Seems they're not conspicuous enough to get the other traffic out of the way, in Birmingham anyway.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-34124935
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Or, as they were ordered without sirens, being used for a job they were never intended to carry out! I notice they're not even supposed to exceed the speed limit... Might as well not bother...
I'm surprised in this H&S obsessed world that they are even allowed to be used this way?
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When I joined in 1981 and was posted to one part of Westminster, there would be 30 - 35 cops posted out on their beats... walking.
We had one car with sirens and blue lights (Rover SD1); a van with blue lights only, no siren (Transit) and an unmarked car with only a bell in it (Talbot Avenger or Austin Allegro).
If a call was really urgent, you stopped a member of the public in their car and piled in to that (no one ever said 'no'). Black cabs were good, whether or not they had a fare, (I often wondered what the cabbies did about the punters extra fare if we'd commandeered it).
The only difference with this news story to what went on in the past is seemingly someone has now said you can't use the basic cars for high speed work, whereas in the past we did and would put the headlights on main beam and use the car's horn.
If someone has decided that the basic cars are a no-no for utilising police exemptions under the Road Traffic Act to get to a call quickly, then they need to put their hand in their pockets and provide more suitable cars that do have the right equipment... because otherwise there's a middle ground of doing little or nothing.
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Our Pandas, which came into use in about 1967 in the city centre division, never had blue lights or music. We did do emergency calls, of course, like WP, using the horn and headlights. The only cars supposed to be used for chases were the H division...the road patrol, in their swanky TR4As, Jags and Humber Super Snipe estates.
Before we got the pandas, which were Morris Minors, the only divisional vehicles were the Inspector's black Morris Minor, a couple of J4 vans and the LE Velocettes. None of these had any warning equipment as they, like the pandas, were not encouraged to speed. Most of the drvers were only trained to class 3 standard and, in fact, you could take out a panda with just an hours training as long as you already had a full licence.
When you see the hundreds of vehicles lined up now it's funny to think what the force managed with. Apart from the divisional vehicles mentioned, I think there was a breakdown truck with a crane, an artic tractor unit with two trailers...a flatbed and a horsebox, a couple of larger vans, a mortuary van and the chief's Armstrong Siddeley Star Sapphire. All black and all, 'cept the chief's car, made by BMC. Detectives had BMC 1100s in various colours. There was a large black caravan as a mobile police station.
More innocent times.....never to return !
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Back in the day, two cars zapped out of Soho in tyre-squealing turns into a busyish late-evening Oxford Street and positively howled away past me down Oxford St, gone in a moment with London closed up behind them.
One of them was a Humber, the other I dunno, Ford or Jag. I can't remember which came first, the Humber I think. I thought at the time: wow, ****, hoods and fuzz. It was certainly hard to tell them apart by their driving.
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>>If someone has decided that the basic cars are a no-no for utilising police exemptions under the Road Traffic Act to get to a call quickly, then they need to put their hand in their pockets and provide more suitable cars that do have the right equipment..
True. We seem to love penny pinching in this country with the ultimate effect that we spend more to correct the problems that this has caused.
Stop cutting basic services. It will cost more in the long term.
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>>
>>
>> If a call was really urgent, you stopped a member of the public in their
>> car and piled in to that (no one ever said 'no'). Black cabs were good,
>> whether or not they had a fare,
>>
I love it. I always thought that was just stuff for the films - "Follow that car - and step on it !"
It goes with "There's a car following us. Lose it" Cue a lot of tyre squealing cornering, darting the wrong way down alleyways lined with dustbins, abrupt handbrake turns, etc.
It's so refreshing to get these anecdotes from a real past.
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The boss is away at the moment so I am staying up late.
The last two nights I have watched the first Prime Suspect until 12.15am. It's from 1991, but seemed older. Last night they were tailing the main suspect when he got in a cab; the copper jumped in the next one and shouted "follow that cab!". All I wanted to know was whether he paid the fare!
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>> It's so refreshing to get these anecdotes from a real past.
>>
I was walking with a mate once in Rochester Row, Westminster on a nice hot sunny day, when a good call came out for Victoria Station... we stopped the next car, which was a convertible Golf (with the roof down) with two attractive young ladies in.
