(I'm the guy who wrote the original letter to HJ and to whom this incident happened)
I'd be tempted to go to court and produce the certificate during the proceedings. If you were sarcastic enough they might drop the rest of it... :-)
That was exactly what my wife recommended, JBJ, but by the time she suggested it, I had already gone down to the police station and produced my certificate.
Actually, most people have missed the point of my original complaint. That was that the insurance search that was done by the safety partnership came back with a result that was wrong. The correct insurance company and termination date were shown, but the enquiry did not return the start date of the insurance. In fact, the "start" date for the insurance was the time and date when the original query was run. It was on that basis that the summons for no insurance was issued. My complaint was simply that this is very sloppy procedure, and results in a waste of police time and my time, for no gain. To those people who suggested that a 95% accuracy rate is good enough, I'd say that any computer programmer or designer who let a 5% error rate through should be fired with no recompense!
It's the sloppiness of the system, and the fact that hundreds of incorrect summonses are issued, all of which require police and/or court time to rectify, that makes me mad. Your taxes are paying for this. Doesn't anybody care?
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Yes. Its a sign of the times. This would never have happened 5 years ago.
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... To those people who suggested that a 95% accuracy rate is good enough, I'd say that any computer programmer or designer who let a 5% error rate through should be fired with no recompense! ... >>
er, It is not the programmer or designer who is at fault.
The error rate is there for two main reasons:
1. Your insurance company fails to notify the MID - No input, No Output NINO.
2. Your insurance company clerk inputs the wrong data - Garbage in Garbage Out GIGO.
The only way to stop/lessen these errors is for each wronged person to pursue the wrongdoer for punitive compensation. Join Farndon's campaign, as per my earlier link.
That may eventually force those responsible for the input data to ensure that it is fed in a timely and accurate manner.
Edited by jbif on 07/03/2009 at 20:47
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...You forgot PICNIC
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...You forgot PICNIC
>>
And PEBKAC.........
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@jbif:
Er no, apparently the insurance companies don't have to store their clients' records on the ANPR database. So if they don't have to store it there, simple concepts of data security suggest that they shouldn't. They are equipped to respond to a question if it's asked, and the question (in layman's terms) should have been, "Was this car insured at the date and time when the driver committed the speeding offence?" Also in layman's terms and, I continue to suggest, due to laziness or cost-cutting on someone's part, the question that was actually being asked was "Is this car insured right now?" The two are quite different and, since the answer to the "right now" question doesn't cover the date last week or last month or whenever the original offence was committed, it results in an untrue response to the question that should really have been asked.
Edited by Nigel B2 on 07/03/2009 at 22:47
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Do the SCP's have freely available access to the MID and if so, why?
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Don't forget the 'Partnership' is administered largely by the Police who have access to the systems.
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Don't forget the 'Partnership' is administered largely by the Police who have access to the systems.
I realise that, but was wondering if the SCPs had statuary access to PNC, MID etc in their own right.
The local lot seem to be built of a lot of "partners" and I wondered how that knitted in with the DPA and personal data.
Safer Roads Humber is made up of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Her Majesty?s Court Service, Highways Agency, Hull City Council, Humberside Fire and Rescue Service, Humberside Police, North East Lincolnshire Council, North Lincolnshire Council. The partnership also works closely with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service and the Defence School of Transport at Leconfield.
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No point writing a FOI letter to them, they'll weedle out of it.
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Nigel B2:
Are you asking for a system to be devised to cater for the one incident that happened to you, because of the alleged one off PICNIC/PEBKAC.
AFAIK, the MID stores information including [not exhaustive list] which is accessible to the Police:
Insurer Contact Details
Policy Number
Policyholder Name
Policyholder Address
Policy Start Date
Policy End Date
Mandatory Vehicle Information:
Vehicle Registration Number (VRN) The unique vehicle identifier
Vehicle On Date - The date on which cover for the vehicle, under this policy, commenced
Vehicle Off Date - The date on which cover for the vehicle, under this policy, is due to cease
Preferred Vehicle Information:
Vehicle Type Private Car, Commercial Veh/Van, Plant, Coach/Minibus, Trade Plate, Motorcycle, Agricultural, Motor Home or Other
Vehicle Make A freeform field
Vehicle Model A freeform field
Option to provide one of the following 'preferred' variables, depending on vehicle type:
Engine Size Engine capacity in cubic centimetres e.g. 1600
Gross Vehicle Weight Vehicle weight in metric tonnes e.g. 3.5, 38 etc.
Number of Seats Number of passenger seats excluding driver's seat
Nigel: Have you lodged a complaint with your Safety Partnership and/or MP regarding your particular incident?
