Police drive way too fast, way too often

[TheReluctantPhoenix]

AIBU in thinking that too many police drive dangerously and unjustifiably fast without sufficient reason to do so?

Thread prompted by, in the last 5 days, seeing two cars (in separate incidents) driving down suburban outer London streets with cars parked on both sides, at a speed of at least 50MPH (they have 20 MPH limits). There is no way they could have stopped in time for a child or a dog, or a car which came out of a high street.

Also watching the series ‘Police Interceptors’ I get really angry when they prompt a chase at ridiculous speeds (70-100 mph) in villages. Then they say how they pursued car is being ridiculously irresponsible! And who are the master criminals that they catch? 90% of the time it is kids in battered old cars which are either uninsured or they are ‘drug dealers’ (a few wraps or spliffs).

I never observe the other emergency services taking the risks the police do, although I suspect they have many more life or death call outs.

I don’t care how ‘well trained’ you are (and the reality is an ‘advanced’ driver is 2 months of training), human reaction time is around 0.2 seconds, and that is plenty to kill or maim a child or animal.

So, AIBU in thinking that the police drive way too fast, for what frequently appears to be an adrenaline buzz, and that, these days, there are far more intelligent and less risky ways to keep our streets safe?

@sunflowersandbuttercups

Who are chasing 'shithead' 17 year olds (who, despite their problems, are also someone's sons and daughters) in £750 heaps of junk.

So, what, the police should just do nothing?

It's not always young kids in £750 "heaps of junk" either. But you clearly have an agenda here

I agree with this.

So should the police say, o well better not chase these criminals because well they are somebody’s child.

I know I will get backlash for this but I never have sympathy for idiots who don’t care about the safety of others when breaking the law and speeding round it cars. If they end up injuring themselves or dying then it’s just one less idiot off the road. Like the complete fucking dick who was speeding around at over 100mph, skidding past my house who killed a 19 year old boy walking home from is part time job a few streets from my house. He took out a brick wall and trees in doing so, that could have been my house with my children in it. Or the elderly lolly pop lady who was taken out by a dickhead right outside my house. Or the dicks who killed 2 of their friends recently in the next town over also taking out irreplaceable 16th century architecture while doing it. The only people I have sympathy for are the victims and their families. If any member of my family was driving like a dick in a stolen car they would get zero sympathy and no one else in the family would ever defend them for their actions, they would be saying the stupid dick I can’t believe I was actually related to them.

Let me know if you would feel the same if the police were racing to your home to help you or chasing the people who killed someone you loved.

They used to have open days at the Hendon training college back in the day. They let the public have a go on the skid pan (longest queue) and the royal driving course with a ball bearing in a dish on the bonnet, and police officer walking alongside to pick it up.

You could also tour the workshops where they made "adjustments" to the stock cars to make them in to chase cars.

I'd have loved to do something like that years ago! Any driver can actually do advanced driver training I think? Or you used to be able to. Obviously it comes with high fees, but I often wondered about doing it, just for my own safety. My driving instructor when I was learning how to drive many decades ago taught me now only 'how to pass your test', but also how to not cause a fucking accident! Given the behaviour of some drivers I've seen on the roads, I suspect they had no such training!

The last time my husband (police) drove on blue lights was to someone in cardiac arrest at a road traffic accident because they were closer than an ambulance.
I think of it was my loved one dying at the side of a road I'd want the there as fast as possible, wouldn't you?

When you think about it, you'll usually sit your test in an urban area. I lived rurally when learning, so my instructor brought me out onto rural roads to teach me how to drive safely there too! My test was in a medium sized town.

A friend in NZ wanted to become a driving instructor herself. She kept failing at a thing called an emergency stop at high speed. Never heard of it in standard tests. She now has an entirely different career!

Well until a member of your family was killed by a speeding police car

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/05/number-road-deaths-involving-police-vehicles-13-year-high

Four people were killed when they were hit by police vehicles responding to an emergency call. Another death occurred when an unmarked police car responding to an emergency call collided with another vehicle.

- - - -- - - -- - - -

How many people were killed on the roads to to speeding cars being driven by non-Police officers in the same time period I wonder.

I think a lot of people in cities who passed their tests in Europe, seem to have different methods of driving (e.g. pulling out in front of you while you have the right of way!).

I hate driving in cities as I learned how to drive rurally. I suspect sometimes city drivers are not comfortable driving rurally.

Motorway driving, city driving, rural night-time/day-time driving are all different beasts. Tests seem to only account for one environment.
For the general public I mean.

@BetterCallSully

Unpopular opinion, but I know a cop.

A lot of them are petrol heads.

They like to throw their dicks around. And if fast cars are the only way to do it then they will.

I dont use the term 'useless' mildly. Or politicitcly. But I do think it's fair. The police aren't great.

You know one 'cop' so not they are all the same as the one you know.

Fwiw I have known a number of police officers. None behaved in this manner.

They weren't traffic police though a couple had done the advanced driving course. Another started the advanced police driving training and pulled out as it was too intense and they didn't enjoy it.

"they would almost certainly get seen by another ANPR camera later and get caught by regular policing methods within a couple of days"

If you think this is the case you've clearly never watched even that many Police Interceptor type programs, let alone know much about policing and traffic offences.

It would seem police are not really any worse than the ambulance service for road accident deaths.

Ambulance service had approx 280,000 call outs in 2019. Police had approx 2.5 million grade 1 (emergency response) incidents. Police involved road traffic accident deaths 42. A quick google finds news articles on 4 road traffic deaths that directly involved an ambulance.