En route to Victoria, with my mate and I sat in the back, we drove past a pub where the previous shift were all stood out on the pavement knocking jars back... so of course we got the girls to slow down and toot the horn as we went past waving.
We got a damned good cheer for that one.... and a little talking to from our Inspector, as the early shift Insp was at the pub as well.
Happy days.
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This seems to be a non-story that's been blown out of proportion.
I see not problem with a police force having a bunch of runaround cars, at much lower cost than regular cars, for non-urgent work.
I'm sure there will be times when the runarounds will need to be used to get to a more pressing engagement - but that will just have to be done within the law. Not ideal, but probably a sensible cost saving position to be in.
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>> I'm sure there will be times when the runarounds will need to be used to
>> get to a more pressing engagement - but that will just have to be done
>> within the law. Not ideal, but probably a sensible cost saving position to be in.
>>
When I was a sergeant at Harrow and one of my PCs got life threateningly* stabbed in Edgware I managed to get a police car (Peugeot 309) with no warning equipment from Harrow on the Hill to Edgware in a similar time as one with fitted equipment.... and no amount of rules would have prevented it either. Fair enough it wasn't pretty and I wouldn't have wanted to be in the passenger seat, but on the odd occasion 'needs must'.
* Matey was dying in an alleyway when I turned up, second police unit to arrive. An air ambulance saved his life although it was touch and go for a month. Stabbed 4 times in the chest and one punctured his lung... a very, very lucky man. The air ambulance doctor was also some sort of specialist and he opened up his chest torso area in the alleyway.
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within the law. Not ideal, but probably a sensible cost saving position to be in.
>>
I wonder who much they save by not fitting sirens?
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>> I wonder who much they save by not fitting sirens?
Probably not as cheap as you might think, what with trying to incorperate it into the canbus network and all that.
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Many years ago, as company cars, Sun Alliance agreed a special variant of the Ford Escort Popular which did not have either a door mirror or a sun visor on the passenger side - the normal model had both.
I was a minion's minion, so I have no idea what the lack of a door mirror and a sun visor saved them, but they clearly thought it was worthwhile.
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>> I was a minion's minion, so I have no idea what the lack of a
>> door mirror and a sun visor saved them, but they clearly thought it was worthwhile.
Somebody working on the 'mind the pennies and pounds will look after themselves' model?
Bigger picture might have though about risk of accidents from n/s rear blindspot and possible effect on resale values.
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>> Many years ago, as company cars, Sun Alliance agreed a special variant of the Ford
>> Escort Popular which did not have either a door mirror or a sun visor on
>> the passenger side - the normal model had both.
IIRC one of the Metro models did something similar. Only one rear fog light (the other one was just a blank red cover in the rear bumper) and also only a sun visor on the drivers side. The Metro City springs to mind. The CityX had 2 sun visors.
The Mk3 Escort also only had one working rear fog light. The other side was wired up, but the bulb was missing. I'm guessing Ford saved a fortune by only fitting one fog light bulb instead of two? Most owners put their own bulb into the nearside rear foglight and probably took it for granted that Ford "simply" forgot.
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Probably not as cheap as you might think, what with trying to incorperate it into
>> the canbus network and all that.
>>
I'm afraid I've no idea what the number is. Hence me asking.
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>> >> I wonder who much they save by not fitting sirens?
>>
>> Probably not as cheap as you might think, what with trying to incorperate it into
>> the canbus network and all that.
>>
In about 2002 ish it cost £3,000 for us on a London Borough to have an otherwise bog standard unmarked car retrospectively fitted with hidden blue lights in the grill, siren and alternate flashing headlamps.
That however moved us into a difficult zone.. because... a bog standard car is just that. One that regularly attends emergency calls using warning equipment has to have an enhanced specification to the car i.e. better brakes, suspension, etc... so that moves the bog standard car into a more costly version.
So, we needed to ensure our upgraded car was not constantly used for emergency purposes, just that it had the capability should it be needed.
