rog

iTrader: (2)

He wasnt on police business, so he had no reason to be allegedly "testing" the car, and what about the stopping distances lecture they always give you, i don't care who is behind the wheel, the car will still take the same time to stop......is the car going to say "oh there's a policeman in the seat i better stop quicker"........

Poom

All the money they make from people doing 34 in a 30 they should make him his own private motorway to drive down and do emergency stops

pugo

I can't really see the problem

I have driven at stupid speeds (like most of us) on the public highway when i thought it was safe to do so, i made sure there was no old bill about (yes i was once a class 1 advanced driver like this copper) as did the copper in question, fortunatly for me my car does not have an on-board video recorder recording what i am doing unlike him!
I listen to people bog on about speed camera's, my theory is if you cannot notice an 8 ft pole painted bright yellow then you are not concentrating hard enough and deserve everything that comes your way(small children are about 3-4ft), It is a given fact that you can call most people stupid,incompotent or a tosser but question their ability behind a wheel and they will rear up like a slice of fried bread!
I classify myself as an average driver with average skills and i speed knowing the full consequences of my actions!
This copper is a highly trained ,highly skilled high speed driver and for a living chases twats who drive at speeds far beyond there capabilities and has to stop them in a safe and controlled manner!
I don't believe its one rule for them and one for us, i personnaly do not care if all the police drive around at 200mph if they feel it will give them the edge
The law is simple DO NOT EXCEED THE SPEED LIMIT...but we all do, so why is he so wrong
If a cossie is stolen and then used to snatch a child and its off down the motorway at 150+........if it was your child in that car, which copper would you want chasing it........him
the bloke was definatly fookin about and he forgot to switch off the car video and logging eqpt, and used a lame excuse to get off with it...so what! the last time this happened with the speed camera snapping the squad car it gave us all a loophole to get off of them!

Good on him i say

Now if there is somebody on here that has a clean licence and can honestly say with their hand on there heart that they have never sped or driven a little stupidly on the public highway THEN feel free to flame me if not what makes you think your allowed and he is not???

Pugo

Micky The Finn

nothing against the police,they do serve a very important purpose but going back to an earlier comment that they are good drivers,thats bollocks,they train on a stretch of road near us and ive followed them or been passed and thier driving standards and how they are taught are complette crap. even watching the programs they have terrible driving techniques,to think one of these was doing 159mph after haveing the instruction that they get is just scarey.
and dont even get me started on the bike cops.

Poom

I saw a copper nearly spin out on a roundabout in Stevenage once in the rain at about 25MPH which was quite funny as he was all over the place!

Micky The Finn

following the "advanced driver handbook"

foreigneRS

i also can't see a big problem with this.

i don't think that he should be punished for it as the circumstances seem to point that it was safe to do so (due to ability, conditions etc.) if that is the case, common sense tells me that although it may be technically a crime it does not require heavy punishment.

the same should apply whoever is driving though. if you can demonstrate that you have the ability and the conditions are ok, then why should anyone be punished for it? because it's the law. but is it a relevant law anymore, given that the motorway speed limit was introduced decades ago in response to the shocking fact that an ac cobra had done 190mph or something?

i can do that speed all day everyday over here if i wanted, without any additional driving ability or training over what is required in the UK (except for compulsory motorway training and testing).

the 'speed kills' campaign is to blame for this bollox. inappropriate speed can lead to accidents, but it has been sufficiently demonstrated that nobody can die just by driving fast. we're not all scared to get in a plane that will do 500 mph and go on holiday, so why should we be scared of driving at 200 mph?

arch

Right then fellas, I've read everything so far and have had a chuckle at some of the comments.

If you want to know what training I had then I can fill you in.

Yes, I'm one of the dreaded traffic cops. My own opinion is that the court ruling was fair and the summing up was correct.

Driver training at the moment is quite frankly terrible and accidents have increased but this bloke is 'old school' trained and a grade one which puts him in the top 2-3% of police drivers in the country.

