# Do the Police pull you for the fun of it?!?!



## smarties24 (May 22, 2009)

So i'm driving home from the cinema last night about 12am, didn't go above 70mph once....seriously....i was pre-occupied with the girl in the back of a peugeot 106 flashing her very nice chest at my mate and i :lol: :lol: Eventually after having a very good look i had to pull off at the next junction and head up the road towards my house. I spotted a police car parked in a dark driveway so i made sure i wasn't speeding going up my road, 50m before my house...blue lights :roll: I got out of the car to speak to the cop when he pushes me against my car and slams the cuffs on me   I asked him what i'd done and he told me that this car had been reported stolen....MY CAR :!: :!: He asks me hold old i am and tells me "there's no way a 20 year old like yourself could afford this.." After my mate giving him my driving license and him asking me a million and one questions he says sorry, we must have the wrong number plate, but being such a nice gentleman he thought he'd check every little thing he could before letting me go, Tax, Tyres, Number Plate spacings, Lights...you name it he checked it!! Clearly this excuse of a cop has nothing better to do!!! Guess what?? He found nothing!!! Bet he felt so cool :lol: Needless to say i took his number down and i WILL be making a formal complaint about him and his behaviour tomorrow


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## longshanks (Feb 15, 2009)

smarties24 said:


> i WILL be making a formal complaint about him and his behaviour tomorrow


make sure u do!!! what a twat....


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## T3RBO (Dec 9, 2003)

How can they have the wrong registration number, either it came up as stolen or not!!

MUPPETS :x


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## stillchillin (Oct 29, 2009)

Maybe it was the cops bird flashing you ?


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## Medic999 (Mar 21, 2009)

Disgusting behaviour..


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## sTTranger (Oct 21, 2008)

thats pathetic, i use to get pulled in my tts, saying i was a bit young for the car so they were checking up, then they would pull me up saying an under cover ar saw you driving dangerously, for crying out loud my mum was in the car.

Lastly the pulled me up in bexleyheath asking if i was the owner and what my name was, then they asked my friend in the passenger seat, would you belive it he gave them my nickname, that was it they cuffed me and put me in there car till he realised corrected himself and the checked there system.

I mean what the hell, we need more krispy kream stores.

thats what you get for having a nice car :?


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## Dance171 (Feb 8, 2009)

stillchillin said:


> Maybe it was the cops bird flashing you ?


HAHAHAHA you legend!!!!

obviously a prick with a badge who thinks he is god for it! defo make the complaint if he threw the cuffs on you without a good reason (ie you didnt try to run off or give him reason to think you were a threat)

well done for not having a thing out of place mate 8)


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## smithtt (Nov 11, 2008)

what force pulled you?


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## CamV6 (Oct 26, 2003)

What a complete pillock. No wonder the force are held in such low esteem :evil:


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## KammyTT (Jun 28, 2006)

thankfully ive only been stopped once by an irrate femalw copper that was adamant i wasspeeding...... i said ok how fast was i going!! her replies was, i dont know but i heard you coming :lol: :lol: :lol: WTF! :roll:

i politely told her that my blueflame makes it sound that way and i wasnt speeding :wink:


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## dooka (Apr 28, 2006)

Yup, defo defo report the filthy pig, and if you have a witness even better. They are meant to get back to you with in 24 hrs to try and sort the problem out..

BUT don't expect anything to happen, the filth are the biggest waste of time ever, don't even see why we need them, they don't do anything, unless it is really easy.. I can't see how they manage to get of their piggy backsides and make it to the doughnut and coffee shop, maybe that requires no paper work..


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## H20TGP (Apr 24, 2009)

Smarties,

Daughter 23 at the time got pulled in her Z4 a couple of years ago leaving Rhyl towards Abergele on the back roads.

When stopped they said her car was showing uninsured. She explained that she has owned the car for 2 years so your info must be wrong.

Basically used the insurance issue as an excuse to stop her and give her and the car a good going over.

Who know it may have been the same Copper !!

Give them hell and let us know how you get on.

Cheers

Tom


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Make your complaint by all means, but everybody is human and there's not a person on the planet who has never made a mistake. However it always seems that if a police officer happens to succumb to normal human fallability it's an 'absolute disgrace!' I wonder how all those people responding with righteous indignation would feel if they were constantly judged to such exacting standards. Everyone would be out of a job within the week!

I don't know what your registration is but it isn't all that difficult to mis-read a plate as a car drives past. It's not all that difficult for a radio operator to mis-hear a registration being passed over a poor signal. If as a result of either the officer was told the car was reported stolen then his actions are completely justified. If it had been your car and it _had_ been stolen with someone else in it then what the officer did would have been exactly what you would have hoped for.

After making his enquiries the officer has obviously realised an error had been made. You've been inconvenienced for a few minutes and he said sorry.

As a rule, no - officers don't pull cars just for fun. The vast majority of the time they are simply far too busy and under far too much pressure to just be dicking-about. However I'm not saying there aren't the odd few pillocks in the job who might mess about a young driver and shake them up to see what falls out. It's a very easy enquiry to see if at that time he conducted a PNC check on a registration similar to yours that returned a result of a stolen car. If he didn't then he's out of order and your complaint will find him out, and if you were handcuffed then you have grounds to make an allegation of assault. However if he was told your car was stolen then perhaps cut him some slack - he was just trying to do his job.

And can I suggest everyone else reserves their judgement and condemnation until the facts are actually known - unless there are people here who can genuinely claim that never in their life have they ever made an honest mistake.

As for the insurance case above, there is a database that shows whether or not a car is insured to be on the road. It's not produced and maintained by the police - it's operated by the Motor Insurance Bureau (not a public body - just an assosciation of motor insurance companies). Sometimes *they* make mistakes on the database and forget to update it with details of new policies, meaning a car can be flagged up for being uninsured when in fact it is insured. That's not the fault of the police.

_Of course _it is the job of the police to deal with uninsured drivers (not one of you here would be the least but happy if your car was written of by someone who hadn't been bothered to get cover) and so you'd expect them to stop a car that was flagged as uninsured and ask questions. We're all aware that the database isn't definitive so take care to establish the facts by questioning before taking any action. That's all they've done in the above case - again perfectly justifiable and exactly what you'd want them to do. But apparently out of order - just for doing their jobs. Justified criticism?


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## smithtt (Nov 11, 2008)

not all police officers are bad. Yeah you get the odd few who are on a power trip but there are not bad. How was your attitude towards him when he stopped you? There is an attitude test so that may have counted as to why he believed he had reason to put you in cuffs as maybe he feared for his safety.


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## ttsteve (Nov 1, 2007)

Mark Davies said:


> Make your complaint by all means, but everybody is human and there's not a person on the planet who has never made a mistake. However it always seems that if a police officer happens to succumb to normal human fallability it's an 'absolute disgrace!' I wonder how all those people responding with righteous indignation would feel if they were constantly judged to such exacting standards. Everyone would be out of a job within the week!
> 
> I don't know what your registration is but it isn't all that difficult to mis-read a plate as a car drives past. It's not all that difficult for a radio operator to mis-hear a registration being passed over a poor signal. If as a result of either the officer was told the car was reported stolen then his actions are completely justified. If it had been your car and it _had_ been stolen with someone else in it then what the officer did would have been exactly what you would have hoped for.
> 
> ...