Another example: In the Met at one point Vauxhall Vectra area cars (fast Borough response vehicles, authorised to pursue, a non Traffic vehicle) were grounded, because the brakes kept failing... so when it was our turn to order a new area car, there weren't any, because Vectras were the only choice and they were grounded... so we were offered an Omega estate traffic car, which we snapped up (Omega was 3.2 litre V6 petrol, whereas Vectra was 2.5 petrol)... then came the problems. 1, Omega est much more of a handful to throw about and 2, it too couldn't handle the intense braking that area car work generated...in the end they had to retrospectively fit alloy wheels to it and upgrade the brakes to ensure they had better cooling.. however the brakes on the Omegas were always fairly spongy after a hard run and did not inspire confidence.
What was interesting though, when we got the Omega as an area car, it certainly looked the part and in those days (late 90's) it was a quickish car... and we noticed our vehicle pursuits started to decline, it was quite marked on the figures...(I know, because it was me that did the research). I remain convinced that the Old Bill having something that looked the part influenced some of the scrotes into not bothering to fail to stop.
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Seems like the senior civilian staff need them more, despite the fact they have no training or authority to use them:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34142499
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Tax fiddle...pool cars, yeah right...
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It does say provided a car, not that they get to keep the same car. They might do but it doesn't say or maybe i missed it?
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Finance Officer of a particular Force was given a RR Sport as part of his "package" thus equipped. Dunno whether he got to keep it when he left. But certainly wa shis private and personal transport whilst he worked there.
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And deffo didn't pay company car tax?
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I could never work out why senior officers got given cars that had blues/two in*... because those cars were more expensive to source (for the reasons I've stated above) and the vast majority of those senior officers would not have had the driving courses in their careers to drive them on blues/twos and/or if they warranted civilian drivers, they would not be authorised to use warning equipment either.
Well now the cat is out of the bag. They've been given them to fiddle tax... and they've even given them to civilian senior managers.
* the most senior cops would have PC protection officers and/or PC drivers who would be suitably qualified...however they would be very few in number.
Last edited by: Westpig on Fri 4 Sep 15 at 10:59
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Fair enough. Mind you if it's happening there i wonder how many other places are doing it?
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>> Fair enough. Mind you if it's happening there i wonder how many other places are
>> doing it?
>>
Like Fire Brigade, NHS, Military?
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Yes and others. Come to think of it there are other places it happens.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 4 Sep 15 at 12:10
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>>..... if they warranted civilian drivers,
>>
>> Well now the cat is out of the bag. They've been given them to fiddle
>> tax... and they've even given them to civilian senior managers.
I have told you before. The police service is civilian. They are all 'civilians'.
It is erroneous and misleading to refer to 'civilians' in this context.
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>> I have told you before. The police service is civilian. They are all 'civilians'.
>>
>> It is erroneous and misleading to refer to 'civilians' in this context.
>>
... and I have told you before, that in the context in which I am writing it is perfectly correct to differentiate between warranted police officers and civilian support staff in this way.
It is a different form from the military.
I fully intend to continue using the practice and would request you refrain from keep trying to pull me up on it.
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>> I fully intend to continue using the practice and would request you refrain from keep
>> trying to pull me up on it.
I won't do that unless you agree to refrain from using the word civilian inaccurately.
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>> I won't do that unless you agree to refrain from using the word civilian inaccurately.
>>
Whenever it is relevant, I will continue to use the accepted norm from the environment that I worked in for 31 years. I have no intention of trying to persuade my ex-colleagues that someone called Duncan on an obscure motoring forum doesn't agree with it and therefore it should cease, particularly as it works well within that context, to differentiate the two different types of employee.
If you wish to keep carrying on about it despite the lengthy explanation... you crack on. You won't mind me ignoring you, will you?
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>>It is erroneous and misleading to refer to 'civilians' in this context.
Well, its not really misleading, is it? Strictly inaccurate, I agree, but the meaning is quite clear and the differentiation quite useful.
How were you mislead?
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>> Strictly inaccurate, I agree,
It's not even that.
In a military context then 'yes' police officers are also civilians.
However, in a police context there are officers who carry a warrant from the Queen to act as a Constable... and there's civilian support staff.
