Pulled over by the police with blue lights flashing because I BEEPED at them!

[BeepedAtPoliceCar]

Long but I've tried to make it easy to read!

Tonight, I dropped DS at work and on the way back had just started moving off from a large roundabout to go straight across it. It was 7pm and the road is an A road, not a residential area.

I had noticed a police car coming down from the opposite side of the roundabout (no lights flashing) and assumed it was going straight across as it had no indicators but it turned right towards me so I had to stop.

As I moved onto the roundabout after it passed me. I beeped. A short tap to say where the hell are you going. I had also had to stop. I was moving when I beeped. This is important.

I assumed it was going to take the same exit as me but it It then continued round the roundabout again. Still no indication. So I did another short beep. The direction he was going in was to our local police station about 2 minutes down the road.

Yes it was in frustration as there are many idiots who don't indicate in my area and I've had many near misses. It's pretty shit the police are driving like that as well and it was also a hazard to other road users.

Maybe the driver wasn't aware his indicators weren't working?

Anyway I drive on but see in the my rear mirror a police car speeding up the road behind me, lights flashing, in the bus lane. The speed limit is 40 and I was doing that so he must have been doing 60 at least as he caught up with me in seconds.

I immediately knew he was coming after me.

The car came alongside me and the driver wound his window down, as did I, and shouted at me to pull over now, pull over now. He looked apoplectic with rage!

I pulled over in front of him in the bus lane and he drove behind me, bumper to bumper. I have never been stopped by the police before and got out of my car to go to speak to him (oops lucky it wasn't in the US!).

He's screaming get back in your car now, get back in your car now!

So I get back in and luckily had the presence of mind to start videoing on my phone as he came over. I asked for him name and badge number which he fired off so fast I couldn't catch it. He refused to repeat it. Refused to tell me which police station he was stationed at. He said I had contravened the highway code for beeping inappropriately and would be getting a penalty ticket.

I admit I was a bit argumentative (not rude) and said he only stopped me because he was pissed off I beeped at him and the police should know better.

He then said they were looking for a 'criminal' and were on police business so didn't have to indicate (no lights except when they came for me!) and they also didn't know where they were going. He also said he didn't need to indicate unless he was exiting the roundabout.

I asked him why if he was looking for a criminal, he decided to go after someone who beeped at him for not indicating.

He said I was stationery when I beeped so that is a road traffic contravention. I was moving so I asked him why he was lying. He then stated he'd need to do drug and alcohol tests.

I asked if he was joking and what basis did he have to suspect I was driving under the influence. He said because my behaviour - beeping at him - was 'bizarre' and I was driving dangerously, then asked if I was refusing? So I had to do them. They were clear obviously.

I said I would be making a complaint as I believed he was abusing his power because he was pissed off I beeped at him and 'how dare he bully members of the public'.

He then said MOVE NOW because I was in an active lane (bus lane where he forced me to stop) and if I didn't move now I'd get another ticket for failing to comply with an instruction from a police officer. I said 'who do you think you're talking to'.

I was very WTF and asked him to repeat the law I had broken and told him to give me the ticket so I could challenge it in court, so he said he did and I would get it in the post.

Two tickets - £130 and 3 points.

I then drove off. He didn't come behind me so I can only assume he went back round the next roundabout in the direction of the police station and the looking for a criminal was rubbish. In fact he said it so sarcastically, I think he meant looking for someone to book!

I have video of most of the interaction and he comes across very bullish and rude, especially when he was shouting at me to 'move now'. Literally no more than a minute until I did but he still said he had given me a ticket.

I did tell him I was putting the video on TikTok and would be making a complaint.
Quite shocked about this, and on reading about challenging the tickets in court, it seems that you can end up with a criminal conviction if you lose!

The lie about me being stationery when I beeped (which I have on video) should be easily disproven by their dashcam. Would they have to give me this if I challenge it?

Sadly I don't have my own. I ordered one ages ago, kept forgetting to set it up and it was on top of the bookcase at home!

WIBU?

“Facing a disciplinary panel”! Well that won’t be happening.The OP is bonkers.

"and I've had many near misses"

"and assumed it was going straight across"

If you've had that many near misses then you habitually assume too much, and you are driving without due care and attention.

Please tell me the video is o TIKTOK so we can go have a look?

I'd like to see a diagram of this roundabout. I wonder if other posters are imagining it is one of those giant ones. In my mind, and from what the OP describes - though to be fair, she is bonkers - it is a small one like the ones near me. In that case all the indicating she imagines ought to happen when she believes it ought to happen most likely rarely happens, for practical reasons.

Well it is impossible for public sector workers to pay the cost of their own wages they literally take more than they put in. The money to pay them and to sustain the cost centres which employ them comes from Govt receipts and about 45% of that is income tax and NI. I pay about 40% of your wages isn't as snappy though.

So he decided to divert himself with a spot of bullying? Totes understandable

What a weirdly shortsighted view.