Mark, I know you're a copper and generally speaking you make fair, reasoned comments on here. In fact I would probably ask you for advice. However, in this case, given the chain of events, my hunch (and we all have hunches, especially cops) is that the cop thought that he was on to something - with little or no evidence; there was no stolen car with that number (fact), he invented the story to create a reason to stop the car. And as for our friend being "inconvenienced for a few minutes", I don't think that being pushed up against a car and cuffed can merely be described as being inconvenienced. On the contrary, most harrowing I would have thought. And yes, we do generally expect the police to be 'perfect'; our reputations, belongings, and lives depend on it. In most jobs, ***k up and you've got the sack. In the police you get paid leave while a cover up plan is hatched. Sorry to have a go at you, but at the moment, I don't think that cops are cutting it with the general public. We want to see more thieves, rapists, wife beaters and murderers being locked up. At the moment the strategy seems to be 'get the motorist'. That's not just my view, thousands of others too.


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Steve,

I'll respond as follows.

Firstly, I've learned in my time to view these complaints posted on the internet with a pinch of salt. They can often come from someone with an agenda and an axe to grind and quite possibly with an anti-police viewpoint already, and are not always reliable accounts. This I know because I've seen such posts about incidents I've personally been involved in that bore no resembalnce whatsoever to what I knew to be the truth. I'm not saying that is the case in this instance yet people are always so ready to take any report of complaint about the police as absolute fact. That is niaive.

My second point follows on from that. Why are people so keen to believe every complaint about the police?

I think there are two reasons for this. To start with the general public actually understand very little about police work. Take the case about the stop regarding no insurance above. When you explain what is going on and why, people are happy with it. It wasn't police officers being arsey and just hassling a young woman. They had been supplied with information suggesting an offence and they have acted on it as you'd expect - nothing more. Much of what the public are disgruntled about arises not from the police actually doing anything wrong, but more due to the public not understanding what it is the police are doing and why. Yes, you could argue that we should spend more time explaining why we are doing what we are doing, but sometimes that isn't feasible for operational reasons and sometimes either we, or for that matter you, just don't have the time for lengthy explanations. On the other hand, _we_ could argue that perhaps the public could cut us a bit of slack, recognise that they don't really understand what policing involves and actually show a bit more trust - assuming we're just doing our jobs correctly and doing what we are doing for good reason instead of automatically kicking off.

Some will say the police can't be trusted - and here I come to my second point. Where's the evidence of that? Well, in all these negative stories we hear about the cops, of course. But I've already made a point about how unreliable those stories are. Everybody has a friend-of-a-friend who, on a Friday night was just out enjoying himself and minding his own business when for no reason whatsoever the cops jumped him and beat him up, right? Well, now watch one of those reality shows following the cops and see how they are busy just trying to deal with a difficult situation when some pissed-up pillock wanders up and starts throwing his oar in. He's told dozens of times to just go away and given endless chances but he just won't give it up. Eventually he's causing such a nuisance the bobbies are given no choice at all but to arrest him, but the minute they take hold of his arm he starts to kick off right-royal, throwing punches and kicking out at everyone so that (in order not to cause him any injury) you get 3 or 4 officers trying to bundle him into the back of a van. Seen it? Well I assure you that pillock and that friend-of-a-friend are one and the same person. It just depends on who you speak to.

But people want to believe the worst of the police. Why? Because when they themselves get into a bit of trouble, rather than accepting their own fault and culpability they can more easily absolve themselves by blaming it on unjustified and heavy-handed policing. It conveniently becomes our fault, not theirs.

The facts are simple. We arrest, charge and convict more criminals than ever before. There are more prison spaces than there ever have been yet those prisons are so full people are being let out early (not by us, I hasten to add!). People don't just walk into prison - it's the police that put them there, so we must be doing something. As a result crime has been steadily falling year-on-year for more than a decade. And while I have to accept there are far more traffic penalties handed out as a result of speed cameras (which I am not going to defend) there are in fact considerably less traffic officers now than there were 10 years ago, which must mean far, far fewer motorists are getting stopped and dealt with by us. Those are the facts, yet this myth is constantly perpetuated that all the police do is pester motorists and do sod all about real criminals. Just look at the posts above. It's utter rubbish! Yet people *want* to believe it - in my opinion for the reasons given above.

There are always bad apples, and perhaps only 1 in 20 of the stories you hear have some basis in fact. Sadly, that's enough to give credence to all the rest of the rubbish you hear, and believe me when these things do happen we despair.

The vast majority of police officers are honest, decent and very hard-working men and women doing an extremely demanding job as best as they can - and the vast majority of the negative stories you hear about are sourced from those pissed-up pillocks or those with an anti-police agenda trying to absolve themselves of their wrongdoing and are a load of rubbish. You may or may not believe that, but I have the advantage of being on the inside and knowing the truth. Accept it or not - all I can do is tell it as it is.


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## ViperOneZero (Sep 4, 2008)

sTTranger said:


> I mean what the hell, we need more krispy kream stores.
> 
> thats what you get for having a nice car :?


Ive never lost a foot chase in my career! i think your being stereo typical of a traffic officer"!










were you searched? given a stop search form?


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## dooka (Apr 28, 2006)

I used to respect the police..

But now I think they are all a bunch of well, you decide..

They couldn't care less any more, I have needed them on a few occasions of late, burglaries x3, a few traffic offenses ( not me ), and could the lazy sods care, of course they couldn't..

Sure someone can miss read a plate, or someone can miss hear, but still no excuse for brutality, and yes that is what I'm going to call it..

Of course you haven't lost a single foot chase, as you were probably sat at your desk eating doughnuts and drinking coffee, so had no idea what was going on ( not a personal attack at you, as I'm sure you're a great bloke, after all you do drive a TT, but for who you work for, and stand for)..

It seems to me, that the police will target the soft touch, the people who made a little mistake, and wont complain or speed off, those who are happy to pay the fine, oh look, someone dropped some rubbish, lets get him, wow look, crime is going down, is it bugger, it is going to shoot through the roof, as no plod can be bothered to do anything about it what so ever..

The other crazy thing is, they let criminals get away with blue murder, but if a law abiding citizen did something wrong, they would come down on them like a tonne of bricks, oh yes, easy touch again..

Take the G5 or what ever it was, look how that bloke was attacked..

Hypocritical, lazy, coffee drinking, doughnut eating, gits. Police would be better off selling second hand cars or houses, as they are also low life scum..

Why do the public no have to do their own investigation, and the police still do nothing..

When I was last burgled, we found out who it was, the guy had also threatened to stab someone, so we went to the police, tried, and I mean tried to give a statement, and yup, you guessed it, couldn't give a damn..

And the best thing is, well worst thing, the guy who burgled us, was arrested the next day for stabbing someone, just think, if they had done something, a life may not of been lost, and you expect us to respect you, get lost, not after that..

I could go on for ever, but can't be bothered any more..

So yes, all faith has been lost, and to be never restored..

If the police ever need my help, well you know where they can go..


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## TT-Newbie (Sep 18, 2009)

The conspiracy theory goes that everyone will get pulled over at some point in the future to help populate that wonderful DNA database that's sitting about all empty and ready to accept data ...


