Print

[autorover1]

A friend of mine 50 years ago ran a small carpet fitting business in Birmingham using a large Austin estate car and the local Bobby kept saying he would arrest him if he didn't get it taxed properly for business use  ( C licence if I remember ) as it was a dual purpose vehicle and not a car .  He eventually did get arrested , but had fortunately checked at the local tax office ( Oozells Street) of its status and the seating did not meet the dual purpose definition so it was a car. Eventually  the police  checked at the tax office and he was released but he insisted he had a written apology first.

[Genem]

^^^^ I've only once had a written apology from the Police. We'd been driving a byway somewhere around the "Hogs Back" in Surrey and emerged at the tarmac road to find a Police car, a resident had apparently complained, Plod about to lift us for "driving on a footpath". I got the marked map out, showed him the route, explained the difference between path, bridle-path and Byway ( Old money, pre the current definitions and I've forgotten the old terminology...). This was news to him... he then said he'd get us for driving across the footpath to get to the road. Cue another conversation about the dropped curb and how would one get from the legal BOAT to the road...  After about half an hour it sank in that we were not a bunch of Neds ripping up the countryside, that we seemed to know what we were talking about. He demanded all our names and addresses, sight of licenses etc, very officious and unwilling to concede he was talking nonsense. We left it that he'd check the legal situation and off we went.

The formal apology arrived 3 weeks later.   

[w3526602]

Hi,

Barbara got stopped, was asked to produce her licence. She said she'd produce at the police station of her choice. Plod said she was required to carry it with her.

Barbara said she attended meetings (Most delegates were Chief Superintendants) where they discussed that very subject). They wanted to make it compulsory for drivers to carry their licences, but it's not a requirement.

(Further research reveals that it IS an offence, but no action will be taken if the licence is produced within three days). Don't you just love the UK legal system? Is it still the case that you can kill somebody, but it's not murder if your victim survives for a year and a day?  And is an Englishman still allowed to carry a "quarter staff"?

602

More OT    My brother in law was the/a Press Officer for MoD, which gave him the honorary rank of Major/Squadron Leader/Commander. Barbara was DVLA's Press Officer ... does that mean she out-ranked me?

[Peter Holden]

I once got an apolgy from the Police, in 1968.  I had a girlfriend who lived in Chesterfield and I lived in Sheffield, I worked in a bank at the time.  I got stopped 4 times in a week late night early morning by the same  Police Constable as I was in a land rover (he said that was the reason) and as I didnt carry documents got producers.  One of our customers in the bank was the local Police Sergeant.  When I served him I grumbled at him he suggested that we meet at the Police Box just down the road at lunchtime.  He helped me pen the letter and he made sure that it and the producers went through their communicatiin system.  I got a letter from the Chief Constable and the PC and I never did have to show my documents.

Peter

[gvo416j R.I.P.]

I once got an apolgy from the Police, in 1968.  I had a girlfriend who lived in Chesterfield and I lived in Sheffield, I worked in a bank at the time.  I got stopped 4 times in a week late night early morning by the same  Police Constable as I was in a land rover (he said that was the reason) and as I didnt carry documents got producers.

They were still at it in '74 when I started driving. Got pulled in the Matlock area 7 times in a month  -- the usual excuses for the stop while he had a good look in the back.

From all accounts it wasn't just landrovers that were targeted either.

Annoying, but not a great issue if you had your licence and didn't give him any lip, and arguably better [for rural residents] than the system nowadays where any Tom,Dick or Harry can run around for months picking up and stealing minor gear locally and be ignored while the police concentrate on the unmarked large scale operations beloved by the telly documentaries.

[w3526602]

Hi,

I think I've already recounted the incident, where, standing in the middle lane of the M4, traffic passing both sides, the Sergeant turned to me ...

"Get your wife out of my sight, and I'll say no more about this!"

I think that was a tacit apology.   I suspect that we had been "kettled". Two hours to travel two miles, with a baby screaming to be fed. No escape route!

602