How do you go about reporting someone for drink driving

[Pamsresearch]

And would anything actually happen - in a world where police don't come out when we call them because a child has a knife or drugs in school?

I was at a do at the weekend. At the end there was a discussion about how everyone was getting home. I only live 20mins away and planned to walk. Friends were horrified.

One friend was planning to drive and had had far to much to drink for that. We were all horrified.

Anyway to shut everyone up it was agreed that he'd walk me home and get a taxi from mine.

Of course he didn't, he then walked back to his car, justifying it by saying he'd have 40 mins of sobering up by the time he got back. He got home without incident, but I know I should have done "something"

If I'd phoned the police at 1am to say a man was walking back to his car with the intention of driving it drunk, what would they have done? I'm afraid my experiences in school make me think it's likely to be nothing.

I have heard of arrests in just that scenario. If the phone call goes to 111 the police do alert police on patrol in the area.

In that situation I’d have called 999 or 101 and reported it immediately. The call would have been prioritised accordingly and if resource was available it would have been sent out.

Police don’t just decide not to attend things for shits and giggles by the way; it gets triaged and unfortunately due to the horrific cuts to the public sector there often isn’t enough resource to go round.

Also - that “friend” would now be an ex-friend for making the appealing decision to drive drunk.

@Dyrne

In that situation I’d have called 999 or 101 and reported it immediately. The call would have been prioritised accordingly and if resource was available it would have been sent out.

Police don’t just decide not to attend things for shits and giggles by the way; it gets triaged and unfortunately due to the horrific cuts to the public sector there often isn’t enough resource to go round.

Also - that “friend” would now be an ex-friend for making the appealing decision to drive drunk.

Yes, TBH he was already someone I didn't have a particularly high opinion of, more.someone at the same do than an actual friend.

That's what I meant re police. They can't prioritise a child with a knife in school, why would they attend this?

@Pamsresearch they may be able to prioritise because it’s a different time; and different things going on.

It’s not that they went “oh we’re not going to go out because it’s just a kid with a knife at school”; someone would have seen a big long list of “we’ve got 3 active threats to life, 2 vulnerable missing persons, 1 kid with a knife that hasn’t actively threatened anyone yet; and only 1 available resource.”

If you’d called it may have been a case of 2 available resources; 3 x cases of people having a row; and a person who was potentially about to kill people by driving drunk and they know exactly where he’s going to be. So they may have been able to prioritise the drunk driver call in that instance.

(I’m not saying it’s right by the way - it’s horrific we’ve gotten to the state where our police force are unable to attend serious crimes because of a resource issue. Same with people bei by left for hours on a cold floor due to lack of ambulances).

The child with the knife absolutely was threatening people.

We phone the police for violence in school and drug dealing nearby quite often (PRU) they never come.

I’m not quite sure what you want people to say.

If you call the police, they may not come. If you don’t call the police, then they definitely won’t come.

I couldn’t live with myself if someone had died and I’d done nothing to at least try to stop them.

@Pamsresearch

The child with the knife absolutely was threatening people.

We phone the police for violence in school and drug dealing nearby quite often (PRU) they never come.

I’m not sure why you’re so fixated on this. As a PP has noted, what do you want people to say? If you don’t report it, certainly nothing will happen. If you do report it, then there is a chance that something will happen.

Fixated? It's hard to work in a place where lives often are at risk, knowing the police won't come. I just wondered if there's any point calling them for the drink driving.

If you ring the police, they might attend. If you don't ring the police, they definitely won't attend.

What do you want people to say? Other than its shit the police don't immediately turn up when every single person demands that they do so there and then. We don't know any of the circumstances of the kid having the knife. They may have had legal cause to have it (because having a knife in itself is not necessarily an offence).