Police motorway driving…

Most probably copper had a bad day, and wrongly he steamed it through traffic. Agreed it’s a bad behaviour, some other proffesionals vent their anger by spilling coffee or dropping papers on the floor … this bad boy bullied through traffic. Assxole. OP give him a chance to have bad day too, but most probably he knew what he was doing. Your suggestions of XXXX don’t concern proffesionals.

Thorpie, I have no issue with the need to make progress discreetly, that question has been answered and I’ve made clear aplenty I accept that it is a necessary tool in the box. However, as you are the only Police Advanced Driver on here so far, as opposed to the rest of the STW know it alls (only joking folks, you’re all good 😉 ), could you tell me if there is ever a requirement to tailgate and if so what those circumsatnces might be, especially in the scenario I’ve outlined? It just seemed to me at the time that the driver concerned wasn’t following your motto, if he might have had good reason then OK but that was not clear to me…

OP give him a chance to have bad day too, but most probably he knew what he was doing.

There’s a difference between having a bad day and dropping stuff on the floor and having a bad day and letting that affect you to the extent that you potentially endanger others though, no doubt he did know what he was doing in general but having a bad day doesn’t excuse his driving a 2+ ton car at 70+mph 6ft from the bumper of a civvy who likely isn’t an advanced driver and could quite easily panic or make a mistake. I’ve had bad days and if I’d let them get to me it could have resulted in people getting injured or killed but I’m also a professional at what I do and therefore put the bad day back in its box until I’m in a position to deal with it in a less risky environment.

cupra

Utter tosh !

I drive on blue lights am not police but am a repsonse driver and probably do more miles in one shift on blues than your average PC.
The days ( if they ever existed ) of that behaviour are long gone.

Every car is black boxed and its not worth the risk !

What regulary happens however is that enroute to an emergency we get ‘stood down’ from emergency calls ( nearer vehicle,no longer required, hoax, etc etc ), or we may be diverted to another higher priority call. Ive had a fair bit of abuse from drivers who think Im off home for a brew, off to get chips, or even lost.

I haven’t had an accident in over 20 years of response driving.

Some may say thats luck – I prefer to say it’s experience.

What I have noticed is that the ‘Great British Public’ in the main do not have a bloody clue and are quite happy for US to look after them because quite frankly they need looking after. However these days everybody knows best and I am finding myself fearful of doing my job as there are way too many people out there with nothing better to do than put in a complaint.

However these days everybody knows best and I am finding myself fearful of doing my job as there are way too many people out there with nothing better to do than put in a complaint.

Armchair generals in air-conditioned offices.

And you’ll note Brack, that I didn’t jump straight to making a complaint, I asked the greater wisdom of those in the know why he might have been doing what he was doing before I got the point of making a comlaint. Hopefully you are able to put yourself in my shoes and maybe even give me some credit for not defaulting to the automatic complaint… 😉

Oh to have the days of Crown immunity back and then I could do whatever I liked in training and on ops…

Oh, hang on a minute, no, that could be a bad thing, need at least some accountability and then hopefully avoid things like Baha Mousa a bit more…

Cannot comment on individual driving davetrave but personally I wouldn’t be tailgating as such, especially on a motorway, at least leave room for manoeuvring, certainly been trained to use headlights to warn vehicles in front of my intention to pass, which can appear aggressive. I’ve seen T-PAC trained officers getting close to other cars, almost touching, when training but if this guy was making progress then there wouldn’t be a need for that. When you say tailgating how close was he really?

Trevor.

Nope…no credit.

You slagged off the police in a pointless exercise designed purely to inflame and poison.

If you felt strongly enough and given your ‘background’ you could have weighed this up yourself.

Now jog on.

Seriously, he was 6-10ft off the bumpers of a lot of the cars in his way. [geek]As well as observation, judging distance has been a pre-requisite skill of what I’ve done in the past (Close Observation/Recce Platoon)…[/geek]

You slagged off the police in a pointless exercise designed purely to inflame and poison.

I’m sorry, when have I slagged off the police? At what point have I descended to insult? I asked a perfectly legitimate question about driving, from the position of a layman when it comes to the skills of Advanced Police Drivers. If you’re unable to respond in a contructive manner because you somehow feel personal affront at my question then that’s your perogative. On the other hand, maybe you could put your side of the debate, as an Advanced/Response driver, rather than linking to kids’ fancy dress.

we often drive in a manner which may look aggressive to others but that is often purposeful, to get where we are going, it isn’t wreckless driving and hazard perception is a big part

Hey, so do I! Can I have that training, then I can get away with it as well? (-:

In seriousness, I take your point and agree to an extent, people are probably a bad judge of what is and isn’t ‘dangerous’ from their perspective as a third party. But, with all the training in the world, you can’t train reaction times. You can’t train road surfaces, vehicle braking performance, other road users’ erratic behaviour and so on.

If the only difference between an officer appearing to drive like a hooligan and joe public doing it is one of training, why don’t we all take that training? Why not make it compulsory, even? We’ll all be safe then, right?

You slagged off the police in a pointless exercise designed purely to inflame

Seems like it worked.

10ft ain’t so bad, suppose you had to be there but I don’t think you will ever know why. All I will say is there really would have been a reason, we cannot just drive as such without reason, just like when we have to use force in a confrontational situation. We are more accountable than ever.

Trevor.

Cougar – Member

You slagged off the police in a pointless exercise designed purely to inflame

Seems like it worked.

For Brack at least yes, he/she would appear to be psychic and able to read my mind, and therefore my motivation. It appears that at least some people on here with the specialist skills and training have been able to respond in a constructive and informative manner – thanks Thorpie.

