speeding police?

Question

how many time's have you driven down the road and noticed a police car speeding past without any light flashing or sirens going off i've allway's thought that there should be some sort of monitoring system to recored police speeding so that they have to explain why they need to speed when there is no incident that they are involved in

Answer 1

Unless they have the blues going then they are just as liable to prosecution as any other motorist and that includes if they get caught by a safety camera.

Answer 2

ROFL good luck it will NEVER happen myself as a law enforcement offical have seen police/emergency vehicles driving at what apeared to be over the limit. But you have to take into consideration all a police officer would have to say is how do you know I was speeding. Are your eyes caliberated to speed? the obvious answear is NO there not and neither is your vehicle and sometimes police/emergency vehicles do have authorization to drive higher then then the speed limit without lights going it rare but it does happen. There are 3 things you need to be able to tell if someone was speeding there for 1 needs to be a radar and you have to be certified to operate it you have to be certified to judge a vehicles speed within 2 miles an hour of the radar and there has to be a constant tone from the radar which you probable have none of that so it wont happen

Answer 3

They may not have the right 'ticket' to drive on response. The officer is open to prosecution if he hits anyone/thing. If this does happen then they can be arrested but definitely breathalysed at the scene. Sometimes they might be going to a burglary and don't want to alert the suspects at the scene, but would need have to blue lights on to make other road users including pedestrians aware. (Without Siren and if they have the ticket )The reason why blue lights are used is ' to allow progress through traffic' NOT to get their as quick as possible. The airwave radios have just recently been upgraded {GPRS} so to know the location of officers but not speed of vehicles used by police. If officers are caught driving at speed without justification OR not on emergency OR caught by a camera then they are still open to prosecution.

Answer 4

Ok, I know I am going to get a lot of heat for this answer..... As a cop there are a lot of times when speeding even a bit is necessary without the lights and sirens. A few examples are when responding to an "in progress" call when we do not want the bad guy to know that we are approaching or in the early morning hours when driving through a residential area. You wouldn't believe how pissed people get from the noise at 0500hrs. Running lights and driving erratically are never allowed. If you are accusing cops of speeding for no reason sometimes? Oh yes we do. Anyone who says they don't is a liar. I have caught myself many times. I sped before I became a cop. A cop CAN get a ticket if pulled over. If you can honestly say you have never driven over the speed limit then good for you. We ALL have bad habits. I hope the PERFECT person who wrote the question sleeps better at night.

Answer 5

The Police are subject to the same laws as everyone else however there are certain exceptions for Emergency Services in order that they can save lives and protect our property from the bad guys. ( I notice you make no reference to Ambulances and Fire Service, Army Bomb disposal, Mountain Rescue etc rushing to jobs without sirens, I wonder is this another anti-Police rant / question?)

If someone was inside your house removing your property while you were out would you want the Police to rush to your home with sirens blazing so that the burglar heard them coming and left with your personal property before the Police arrived and caught them?

There are a thousand and one reasons why they don't always use sirens when rushing to an incident you just need to broaden your mind to think of them instead of making ignorant assumptions as many people have in their answers.

Do you think the Police are unaccountable. You don't appear to know about their internal management or the rank structure they have. You don't appear to know about the internal discipline procedure. You don't appear to know about the formal complaint system they have and you don't appear to know about the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I would go on but my answer is in danger of becoming an angry rant.

Answer 6

The worst case of this I have ever seen, was when a police car, sirens blaring, nearly ran over a liitle girl in a pedestrian zone, only to pull up next to a cash machine to get some money out. I was disgusted. This was a few years ago.

Answer 7

The BBC, in a fit of governmental accountability, discovered that speeding officers set off Gatso cameras in those two counties 640 times last year. The great majority of those officers were on emergency calls, which means they're off the hook. But more than 50 officers weren't on emergency calls, and they'll be fined for their offense just the same as Joe Q.

Answer 8

Come on most of the time they r- speeding to answer and emergency called that has been called in by dispatch,so u can not determined if they are involved in n incident since u cannot hear there radio calls in there cruiser now can u and if the shoe were on the other foot n-u needed them in a hurry to help u,you'd change ur tune real fast n-u know it because I would as well if I needed them.

Answer 9

Lights and sirens are just another piece of equipment available for use when driving fast to a job. There are no rules that say they have to be used. One example is that often the lights are used without the sirens so that we can sneak up on potential criminals such as burglars who have been seen entering a house.

As for speeding, if I set off a speed camera, I have to be on my way to an emergency job or I would get a fine and points like anyone else.

Answer 10

Most police forces in the UK have data recorders fitted to their police vehicles for exactly this purpose. They are monitored and police officers are reported for driving at excess speed if they cannot justify their speed, it makes the force and their drivers look slack.

However, sometimes is is necessary for the police driver to use his/her exemption of the speed limit without using blue lights/sirens etc to catch up with a car without letting a suspect know.

Answer 11

Seems to me they don't HAVE to always use their lights and sirens when rushing to a call.

I think that, as long as they get there safely... without hitting an innocent bystander or driver on the way, then I don't really see why they owe the public an explanation.

Especially when it is only a select few of the public that is miffed by this in the first place.