able to leave a police trained traffic driver in his Volvo standing.....
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Thanks for the responses guys, especially the ones backing my actions, it seems that the opinions are more balanced in this thread now, i was feeling a little outnumbered (again!) further up the page! It's nice (if thats the right word) to hear that my situation was not a completely unique one, and that other Back roomers have been in very similar situations know how i felt about the police officers behaviour.
With a bit of luck this thread will be of use if another reader finds themselves in a similar situation, and hopefully will be able to take appropriate action - which is?
Maybe there needs to be a concensus here, put your foot down, or slow down/stop even though the car following may have malicious intent?
Regarding the 999 call that many people suggested - yes that makes sense, but if you are alone in the car, are you allowed to call 999 form a standard mobile? If there isn't a loophole for 999 calls in the mobile phone while driving law, maybe there should be?
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Police advice is to slow down - the theory being that with a tailgater close behind you have less reaction time so need to brake more gently. This probably deals with lazy tailgaters - i.e.those who just don't know what distance they should keep. It probably doesn't deal with those "tailgating with intent" (for lack of a better description).
For the latter, we probably need a mix of responses. If they keep in close formation regardless of your speed then there may be cause for concern - time to call 999 for help?
My concern at Hawesy's treatment was that he was clearly upset and perhaps shaken by his treatment. Should the police be responding to a (frankly) trivial matter by escalating the matter and inflicting that on him? And how much more convincing would a complaint look if the Inspector was treated to a recording of a nervous Hawesy calling 999 to ask for the officers to be pulled over?
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These are two official comments about emergency calls (from the Wiltshire Constabulary web page, although there are many others):
www.wiltshire.police.uk/publications/mobilelaw.asp
1) One general exemption to all drivers: Genuine emergency call to ?999? or ?112? if it would be impracticable or unsafe for driver to stop.
2) You may use a mobile phone when driving, for summoning help in an emergency. On a motorway it is best to use a roadside emergency telephone, as the emergency services will be able to locate you easily.
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They were all set to book me there and then when I asked if I could record their numbers to make a formal complaint. Their tone and attitude changed completely and I was on my way as soon as they had neatly restowed the contents of my car.
I have found on a couple of occasions that asking for their collar numbers does the trick and see's you on your way with no further hassle. these guys would have done well in Berlin back in the late 30s.
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