Crap policing in London

The increased danger to other road users by drivers who use handheld
mobile phones is well known:



Research shows that reactions times are about 50 per cent slower and
that people are four times more at risk of being involved in a
collision, when driving and on the 'phone.



In spite of the growing numbers of cyclists, pedestrians and others
killed by those who make the conscious choice to drive while
chattering into a handheld mobile, it is an activity tacitly
encouraged by both the government and the police. Three penalty points
and a £60 fine is absolutely no deterrent for a lethal activity where
the chances of being caught are negligible. And the police do not
regard enforcement of this law as a priority. That might change if the
government introduced legislation which meant that offenders
automatically lost their license but no such legislation is on the
horizon. Hundreds more cyclists and pedestrians will die at the hands
of mobile phone drivers before a future government grudgingly changes
the law. The current legislation is a spectacular failure but no
politician or senior police officer appears at all concerned.

This situation was brought home to me last Friday afternoon as I
watched the female driver of OV55 YWJ steering her car along Hoe
Street (2.20 pm) with one hand, while with the other she was engrossed
in a conversation on her handheld mobile phone. The car behind her was
a marked police car, with two officers inside. And what did they do?
You guessed: nothing at all. Incredibly, two cars behind the police
car was another driver chatting into a handheld mobile phone. London
drivers have certainly got the message: the police don't care.

On Monday at 3.30 pm the male driver of a lorry reg. MX51 GYF turned
out of Church Hill E17 into Hoe Street, with the driver steering with
one hand while chatting into his handheld mobile on the other. This
prospective mass killer was utterly indifferent to the scores of
pedestrians including children at this location.

When it comes to Londons crap traffic policing Jenny Jones of the
London Assembly has described the difficulties: The Met Police halved
the number of traffic police and regarded road safety as a very low
priority. Drivers have spent the last decade or more thinking that
they can break the law in London and get away with it. The result is
that in some parts of London, a quarter of all people injured in
traffic collisions are victims of hit and run drivers.

At its worst

Each week in London 80 people are the victims of hit-and-run drivers.
This figure has doubled in the last two decades. By contrast the
number of traffic police has fallen steeply over the same period.
(pdf)

Jenny Jones produced an excellent report (pdf) noting that

The Metropolitan Police has failed to treat road crime with the
seriousness it deserves. Londons roads are becoming increasingly
lawless in several dangerous ways. This report describes the rise in
hit-and-run incidents, the widespread evasion of vehicle tax and
insurance, and the declining enforcement of traffic offences not
detected by electronic devices, such as speed cameras. Cuts in the
number of traffic police have lead a minority of drivers to believe
that they can break the law with impunity. Yet, an increase of 8,000
in the total number of police officers in London over the last six
years provided the Met Police with ample opportunity to make road
safety a priority . More people die on Londons roads than are
murdered. Most road deaths are preventable, yet several times more
resources are devoted to murder investigations than to road death
investigations. The lack of priority given to road crime is
demonstrated by the current reluctance of the police to prosecute
drivers who injure cyclists or pedestrians, in the absence of
independent witnesses . This dismissive approach is not adopted
towards the victims of car theft, burglary, assault and other crimes.

The latest example of this state of affairs occurred this weekend:

A driver ran off leaving a man and a woman dead on the pavement after
hitting them in his top-of-the-range £84,000 BMW yesterday. The
victims  a man aged 47 and a woman aged 21  were walking home after
a night out when they were struck by the car, which also hit a parked
Mercedes.Witnesses saw the driver get out of his 155mph black BMW M6,
look at the couple lying on the pavement and then run away from the
scene, in Perivale, West London.

There was a fascinating case recently in which three men won their
appeal against conviction for the crime that they had

supplied equipment to cannabis growers, reasonably foreseeing that the
items would be used illegally.

The convictions were quashed, but only because

it was not proved that anyone had used the equipment to grow cannabis.

By the same logic the police should be raiding every car manufacturer
and car sales outlet in Britain. They are all involved in supplying
equipment  namely cars designed to be driven at speeds in excess of
70 mph  reasonably foreseeing that these cars will be used illegally.
Obtaining convictions shouldnt be a problem, with the evidence
available every day of the week.

But though the Met turns a blind eye to killers on the road, it is
enforcing some aspects of road traffic law:



A CRACKDOWN on cyclists who flout the law by riding on pavements
netted one rider every four minutes. Police officers caught the
offenders during a 90-minute purge in Stoke Newington High Street on
Thursday morning last week. The cyclists were using the stretch of
pavement to avoid going through the Stoke Newington one-way system.
Twenty-one cyclists were hit by £30 fines for flouting the law.
Officers issued 19 fines for cyclists on the pavement and a further
two for going through red lights.

Of course if the Met chose to enforce the law supposed to deter
drivers from stopping in Advanced Stop Lines for cyclists they would
'net' rather more than one offender every four minutes.


http://crapwalthamforest.blogspot.com/2008/09/crap-policing.html

date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 04:02:24 -0700 (PDT) author: spindrift