I was stopped and questioned by a copper last January. He was tailgating me in a transit van and wanted to know why I'd exceeded the 60 limit after we'd both overtaken the car in front of me. I politely explained that he'd been driving so close to the back of me that I buttumed that he was in a hurry and wanted out of his way. (It was dark, and I'd buttumed the headlights belonged to another aggressive tosser in a 4x4). He seemed quite happy with this explanation, once the vehicle details had checked out. I was impressed that he had the integrity not to try to deny that he was driving too close. I think he originally thought I'd clocked that it was a police van and tried to do a runner.
Anyway, once he'd established that everything was kosher, he gave me a producer with the documents to be checked section crossed out and the reason for stop section not filled in. He explained that he was now obliged to do this kind of thing whenever he spoke to anybody, and had a good old moan about how much paperwork was generated just by asking a group of kids causing a nuisance to move on.
Seemed like a reasonable bloke being impeded from doing his job by bureaucracy.
-- Steve Walker