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

TT-Newbie said:


> The conspiracy theory goes that everyone will get pulled over at some point in the future to help populate that wonderful DNA database that's sitting about all empty and ready to accept data ...


Exactly... It's the oldest trick in the book. It all looks innocent enough, that Police officer at the side of the road, offering free haircuts, but it's all a cover-up so they can get DNA samples. Stay on your guard.


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## dooka (Apr 28, 2006)

They already have mine..

And only had an £80 fine, wtf, see, I'm an easy law abiding touch, he will pay and go along with what we say.. :twisted:


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

qstix said:


> If the police ever need my help, well you know where they can go..


Unless your surname's Poirot, I'm not sure they're going to be too upset by that.


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

qstix said:


> not a personal attack at you, as I'm sure you're a great bloke


But then . . .



qstix said:


> Hypocritical, lazy, coffee drinking, doughnut eating, gits.


What, all of us? Even the nice ones who drive TTs?

I'm sorry - you can't just throw out these wild generalisations and then claim not to be throwing insults at each and every one of us. It _is_ a personal attack.

I suggest you actually try and get to know a few _real_ police officers outside their work - not just the negative stereotype that sits in your head - and see how well your sweeping generalisations meet up with the reality.

As far as your burglary is concerned I'll have to work on a few assumptions based on my years of experience, but I bet I'm not far off the mark here. Are you really surprised that people might tell you who screwed your house but won't tell the police? Some communities are steeped in a 'don't grass' culture and just because you managed to find out who did it doesn't mean that the police could. You say yourself you're never going to help the police - so if you were the only witness to a crime in your street we'd be stuffed, wouldn't we? So whose fault is it that the crime isn't solved? Ours or yours?

If someone was able to tell you who did it why hadn't they already contacted the police to report what they knew before you asked them? Don't go laying the blame at the feet of the police - blame the people with no sense of community who refuse to do their civic duty and stand up against the scum to protect their own neighbourhoods. And you may have gone to the police with what you knew, but it does little good telling us what the bloke down the pub heard from his next-door neighbour's sister - even if it is true. It's _heresay_ - which means it's not evidence, inadmissible in court and doesn't constitute reasonable grounds for arrest. Your perception of the police's failure to act could be much less a case of them not giving a damn, as you suggest, but more one of your complete lack of understanding of how the criminal justice system works.

They've told you there's no point taking a statement from you, because evidentially it wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on. You, because you don't understand the law, immediately jump to the conclusion that we couldn't care less and are 'hypocritical, lazy, coffee drinking, doughnut eating, gits'. Well, short of taking you and teaching the finer aspects of criminal law there's really very little we can do to counter that sort of attitude, is there? We can never win.

It's a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier.


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## mighTy Tee (Jul 10, 2002)

The thing which surprised me in the OP was the use of cuffs. However we have to assume the OP was compliant and not giving it large. It is all too easy to twist the truth to illicit a response and maybe this is what the OP has done in which case his complaint is unjustified.

Alternatively if the story is accurate then the office involved should be retrained as he is bringing the reputation of the Police force into disrepute.

I also wonder if the OP had had his car stolen whether he would blame the Police for not tugging his car?


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

mighTy Tee said:


> The thing which surprised me in the OP was the use of cuffs.


Surely the Police would use cuffs on any suspected car thief, regardless of how compliant he or she was?

If anything, the level of restraint used makes me think the officer really did believe the car was stolen. I can't see them going to that much trouble if they were just using it as an excuse to pull someone over in the hope of finding something wrong with the car.


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## dooka (Apr 28, 2006)

Mark Davies said:


> qstix said:
> 
> 
> > not a personal attack at you, as I'm sure you're a great bloke
> ...


Well, maybe if plod hadn't dicked everyone around so much in the first place, then the public may well have a better opinion of them.. How can I personally attack someone I don't know, I can make wild accusations though, if you wish to take them as a personal attack, then please feel free but take it as you will, and yes some of my statements are general, and using my right to freedom of speech, which plod are well known for stamping on..

As for criminal law, you just assume I know nothing, when in fact, I have often known more than plod themselves. Who said I didn't spend 7 years studying law, I will give you your assumptions, as I have made mine..

But do you or do you not agree that the general public's view on the police isn't what it should be.. Is there no corruption what so ever in the police force..

I have known many police in my years, head of CID and Head of Drug squad just for two, one who brought things home that he certainly shouldn't, yes a nice bloke..

Now I do know that the hatred towards the police certainly isn't all their own fault, government guidelines and red tape do and can make your job hard, hence the Specials, but I don't think many of you help you own situation..

And yes 1 bad apple does spoil the whole damn bunch..

Most peoples views here are based on personal experiences, or what they have seen with their own eyes..

Also, what I found out about who burgled us, well, the guy was on a tag, and not where he was meant to be, and was/is known for these sort of crimes, fair enough I failed to omit that in my previous thread, so I feel just in what we told the police. And that they did not react in the proper manner..

My personal experience with the police, bar traffic police ( so far ) is far from good..

And the new policing pledge, who the hell is going to police that nonsense..


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## CamV6 (Oct 26, 2003)

I have no problem with any professional making an honest mistake in the execution of hid duty, or (quite properly) relying on duff information.

What I find deplorable and all too frequent is the immediate and unnecessary force/violence used intially. This casual use of force backed with power is what upsets people. Think yourself lucky you had a witness or else you would likely have faced a pre-emptive allegation of assulting an officer and a very long night and at least half the next day in the cells.

Maybe the officer was a bit jumpy and over-reacted when you got out of the car to approach him rather than sitting in the car, engine off, waiting for the officer to appraoch you. I rather suspect however it would have made little difference and the officer would have got you out, shoved you against the car cuffed you anyway - having clearly decided on force first, ask questions later under the guise of recommended safe operational procedure/practice.

Dont get me wrong, I genuinely do respect and applaud what the police do in, and for our society.Its just that more often than not, nasty experiences like this tell us that the manner and method employed by MANY officers is designed to be confrontational and bullying which is quite often unnecessary and AWLAYS extremely unpleasant amd fosters nothing but bad feeling.

Shame really. I'd much prefer to imagine when I see an Police officer that I see an ally, rather than the slight sense of unease one feels these days.

By way of balance however, I know an LOT of Police officers personally and professionally and there are some truly outstanding officers who conduct themselves with a great sense of fairness, proportionality and dignity and are a real credit to their respective forces. There also some real tossers, but I guess that's true of all walks of life.


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## ViperOneZero (Sep 4, 2008)

qstix said:


> Of course you haven't lost a single foot chase, as you were probably sat at your desk eating doughnuts and drinking coffee, so had no idea what was going on ( not a personal attack at you, as I'm sure you're a great bloke, after all you do drive a TT, but for who you work for, and stand for)..


Qstix, i appreciate your freedom of speech, however several of your remarks are idiotic- You appear to have a high opinion of yourself- yes you studied law for 7 years- that qualifies you to drive a desk and push your pens- which you more than likely do- judging by your half finished website. Practical policing is a totally different ballgame. Often police officers who are graduates are useless on the streets and quickly move themselves into a clerical role. Maverick officers who have working class backgrounds are the unsung heroes.