Dan@Rapid-Ford

iTrader: (5)

IMO it's not about the training it's the fact he was in an unmarked car doing 159mph!!! at that speed the distance per second is unbelievable. A member of the public wouldn't even see him in the outside lane.

also so does this mean if you are a traffic cop you can go out testing on a friday night down the a127 to see if you can catch the cossies?? because you might have 2?

he should have had better judgement with his training because he is a copper.

That speed is never justified I think even in chase situations when it gets to that speed they have to end the pursuit it for danger to the public and try getting the helicoptors.

TWoods

Those high speed response coppers in those big volovo's and things they are the small portion of the force which have some degree of advance training but im angry at the fact the panda cars in cities an things most of them are just regular bobbies with hardly any training atall are just as dangerous as the people they chasing.

At the end of the day his one of thier own boys with a few friends high up to vouch for him so he got off, he worked the system to his advantage on that basis fair play i woulda done the same thing if my ass was on the line.

plynchy

So reading this,you think it is perfectly acceptable for Police officers to blatantly break the law by a HUGE margin and get away with it? Whereas a civilian in identical circumstances would have now been serving a custodial sentence??
Outright bloody hypocrisy,as usual.

And for all the peeps above saying "we all speed blah blah",thats as maybe,and if WE get caught,WE get punished,sometimes extremely unfairly,thats the point i would ask you to remember here.

foreigneRS

yes

no, if under the same circumstances with the same ability and standard of vehicle

plynchy

Sorry mate,thats bollox! Even an ex plod would almost certainly be banned for that if not locked up! Your standard Joe Bloggs would be in deep shit.
And "standard of vehicle"?? It was a fookin Vectra! If a civilian had been clocked doing that in a Porker/Ferrari etc He would have been fucked,in a vehicle designed to go & stop at those speeds,not in a family saloon.

Carlsworth

and thats the biggest reason i dont frequent this website anywhere near as much as i used to....


gone are the days where peeps would say hi, just for the sake of being friendly, the people that were here in the beginning seem to be bitter that there are more users on the website.....

the comment about the majority of pf users being brainless chavs is harsh, but in many cases true.

i think the copper in question should be banned, as should anyone caught doing 160 on the motorway, but the way people call the coppers wankers all day long for no real reason and have at the end of every sentence, it gets a little bit ridiculous.... 99% of coppers are normal guys making a living doing something they enjoy, and shouldnt be slagged for being a copper, how many people here would actually have the nerve to get into the police force....1, maybe 2........if any of you numpties got caught doing 160, then got away with it in court, you d be on here bragging, and saying how great you are.......rant over

plynchy

Wouldn't happen tho,would it??

foreigneRS

plynchy, i agree that in most cases, most people would be severely penalised by the current court system based on the current laws. but i don't agree that they should be, regardless of what they do for a living.

and although it may only be a vectra, if it's a police vehicle i'm sure that the standard of maintenance is sufficient enough to ensure that the car is capable of thos espeeds in safety (if conditions allow).

and what makes you think that a std vectra is any less well built than a ferrari? i would argue the opposite. the testing programmes that products like the humble vectra go through these days are incredible. although ferrari have improved significantly over the last few years, i would not put there reliability on a par with a vectra. any porsche or ferrari can have worn out brakes or low tyre pressure or something equally as dangerous at any point in it's life, a police vehicle is much less likely. that was my point about standard of vehicle.

plynchy

My point about the standard of car is about the ability of a car to be able to stop/corner safely at very high speeds. I don't hink a Vectra,be it a 3.0L or whatever is capable of stopping safely and quickly from 160MPH or taking sweeping bends with a suitable degree of stability,aerodynamics at those sort of speeds play a BIG part.
The mention of Porsches etc is that they are FAR more stable at high speeds(they are designed to be)and the braking power is phenomenol compared to most standard cars.

Azrael

I've been doing this kind of speeds on public roads many times. Not only on two lane motorways but also on normal roads. It requires you to think for the others, to beextremly concentrated and is extremely stressing but it is possible to do that is some place relatively safely. Remember then in UK you drive REALLY slowly as a rule. I'm getting sleepy after about 10 minutes on British motorway. Speed kills and similar slogans resulted in new slogans - tiredness kills (or whatever they call it). And drivers are going to be penalised more and more for everythig untill they are completly removed from the control of the car. This is the price of western version of totalitarism and socialism with fougth with in eastern europe for 50 years. Unfortunately it managed to spawn in european union in more subtle form.

