German police"gentlemen"

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

Went to Poland last week on my bike.Coming back through the Rhine valley got clocked by a German police speed camera.A kilometer down the road gets a pull by a German police officer.All 4 of us pull in.
In perfect english the policeman tells us that we are travelling at double the speed limit but as the camera could not recalibrate fast enough to clock the other 3 bikes speed he felt it would be “immoral” to just prosecute the leading bike(should have been a 250 euro fine) so he felt that it would be unfair to prosecute any of us.
He then told us that his collegue was 40 klicks down the road with a faster speed gun and that he could track each bike so maybe we should slow down a little!

Now that is what you call a police man and I hope one day I will have the privelidge of buying that gentleman a beer.Can you imagine that happening in Britain?

God bless him.

2

I once went to Berlin on my bike, must have been early 1990s. Was heading down the main strasse up to the Brandenburg gate, stopped at the side of the road to have a look at a map and within a minute there was a couple of Polizei cars, all looking threatening
My first thought was, Oh ■■■■■ I’m in for a bollocking. Couldn’t have been further from the mark. Gave me a history lesson after welcoming me to their city. Gave me some decent places to stay and good places to eat and some to avoid. Well impressed.
Off topic, one of the places we stayed had a manufacturers sign in the lift saying Schindlers lifts. Made me laugh.

3

In fairness Bking, the traffic police you HAD over there (in Britain),20 years ago took some beating.
Despite the white number plates, I was never shown anything but courtesy and politeness whenever I was pulled.
Indeed, manys a time a flash of the blue lights, by a squad car, or a motorcycle cop pulling alongside you with a tap on his speedo, was enough to tell you to slacken it back to 90!
Even the old department of transport boys were sound, so long as you werent a smartass with them, and werent taking the p with the state of your lorry.
One Dot checkpoint, at Bwckle, in North Wales, found me with a dodgy hub,while heading to Holyhead. He directed me to a nearby town, and scrap yard, where I told the owner my predicament. He told me to fish and old ROR hub off a lift axle, and hed come down and fit it for me. When we arrived back at the checkpoint, the DoT lads were just preparing to lock up. Fair play to the head honcho, he told the scrap man to fit it and make sure it was fitted well, and lifted the GV9(?),without seeing the finished product! I cant see the movie stars of policemen, or VOSA, having the balls, or common sense to do that these days.
Trust me lads, your old police were far from the worst.

4

Lived in Germany for ten years never met a bad copper always Polite and Fair :smiley:

5

True whiplash but what the ■■■■ went wrong?
And why can you still find good policemen in Germany who dont have prosecutions and quotas as the main reason for their job while in Britain its all about persecuting people who are,in the main,law abiding citizens.

I could see myself as a German police man,every one I have ever met has been polite,friendly and approachable.They are part of their community and live within it.

In Britain they have to live elsewhere and keep their job a secret from most of their neighbours.That is not my idea of a police officer.

6

You answered your own question Bking… They don’t have quotas to fill, so probably feel that education is a more important and worthwhile part of their job than simply handing out fines.

Re Schindlers lifts, Otis have their head office in Reading. Can ya guess how they answer their phones?.. :smiley:

7

whiplash:
In fairness Bking, the traffic police you HAD over there (in Britain),20 years ago took some beating.
Despite the white number plates, I was never shown anything but courtesy and politeness whenever I was pulled.
Indeed, manys a time a flash of the blue lights, by a squad car, or a motorcycle cop pulling alongside you with a tap on his speedo, was enough to tell you to slacken it back to 90!
Even the old department of transport boys were sound, so long as you werent a smartass with them, and werent taking the p with the state of your lorry.
One Dot checkpoint, at Bwckle, in North Wales, found me with a dodgy hub,while heading to Holyhead. He directed me to a nearby town, and scrap yard, where I told the owner my predicament. He told me to fish and old ROR hub off a lift axle, and hed come down and fit it for me. When we arrived back at the checkpoint, the DoT lads were just preparing to lock up. Fair play to the head honcho, he told the scrap man to fit it and make sure it was fitted well, and lifted the GV9(?),without seeing the finished product! I cant see the movie stars of policemen, or VOSA, having the balls, or common sense to do that these days.
Trust me lads, your old police were far from the worst.

That is so true! Every bit of it. It was the same in other jobs too, people were valued for their initiative and experience. Now you have to complete a bit of paper before you dare do anything, do a training module, a risk assessment, a work instruction. It’s stifling the economy and costing a fortune.

Before you ever think of voting Labour, remember this is part of their legacy.

