Letter from the police

[The Gauge]

Voldemort said:

Ask them for a copy of the footage using the Data Protection Act and also what information 'they will be retaining on file'

Why? It will just show him doing the overtake which he already knows he has done, plus the cops aren't prosecuting so why bother? He's not being accused of anything. But yeh, demand away!!!

Edited by The Gauge on Tuesday 30th April 07:38

[Random_Person]

Nibbles_bits said:

I would say that the police doing it during training is necessary......as part of the training.

And so is overtaking a vehicle travelling beneath the speed limit, if you as the driver deem it so. Either way it is a "should not" not a "must not" (like solid white lined bordered hatches) so the issue of necessity is irrelevant.

Half the problem is ignorance, people do not educate themselves or take responsibility to fully understand the rules of the road.This letter writing is a scheme to appease the complainers and try and influence the badly behaved, and in turn provides the local force with a shiny headline they can spout about what they are doing to improve road safety in their areas. It is not specific nor based on a prosecution, it is akin to the yellow jacket wearing clipboard brigade who stand at the side of the road with a borrowed speed device wagging their fingers.

The "department" who will be receiving these clips and sending out the letters is likely to have no police officers in it whatsoever.

[EdMX5]

martinbiz said:

It's irrelevant, the OP has already said he has received a letter saying he won't be prosecuted

And the Police most certainly can prosecute for speeding from video footage, normally high end, but they can and do

How can the police determine your exact speed from dash cam footage, even high end dash cam footage? In any prosecution they would have to be able to inform the court what your exact speed was, so that the court could determine an appropriate penalty for the severity of the offence.

[Konrod]

The Gauge said:

Pickled Piper said:

vonhosen said:

Did you exceed the 60 limit?

OP you haven't answered the question above.

The Police can't prosecute for speeding based on dashcam footage. So a NIP / warning for driving without due care and attention is often the the option taken.

They aren't accusing him of speeding, are they?

Firstly thank you all for your responses. To answer some of the questions, I may have exceeded the limit slightly during the manoeuvre to minimise time in the wrong side of the road, but was back down to a true 60 afterwards. In any event, as was said, they have no admissable speed information.

I'm going to take the advice and bin it, although I am mightily aggrieved. Another middle aged professional the police have alienated.

[Forester1965]

If they're bothered enough about the speed they could measure the distance between road furniture and use the video to time how long it took you to cover it (essentially what officers in cars have done for many years using specific kit).

As for a potential offence here, don't have a copy of Wilkinsons (AGT will). Does the 'necessary' in the HC relate to the necessity of the manoeuvre (i.e. the overtake) or the necessity to enter the hatched area to complete it?

[EdMX5]

Forester1965 said:

If they're bothered enough about the speed they could measure the distance between road furniture and use the video to time how long it took you to cover it (essentially what officers in cars have done for many years using specific kit).

As for a potential offence here, don't have a copy of Wilkinsons (AGT will). Does the 'necessary' in the HC relate to the necessity of the manoeuvre (i.e. the overtake) or the necessity to enter the hatched area to complete it?

Hm. So they would have to send an officer to the location to measure the exact distance between two pieces of road furniture, then go back to review the video to time the offending vehicle between those pieces of road furniture. What a fantastic use of police resources.
The VASCAR system relies on prepainted markings on the road.

[InitialDave]

What a waste of time.

Even if (as seems probable) this doesn't involve an actual police officer at any stage, its still a waste if resource that could be doing something actually useful.

OP, if you do write back to them about this, can you ask if they've been able to use any of their evidently copious free time to find out who nicked my bike? I'm guessing not.

[bigothunter]

EdMX5 said:

I always thought you can enter a hatched area with broken lines, as long as you do not endanger other road users. What concerns me are ‘holier than thou’ drivers sneaking on others by sending in dash cam footage to the police for what are often minor transgressions. As the biblical saying goes: ”Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” I served in Berlin during the Cold War and was aghast at the cultural of the East Germans, who were encouraged to spy on neighbours and even their own families. After our own Covid lockdowns, with ‘curtain twitchers’ ratting on their neighbours, and now this, I really worry for the future of our country.

