burnley-si:
should have ask if he was driving without due care and attention as he hadnt read the sign
Sometimes they know everything and know nothing. A couple of months ago I was coming back from a Vintage Motor Cycle Club meeting on my old 1942 Harley, along the A40 dual carriageway. Car came up behind me and stayed there; I’m only doing about 50 so twigged something wasn’t right. He flashed me, I ignored him; wasn’t going to pull over till I was certain it was a copper. Blues come on, I pull into next lay-by, thinking perhaps my rear bulb had failed. Stopped, looked round, rear light working; conversation with plod as follows;
Sidevalve; “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
Plod 1; “Do you know that there’s no MOT certificate showing for this bike?”
SV; “Correct”.
Plod looks non-plussed,after a few seconds I take pity on the poor fool and explain in very short simple words that vehicles registered before 1960 are exempt from MOT tests. 1-0 to me so far.
Plod 2:“We pulled you over because we observed your bike weaving back there”.
SV; “Shine yer torch down there on the rear suspension”.
Plod 2 does so and looks as baffled as his mate.
SV; “There isn’t any, is there? And if you’d observed the road sign a bit further back you’d have noticed the sign for uneven road surface. I was avoiding the pot-hole.” Silence from Plods, 2-0 to me.
Plod 1 then decides it’s time to play the joker.
“Have you had a drink sir?”
SV; “Yes, I had a pint at the rugby club; you can breathalyse me if you want to”
Plod 1 scuttles over to the car, opens the boot; calls his mate over, muttered conversation follows, Plod 2 comes back to me and says;
“You’ll have to wait a few minutes, the breathalyser is in the other car”.
SV (getting bored by now) “Don’t they trust you to have one each?”
He glares at me, says nowt; a minute later another car turns up, he gets the kit ready, I blow into the bag.
Plod (looking slightly baffled) “It’s reading zero. I thought you said you’d had a pint?”
SV; “I have. Coke. You didn’t ask me what of; can I go now please?”
With that I walked away, put my helmet on, stood at side of bike ready to kickstart it and noticed Plod 2 sidling up to take a closer look. Turned left twistgrip to fully ■■■■■■ ignition, two kicks on full throttle to get some juice in the pipe (anyone who’s ridden old British bikes knows what’s coming next… ) ignition on, swing kickstart, almighty backfire and a sheet of flame from exhaust and Plod jumps back a good couple of yards as I crash the bike into gear and bugger off home. They didn’t bother following me.
I once got pulled up in Sheffield City centre on a Friday night by a traffic cop for driving with my front fog lights on, I argued with him for ten minutes that I didnt, in the end the copper said what makes you so sure you didn’t have them on? I said because this car doesn’t have front fog lights!! At that point the bus stop full of people started cheering he went bright red then told me to tax my car ( it didn’t run out for another month) then he jumped in his car an buggered off!
burnley-si:
should have ask if he was driving without due care and attention as he hadnt read the sign
Sometimes they know everything and know nothing. A couple of months ago I was coming back from a Vintage Motor Cycle Club meeting on my old 1942 Harley, along the A40 dual carriageway. Car came up behind me and stayed there; I’m only doing about 50 so twigged something wasn’t right. He flashed me, I ignored him; wasn’t going to pull over till I was certain it was a copper. Blues come on, I pull into next lay-by, thinking perhaps my rear bulb had failed. Stopped, looked round, rear light working; conversation with plod as follows;
Sidevalve; “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
Plod 1; “Do you know that there’s no MOT certificate showing for this bike?”
SV; “Correct”.
Plod looks non-plussed,after a few seconds I take pity on the poor fool and explain in very short simple words that vehicles registered before 1960 are exempt from MOT tests. 1-0 to me so far.
Plod 2:“We pulled you over because we observed your bike weaving back there”.
SV; “Shine yer torch down there on the rear suspension”.
Plod 2 does so and looks as baffled as his mate.
SV; “There isn’t any, is there? And if you’d observed the road sign a bit further back you’d have noticed the sign for uneven road surface. I was avoiding the pot-hole.” Silence from Plods, 2-0 to me.
Plod 1 then decides it’s time to play the joker.
“Have you had a drink sir?”
SV; “Yes, I had a pint at the rugby club; you can breathalyse me if you want to”
Plod 1 scuttles over to the car, opens the boot; calls his mate over, muttered conversation follows, Plod 2 comes back to me and says;
“You’ll have to wait a few minutes, the breathalyser is in the other car”.