I unfortunately do not eat doughnuts, I am ex military and take my fitness extremely seriously. My policing work has caused me to receive death threats, change my car twice, move house etc, I have taken out numerous drug dealers and been involved in asset seizure to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds. My jobs of featured on tv. I have also personally( me alone) taken £1m of cannabis heroin/cocaine off the streets of Manchester..... you should never stereotype people or organisations.... its like me saying all BMW owners are fat white collar men.... :lol:


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## CamV6 (Oct 26, 2003)

GunnerGibson said:


> .... its like me saying all BMW owners are fat white collar men.... :lol:


You mean thay arent!? :lol:


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

CamV6 said:


> GunnerGibson said:
> 
> 
> > .... its like me saying all BMW owners are fat white collar men.... :lol:
> ...


Can't we go back to insulting Police officers instead of poor innocent BMW drivers...


GunnerGibson said:


> yes you studied law for 7 years


Heh... No he didn't...


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## H20TGP (Apr 24, 2009)

H20TGP said:


> Smarties,
> 
> Daughter 23 at the time got pulled in her Z4 a couple of years ago leaving Rhyl towards Abergele on the back roads.
> 
> ...


Further to the above .

I would like to say that I am not and never have been anti police.

I posted the above was for one reason only.

The OP and my daughter were both innocent motorist minding their own business and obeying the law.
They were both pulled by the police for offences they had not committed. ie Theft for the OP and no insurance for my daughter. In both cases eventually the arresting or detaining officers realised that they were incorrect.
Up to that point they had done nothing wrong in my opinion assuming that they genuinely did stop them for the said reasons.

When they established who the drivers were they should have politely apologised for delaying/stopping them and let them continue their journey. What does annoy me is that instead of doing that and acknowledging their mistake they insisted on trying to find anything they could wrong with the vehicle to prosecute with. IF THEY HAD ACCEPTED THAT THEY HAD STOPPED THEM WRONGLY THEN THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE DELAYED OR HARRASSED THE DRIVERS A SECOND LONGER!!.

Just my thoughts rightly or wrongly.

Tom


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## ecko2702 (Jan 26, 2009)

Congrats you met the one cop who had nothing better to do. I was pulled in my Mustang Cobra for spinning the tyre's I was "too young to own the car" so he asked if there were any drugs in the car or any weapons. Puts me in the back of the cop car gets a drug dog and searches my car dog goes nuts in the back of the car cop rips out the back seat and there is a damn dog treat laying there. So he lets me out of the car and writes me a ticket for spinning the tyres and I was sent on my way. Never paid the the ticket for the tyre spinning as I fought it in court.


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## ViperOneZero (Sep 4, 2008)

I have been pulled several times, certain officers wrongly stereotype people.... I was stereotyped for driving a clio williams at the time.. the officer made offences up at the road side.. he searched my wallet and pulled out my warrant card, much to his embarrassment.

One rather embarrassing occasion i went to test drive a car. ..a peugeot. A police van got behind me and pulled the car over whilst on my test drive, i was in a dubious area. The front passenger doors decided to fail. I had to climb out of the boot. Then I overheard the PNC check. the car was full of drug markers and other warnings.. the owner in the passenger seat was wanted.. I was treated like a scroate and thoroughly checked out.. .


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## Colinthecop (Jan 2, 2008)

mighTy Tee said:


> The thing which surprised me in the OP was the use of cuffs.


Me too, I was surprised that he got them on so quickly... a lot of Cops fail to do that. :roll:

And they're usually the ones running down the street after their bad guy who has it on their toes.

Just look at Pat & Carl on TV. They never seem to handcuff people and are always losing their bad guys. :?

Anyway, who's got some good plumber stories...? :lol:


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## k31ron (Jul 9, 2009)

When I was younger I got pulled by the police quite a few times on either a motorbike or a car, in every time the officers where extremely professional, freindly and even helpful! (apart from one incident - and he was just a bit of a cock)

typically if im honest there was a legitmate reason for them pulling me (being a little exuberant) and by just being polite I would get let off with a warning and a few words of "Wisdom"  ...and to be honest even the more "tenous" stops where dealt with pleasently, at least you know they are doing something trying to stop theiving scum etc, well worth a 2 minute "chat".

Police in the IOM are something else though! (as long as your not speeding through villages!)...they'll even give you tips on what lines to take through corners! brilliant!...

From what ive seen mostly they are just regular guys with a job to do and who took the job for all the right reasons, but inevitably your going to find a few ar5es as you do in every walk of life...


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## W7 PMC (May 6, 2002)

Not read every post & never gonna be the Police's biggest fan but i'm with Mark on this one.

The O/P got pulled for A reason & decides to sound off about it with a one sided post. Perhaps a Police error, perhaps not & i doubt we'll ever know.

A traffic cop will know the value of a used TT, so him stating you're too young to own a £10K car is probably what you'd like him to have said or perhaps you mis-understood.

I'll also state that no doubt not every cop will play by the book 100% of the time, but if i felt i'd in any way been victimised by any Police Officer in my home country, i'd be sat in the Regional HQ making such a fcuking noise they'd here me in the next county.

Can understand you're a little put out, but from the O/P i don't see a victim & at the very worst a simple error. Do appreciate the Police have radios & can talk to each other, so perhaps you have hooned around the area at some point recently & been seen so the police have been keeping an eye out for you. As you state, you're young & drive a fairly nice motor so fair to say you've perhaps been over the speed limit once or twice.

I could tell you a great story from South Wales many years ago that my friends jampoTT, kmpowell & head_ed can add to & TBH we were banged to rights but we played fair so the police did the same.


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## M T Pickering (Aug 11, 2004)

Just thought i would chuck some more wood on the fire!!! :roll:

I got stopped on Wednesday 18th November at 2pm for coming off a roundabout too fast! Then "Plodski advised he would like to breathalise me as part of the "Christmas" drink driving campaign! So in Peter Key mode looked at my watch and said "Its November" :lol: A comment he did not like! Does anyone have a "Christmas Party on a Wednesday morning in November"? :roll: :lol:

Now if they had been random testing on "Mad Friday" and early next day etc most people would find this acceptable! 

Moral of the story-Organise your Christmas Party early October! :lol:


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## Colinthecop (Jan 2, 2008)

M T Pickering said:


> I got stopped on Wednesday 18th November at 2pm for coming off a roundabout too fast! Then "Plodski advised he would like to breathalise me as part of the "Christmas" drink driving campaign!


I normally tell people that in the middle of summer, just say it's started early this year....

Unless they're on foot and very drunk. Then I breathalise them and send them home with a warning. They must wake up in the morning thinking, No way did that happen to me....


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## W7 PMC (May 6, 2002)

Xmas Do's in November aint that unusual, as are the same in January.

If one was wasted the night before, then very likely they're still over the limit the following day at 2pm. Or if you'd had a couple of sneaky pints at lunchtime then 2pm is prime time for drivers over the limit.

I was very nearly killed by a drunk driver when i was 12, so i've zero tollerance for anyone doing it & fully support the police doing random breath tests. If you were speeding then the police have every right to pull you over & i guess every right to perform a breath test.


