Having witnessed first hand the suffering of families whose loved ones have been seriously injured or tragically killed, I would strongly urge all motorists not to speed
This was the comment made by Chief Superintendent Les Owen, head of the Metropolitan Police Traffic Division, following the installation of five new speed cameras in East London in February 2003.
Ch Supt Owen is currently facing a misconduct hearing after the car he was a passenger in was caught speeding at 82mph in a 40mph zone. His driver, PC Mark Bradley, has been fined �250 and given three points on his licence after magistrates heard that he was speeding because the Chief Superintendant was late for a meeting.
In a seperate case, Constable Mark Milton was caught driving his unmarked police patrol car at 159mph on the M54, as well as 100mph in a 60mph zone and 60mph in a 30mph zone. Milton was testing out a new Vauxhall Vectra GSI police car while on night patrol in December 2003.
Speed cameras are prevalent everywhere in the UK. The general rule is that there is an error margin of 10% + 3mph, so if you are in a 30mph zone, you shouldn’t get a ticket below 36mph. Being caught speeding means a fine and 3 licence points – drivers have 12 points to lose before being banned from driving. The problem is, speed cameras are hidden behind signs, in moving vans and even hand-held by parked police officers. At some sites, cameras can catch the same car speeding four times in the space of a mile – if you get 3 points for each offence, that’s your licence gone over a mile.
These police officers should have their driving licences revoked. Individual cameras at some sites bring in hundreds of thousands of pounds each year for the police force, and then they drive around at more than twice the speed limit, knowing full well they are immune to prosecution.
Rant over.
I was driving at thirty miles per hour, (the speed limit) yesterday when I was overtaken by a marked police car displaying no blue lights or sirens. I memorised his number plate and called the police to complain, it took me over an hour to get through to the Duty Inspector and he basically told me that the laws have been changed in the past few years and that they’re allowed to break the speed limit without displaying ‘blues and twos’ when they’re following a speeding suspect as this often slows down the pursuit. However, there didn’t appear to be anyone else going that fast and it was rush hour traffic. I declined to leave my name or contact details because I have no faith left in my local police – Fearing victimisation if I did leave my number. I have a lon list of horror stories of police arrogance, indifference, incompetence and heavy handedness involving myself, my friends and members of my family but shall decline in listing them here as it’d be too long a read. Members of my family have been police officers in their time, one of whom has suffered from the very same police indifference I mention above when SHE was the victim of crime, I have two aquaintances who’re police officers and ALL of them have told me that they treated and treat their warrant cards as “get out of jail free” cards in cases of speeding, they just flash the badge and get on their merry way. I was once stopped whilst exceeding the speed limit in a thirty zone, the road was clear, dry and wide and I wasn’t massively over the speed limit, also, I was driving my old classic car which, at the time, had a fault with its speedometer which caused it to err by five mph either side of the speed limit (now fixed), this cost me sixty pounds, the police officer I witnessed speeding yetserday was committing a bigger crime because the road was busy, I doubt it’ll even be mentioned to him. A message to any police officers here – YOUR JOBS WOULD BE MADE A WHOLE LOT EASIER IF YOU TRIED TO GET ORDINARY, LAW ABIDING CITIZENS ON YOUR SIDE. THE RESPECT THAT POLICE OFFICERS USED TO RECEIVE WAS EARNED, IF YOU WANT RESPECT, GET OFF YOUR POWER TRIPS AND EARN IT!