8

OTS:
Lived in Germany for ten years never met a bad copper always Polite and Fair :smiley:

I lived in Germany for 15 years and can fully endorse what you say OTS. In fact I have a very good friend who is quite a senior policeman in Frankfurt (am Main).

The difference is that the German police, as a fundamental principle, see themselves as a service, intended to prevent crime, rather than cash in once a crime has been committed. That’s not to say the German police won’t go in mob handed when they see crime or a disturbance of the peace that has gone beyond a warning.

This is of course the diametric opposite of the way the UK police carry out their duties. Here, everyday policing is not about prevention, which is not a profitable exercise, but about detection, which is.

It’s why you’ll generally SEE German police cars on motorway bridges, effectively telling speeders that the police are observing good driving discipline. Anyone offending after seeing a German police car, can expect to be dealt with to the letter of the law.

Over here, you’ll find the police hiding up slip roads, with hand held speed cameras, effectively attempting to cash in on speeding motorists. And strangely enough when you ask a UK copper, why it’s unsafe to exceed the speed limit in the UK, invariably you’ll get the absurd response; “Because speed kills!” No one has ever told me at what speed you die? Or why it’s safe to do 160kp/h on an Autobahn in Germany, but unsafe to drive, with the same car, at 100mp/h in this one.

Yes, I have recently had a confrontation with a remarkably belligerent, jobsworth traffic cop, with nothing better to do than speed down a dual carriageway to book me for exceeding the speed limit whilst overtaking a van. Yes I was breaking the law, but there was no discretion or common sense judgement possible with this particular numbskull, despite my actions actually enhancing road safety, by reducing the amount of time I was in a possibly dangerous position on the road (beside another vehicle traveling at relatively high speed) to the minimum.

I used to give the UK police service the benefit of the doubt, and this guy will never know how much damage he did to my good will towards the police service. Now, I can well understand the increasingly common perception of us and them!

9

i got fined 90euro for towing a trailer with a van on a sunday in germany then when i got home i got a letter saying i owed them another 10euro tax and if i didnt pay it i would be delt with the next time my passport was scanned in germany!!! robbing [zb]

10

I think thats brilliant, hes done his job, hes let his authority be known and hes still had the same result regarding slowing the group down. Its people like this that i have a lot of time for, well reasoned, polite, and not some copper who was bullied at school with an agenda against the public talking to you like a piece of scum.

11

Spent ages in the back of a silver BMW traffic car with P.C Wayne Kerr.
He claimed I had jumped a red light I was adament I hadn’t
The video was inconclusive.
My defence was :
A) I saw him why would I jump a red light with a cop in the next lane.
B) There was an ambulance behind me who followed me (non blue light) and he had to flash him to get past him to get to me.

So then we went all through teh checks license - there you are - insured and MOT confirmed over the radio.
We then agreed to disagree he maintained that when the lights went red amber I was still moving and on green I was on or over the line.
After all that he gave me a producer so I had to go and confirm what the radio told him.

12

EastAnglianTrucker:

OTS:
Lived in Germany for ten years never met a bad copper always Polite and Fair :smiley:

I lived in Germany for 15 years and can fully endorse what you say OTS. In fact I have a very good friend who is quite a senior policeman in Frankfurt (am Main).

The difference is that the German police, as a fundamental principle, see themselves as a service, intended to prevent crime, rather than cash in once a crime has been committed. That’s not to say the German police won’t go in mob handed when they see crime or a disturbance of the peace that has gone beyond a warning.

This is of course the diametric opposite of the way the UK police carry out their duties. Here, everyday policing is not about prevention, which is not a profitable exercise, but about detection, which is.

It’s why you’ll generally SEE German police cars on motorway bridges, effectively telling speeders that the police are observing good driving discipline. Anyone offending after seeing a German police car, can expect to be dealt with to the letter of the law.

Over here, you’ll find the police hiding up slip roads, with hand held speed cameras, effectively attempting to cash in on speeding motorists. And strangely enough when you ask a UK copper, why it’s unsafe to exceed the speed limit in the UK, invariably you’ll get the absurd response; “Because speed kills!” No one has ever told me at what speed you die? Or why it’s safe to do 160kp/h on an Autobahn in Germany, but unsafe to drive, with the same car, at 100mp/h in this one.

Yes, I have recently had a confrontation with a remarkably belligerent, jobsworth traffic cop, with nothing better to do than speed down a dual carriageway to book me for exceeding the speed limit whilst overtaking a van. Yes I was breaking the law, but there was no discretion or common sense judgement possible with this particular numbskull, despite my actions actually enhancing road safety, by reducing the amount of time I was in a possibly dangerous position on the road (beside another vehicle traveling at relatively high speed) to the minimum.