Just because someone from a military background or understanding doesn't recognise someone else's usage of the word civilian, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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>>
>>
>> Just because someone from a military background or understanding doesn't recognise someone else's usage of
>> the word civilian, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
>>
It's got nothing to do with someone's background or understanding. The word civilian is clearly defined by the Geneva convention. Civilians are non-combatants, ie those not members of the armed forces.
Some countries have police forces that are part of the armed services, but Britain does not.
Some countries distinguish between different kinds of police, some military, some civilian.
Britain has an unarmed police force, other than specific individuals on special occasions, so they are civilians.
The distinction may seem academic, but it becomes important in times of war. When the Germans invaded the Channel Islands the armed forces were captured and regarded as prisoners of war. The civilian police personnel were not, and continued in post serving the civilian authorities, which were recognised by the occupying forces.
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>>but it becomes important in times of war.
Gosh, stroke of luck we weren't using the terms civilians & officers then, the Germans could have got totally the wrong idea and banged up the coppers as well.
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The word civilian is clearly
>> defined by the Geneva convention. Civilians are non-combatants, ie those not members of the armed
>> forces.
It is also defined by the Oxford English dictionary:
Definition of civilian in English:
noun
1A person not in the armed services or the police force:
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dictionary.reference.com
civilian [si-vil-yuh n]
noun
1. a person who is not on active duty with a military, naval, police, or fire fighting organization
www.merriam-webster.com
civilian
noun ci·vil·ian sə-ˈvil-yən also -ˈvi-yən
: a person who is not a member of the military or of a police or firefighting force
www.thefreedictionary.com
civilian
ci·vil·ian (sÄ-vÄl′yÉ™n)
n.
1. A person who is not an active member of the military, the police, or a belligerent group in a conflict.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 4 Sep 15 at 14:47
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>> It does say provided a car, not that they get to keep the same car.
I read it and assumed it was just talking about one-offs - still seems wrong.
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I have seen a senior ambulance service officer using an unmarked car fitted with unobtrusive blue lights, I wonder if they are on the same set up.
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>> I have seen a senior ambulance service officer using an unmarked car fitted with unobtrusive
>> blue lights, I wonder if they are on the same set up.
>>
Probably.
I don't mind the ones that are 'on call' and have a car at home so they can get in quickly in an emergency.
Trouble is anyone expected to get their backsides in quickly out of hours aren't usually the ones senior enough to get a car as a perk... and those that do get a car as a perk don't usually need the blues and twos.
What is plain wrong is to order a car that is more expensive to the taxpayer with blues/two in it, purely because the recipient of it wishes to avail themselves of a tax loop hole... particularly those that could never use it, because they don't possess and never will possess any authority to use it in an emergency.
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As others have observed there is a 'blues and twos' rule that vastly reduces the company car tax payable. A doctor I deal with has an Evoque with whatever the biggest possible engine is, but pays very little tax on the benefit. In fact he does very little private (taxable) mileage, because every time he leaves home he notifies HQ that he is available for emergency calls, even if his family are with him.
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>> As others have observed there is a 'blues and twos' rule that vastly reduces the
>> company car tax payable. A doctor I deal with has an Evoque with whatever the
>> biggest possible engine is, but pays very little tax on the benefit. In fact he
>> does very little private (taxable) mileage, because every time he leaves home he notifies HQ
>> that he is available for emergency calls, even if his family are with him.
Presumably the tax office doesn't check whether or not said doctor is actually allowed to drive on blues/twos?
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As far as I know, he is not even allowed to have them on the car. Tax or otherwise. He may well have a light bar, but it aint got blues and he aint go twos.
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>> As far as I know, he is not even allowed to have them on the
>> car. Tax or otherwise. He may well have a light bar, but it aint got
>> blues and he aint go twos.
Isn't there a flashing green light that denotes 'doctor on urgent call'? But is anything that way needed if Doc is making himself available as 'on call' even if for reasons of (a) probabilty and (b) defensive staff his chance of being called is vanishingly remote.
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Vauxhall - Corsa coppers can't cut crime - PeterS