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## M T Pickering (Aug 11, 2004)

Paul, you are quite right! but as usual have the wrong end of the stick! I only post light heartedly hence :roll: and :lol: !
I was not speeding! It was 400metres from my place of work which I was going to and was fully aware of the roads speed limits! It was the Police officer who had made this assumption(reason to stop)! so to have a reason to breathalyse me which I am quite happy to do as I dont drink and drive and welcome a Police clampdown at Christmas and New Year and not mid November! My post was clearly a fun post making light of the previous three pages as it can often get heated without cause!.


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## TT-Newbie (Sep 18, 2009)

Don't forget that they also have quotas to fill as well ...

If they didn't fill these quotas then the crime rate would go up and we'd have criminals getting off scot free.


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## dooka (Apr 28, 2006)

Yes a slammed the police, but I also offered the other sides argument, saying why they get a bad name, and that it wasn't totally their fault..

You are obviously one of the good cops, and we need more like you, but most peoples experiences, such as mine are not to good, so are many others..

But it does seem as if our rights are becoming less and less, the police have the power and back up to make bad judgments..

I'm all for keeping the streets clean, but it does seem that of late it is the innocent who suffer and guilty get away scott free, well in my experience anyway..

I can see why vigilantes exist, and on a whole I do agree with them searching out justice that our justice system won't or can't provide..

Your right, I didn't study law for 7 years, I didn't state that I did either, I merely said, how do you know that I didn't, but have spent a few years in my late teens early twenties studying law, but after seeing the idiosyncrasies in the system, and that I would not be able to change the world took a different path..

My site is half finished, as I have very little time to build it, my work load is so high, and no I don't sit behind a desk, and I don't wish to either..

After all, this is a forum, and forums are here so we can voice our views and opinions, which I did..

Thank god the TT forum is 99% populated with decent people, unlike other forums where it would become a slagging match..

I am sorry if any of my views or opinions upset or hurt people, I had no intention of singling individuals out, just the force on a whole, or how I see the police force. These views and opinions have only come about since my dealings with on the last few occasions where I did find them next to useless..

One thing I did receive from a friend of mine who is a lawyer, and did study law for over 7 years sent me some info on how I can basically protect my property, and almost get away with murder if I am confronted by someone on my property. Which was a damn useful read..

Once again, my views, the opening of my mouth to purely change feet has hit some nerves, yes my views were generalised, but feel I am allowed my views and to voice them. And yes I am sorry if they offended..

I will also say, and don't think this is me back tracking on what I have said, but the police that have commented on this thread, do seem to be a Stirling job, especially Mr Ex Military, which is one job I will give you all my respect for..


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## W7 PMC (May 6, 2002)

M T Pickering said:


> Paul, you are quite right! but as usual have the wrong end of the stick! I only post light heartedly hence :roll: and :lol: !
> I was not speeding! It was 400metres from my place of work which I was going to and was fully aware of the roads speed limits! It was the Police officer who had made this assumption(reason to stop)! so to have a reason to breathalyse me which I am quite happy to do as I dont drink and drive and welcome a Police clampdown at Christmas and New Year and not mid November! My post was clearly a fun post making light of the previous three pages as it can often get heated without cause!.


I don't & didn't get the wrong end of the stick. Wasn't making any reference to any possible wrong doing on your part. I stated the Xmas drink/drive crackdown does start in November along with my own personal opinion that random breath tests should be allowed all year. Fully agree the police will never be right all of the time & that not every Copper follows the book all the time (perhaps that applies to your scenario & that of the o/p).


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## head_ed (Dec 10, 2002)

W7 PMC said:


> I could tell you a great story from South Wales many years ago that my friends jampoTT, kmpowell & head_ed can add to & TBH we were banged to rights but we played fair so the police did the same.


I do believe my quote was, 'That couldn't be Kev - he drives like a girl' 

I have been pulled over a the side of the road 3 times in my life, once was the week after I got my 1st TT in '02 - thankfully it was 1am & the copper overlooked the fact that I was doing over a ton because he hadn't seen a TT before & wanted a closer look. He gave me a stern, but not condescending ticking off - told me that my car was too nice for me to lose my license & to slow the hell down.

Last Christmas I got pulled for random breath tests, both times I was driving my g/f's beaten up old Citroen Saxo which has 'boy-racer' written all over it. Both times the guys that stopped me were very civil and treated me with nothing but respect. The first time it was an armed response unit that stopped me & having a 9mm pistol at your side would give you more than enough reason to be an idiot should you so wish, I am sure.

Bad apples in every walk of life - unfortunately you seem to have run into your local force's candidate..


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## CraigW (Mar 19, 2009)

k31ron said:


> When I was younger I got pulled by the police quite a few times on either a motorbike or a car, in every time the officers where extremely professional, freindly and even helpful! (apart from one incident - and he was just a bit of a cock) ...


Hope you were getting pulled by a female officer :lol:


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

smarties24 said:


> was pre-occupied with the girl in the back of a peugeot 106 flashing her very nice chest at my mate and i





smarties24 said:


> After having a very good look i had to pull off at the next junction


Hope you had some tissues to hand.


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## qooqiiu (Oct 12, 2007)

smarties24 said:


> Do the police pull you for fun?





mark davies said:


> As a rule, no - officers don't pull cars just for fun


Unless their playing snooker, then they would. So yes, they would pull you for fun.


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## roddy (Dec 25, 2008)

well as we know, i am no lover of the "boys in blue " having had a few brushes with them in the past, but i can genuinely say that they are not all bad,, having met three very decent ones in the last two weeks,, one was in north wales a few sundays ago ( i think most people will know who that was !! :wink: ) and the other two were at the side of the M6 ( road to hell !!! ) half way between Birmingham and Manchester last saturday evening,,, on which, more to follow !!!!


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## smarties24 (May 22, 2009)

Wow...i didn't come on yesterday so i've had alot to read, I didn't expect such a response but i can see from reading everything that there is a little bit of banter going on. Firstly this is not what was intended by posting this, it was merely to share my experience with the police that night.

There are some good cops out there who joined the force purely to try and make a difference but there are those who joined to have a feeling of power which i believe this particular officer did. Purely for the reason that after realising he'd made the mistake he didn't even apologise. Now in any situation if i've made a mistake i'll put my hand up and be the first to say sorry and i would have hoped he would apologise just out of politeness. Yes people make mistake, everyone does and i'm not saying i haven't. Mistakes are common where-ever you go and i would have liked an apology off him however after realising his mistake he then tried to find some other reason to do me. That is what i found unfair about the situation.

I work as an enforcement officer and i also work on the doors so i deal with the police quite alot and i know alot of them in this area, this particular guy i didn't know though. I don't usually get out of the car but i was tired and wanted to get home straight away that's why i got out of the car but i don't think it would have been any different if i had stayed in the car.

Like asked previously if my car had been stolen would i want the person put in cuffs? Of course i would. Which is why i don't mind the fact that i had been cuffed. I was complacent with the officer and he didn't use any unnecessary force against me. I should have perhaps mentioned that in my initial post and also told of how what had annoyed me is that i didn't receive an apology out of courtesy.

I respect the good work that most of the officers do however the majority of the police in this area are stereotypical of how people portray them. So much so to the point that i only deal with the police in my jobs but as a citizen of this local community i have lost all faith in them. I know people in general don't have a high view of the police which i believe affects how the police work themselves. It is also unfair to them in my view as the majority of them DO do a good job and it's people that join purely for a power trip that let the police force down, those who pull people over and purposely LOOK for a reason to do them.