This is by far the most significant post in this thread. British society has been reduced to caring about petty minded individuals whinging about supposed minor transgressions - utterly pathetic

[Fermit]

It's rather sad, that in todays world many see an overtake as dangerous/illegal/likely to kill babies. I came across such a plum yesterday. Him driving a Mini One, 30ish in an NSL. There is a section of said road where you come over a brow, and have about 200 metres of road clearly sighted. When this came in to view I dropped town to third and sailed passed him. A few minutes later he was behind me at a red light. He'd turned claret coloured, and was clapping his hands like a seal that had just popped an E. The lights turned green and I gestured him goodbye with a raised middle digit. I did note he had a dash cam, so half expecting a nkock at the door. I too have dashcam, so if it happens I can show anyone it, who will conclude it was totally legal and safe.

Your 'victim' is likely a sad old tool who can't drive for toffee, needing his ego propping up by 'doing his bit' by complaining to the Police.

[STe_rsv4]

Ham_and_Jam said:

QuickQuack said:

And that's why you're NOT a pilot. I'm not a pilot either but even I can actually think of a situation where it may be necessary to do just that with a jumbo jet. In fact, that was exactly what Air France flight 447 needed although it was an Airbus A330. Unfortunately, an inexperienced pilot made a huge mistake, the aircraft stalled mid-air, dropped like a stone and 228 people died.

There's a good reason why the person in charge of a vehicle at the time is the one trusted with these judgements.

Ahhh!! You beat me to it, I was thinking exactly the same scenario

Being pedantic here but technically if you put a plane into a nose dive, then there's no way it should stall..........;)

[STe_rsv4]

Fermit said:

It's rather sad, that in todays world many see an overtake as dangerous/illegal/likely to kill babies. I came across such a plum yesterday. Him driving a Mini One, 30ish in an NSL. There is a section of said road where you come over a brow, and have about 200 metres of road clearly sighted. When this came in to view I dropped town to third and sailed passed him. A few minutes later he was behind me at a red light. He'd turned claret coloured, and was clapping his hands like a seal that had just popped an E. The lights turned green and I gestured him goodbye with a raised middle digit. I did note he had a dash cam, so half expecting a nkock at the door. I too have dashcam, so if it happens I can show anyone it, who will conclude it was totally legal and safe.

Your 'victim' is likely a sad old tool who can't drive for toffee, needing his ego propping up by 'doing his bit' by complaining to the Police.

This x 10

I'm half tempted to "lose" part of a letter from my bike number plate when I go out due to the possibility of having been filmed doing what some of these clowns deem as "unsafe" acts of driving when in fact most of the overtakes I will carry out will be to get myself clear of said clowns due to their dawdling / erratic driving

[timbob]

Accountability culture.

Busybody makes report to the police with dashcam footage. Police officer (or possibly a civilian staff member) takes one look and says “no, not interested”. But every report has to go somewhere. To refuse to do anything about it will involve a consultation with a supervisor, an explanation/rationale, likely the supervisor’s supervisor overseeing the report and endorsing the write off.

It’s much easier to issue a “warning letter” and file the busybody’s report (in the metaphorical bin). The report will then be closed with only a cursory check.

The mention to “held on file” is only due to management of police information and data protection rules. Every report results in a computer “file”. This is held on systems up to a set date (depending on the severity of the incident) whereupon it is automatically deleted. This can be anything from a month up to a hundred years, depending.

[Nibbles_bits]

Random_Person said:

Nibbles_bits said:

I would say that the police doing it during training is necessary......as part of the training.

And so is overtaking a vehicle travelling beneath the speed limit, if you as the driver deem it so. Either way it is a "should not" not a "must not" (like solid white lined bordered hatches) so the issue of necessity is irrelevant.

Half the problem is ignorance, people do not educate themselves or take responsibility to fully understand the rules of the road.This letter writing is a scheme to appease the complainers and try and influence the badly behaved, and in turn provides the local force with a shiny headline they can spout about what they are doing to improve road safety in their areas. It is not specific nor based on a prosecution, it is akin to the yellow jacket wearing clipboard brigade who stand at the side of the road with a borrowed speed device wagging their fingers.

The "department" who will be receiving these clips and sending out the letters is likely to have no police officers in it whatsoever.

Is it necessary to overtake a vehicle travelling below the speed limit??

As the recipient (OH actually) of a very similar letter following a collision - yes, it probably was sent by some civi. No doubt a recently retired Officer that was already lined up for the role before retirement (with the obligatory external vacancy ad, which noone outside the force is going to get anyway).

The OP isn't being prosecuted, so just needs to forget about it.

[Debaser]

I have always been taught there is no problem crossing a broken line to overtake. Why would it be driving without due care and attention?

