Dangerous driving and excess speed

Happychappy

brat wrote: »

Depends on many factors of course, but in a car limited to 155mph on a quiet three lane motorway, these speeds are entirely doable and no less safe than, say 120mph.
Our responses often require travelling significant distance on quiet motorway, often to RTCs in the knowledge that the ambulance will be 15 or more minutes behind us; so those speeds are quite routine.

Hi Brat

The world has changed and now those speeds although often referred to as "the norm" they are now open to intense scrutiny when the inevitable happens, and rightly so, and nothing's a problem, till it's a problem !

Until you have been involved in recent IPCC investigations and appeared at Crown as "expert witness" your response world is based on doing the best you can with honourable intentions, however, once the Shudder and Shunter squads land after an event, your desire to do the right thing suddenly comes under the microscope, and you feel you become a voice in the wilderness, regardless of what the Fed may say.

Read the latest IPCC fatal investigation which is just being circulated for info, your ops div and DTU will have a copy, and see the depth of investigation and scrutiny, then see if that changes your outlook when your next on route

I agree with the situation regards the ambulance response times and the length of time on scene before either the obligatory passing off duty doctor or nurse turns up (bless em) or the arrival of the ambulance, but likewise with centralising RPU's and reducing "traffic" to a quarter of the number they were when I first went on traffic, the distances to travel are truly ludicrous, which leads to self imposed pressure to do the right thing, catch 22.

If it's any consolation, we still have to train to the speeds you refer too, but there for the grace of God etc so sometimes the cap makes sense in that it takes the pressure off, but it doesn't feel right and changing the culture is a major issue.

brat

Happychappy wrote: »

Hi Brat

The world has changed and now those speeds although often referred to as "the norm" they are now open to intense scrutiny when the inevitable happens, and rightly so, and nothing's a problem, till it's a problem !

Until you have been involved in recent IPCC investigations and appeared at Crown as "expert witness" your response world is based on doing the best you can with honourable intentions, however, once the Shudder and Shunter squads land after an event, your desire to do the right thing suddenly comes under the microscope, and you feel you become a voice in the wilderness, regardless of what the Fed may say.

Read the latest IPCC fatal investigation which is just being circulated for info, your ops div and DTU will have a copy, and see the depth of investigation and scrutiny, then see if that changes your outlook when your next on route

I agree with the situation regards the ambulance response times and the length of time on scene before either the obligatory passing off duty doctor or nurse turns up (bless em) or the arrival of the ambulance, but likewise with centralising RPU's and reducing "traffic" to a quarter of the number they were when I first went on traffic, the distances to travel are truly ludicrous, which leads to self imposed pressure to do the right thing, catch 22.

If it's any consolation, we still have to train to the speeds you refer too, but there for the grace of God etc so sometimes the cap makes sense in that it takes the pressure off, but it doesn't feel right and changing the culture is a major issue.

I understand all of what you say, and I do understand that perceptions of risk and danger become skewed when numerical speeds can be ascertained. However if I feel that 135 is an appropriate speed to respond having weighed up the parameters, then I will respond at that speed.
If I have an incident at that speed, then it was not an appropriate speed, and I should deal with the consequence.

For the record I have spent weeks as an expert at Crown Court, having all sorts thrown at me by defence.
Response and pursuit involve skills that no-one should take lightly, and one should consistenly and continuously have the counselling voice in your ear to remind you of proportionality and potential consequence. Similarly, as a professional charged with protection to life and property, one has to balance the perceived additional risk of response/pursuit against the believed benefit to be attained by the chosen speed.

silverwhistle

z1a wrote: »

A few years ago I got stopped on bike for doing "In excess of ....

Over a drink once a Met bike copper told me a story of how he stopped a biker doing a high speed by Hyde Park early in the morning:
"I'm not doing you for your speed, but because you didn't see me..."

pendragon_arther

True story of a racing driver in the 70s stopped for excessive speeding on the motorway. 'Who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?' asked the police officer. 'No, came the reply, 'I'm Ayrton Senna.'

bod1467

Apparently Lewis Hamilton once nearly got arrested ... he was pulled for speeding, asked for his name, gave it and the officer said "Are you taking the p***?"

The above may be an urban legend. Or I may have just made it up. But it sticks in my mind for some reason.

Le_Kirk

Three posts since joining in May, to of them cannot now be found and not been back on this thread since starting it. Draw your own conclusions.