Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

In message t
"MB" wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:20:08 on Sat, 18
Apr 2009, John Rowland remarked:
Once a police car even pulled up behind me in Greenwich town centre and
put the sirens on (at 3am!) causing me to drive through the red light out
of their way, and then they drove through the lights and put the sirens
off.

Sirens are not enough to allow someone to break the law by running a red
light. You need to be instructed to do so by a policeman in uniform,
which means you need to see that the people giving the instructions are
both police, and in uniform.


And even then you could be fined if there is a Red Light Camera and find it
very difficult to prove you moved out of the way of a police car. If you
write the police and ask should you through a red light in circumstances
like that then you will told that you should never go through a red light.


Rubbish

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

rail wrote:
In message
"John Rowland" wrote:

rail wrote:
[snip]
Are you aware why they switch the sirens off once they have crossed
the junction?
It could be that the emergency has been cancelled, but if you have an
explanation for why this started happening after the Menezes incident, I'd
like to hear it.



It didn't start after the Menezes incident, it is to reduce the amount of
noise polution, which has the advantage of making the siren more noticeable
when it is used. If you here a siren going continuously for a while you tend
to blank it out. Fire engines and ambulances do the same thing.


In NYC they've made all sirens even more ear-piercing. Of course, it is
*very* hard to move heavy traffic along down a street, since drivers,
rightfully, are afraid of going across the intersection against the
light, since they might get t-boned. The sirens, I suppose, help all
drivers in range hear that something's going on.

Trouble is, the sirens are so loud and so ubiquitous some days that it
becomes very confusing as to where the sound is coming from.

I have a few times stopped Lexington Avenue traffic by our local
hospital in order to let the ambulance cross the intersection.

signed,

Supergirl

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

wrote

often, and yet I understand it's far from common for them to pull a
weapon on anyone, and they hardly ever actually fire a shot.

Indeed. I forget exactly, but I recall reading that in the last 10
years or so they've (the Met) only shot 10 innocent people (or was it

20?). I never recall hearing, however, how many gun waving criminals
they
managed to shoot in the same timespan. It'd be an interesting
comparison -- anyone got any accurate data?

If you mean "shot and killed".

http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/coron...d-reissued.pdf

Whole of E&W

England and Wales Number of verdicts {to 2007}
Verdict 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
2005 2006 2007
Homicide, of which:
killed lawfully 1 4 6 1 2 3 2 4 2 6 1 5 4 2 2

Includes those killed by ordinary citizens of course.

In the US this is about 1/3 of the total, see the FBI uniform crime
reports http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/01cius.htm
spreadsheets showing (for 2001) a total of 472, 308 by police/LEOs and
164 of which 138 by firearm
"The killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a
private citizen."

--
Mike D

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Mizter T wrote:

On Apr 18, 4:37*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

I think the Bob Quick debacle, and the confusion over his
accountability, may be the final push that leads the government to set
up a separate police force to handle terrorism and so on. [...]

Except there wasn't any confusion over his accountability.

Evidently, there was. Even if only in the minds of the public!

With regards to counter-terrorism matters, the Met is essentially
answerable to the Home Office as opposed to the MPA. All that happened
was that Boris, as Chair of the MPA, got wind of Bob Quick's resignation
and announced it first ahead of the planned announcement by the Home
Secretary. It was basically nothing more than a little bit of political
point scoring - Boris didn't push Quick out, AIUI he had nothing to do
with it. And it wasn't like Quick was pushed out the door screaming in
protest - after discussions had taken place he realised his position was
more or less untenable.

I don't think the Bob Quick affair has any implications of the sort
you're imagining to be honest.

[...] The foundation for it is already there in the shape of the
Serious Organised Crime Agency, and it wouldn't be too hard to transfer
over the Met's national counter-terrorism, diplomatic protection, etc
units. And then it could absorb the MoD police, the security-related
activities of the BTP, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, etc. And then
hey presto, we have a British FBI. Optimists would say that this would
put these important operations under the control of a more professional
and specialised leadership, where they can be properly run and
supervised, but pessimists would say the exact opposite - we'd have a
runaway national police force which would inevitably not have proper
scrutiny.

SOCA does however currently operate to a fairly tight remit and is very
secretive, so one could argue that it's far from the ideal foundation
for this.

Are counter-terror operations also not usually quite secretive?

I admit that the BTP, CNC etc might not be such appropriate elements of
this hypothetical force.

Anyway I reckon the boat for significant structural police reform in
this country has already sailed, and it was missed. It'll be a while
until there's another sailing.

I don't really see why that's the case. There'd be a lot of resistance to
another attempt at wholesale rejigging of forces, as was attempted with
the super-force idea, but that's not what would be happening here. This
would basically just be removing some bits from the Met.

tom

--
curry in a sack

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

"rail" wrote in message
...
In message t
"MB" wrote:


"rail" wrote in message
...

Are you aware why they switch the sirens off once they have crossed
the
junction?




I am sure the official reason will be that it so they are not heard by
the
criminals at the scene they are going to but we all know that they
misuse
it all the time.

Well you are totally wrong.

And no they don't misuse it all the time, the sirens are connected to the
black box recorder on board the vehicle so that the use can be monitored.