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## Wallsendmag (Feb 12, 2004)

I take it if you work the doors you are quite a big lad then ?


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## smarties24 (May 22, 2009)

wallsendmag said:


> I take it if you work the doors you are quite a big lad then ?


Yeah, i'm not small :lol: :lol:


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## allthewayfromspain (Sep 17, 2008)

Hi all,
Interesting reading these posts, so will add my experience. I used to run a restaurant when I lived in the UK. One of my regular clients was a copper, still is. But you wouldnt know it looking at him. Tall, skinhead, dressed like an Ali-G extra always, gold teeth, big gold chains etc... everyone assumed he was a basketball player. It took nearly 3 years before he shocked the life out of me in a conversation when he told me. Just goes to show there are all types in the Police force. He is a cracking guy, and we still keep in touch, in fact he was a guest with his fiance at my sister wedding. 
On a negative side, once, after leaving my girlfriends house late night/early morning, I was driving home, not speeding I might add, as the route has various speed cameras. I used to drive a blue BMW 120d (dont hold it against me), and noticed in my rear view mirror several blue lights approaching so made sure I could let them pass. As they approached I realised there were 3 or four from what I could see given the alternating headlight flashes. So there I am trundling along at 30 and two cars came behind me, one along side, and one in the front of me, diagonally making me stop obviously. You can imagine my expression of what the f...??? All the coppers jumped out of their cars, shouting at me to turn the car off and get out of the car. So me being me, got out, and the looudest one or closest, not sure, approached me (at this point I locked my car) and said dou you know why we have stopped you? I said no, he laughed so I said nothing, always think first, speak second. He said we have reports of a white astravan driving dangerously, speeding through the town centre. So I said, well it wasnt me as I havent been in the town centre, and I obviously drive a blue BMW. Whilst this went on, the rest apart from one, were looking around my car and one shouted I want to have a look in your car, so I said go on then the windows are clean. This Im afraid they didnt like, so I got a where have you been, where are you going question. I replied at my girlfriends, and home. Do you have any witnesses? yes, my girlfriend, her housemates and at home, not yet as Im not there. Then he said I dont like your attitude towards the Police have you been in trouble before? No. Have you been drinking? No. Breath test - negative. On your way then....hold on a minute I said. Im not happy 8 of you have kept me, standing here when all you had was reports of a white astra van. I took a quick photo and the number of the officer. Went to the station the next day and reported a rediculous waste of my time and theirs, to which an Inspector calles me to apologise profusely that the officers "clearly had nothing better to do" and "the matter in under internal investigation".

All i can deduce is only 11% of coppers are nice, as ive only had dealings with 9 in my entire life, and 8 were completely off the planet with decision making. Any 1 of the 8 could see I wasnt in a white astra van.


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## CamV6 (Oct 26, 2003)

And there we have it.

You might call solicitors (like me) or estate agents or high flying banking executives a bunch of tossers and leeches, but at least they dont gang up and go out to bully the public like big kids picking on smaller kids in the playground. I dunno tho, maybe they would if they too had the power and opportunity. It seems, sadly, to be base human nature.

Isolated incidents of random unrepresentative officers you may say, and you may have a point, but stories like this last one and other are by NO means uncommon I'm sorry to say.

So its all well and good that the officers we happily have in our family (just like every person of every walk of life) piping up and coming to the defence of their profession, but there is no getting round the fact that every day there are many beat/uniformed officers out there behaving deplorably and abusing their position.

Its not I'm afraid enough, from a pubilc perception point of view, to say "aah but there are lots of us good officers out there". It doesnt matter a jot if those good officers and their work are obscured by such nastyness.

Such a shame, but then when you gotta deal with the shyte the Police have to deal with every day its perhaps understandable that it might rub off a little on them too. Its takes special qualities to rise above and not be dragged down.

Policing these days seems to be a numbers game in many respects, rather than a matter of genuine policing and community safety.


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## Colinthecop (Jan 2, 2008)

CamV6 said:


> And there we have it.
> 
> You might call solicitors (like me) or estate agents or high flying banking executives a bunch of tossers and leeches, but at least they dont gang up and go out to bully the public like big kids picking on smaller kids in the playground..


So what is your crime of choice then....?

Todays, Daily Mail,

Estate agent tricked client out of £7million by secretly selling his 8,000sq ft home to a developer for 'only £2.9million'

In which I found a link to this....

High-flying solicitor 'with £10,000-a-year cocaine habit sexually abused underage girl'

There was also a link to the 4 Cops shot dead for no other reason than they were Cops.... Maybe they go around in their 'gang' because of the dangers they might have to face.... and how was your office today....? Safe and without confrontation I'd imagine. I take it when that pissed off client comes in armed to the teeth looking for revenge at the poor service they have received which borders on dishonesty, you'll deal with it yourself rather than call in the Police 'gang'.

:roll:


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

CamV6 said:


> And there we have it.
> 
> Isolated incidents of random unrepresentative officers you may say, and you may have a point, but stories like this last one and other are by NO means uncommon I'm sorry to say.


So somebody - a complete unknown and totally anonymous on the internet - writes a negative story about the cops, and there's the evidence!

I'm not suggesting the story isn't true - it might be - but with no actual corroboration or any evidence to support it as fact it is nothing more than a story written on the internet. Yet - _without question _- everybody believes it, regardless of how far fetched and inplausible it sounds. Why? Because we want to.

Now don't think for one moment that I'm suggesting the police never do anything wrong, but I know for a fact they've never done even half the things they've been accused of. Over 15 years in the job I've been accused of doing all sorts of things by disgruntled members of the public, and not one of those things did I actually do - *NOT ONE*. Yet those people will have told their story to others, or even posted it up on the internet. Endless accounts that were complete and total fabrication. In addition to that, over those years I've worked with dozens of different officers and been involved with literally thousands of encounters with the public, and _only once _have I ever seen an officer do something even remotely similar to the accounts being given here. Only once, and I reported him - as would any of my colleagues. And I've not been working in some sleepy back-water - I police the problem estates of inner-city Manchester. I can't imagine it's somehow different everywhere else, so I simply don't believe all these stories can possibly be true and accurate.

Yet, we're tripping all over ourselves in our eagerness to believe everything bad we hear about the police. Why? Are we really too niaive and stupid to realise that people who run foul of the police have motive to tell lies?

Well I don't think we are, which is why over the years I've come to this conclusion.

We want to believe these tales because we want to be able to slag the cops off, then when they are doing nothing more than their jobs and enforcing the rule of the law and we happen to be on the receiving end of it then it won't be due to our wrongdoing, it will be all their fault. Otherwise why would we just accept these stories so readily? You don't believe everything a politician tells you. You don't believe everything you read in the papers. Yet you accept without question any and every negative story you hear about the police - because it reinforces your belief that when you got pulled for speeding it was due to typically unjust, heavy-handed policing. Not, of course, because you happened to be speeding.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

The people saying "it's happening all the time" have no evidence for this whatsoever, other than the occasional post on forums and some anecdotes from friends of friends.

The number of people stopped by the Police is massive compared to the number of people talking about being stopped on forums, so it's safe to assume that you can't draw any conclusions at all from those posts as they're statistically insignificant (this is regardless of whether they're saying the Police are great or not).