I used to give the UK police service the benefit of the doubt, and this guy will never know how much damage he did to my good will towards the police service. Now, I can well understand the increasingly common perception of us and them!

That is a great post, spot on!

13

I have never had any problems with the German police except for once. I have always treated them politely and got the same treatment in return … except for once LOLOL
I was heading along a motorway towards Trier. As I recall, the speed limit was 60kph as we were heading through roadworks. I was a way down a long line of traffic all bumbling along about 60-65kph. Near the end, there were two cops with the dreaded speed gun and I saw them point it at me. As I came out the roadworks, I got pulled and informed I was speeding. I laughed expecting Jeremy Beadle to appear. He was bloody serious though insisting I was doing 90kph. Tacho was produced which showed I had never gone above 65kph. Then, the classic … “Your tacho is wrong” I was told LOLOL. I suddenly realised it was December and I was obviously expected to contribute to the Policemens Xmas Party. I had never before or since lost my temper with a copper of any nationality but I did that day. I asked how if I was speeding, I had not gone over the top of all the other vehicles. All to no avail. The ‘fine’ was 300 DM (about £95 at the time). No ■■■■■■ way was I paying so … with an ■■■■■■ and a policeman in the cab (this was after I had thrown the keys at the copper) I was taken to one of their little motorway police stations which was off the next junction. There I was put into a cell. BUT before I left the motor, I had knocked the fridge on and made sure it was on constant running. I was empty but I had dropped a frozen load off and not changed the tempature so it was set at -22.
Three hours later after listening to the fridge hammering away (I knew it was a noisy fridge) they were only too glad to get rid of me LOLOL
Mind you, I did receive a letter 6 weeks later informing me it had gone to court and the fine was now 600DM. I never went near Germany for at least 5 years after that. Became a bit of a bugger when I started work for a company based in Venlo lol. I have since received two more parking fines from the Germans after being caught on camera and told our Dutch TM to tell them I am dead.

14

Bking:
Went to Poland last week on my bike.Coming back through the Rhine valley got clocked by a German police speed camera.A kilometer down the road gets a pull by a German police officer.All 4 of us pull in.
In perfect english the policeman tells us that we are travelling at double the speed limit but as the camera could not recalibrate fast enough to clock the other 3 bikes speed he felt it would be “immoral” to just prosecute the leading bike(should have been a 250 euro fine) so he felt that it would be unfair to prosecute any of us.
He then told us that his collegue was 40 klicks down the road with a faster speed gun and that he could track each bike so maybe we should slow down a little!

Now that is what you call a police man and I hope one day I will have the privelidge of buying that gentleman a beer.Can you imagine that happening in Britain?

God bless him.

& doing twice the speed limit is something your proud of then?? Would you do the same in this country??

15

the maoster:
Otis have their head office in Reading. Can ya guess how they answer their phones?.. :smiley:

:smiley: :laughing:

Must try them…

16

How do you tell the difference between a UK Police Officer, a Canadian Police Officer and
an American Police Officer?

QUESTION: You’re on duty by yourself (don’t ask why, you just are and your Sergeant hates you) walking on a deserted street late at night.

Suddenly, an armed man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife, and lunges at you.

You are carrying your police issued Glock and you are an expert shot, however you have only a split second to react before he reaches you.

What do you do?

ANSWER:

UK Police Officer:

Firstly the officer must consider the man’s Human Rights.

  1. Does the man look poor or oppressed?

  2. Is he newly arrived in this country and does not yet understand the law?

  3. Is this really a knife or a ceremonial dagger?

  4. Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?

  5. Am I dressed provocatively?

  6. Could I run away?

  7. Could I possibly swing my gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?

:sunglasses: Should I try and negotiate with him to discuss his wrong doings?

  1. Does the Glock have appropriate safety built into it?

  2. Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society?

  3. Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?

  4. If I were to grab his knees and hold on, would he still want to stab and kill me?

  5. If I raise my gun and he turns and runs away, do I get blamed if he falls over, knocks his head
    and kills himself?

  6. If I shoot and wound him, and lose the subsequent court case, does he have the opportunity to
    sue me, cost me my job, my credibility and the loss of my family home?

Canadian Police Officer:

BANG!

American Police Officer:

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

‘click’…Reload…

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

calls his Sergeant on the radio " Sarge, I’ve shot someone "
" Is he dead ? "
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

"yes "