Like the excuse for parking on double-yellow lines is
always that they are investigating a crime when we all know they are
regularly seen leaving the "scene of the crime" with takeaways, burgers,
chips etc presumably all very important evidence?


Cite?



There have been lots of examples in the newspapers of police vehicles
parked on double-yellow lines, pavement, bus stops, disabled bays etc with
the plods in a takeaway or similar. It could of course be that there is a
crime wave at these types of premises.

I have seen it myself quite often.

If there is a query about use of sirens and blues to get through red lights
then they will just say that they saw a suspicious vehicle ahead and needed
to check but when they got closer they realised it was OK.

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

"rail" wrote in message
...
In message t
"MB" wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:20:08 on Sat,
18
Apr 2009, John Rowland
remarked:
Once a police car even pulled up behind me in Greenwich town centre
and
put the sirens on (at 3am!) causing me to drive through the red light
out
of their way, and then they drove through the lights and put the
sirens
off.

Sirens are not enough to allow someone to break the law by running a
red
light. You need to be instructed to do so by a policeman in uniform,
which means you need to see that the people giving the instructions
are
both police, and in uniform.


And even then you could be fined if there is a Red Light Camera and find
it
very difficult to prove you moved out of the way of a police car. If
you
write the police and ask should you through a red light in circumstances
like that then you will told that you should never go through a red
light.


Rubbish




There is an example in the Motoring Telegraph of a driver booked by a RLC
camera because he moved out of the way for a police vehicle. It took him a
long time to be able to prove he was innocent.

There has been talk in the press about crossing a red light to allow an
emergency vehicle to get past but the police always give a blanket "thou
shalt not go through a red light".

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

In message t
"MB" wrote:


"rail" wrote in message
...
In message t
"MB" wrote:


"rail" wrote in message
...

Are you aware why they switch the sirens off once they have crossed
the junction?




I am sure the official reason will be that it so they are not heard by
the criminals at the scene they are going to but we all know that they
misuse it all the time.

Well you are totally wrong.

And no they don't misuse it all the time, the sirens are connected to the
black box recorder on board the vehicle so that the use can be monitored.

Like the excuse for parking on double-yellow lines is always that they
are investigating a crime when we all know they are regularly seen
leaving the "scene of the crime" with takeaways, burgers, chips etc
presumably all very important evidence?


Cite?



There have been lots of examples in the newspapers of police vehicles
parked on double-yellow lines, pavement, bus stops, disabled bays etc with
the plods in a takeaway or similar. It could of course be that there is a
crime wave at these types of premises.

I have seen it myself quite often.

Yeah right...


If there is a query about use of sirens and blues to get through red lights
then they will just say that they saw a suspicious vehicle ahead and needed
to check but when they got closer they realised it was OK.


Can I recommend Healey's law.

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

In message t
"MB" wrote:


"rail" wrote in message
...
In message t
"MB" wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:20:08 on Sat,
18 Apr 2009, John Rowland
remarked:
Once a police car even pulled up behind me in Greenwich town centre
and put the sirens on (at 3am!) causing me to drive through the red
light out of their way, and then they drove through the lights and
put the sirens off.

Sirens are not enough to allow someone to break the law by running a
red light. You need to be instructed to do so by a policeman in
uniform, which means you need to see that the people giving the
instructions are both police, and in uniform.


And even then you could be fined if there is a Red Light Camera and
find it very difficult to prove you moved out of the way of a police
car. If you write the police and ask should you through a red light
in circumstances like that then you will told that you should never go
through a red light.


Rubbish




There is an example in the Motoring Telegraph of a driver booked by a RLC
camera because he moved out of the way for a police vehicle. It took him a
long time to be able to prove he was innocent.

There has been talk in the press about crossing a red light to allow an
emergency vehicle to get past but the police always give a blanket "thou
shalt not go through a red light".


I repeat, rubbish.

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

"rail" wrote in message
...
In message t
"MB" wrote:


"rail" wrote in message
...
In message t
"MB" wrote:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 15:20:08 on
Sat,
18 Apr 2009, John Rowland
remarked:
Once a police car even pulled up behind me in Greenwich town
centre
and put the sirens on (at 3am!) causing me to drive through the
red
light out of their way, and then they drove through the lights
and
put the sirens off.

Sirens are not enough to allow someone to break the law by running
a
red light. You need to be instructed to do so by a policeman in
uniform, which means you need to see that the people giving the
instructions are both police, and in uniform.


And even then you could be fined if there is a Red Light Camera and
find it very difficult to prove you moved out of the way of a
police
car. If you write the police and ask should you through a red
light
in circumstances like that then you will told that you should never
go
through a red light.


Rubbish




There is an example in the Motoring Telegraph of a driver booked by a
RLC
camera because he moved out of the way for a police vehicle. It took
him a
long time to be able to prove he was innocent.

There has been talk in the press about crossing a red light to allow an
emergency vehicle to get past but the police always give a blanket "thou
shalt not go through a red light".


I repeat, rubbish.



Are you saying the letter in the Motoring Telegraph was lies?

Photography on London Underground - yes, it's allowed
 

On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:03:47 +0100, "MB" wrote:

There is an example in the Motoring Telegraph of a driver booked by a RLC
camera

Is that like a "PIN number" or an "ATM machine"?

:)

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.