[K4sper]

STe_rsv4 said:

Ham_and_Jam said:

QuickQuack said:

And that's why you're NOT a pilot. I'm not a pilot either but even I can actually think of a situation where it may be necessary to do just that with a jumbo jet. In fact, that was exactly what Air France flight 447 needed although it was an Airbus A330. Unfortunately, an inexperienced pilot made a huge mistake, the aircraft stalled mid-air, dropped like a stone and 228 people died.

There's a good reason why the person in charge of a vehicle at the time is the one trusted with these judgements.

Ahhh!! You beat me to it, I was thinking exactly the same scenario

Being pedantic here but technically if you put a plane into a nose dive, then there's no way it should stall..........;)

Also being pedantic, the point of QuackQuack's post was that the pilot should have put it into a nose dive because it was losing speed, but he did the opposite and that's why it stalled

[InitialDave]

Nibbles_bits said:

The OP isn't being prosecuted, so just needs to forget about it.

Is that certain?

While the OP is not being prosecuted, the slightly sinister "we're going to keep this on file" carries with it an implication that they might make use of it in the future.

If another busybody decides to try and dob the OP in for nothing, and the police once again fail to correctly reject it, how does this previous incident weigh into that?

I'm aware this is likely overly paranoid, but with their behaviour so far, is there anything to be concerned about in future?

[QuickQuack]

STe_rsv4 said:

Ham_and_Jam said:

QuickQuack said:

And that's why you're NOT a pilot. I'm not a pilot either but even I can actually think of a situation where it may be necessary to do just that with a jumbo jet. In fact, that was exactly what Air France flight 447 needed although it was an Airbus A330. Unfortunately, an inexperienced pilot made a huge mistake, the aircraft stalled mid-air, dropped like a stone and 228 people died.

There's a good reason why the person in charge of a vehicle at the time is the one trusted with these judgements.

Ahhh!! You beat me to it, I was thinking exactly the same scenario

Being pedantic here but technically if you put a plane into a nose dive, then there's no way it should stall..........;)

Indeed, but that particular poster's point was that it's always bad to put a plane into a nosedive, especially a 747, and my counter point was that sometimes it's necessary to put a plane into a nose dive even a huge passenger jet. In short, the A330 which was Air France flight 447 needed to go into a nose dive to recover from the stall caused by the actions of the inexperienced pilot who was the "Pilot Flying" at the time. Unfortunately, when he handed the control over to the more senior pilot, he continued with the nose up input on his stick which cancelled the nose down input of the now "Pilot Flying" so the plane did nothing because as far as the logic of the flight computer went, the actions cancelled each other out but the pilots were not aware of each others' actions due to the lack of feedback from fly-by-wire controls. If the plane had gone nose down, it would have recovered speed and come out of the stall.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_...

Flight controls have now been changed so that if pilots give opposite inputs, there's now built in feedback similar to hydraulic/mechanical controls so that they're aware of each others' actions.

[QuickQuack]

K4sper said:

Also being pedantic, the point of QuackQuack's post was that the pilot should have put it into a nose dive because it was losing speed, but he did the opposite and that's why it stalled

Yes, thank you!

[lancslad58]

K4sper said:

STe_rsv4 said:

Ham_and_Jam said:

QuickQuack said:

And that's why you're NOT a pilot. I'm not a pilot either but even I can actually think of a situation where it may be necessary to do just that with a jumbo jet. In fact, that was exactly what Air France flight 447 needed although it was an Airbus A330. Unfortunately, an inexperienced pilot made a huge mistake, the aircraft stalled mid-air, dropped like a stone and 228 people died.

There's a good reason why the person in charge of a vehicle at the time is the one trusted with these judgements.

Ahhh!! You beat me to it, I was thinking exactly the same scenario

Being pedantic here but technically if you put a plane into a nose dive, then there's no way it should stall..........;)

Also being pedantic, the point of QuackQuack's post was that the pilot should have put it into a nose dive because it was losing speed, but he did the opposite and that's why it stalled

What about a Stuka dive bomber?


Anyway as other people have said the police aren’t going to prosecute so just move on.

[/thead]

[Giantt]

InitialDave said:

Nibbles_bits said:

The OP isn't being prosecuted, so just needs to forget about it.

Is that certain?

While the OP is not being prosecuted, the slightly sinister "we're going to keep this on file" carries with it an implication that they might make use of it in the future.

If another busybody decides to try and dob the OP in for nothing, and the police once again fail to correctly reject it, how does this previous incident weigh into that?

I'm aware this is likely overly paranoid, but with their behaviour so far, is there anything to be concerned about in future?

Exactly, people have become blasé towards data collection