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[bubblewrap]

This is a very well written and amusing piece, and as far as I am concerned, it makes a change to have a sensible article published on a motoring website.

I can relate to all that has been said there and I continue to be dismayed and appalled at the antics that people get up to on the road.  The unfortunate thing is you never see a police car when it happens, as many of these people need to be taken off the road.  Why is it that when you are driving in a stream of traffic at a speed that is up to the limit, do you get some idiot who is trying to get his car into your back seat?  Can?t they see that they can?t get anywhere any quicker? :snipe:

What seems to be happening is that the more road crashes there are, the more signs, speed limits and cameras we get, but we still get crashes.  I read an article some time ago that was posted on Pistonheads by someone from Ride Drive, and it suggested that as more constraints and control was imposed upon the driver, their skills became de-tuned with the result they could no longer cope with unsigned bends and higher speeds.  I gave that a lot of thought and whoever wrote it made a lot of sense.  People don?t know how to drive anymore, and what?s more, not many actually think about what they are doing.  

Well done for a good site.  Shame more people don?t join in, as it is one of the every few on the Internet that does not seem to be ego driven and does actually talk sense.

BW  

[Jules]

Hi BW,

Thanks for that, and the article you read back then on the PH forums was mine.

The reason why you don?t see a police car around where it should be is because politics has been allowed to get in the way of good reasoning.  When I was in ?The Job? I worked on what was then called a Traffic Department, and the role of that unit was to concentrate solely on traffic related matters, such as bad driving and examining vehicles for defects, checking out disqualified drivers and detecting those offences relating to driving without documents.  It was all about keeping the roads a safer place for the use of everyone.

Since it has been seen necessary to measure performance the public have receives less and less in the way of good service.  As the government made it a target to reduce crime by whatever percent, which don?t get me wrong ? that is important, it is the way in which they went about it that stinks.  Instead of increasing the establishment of the police patrol units Chief Constables were forced to strip specialist departments of their expertise and experience just for the task of targeting another area of lawlessness ? Burglary and Robbery.  What happens then is all hell breaks loose on the highway, because no one is there to keep it in check.  Cameras can?t detect the drink driver or the driver without insurance, because whilst a the ANPR system can flag up a non insured or non taxed car, unless there is a police officer to stop it, that driver will et away with it, because sure as hell, it won?t be driven by the person whose details are shown as a registered keeper ? information that is probably a year or two out of date anyway.

As the role of the once proud traffic departments of this country changed to that of dealing with unrelated matters far from traffic related issues, it was found necessary to change the name of it.  Now it is called Roads Policing, and all because the officers don?t have a priority towards road traffic related matters.

Anyway, don?t get me started on that one, or I will be here all night

Jules

BTW, if anyone is bemused as to what this is all about, it is a follow on from a page that is displayed on the Ride Drive website.  Take a look HERE