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

And someone's perception of an encounter with the police is as much to do with themselves as the police officers involved.

As an example, I'll tell you about my last encounter with the police in my capacity as joe-public (we are the public too, you know!) - but first I'll tell it from the point of view of the typical anti-police internet moaner. This happened only a couple of weeks ago.

I was just driving home from a friends house at about 8.00pm and came off the motorway. It's just a short distance from the motorway to my house and I was driving perfectly reasonably and wasn't speeding at all. I pulled up on my drive and next thing I know this police car pulls up behind me, blocking my car on the drive and out jumps this copper. He accuses me of speeding and I asked him where and he tells me it was when I turned into the top of the road at the traffic lights. Well he was obviously talking crap as there's no way I'd be speeding going round the corner - how could I? So then he tells me to watch my speed even though I hadn't been speeding at all and clears off. He obviously thought he'd try it on. Idle sods clearly have bugger all better to do than hassle motorists for no bloody reason. Arseholes!

Sound familiar?

Now that actually is an accurate account of what happened, except for all the assumptions behind it, the tone and the interpretation of the finer detail.

I did drive off the motorway and I wasn't speeding, but at the lights there's a right turn and if the road is clear you can drop down a gear and take it in third without braking and the TT pulls through the turn just lovely. Not speeding, of course, but taking the turn at 30mph which is very satisfying. What I hadn't seen while making the turn was a police car somewhere in the vicinity. What _he_ would have seen was me swinging round that corner much quicker than would be normal. He would have asked himself, why? Had I seen him coming and decided to get off out of the way as quickly as possible, and if so why? Perhaps the car was stolen. Perhaps I was wanted for some crime or a fugitive from prison. Perhaps I was carrying stolen gear, drugs or a firearm. The thing is, you never know until you ask. Very few criminals just walk into police stations and hand themselves in - you have to go looking for them and if you knew exactly who all the criminals were before you spoke with anybody then the job really would be a doddle, but you don't. It means that where you see something a bit odd, that might be nothing but then again might be something, you investigate. So he'd followed me and found me stopped on my drive. He happened to stop over the end of my drive because it was the most convenient place to be. The fact that I'd stopped would have eased his suspicions a bit but he just wanted to make sure. He decided to have a few words just to gauge my reaction, so he got out and opened up by telling me about what I'd done that had caught caught his attention. He didn't actually say I'd been speeding - he said I'd taken the corner rather fast, but someone with an anti attutude would interpret that as an accusation of speeding, which it never was. I told him my car was good fun to drive and I was just enjoying myself. Satisified that all was okay he left just making the joke that I should take care not to overdo it - which again someone, if they wanted to, could interpret as a warning to watch my speed.

So actually he was doing nothing more than diligently attending to his duty - just doing his job. But it's all in the perception.

Those two accounts describe *exactly* the same incident - the first from the perspective of someone with an axe to gring and a pre-existing anti-police attitude, the second with a bit of understanding of what was actually happening. The point I'm making is that if you have a negative attitude towards the police then you can choose to interpret virtually any encounter with them in a negative fashion. For some people the police just can't do right.

People need to appreciate that whenever someone posts these negative stories there's a reason why they are bothering to do it. They must have some kind of agenda somewhere so the mere fact that they are doing it in the first place suggests they are coming from that negative point of view. But as you see from the above it's perfectly possible that behind these dreadful sounding stories there's a police officer doing nothing wrong at all - just doing his job.

Much of the problem lies in an idea that if you are not breaking the law then the police have no reason and no right to even speak with you. Well, that just displays a total ignorance what is involved in maintaining law and order. As I said, if the police could know on sight exactly who was and wasn't a criminal then there'd be no crime at all. The reality just isn't that simple. Policing involves interacting with everyone - and sometimes that might be you.

But it seems we all want the police to do their job but just as long as they don't police us personally. It's simple hypocrisy.


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## jdn (Aug 26, 2002)

Mark Davies said:


> CamV6 said:
> 
> 
> > And there we have it.
> ...


Well said.


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## Colinthecop (Jan 2, 2008)

Mark Davies said:


> What I hadn't seen while making the turn was a police car somewhere in the vicinity.


You basic drivers need to lift your vision.....


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

Colinthecop said:


> You basic drivers need to lift your vision.....


I'm guessing he was behind me having caught up or pulled out of somewhere - it was dark so all I could see were headlights. Either that or he had the cloaking device on!

As it happens, I've done almost every driving course in the book, short of special escort duties. About the most useful training I've ever had out of the job.


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## ttsteve (Nov 1, 2007)

Long thread, lots of views. Some common elements becoming apparent.

The fact that not all coppers are bad is neither here nor there, it doesn't matter. The general public - the people from all walks of live that I speak to - are generally not happy with the police force.

It seems that coppers are in favour of being able to stop drivers on a hunch. That's a whole argument in itself - with good and bad reasons as to whether it would be a good thing, but we the general public need to know the score. Can a copper stop you and announce that he simply has a hunch that you have been drinking, carrying drugs, or maybe have a stolen a car? or, does he have to stop you for some 'made up reason' just to subsequently check just about everything about you and the vehicle - a sham stop. We need to know; coppers are making it up as they go along.

I'm a law abiding citizen who comes from a fundamentally fair background; treat other as you would be treated yourself etc etc, I believe whole heartedly in a strong, powerful police force that keeps burglary, violence, and corruption out of society. So, coming from this background, why is it that I am not a happy bunny wrt the police force?! I didn't wake up one day and say to myself, "Oh, I'm gonna start thinking bad things about the police". No, it's because almost every day, you hear something about a police ***k up that cost lives, about police corruption, about police speeding and getting away with it, about police not following up on burglaries etc when people have even told them who it was (and don't say that you can't go and talk to that person without evidence, because drivers are stopped without evidence all the time), in fact loads of things that piss us, the general public off big time. My small market town is plagued with drunken teenagers every Friday night; it is a no go area for decent people who don't want to witness loud swearing, p**sing in the streets, riding motor scooters at break neck speed on the streets and in car parks etc etc. Yet the police seem clueless as to how they, the mighty police, can deal with these children. This is just one example of why I have no faith in the police. The police have a reputation for being lazy and unresponsive. Given that most Brits are fair-minded, law abiding citizens, then why is this so? As I say, it's simply because we experience, and hear so much about the police from friends and the media that tells us that this is simply the case. It's not that people are born 'ant-police', we take as we find.

Until we see a change in attitude by the police towards the public in dealing with their pleas for help with day to day and serious crimes, then the police will also not see a change in our attitude towards them. Because people's views are largely based on what they experience and what they hear about.


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## Colinthecop (Jan 2, 2008)

Mark Davies said:


> About the most useful training I've ever had out of the job.


Not the abilty to strip a H&K or a G36 blindfolded....?

That's what I'm bitter about, every year I apply and every year I get turned down. It's like a game now between me and my boss.

He keeps telling me that the first line in my 'Notice of interest' shouldn't be, 'I want to shoot a bad person'.