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>>>>>...You forgot PICNIC [PU]<<<<<<<
I would have thought SNAFU or even FUBAR more appropriate??????????
dvd
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@jbif:
Nigel B2: Are you asking for a system to be devised to cater for the one incident that happened to you because of the alleged one off PICNIC/PEBKAC.
No, I'm just asking that the system that they have should work properly.
Your comprehensive post details the following fields which are in the database available to the police:
(includes)
Policy Start Date Policy End Date
....Vehicle On Date - The date on which cover for the vehicle under this policy commenced Vehicle Off Date - The date on which cover for the vehicle under this policy is due to cease
My whole point is that, if those fields are there, why are they either not completed, or completed incorrectly ? Correct completion of either the Policy Start date or (in my case) the Vehicle On date would have shown that, at the time I was flashed, I was properly covered by insurance. There would therefore have been no need for any of this stuff.
If I had been stopped for speeding (rather than flashed), the police would have asked for my insurance details and seen that they were in order. Once again, none of this would have been necessary.
I'm sure that, because these things are issued as a matter of routine, there are a number of drivers who either didn't notice the extra summons, or who didn't correct it, and whose driving record now shows an offence of which they weren't guilty.
I'm not asking for special treatment; it was just when the desk police person said, "Oh yes, this happens a lot, and there's nothing we can do about it" that bugged me. Of course there's something that can be done about it - make sure the system works properly. What's more likely is that it's probably actually nobody's job to get this fixed, so it just languishes, broken, like a number of things here. This attitude brings the law, and its enforcement, into disrepute. Similar examples in the last year include the much-ballyhooed 75.00 fine for dropping cigarette butts, and the hiring of more local authority employees to enforce this. But have you ever seen this enforced? And is the street any cleaner? So, the message we're giving out in both these cases is that nobody in authority really cares, either to make systems work properly, or to follow through on threats. Any parent knows that, if you threaten consequences to a kid, you had better follow through.
Nigel: Have you lodged a complaint with your Safety Partnership and/or MP regarding your particular incident?
No, but that's a good idea. I may do that on Monday. Not the MP, though - they (should) have more important things to deal with. But the camera organisation, whose job it is to do this properly, should be the target of a complaint. Thanks.
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No but that's a good idea. I may do that on Monday. Not the MP though - they (should) have more important things to deal with. But the camera organisation whose job it is to do this properly should be the target of a complaint. Thanks.
Nigel,
Probably teaching you to suck eggs..but just in case...when you complain, make sure it is properly recorded and shown as a Formal Complaint..i.e. you don't just speak to someone and they advise you and you put the phone down feeling someone has listened and they then do not put pen to paper or further the enquiry...(this can be a legitimate way of doing things, if people don't undertsand procedures or similar and once advised are happy enough).
I'd advise contacting a local police station, not the Safety Camera Partnership...because.. a local Inspector will take the initial complaint, before passing it to managers in the SCP, at which point it will be already recorded as a complaint and will then have to be dealt with properly.
Don't muddy it with anything else, if there were other minor bits and bobs that irritated you..because that 'something else' could be concentrated on and not the real issue here.
Try and keep it simple and as reasonable sounding as possible (because great long diatribes can have you switch off before you've started if you look at something when you're busy..and something succinct can be dealt with straight forwardly and invoke a degree of sympathy in the reader) e.g. it's about a summons being issued for No Insurance, when no enquiries were made about the insurance other than a quick check of the MID, which is known to have flaws...and therefore someone is throwing out summonses without properly doing any enquiries, some of which are most simple...leaving the motorist to prove themsleves innocent of something that they shouldn't have to.
I wouldn't discount the MP route if you have to....that definitely works. The chief police officer of the area will not want letters from the MP.
Good luck..please keep us posted.
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The Police side of the SCP usually has a ranking Officer in charge. An Inspector or above. Tha may be he route for you.
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@westpig:
That's excellent advice, and I thank you very much for it. Sucking one's own eggs doesn't mean that one doesn't appreciate a good word from time to time, and I do.
I've gone through the documentation, and it appears that it's the Dorset Police who decided to issue the summons. I've just placed a call asking their desk operative about the formal complaint process, and she responded that she didn't knw, but would get back to me. I'd really hope that the training of operatives who answer the phone at police headquarters included a short session on "how members of the public can issue a complaint", but we'll let that one rest for now. She promised to find out and get back to me; I'll let you know when she does.
I think you can gather from my posts that I think I can keep it succinct and on target !
Interesting point about the CPO not wanting to receive a complaint from an MP. I'll keep that in the background for now maybe...
Thanks again.
PS: Just received a return call (very quick and efficient, I must say) advising me to write to the Professional Standards Department at Dorset Police HQ. Unfortunately, the lady could not tell me who, or what rank of policeman, was in charge at the PSD - she said their internal website was not particularly helpful!
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Perhaps the IPCC would be a useful overseer.
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