Someone who is employed by the public purse who earns the UK Median Wage of £39,039 will pay £7,412 of tax and NI. However, the work that they do will variously (depending on what they are doing to earn that money)

• regularly and repeatedly teach young people the skills they need in order to become a net contributing high-earning taxpayper
• regularly and repeatedly provide the support and inspiration that someone needs to overcome their trauma and live in a way that contributes to society rather than being on a destructive path towards prison (each prisoner costs the public purse £60,018pa on average, so rach person diverted from a downward spiral into having even a basic but honest life, even on minimum wage, has created tens of thousands of pounds of future value to the public purse
• regularly and repeatedly contribute to the rehabilitation of someone who would otherwise spend their whole life on benefits due to poor mental or physical health but with the right support can find a way of doing some kind of gainful employment.

... the overall positive impact of which will be much more than the headline £31,627 difference between those simple figures

Not every public sector worker has a clear line of sight to the lives their work impacts, some public sector workers are a small cog in the machine where the easily measurable impacts like these examples are too many steps away to directly attribute, but nevertheless that cog is vital to the functioning of the machine without which society would crumble into the nightmare dystopia that would arise if these jobs aren't getting done and services are only provided to those with the means to pay.

Whereas by comparison a lot (but not all) "net contributor" high earners do nothing that will have any kind of beneficial impact on future public purse expenditure and in a lot of cases will be actively creating negative pressures which will increase future public expenditure in ways that far outstrip the positive impacts of the tax they contribute. In the context of this thread, a police officer may mostly work where these other kinds of posituve work have failed, but nevertheless their work is making a net positive contribution by capturing and hopefully minimising those failures before they get as bad as they otherwise might. Earning enough money to pay tax that exceeds the cost of the public services you consume is a foolish measure of "contribution" if the impact of the things you did to earn that money was at the cost of exploiting and damaging other people's lives in individually small ways that reduced other people's potential or increaaed other people's needs. A social worker, teacher or therapeutic nurse has way more positive impact on society than a dozen high-earning financial-market traders if you analyse the full impact of what they do rather than just their individual tax-paid to services-consumed figures.

This 100%

Not my point. It's the entitled attitude of people who say that I object to. Obviously, the more you earn the more tax you pay.

Exactly

Surely you don't enter a roundabout until safe to do so, meaning that you have made sure you understand the intentions of the other cars on the roundabout.

So we have a shortage of police officers. They are doing an incredibly tough job and yet you want one to face a disciplinary panel because you beeped and them. You Contravening the Highway Code.

Tbh OP I think you are just a cop hater who came on here looking for drama and applauding that you’d made life difficult for the police.

Well done OP model citizen

So we assume that every car coming around a roundabout but not indicating at all is going to carry on? Most of the time people either don’t indicate to come off, you can’t see their indicator on the left or their positioning is bad. I’ll be waiting at roundabouts for hours letting everyone go straight on before I set off??

Normal people are terrible at indicating, so I agree with the premise that you can’t assume what someone is about to do.

But the police.. they should indicate correctly!!

I wish my step dad would get pulled over for honking his horn at people just because he thinks they've committed a traffic violation

I am imagining a massive one near me. I do like a diagram.

to clarify my previous comment, I do think the OP was BU to beep twice and then argue! But the indicators at a roundabout thing is annoying and the police should set a better example.

My driving instructor told me the same, and it is also what I told adult DD when she was learning to drive several years ago. She has mentioned several times since that she remembers what I said, and she definitely puts it into practice.

Agree. The OP apparently 'assumed' and that's not good enough.

Also, whenever I see a police car at a junction, I hang back a bit and wait for them to pass first.

You beeped at a police officer, not once but twice. You then got out of the car. You then videoed them.

In all these circumstances you were a wanker of the highest order and people like you are adding to the issues in society. How about you just let someone doing their job which is stressful enough not have to deal with pissy people who judge, cause trouble and think they are better than others for some reason.

That police officer could have been on the way to tell someone their child was dead. They may have just come from the hospital sitting with some wife who has been beaten half to death and sat with her for the last 8 hours. We have no idea what they have had to deal with but you just made life worse by being a jumped up pratt.

He then said MOVE NOW because I was in an active lane (bus lane where he forced me to stop) and if I didn't move now I'd get another ticket for failing to comply with an instruction from a police officer. I said 'who do you think you're talking to

The first beep I can understand. But you are your own worst enemy.

Learn when to stop digging, FFS.

In fact, not just idiots, but psychopaths out to get you.

All of this.

Why though ?

I understand the police have a difficult job. But their treatment of the public shouldn't depend on what their previous day has been like, any more that I should be let off a speeding ticket because I had a crap day previously.

Everyone hopes that they will be treated by the police fairly and equally (irrespective of what happened with the OP here) and not depending on whether the police have had a poor day of it.

If the police feel they aren't capable of doing that then they really should be excusing themselves from the job for a few hours until they feel they can get back to that state. That's surely a better outcome for everyone than taking things out on your next encounter.

Yes - you wait and see where they are going. And don't assume. I've never waited for hours at roundabouts but never assume either.

if you don't, and you pull out and the other vehicle is going round past your exit, you are at fault for any accident

whether it's the police or not.

No, just idiots.

I need to leave this thread. The 'i pay their wages idiots are about to descend on us'