I've done many kilometrs on much worse roads then in UK (those who know how the ones in Poland look like will confirm) I also driven through many countries and after having all the kinds of penalty reeducational corses enforced on me by Polish Police I still think that it is the stupidity, carelessness and inability to drive that kill. In many places in traffic police practice common sense was completly obliterated by following the letter of law. From things like not allowing Marcus Gronholm to return to service park through puublic road on RAC rallye to penalising ambulance driver who carried organs for transplant for speeding. (Actually he did a speed I do every day when going to city centre by Fiat Seicento...)


Unfotunatly I don't have any hope of the situation improving, it's going to be worse and worse and every good driver I know is going to loose licence at some point I think.

Azrael

I wouldn't bet they are so good wi5h maitenance of those cars. For sure here they are not. On avarage they are far worse then avarage civilian car. Remember that Police car is noones car. Like any car that has no particular owner it isn't cared about very much.

Other thing about Policeman going at high speeds is that they usually don't do that as they are aboying that stupid speed limits, the lack of experience may sometimes result in terrible accidents.

Azrael

You can go safely 150mph in standard Vectra all day long if conditions are right. The law-makers don't care if you are drive a Porsche, Cossie or a Corsa, the law is the same even if your car handles like bag of shit you can still go the same speed, the same in snow and in dry sunny day.

Motorways don't require much handling from a car, they only require ability to think for others and forsee the dangers from the driver.
The dirver is the only person who can judge his skill, phisical condition, cars condition and abilities and road conditions and establish safe speed for himself. It's basically the same as in a rally special stage, only here you have to take into account wild behaviour of other drivers, possible failures of others, and everything unexpected on road, also acceptable accident risk is much much lower but the principle is basically the same. (Don't let anybody talk you into thinking that it is possible to drive with no risks - no human can. As in the Matrix "Only human")

Oranoco

Thing that gets me riled is this exact offier will be out with a speed gun and handing tickets out to people who stray 2mph over the limit while ramming the speed kils BS down their throats.

Jonzy

Clicky

Check out this dumb fuck

rog

iTrader: (2)

Some interesing viewpoints here, but i think you need to look at the big picture,
1) Was there any need for it? No...
2) Was he attending an emergency? No...
3) Would a member of the general public have been treated the same..... I say No to that also, but everyone has their own viewpoint.

In short, i disagree with it, and the strangest bit of all i think was that he was found NOT GUILTY of breaking the speed limit.......... correct me if i am wrong but if the speed limit is 70 and your doing 159 then you are breaking it, now you can't argue against that one, especially being clocked at 83mph in a 30 zone.
Let the discussion continue as i want someone to convince me otherwise.

Rich_w

What I want to know is what ANY of you think will change if you keep wittering on about it

Life aint fair. Now get over it.

SPo0n

The police should be setting an example, especially as they're the ones that enforce the law. Speeding is the only driving offense they can easily "get" you for, yet in many circumstances it's not that dangerous. Hopefully the increase in unmarked police vehicles will mean more people being done for driving dangerously and less police cars sitting on bridges doing everyone going 79+.

I've got no problems with him doing 159mph on the motorway if there's a reason for it. If he gets caught doing it while not on a call or whatever, why does he get different treatment than a member of the public would? This will mean any police officer caught doing speeds below 159 will be difficult to prosecute as they'll just throw this case in the court's face. Theorectically any member of the public could argue the same - but we all know what would happen if we tried. I don't get how they can justify why they give one officer points for doing say 60 in a 40, but let this clown off for doing 159 in a 70? It's more than double the limit.

I say he should get a ban and a P45 to set an example for any other police who don the uniform and think they're invincible. The majority of police are fine and drive within reasonable limits but there's always gonna be a few that will push their luck and evidently win like this guy did!

FLO

Thanks Rhys.....

TBH i fair play to the guy...if he can get 160 out of a vauxhall piece of shit then i'd of given him a pat on the back too!!!