[smiley=stupid.gif]


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## Bikerz (Aug 23, 2008)

Mark you seem a very nice honest guy. I have no clue how old you are, but I imagine over 30. Be 20 again, and your get pulled for everything and anything! Got pulled once and said had reports of you driving dangerousley, threaten that they would be prosectuting me etc.. all words and I asked under what grounds, evidence etc..!!! Got stoped once, said

Police - "Do you own this car sir?" (I was in a brand new Passat and only 20)
Me - "No office it isnt"
*Bang, ive been turned round cuffs behind back, draged to back of police car*
Police "Right where you taken it from?"
Me - "Its a company car"
Police - " Where you take it from?"
Me - "No, its My company car"
Police " why you driving it this time of night?"
Me - - " Im allowed to its my company car, insured taxed and tested!"
Police " Why did you say it wasnt your car?"
Me - I didnt, I said I didnt own it, you jumped to conclusions!

Ok in hind sight I should have said it was a company car, but I had no idea they treated people so badley from the off!


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## mighTy Tee (Jul 10, 2002)

The problem is it depends which charm school the copper went to. I have met and co-operated with some very decent officers, however I have had experiences of very poor policing.

Having been brought up to have respect for the law, I was pulled over one night about 1984 (in all fairness I had been driving my 45bhp Fiat Panda quickly and in the process had unwittingly overtaken an unmarked Rover 3.5ltr SD1 along a country road) and was asked how I would describe my driving?

Me: (not wanting to incriminate myself) "I was driving along at a fair rate of knots"
PC: "Do you want to know how I would describe your driving?"
Me: "OK"
PC: "You were driving like a cnut" (rearrange letters)

As far as I am concerned I had been 100% polite and respectful and done/said nothing to illicit that foul mouthed response. Unfortunately I was too young and naive to take a note of the officers number and file a complaint.

As for what I should have responded (according to a then work colleague) was: "better to drive like one than look like one" :lol: however not sure the next response would have been good....

Mark/Colin, the above is not cop-bashing, just an example of how sometimes a poorly trained officer can handle a situation and the result being that overall respect for the police force is tarnished.


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## Bikerz (Aug 23, 2008)

Rich if a copper said I was driving like a cnut and let me off I would be over the moon :wink: :lol:


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## Mark Davies (Apr 10, 2007)

ttsteve said:


> The fact that not all coppers are bad is neither here nor there, it doesn't matter. The general public - the people from all walks of live that I speak to - are generally not happy with the police force.


Steve, it is the view you have of the police that is the very reason I make my arguments here. I don't expect for one minute to change the minds of those people who have posted their complaints - they already have that anti-police mindset and nothing that can be said and no amount of actual evidence is ever going to change that.

The reason I post on this subject is to counter this constant barrage of negative press about the police that the general public are subjected to on a daily basis, and which you describe in your response. For very many (and possibly yourself too as you don't describe any personal encounters with the police) what they hear about the police is their only understanding of them and how they behave. But the simple fact is, the vast majority of what you are told is _simply not true_.

I won't repeat my arguments to support this statement - it's all there above. The problem is that people just believe it all, and it gives an unfairly negative impression of the police service which damages public confidence.

You argue that we have to win back that confidence, but that's a very difficult thing to do when not only were you not doing much wrong in the first place but actually doing a bloody good job. If people are absolutely determined to think the worst of you whether that stance is justified or not, then what can you hope to do?

I'd say to just keep an open mind and judge us on your own experience, but even then we're on to a loser from the start. You clearly sit in the camp of believing the police have no right to step into your life at all. For your information we have the power to stop any motorist without any reason at all, other than simply to inspect your documentation. Nobody needs to make up any excuses - we are not 'making it up as we go along'. Again, quite unjustified criticism made simply because you don't know or understand the law or policing. So I expect if you were stopped you'd approach that encounter with a fairly negative outlook and would come away from it having self-generated what you'd percieve as a negative encounter, regardless of how the police dealt with it.

But I'd love to hear how people think the police could go about their job without ever stopping or speaking with members of the public. Has anybody ever really given a moment's thought about what policing involves before voicing their criticism? Has anyone actually got the first idea?

It's absolutely essential that we engage with the public and speak with them if we are to protect society from criminals, however until certain sections of the general public come to understand that and still view a police officer just taking up a couple of minutes of their time as an affront to their human rights then we are never going to make you happy.


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## SimonQS (Jul 21, 2008)

Not for the fun of it, they usually pull me over for driving too fast... :roll: :wink:


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## Private Prozac (Jul 7, 2003)

I aint really bothered about all the politics. I just wanna see a picture, or video, of the girls hooters in the 106 please!


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## Colinthecop (Jan 2, 2008)

SimonQS said:


> Not for the fun of it, they usually pull me over for driving too fast... :roll: :wink:


You're obviously not driving fast enough if they catch you.... :mrgreen:


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## SAJ77 (Nov 16, 2008)

ttsteve said:


> Long thread, lots of views. Some common elements becoming apparent.
> 
> It seems that coppers are in favour of being able to stop drivers on a hunch. That's a whole argument in itself - with good and bad reasons as to whether it would be a good thing, but we the general public need to know the score. Can a copper stop you and announce that he simply has a hunch that you have been drinking, carrying drugs, or maybe have a stolen a car? or, does he have to stop you for some 'made up reason' just to subsequently check just about everything about you and the vehicle - a sham stop. We need to know; coppers are making it up as they go along.
> police from friends and the media that tells us that this is simply the case. It's not that people are born 'ant-police', we take as we find.


An officer can pull you over if you are on a public road/place - he does not need a specific reason. A 'hunch' will do - and a GOOD cops 'hunch' usually pays off 

Saj


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## Dash (Oct 5, 2008)

Just to buck the trend... I've never been tugged in my life.

*touch wood*


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

If you only hear negative stories about the Police, there are three possible explanations -

1. The Police treat people badly most of the time.
2. People see any treatment as bad, as they're upset about being stopped at all.
3. People don't rant about good treatment by the Police.

If you read reports of people being victimised by the Police and the only conclusion you came to was no.1 above, then that says more about you than it does the Police.


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## CamV6 (Oct 26, 2003)

Mark Davies said:


> CamV6 said:
> 
> 
> > And there we have it.
> ...


I'm not just referring to that story, I also draw on my own personal experiences, many of them infact.


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## CamV6 (Oct 26, 2003)

Colinthecop said:


> CamV6 said:
> 
> 
> > And there we have it.
> ...


What trite drivel. I'm not writing off the poice or saying they are all useless and I'd not call on them! All I'm saying QUITE CLEARLY is that some officers seem to enjoy the power trip. Clear enough for you?

Anyway, this is now a very silly discussion. How exactly are we supposed to put 'evidence' on here? We arent in Court now, we are just exchanging stories and views. If you choose to dismiss what is said here as exaggerated or made up or whatever, then so be it.

Good luck all, I'm out of this one, its just one silly response to real concerns after another.

No one is slating the police en masse and saying all useless abusers. I for one am just saying there seem to be some who abuse who and what they are. Its pretty simple really and an irresistable suggestion in my view. That the police officers on here want to deny this view that I and others have by opening it out into a much bigger issue/argument that isnt the point, says it all. One thing that is patently obvious is that you guys couldnt care less about how law abiding citzens often feel short-changed by the treatment we have sometimes received (I must say also for balance there have also been several occasions I've felt very happy and satisfied by the way I've been dealt with by police). Yes there are some bullshitters, there always are, but there are also some people who do tell true and representative accounts of experiences.


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