If anybody else thinks I have done this deliberately “to inflame and poison” then please, tell me and I’ll ask the mods to remove the thread…

just would like to know why/how this kind of driving could/would be considered approrpiate so I know what to expect and do the next time I find myself with a big, heavy Volvo patrol car on my bumper at 70mph and wanting to get past? Or to put it another way, a question for you – would you be happy to have said patrol car sat on your buumper in heavy, high speed traffic where a mistake or twitchiness on the part any one of the drivers, experienced or otherwise, could have potentially serious consequences? That’s a simple yes or no question by the way…

Answer is Yes!
Then move over and let them past, with or without blues and 2’s.

I’ve done a few driver training courses where we don’t have flashy lights and the use of car positioning can often be used to ‘bully’ your way through traffic. It’s a common tactic for the police drivers to use if they need to get through without alerting someone/something to them with sirens.

Make a complaint, if it was training/necessary then nothing will happen. If it wasn’t then he might get his wrists slapped.

We have all used some form of Bullying tactics while driving on the UK roads, which has not resulted in your behaviour being reported so why should the the Road Policing Units be any different?

They are trained to a far greater standard than you or me.

Dangerous driving is different.

bren2709 – Member

just would like to know why/how this kind of driving could/would be considered approrpiate so I know what to expect and do the next time I find myself with a big, heavy Volvo patrol car on my bumper at 70mph and wanting to get past? Or to put it another way, a question for you – would you be happy to have said patrol car sat on your buumper in heavy, high speed traffic where a mistake or twitchiness on the part any one of the drivers, experienced or otherwise, could have potentially serious consequences? That’s a simple yes or no question by the way…

Answer is Yes!
Then move over and let them past, with or without blues and 2’s.
Fair enough! Personally, I wouldn’t, because of the unpredictability of the human being, regardless of the training level of any of the drivers around me – you just never know; which is why, when I observed him coming, I moved over before he got close to me and also constantly refer to my rear view mirror so that I can move out of the way of faster moving traffic (when it is safe to do so).

I get the argument that what’s safe for me and what’s safe for a more highly trained driver is different and it’s about perception, that’s why I asked rather than defaulting to the brain dead Joe Public reaction of complaining straight away! Some have responded with helpful and informative responses, others less so… 😕

I’m sure I passed the OP one the way home this evening, no string back driving gloves but deffo saw a bluetooth headset 🙂

Did he have a crumpled army jacket on the parcel shelf clearly in view, and a sticker on his bumper saying I can’t talk about some of the stuff Ive done?

I’m sure I passed the OP one the way home this evening, no string back driving gloves but deffo saw a bluetooth headset

You’d be doing well if you did that – I live less than 100 metres from where I work so get my morning/evening constitutional rather than driving… 😉

Did he have a crumpled army jacket on the parcel shelf clearly in view, and a sticker on his bumper saying I can’t talk about some of the stuff Ive done?

That’s it, you just go back to personal insult rather than constructive input again… [/yawn]

😆

Sorry but I’m just taking the mick

Sorry Mr Partridge Im done

I bet he continues to drop in talk of his ops or military exploits 8)

Shall I let you in to a secret, do you know what colour the boat house at Hereford really is…? 😉

Seriously Brack, I have no beef with the police. As I’ve said, they do a thankless enough job as it is (as do all the emergency services, except the Fire and Rescue when they go on strike and we have to stag on… :wink:) without some of the spurious allegations that come their way. However, I was curious as to why he was driving as he was – question(s) answered…

Pull up a sandbag, make yourself comfortable and let me spin you a dit…

Can’t stop yourself can you?

There isn’t one ya spanner

Oh right is there not…?

No I can’t and neither can you by the looks of things…

Shall I let you in to a secret, do you know what colour the boat house at Hereford really is…?

Which one? 😉

10ft ain’t so bad?? Are you being serious???

10ft ain’t so bad?? Are you being serious???

+1??????

Aah we haven’t had an argument thread like this for ages. Carry on!

10ft ain’t so bad?? Are you being serious???

+ another !

What was the phrase ?

“Only a fool ignores the two second rule”…

At 70mph, that 10ft gap is around 1/10th of a second. Can someone please tell me who these apparent supermen are that are “carefully selected” and trained to treat this as anything approaching “not so bad”?

Have you seen the firearms cars in convoy, they really do travel bumper to bumper at 70+! In normal circumstances then clearly 10ft is not enough distance but if an officer is trying to make progress, if he sits back the car in front probably won’t move over because he may not think the police vehicle is trying to pass, comes back to the aggressive driving and vehicle positioning to enable progress. In a training scenario I have been a passenger in a police vehicle on a motorway travelling at 70-80mph with a car abreast in each lane, windows down with one of the officers shouting out speeds to each of the other drivers to help keep them in line, and in order to contain the subject vehicle. Very impressive and close enough to touch! I also got a ride in the subject vehicle, pretty scary but all very controlled, can only come with training and experience. As far as I am concerned all police drivers should be trained to an advanced level, the more training the better.

For Brack, me at the weekend with some of my SAS mates:

Just to prove it’s true, honest.

At least the traffic/arv vehicles in our police service are not fitted with bull bars, now that is a whole different ball game!

brack – Member

cupra

Utter tosh !

er no actually. I had 2 witnesses to it as well but I grant you it was about 4 years ago which I should have stated. I also flagged it to my sister who has just moved from being a traffic cop to do command and control duties as it fits better with the children. It was her who said to report it.

i think you need to get laid!

What again?