So that’s in the same ball park (and that’s ignoring the fact that the police had another nearly 7.5 million lower grade call outs in 2019, where as we’re looking at all ambulance call outs, however urgent the call was graded).

Just watching a fascinating episode of a very old tv programme about a liver run as they call it on youtube where the police (MET) had 34 minutes to get a liver to a hospital for a transplant. I don't want to keep linking videos, but you can look it up if interested. Sometimes speed is of the essence. They don't wilfully just drive like lunatics whenever they feel like it I hope!

@abraxan,

Again from the Guardian article:

'When I asked an experienced officer from another district to explain how difficult it was to track someone who had won clear in a chase, the answer came with a cool shrug. Not very difficult. “There’s always other options,” he said. Interviewing. Intel. Close scrutiny of CCTV. On his computer, he showed me how they tracked down one chase suspect who had ditched his stolen scooter, jogged a few blind corners and then removed his helmet, clearly revealing his face, all shown in CCTV images so numerous they ran together as if in a children’s flick-book. “We’ll get you,” the officer said.'

@BoomBoomsCousin

It would seem police are not really any worse than the ambulance service for road accident deaths.

Ambulance service had approx 280,000 call outs in 2019. Police had approx 2.5 million grade 1 (emergency response) incidents. Police involved road traffic accident deaths 42. A quick google finds news articles on 4 road traffic deaths that directly involved an ambulance.

So that’s in the same ball park (and that’s ignoring the fact that the police had another nearly 7.5 million lower grade call outs in 2019, where as we’re looking at all ambulance call outs, however urgent the call was graded).

Where is the ambulance figure from? Seems low, is it for one service rather than nationally?

That ambulance figure must be wrong surely?

Another thing that I've observed is that London drivers don't appear to know how to behave either as drivers or pedestrians when they hear sirens. We're so immune to them here, that we tend to be oblivious (guilty of that myself too). On the video I've just watched, there was one example on the journey where they're racing to get the liver across london for the transplant, the driver with German reg plates pulls in to his right, rather than left, which is how he/she would have been taught driving on the rhs of the road. I would never rent a car in Europe or drive in Europe as I'm pretty dopey and get confused. Everything seems backways and I wouldn't trust myself to instinctually be able to drive safely.

@CarlottaValdez

That ambulance figure must be wrong surely?

I think it’s probably for one service. There were 6.6 million calls nationally in 2015-16 and the number goes up every year so we’re probably around 6.6-7 million per year now.

I haven’t voted because I don’t know. I agree that seeing 2 police cars in 5 days isn’t really enough to go on. I’d need more information to have an opinion.

BUT there do seem to be a lot of polarised opinions on this thread - many from the perspective of ‘the police can do no wrong’. I am a rule follower by nature (and I am currently working for another emergency service) but I think it’s unhealthy to think we can’t and shouldn’t question whether there’s a safer way to do things or we’re somehow insulting all police officers.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@abraxan,

Again from the Guardian article:

'When I asked an experienced officer from another district to explain how difficult it was to track someone who had won clear in a chase, the answer came with a cool shrug. Not very difficult. “There’s always other options,” he said. Interviewing. Intel. Close scrutiny of CCTV. On his computer, he showed me how they tracked down one chase suspect who had ditched his stolen scooter, jogged a few blind corners and then removed his helmet, clearly revealing his face, all shown in CCTV images so numerous they ran together as if in a children’s flick-book. “We’ll get you,” the officer said.'[/quote]
They're hardly going to say actually it's very difficult, because then the criminals will just try to drive away faster to get rid of the police

@Advic3Pl3as3

Thanks for querying that - I went back and checked and I was way off base. Numbers are for whole of England, but I misread average daily figures as monthly ones. So actual numbers for ambulance attendance 30 times higher. So I take it back.

Incident numbers taken from: NHS England

@ismiseeire

Just watching a fascinating episode of a very old tv programme about a liver run as they call it on youtube where the police (MET) had 34 minutes to get a liver to a hospital for a transplant. I don't want to keep linking videos, but you can look it up if interested. Sometimes speed is of the essence. They don't wilfully just drive like lunatics whenever they feel like it I hope!

If you watch carefully though, you'll see the junctions all being closed off by police motorcycles as they proceed into London. It is impressive. But look at the support and coordination needed.

If you watch carefully though, you'll see the junctions all being closed off by police motorcycles as they proceed into London. It is impressive. But look at the support and coordination needed. I know, it was fascinating watching it. They said Scotland yard had introduced a new coordinated thing where 51 officers were involved in total in closing off junctions for them to get through and they had two motorcycle officers ahead of them. Pretty good going though!

I wouldn't even get to Asda a mile away in London now lol.

@TheReluctantPhoenix so, genuinely, what is the solution to this?

Police to not pursue stolen cars, uninsured cars, criminals? Pursue them to a max speed then let them go? Only pursue in non-populated areas?

It was a bit like watching racing car drivers where they have a wingman telling them about upcoming turns and stuff. The passenger officer seemed to be telling him where to turn etc. en route as and when the command centre had cleared routes for them. I felt a bit emotional watching.

@BillMasen,

A solution would be to not pursue beyond a certain crime for minor crimes but to substantially increase the penalty for fleeing if you are subsequently caught.

Obviously, in cases of serious crime and real emergency, police need the right to pursue.

YABU. The police do a fantastic job and maybe you should question WHY they have to drive like that because I doubt they're hardly doing it for a laugh

I'm not sure why anybody would want to be a police officer because they're damned if they do and damned if they don't!