SV (getting bored by now) “Don’t they trust you to have one each?”
He glares at me, says nowt; a minute later another car turns up, he gets the kit ready, I blow into the bag.
Plod (looking slightly baffled) “It’s reading zero. I thought you said you’d had a pint?”
SV; “I have. Coke. You didn’t ask me what of; can I go now please?”
With that I walked away, put my helmet on, stood at side of bike ready to kickstart it and noticed Plod 2 sidling up to take a closer look. Turned left twistgrip to fully ■■■■■■ ignition, two kicks on full throttle to get some juice in the pipe (anyone who’s ridden old British bikes knows what’s coming next… ) ignition on, swing kickstart, almighty backfire and a sheet of flame from exhaust and Plod jumps back a good couple of yards as I crash the bike into gear and bugger off home. They didn’t bother following me.
It takes a bigger man to admit that he’s f’d up and just apologise rather than just digging deeper!
Pitty those two clowns that stopped you didn’t know that eh!
Sidevalve:
With that I walked away, put my helmet on, stood at side of bike ready to kickstart it and noticed Plod 2 sidling up to take a closer look. Turned left twistgrip to fully ■■■■■■ ignition, two kicks on full throttle to get some juice in the pipe (anyone who’s ridden old British bikes knows what’s coming next… ) ignition on, swing kickstart, almighty backfire and a sheet of flame from exhaust and Plod jumps back a good couple of yards as I crash the bike into gear and bugger off home. They didn’t bother following me.
Reminds me of the time plod pulls me insisting the exhaust is a bit loud, & he’s sure there’s no baffles in the pipes.
So he pulls out his torch, squats down and points it down the end of the pipe so he can examine the inside.
At that moment he also places his bare right hand on the ever so warm exhaust to steady himself, leaving a perfect handprint of burnt skin on the outside of the exhaust
same in london if i go out to kent on the A2 u can use the bus lanes from 10am till 4pm.many a tiem ive used them and got out of london in 25 mins.the faces on the car drivers are like u can not use that lane.even local truckers dont use them dont know why but i do and they are always empty apart from the odd bus now again.surprised half the time that other follow me after seeing me drive past them.but its there lose not mine
Many years ago… I’m in car (Maxi!) towing a trailer with some garden rubble and stuff in and get pulled over.
copper: “How much weight have you got in there?”
me: “400 Kg” (I always think being confident and wrong is better than looking unsure!)
then copper decides to give trailer wheel a severe kick, then can’t hide his pain and dances around for a few moments with eyes watering. I’m struggling not to crack up.
(finally) copper: “that tyre has no tread on it”
me: “it’s a solid tyre, which is why you hurt your toe on it”
copper: “that isn’t legal”
me: “You must be busy in November”
copper: “What do you mean?”
me: “Well, stopping all the cars on the London to Brighton run that have solid tyres must take ages”
copper: “I need to ask you to produce your documents at a police station within 10 days”
me: “ok”
Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it, because I got home and realised that the car MOT was over by 3 months, I’d been ill and missed it. So I immediately got an MOT. Then I cooked up a plan. I phoned up the local police station pretending I needed random advice and took the name of the desk sergeant. Then I wrote an extremely flattering latter to the sergeant about the professionalism shown by this young copper and how nice it was to meet such an experience and competent officer carrying out their essential safety work.
Then after a couple of days I went into the local nick and by luck the bloke I wrote to was on the desk so I started by asking if he’d got my letter, and he pointed to the notice board behind him where it was pinned up. (Result!). Then I showed him the documents, and waited for the bombshell. It came “I see this MOT was obtained after you were stopped sir? Do you the have the previous MOT?”. I replied honestly that I’d missed it due to ill health and was hoping we could overlook this. “AH well you made the young fellows day with your letter, get out of here and don’t do it again”.
So I got to laugh at the young fool and get away with the MOT being due, but I was SO lucky!
’ “AH well you made the young fellows day with your letter, get out of here and don’t do it again”.
So I got to laugh at the young fool and get away with the MOT being due, but I was SO lucky!
That of course was in the days when decent coppers had the ability to use their discretion and common sense to achieve a result acceptable to both sides. You’d made an honest mistake, he knew that and also guessed you weren’t going to do it again. That’s sadly rare nowadays.
) ignition on, swing kickstart, almighty backfire and a sheet of flame from exhaust and Plod jumps back a good couple of yards as I crash the bike into gear and bugger off home. They didn’t bother following me.
