great example of why flashing lights is bad 1407Cessna172 Headlamp flashing doesn't just mean "you can go", it means different things according to the situation. It can mean "I am conceding priority to you" (at a junction, chicane etc.), "I will wait...
October 25, 2005
Police chief's car did 82mph in 40mph zone By Will Pavia THE chief of the Metropolitan Police traffic division has been reprimanded by superiors for allowing his police driver to exceed 80mph in a 40mph zone.
Yesterday Scotland Yard said that Chief Superintendent Les Owen, who led anti-speeding campaigns in the capital, had received a written warning.
Road safety groups said the reprimand was too lenient and urged a review of legislation that allows officers to speed in the line of duty.
Riding in a marked police car, a Vauxhall Omega, Mr Owen allowed his driver, PC Mark Bradley, to use flashing lights to get through traffic on the North Circular. In a 40mph zone their car reached 82mph; entering a 50mph zone the car reached 86mph and used its siren to clear traffic in its path.
An in-car video apparently recorded the transgression and found its way into the hands of police investigators. Mr Owen attended a disciplinary hearing which ruled that he should not suffer loss of rank or a financial penalty. He got a written warning for "failing to challenge the manner in which a police constable drove a police car in which he was a pbuttenger".
PC Bradley, 44, was fined £250 at Redbridge Magistratesâ Court and given six penalty points on his licence, reduced to three on appeal.
Kevin Delaney, a former head of the Met's traffic division and now a campaigner on traffic and safety at the RAC Foundation, said Mr Owen was ultimately responsible for ignoring speeding rules. "All he had to do was tell the driver to slow down," he said.
He said that the case illustrated a broader problem with the police exemption. "The way the law is written, it says emergency vehicles may exceed the speed limit 'for the purposes of that service'," he said. "The guidelines need to be clearer." ------------------------------------------------------------------------
So here we have a senior police officer abusing the emergency "blues and twos" in a marked police car merely to make progress through traffic and abusing the exemption to speeding laws that police are given.
What a hypocrite -- "do as I say, not as I do" must be his motto!
And the only penalty he suffers is a meaningless "slap-on-the-wrist" -- Mr X
