What the police do on a friday night in Portsmouth (rant alert!)

Being a fairly violent city at the weekends, you'd think that 2am would mean the police would be monitoring the various pubs & clubs in Guildhall, Southsea etc, & breaking up the numerous fights outside, or trying to stop the MASSIVE drugs trade in the city. Or even the muggings, stabbings etc that have become so commonplace.

But no, they're waiting in car parks for people to leave so they can pull them 20 metres down the road for their back seat passengers not wearing their seat belts.

Just ask my girlfriend, who got her little £30 fine last night. That will teach her for trying to go out and have fun with her mates, and accepting a lift home from a designated driver, and living in a nanny state where it seems rather than keeping law and order, the primary role of the police is to now concentrate their efforts on sucking money out of easy targets.

This wasn't one patrol car. This was a van with around 8 revenue collectors, I mean police officers.

I can say with almost 100% certainty that within half a mile of the area some poor soul would be either being mugged or having the crap beaten out of him at that very moment.

Oh well, I suppose that £30 revenue is better than doing the real police work, but I guess that's too much hassle.

"RANT OVER"

They should be doing something else your right, but not wearing seat belt i havent got time for.

If im designated driver you put your seat belt on or your out, ive chucked people out before and i will again

I tend to make sure people wear their seatbelts too. I'm glad the non-wearer had to pay though and not the driver!

Have you seen that advert where the person in the back who isn't wearing the seatbelt causes the person in the front to be killed?

Actually, I'm thinking about it now and it should be the driver who got fined, and then in future s/he would make sure the passengers wore their belts. If just the non-wearer got fined, they'd probably just plan on the probability that they're not going to get done for the same thing too frequently, but if there's someone else involved then there're the chance of some persuasion happening.

lol, you cant blame em for it, afterall there's no revenue in stopping drunks from fighting as well as the threat of them taking one in the head too.

nope, they live on picking on harmless people who are no threat to them at all. it's only a job for them afterall

Yes, thanks for the tip, but we're grown ups and if our own stupidity causes us to be injured or whatever, we'll deal.... go and catch a criminal please...

Yes, thanks for the tip, but we're grown ups and if our own stupidity causes us to be injured or whatever, we'll deal.... go and catch a criminal please...

..but dude.. that's how most of the world works. They won't even let us ingest temporarily mind-altering drugs

it's their pre-programmed patronising attitude that really winds me up (I know it's kind of design for that), but were do they get off talking to people like that..?! Charlotte was involved in a very minor low speed car accident a few years back and the copper who turned up to take the details was probably one of the hateful people I've ever dealt with, and we hadn't done anything wrong... are they briefed; 'speak to everyone as if they're shit on your shoe'? I really have zero time for them (probably well documented on here...)

I know it's 'not all of them' but it just happens it's every one I bump into...

I don't get it. If my girlfriend was in the back seat not wearing her seatbelt, and God forbid, in an accident flew forward and killed the driver. Would she be prosecuted as a criminal?

I don't get it. If my girlfriend was in the back seat not wearing her seatbelt, and God forbid, in an accident flew forward and killed the driver. Would she be prosecuted as a criminal?

I do not think you should be asking yourself that question. A more appropriate one would be. How would your girlfriend feel if that did happen and the driver was killed ? Not to mention how the drivers family and freinds would feel of course.

I don't get it. If my girlfriend was in the back seat not wearing her seatbelt, and God forbid, in an accident flew forward and killed the driver. Would she be prosecuted as a criminal?

Manslaughter perhaps?

cops are sooooo stupid it winds me up sometimes.

we were in notts last week queing to get into a nightclub. cops were there and they could see the queue was quite wide at the front. so they tried to get everyone to move back. only problem was they were asking people at the front to step back and were suprised when no one moved. it was blatantly obvious to the people in the queue that they couldnt step back due to the people behind them. anyhow, the cops determined as ever continued to ask this question to everyone at the front of the queue for a good 20 minutes.

duh!

I do not think you should be asking yourself that question. A more appropriate one would be. How would your girlfriend feel if that did happen and the driver was killed ? Not to mention how the drivers family and freinds would feel of course.

Yes, but what have the Police got to do with that?

It's the nanny state thing again....

I don't think their doing your girlfriend a favour 'handing out good advice'... I think it's all about the money...

Yes, but what have the Police got to do with that?

 

It's the nanny state thing again....

 

I don't think their doing your girlfriend a favour 'handing out good advice'... I think it's all about the money...

I agree with you but I was asking a moral question.

What is more important, killing someone due to your negligence or possibly being prosecuted if you do.

Obviously.....she wouldn't feel great about it! (slight understatement) but there's always an element of risk in whatever you do.

How many journeys have you ever taken? Thousands, tens of thousands? How many accidents have you been in? In how many of those do you think, that IF you even had a back seat passenger (and lets face it, what's the percentage of car journeys these days that actually involve more than one person) they would have killed you?

I might have no argument here as I don't know the facts, but how many drivers have been killed as a direct result of rear seat passengers? I'd love to see the facts.

If a child gets into a car I'm driving they wear a seatbelt. If it's an adult, they have a choice. I assume they're responsible enough to make their own choice of the potential danger of not wearing one.

It's the nanny state thing as SonicSoop said. It's just totally ridiculous. Especially when it comes at the expense of 'proper' crime. We always hear about police being understaffed, especially at weekends, but then you have a van load who have nothing better to do than pull a car because a rear passenger has not got their seatbelt on.

Even in a quiet period of the week I would find this a waste of police time, let alone when they're "stretched to the breaking point"

look, basically I think they shouldn't have fined her £30. They should have just advised her to wear the seatbelt. I don't think you'd be so bothered then. I guess the £30 makes it seem like they have an ulterior (had to check the spelling on that one) motive.

Probably checking for DUI I would think. I agree though a warning would have been sufficient.

Obviously.....she wouldn't feel great about it! (slight understatement) but there's always an element of risk in whatever you do.

 

How many journeys have you ever taken? Thousands, tens of thousands? How many accidents have you been in? In how many of those do you think, that IF you even had a back seat passenger (and lets face it, what's the percentage of car journeys these days that actually involve more than one person) they would have killed you?

 

I might have no argument here as I don't know the facts, but how many drivers have been killed as a direct result of rear seat passengers? I'd love to see the facts.

 

If a child gets into a car I'm driving they wear a seatbelt. If it's an adult, they have a choice. I assume they're responsible enough to make their own choice of the potential danger of not wearing one.

 

It's the nanny state thing as SonicSoop said. It's just totally ridiculous. Especially when it comes at the expense of 'proper' crime. We always hear about police being understaffed, especially at weekends, but then you have a van load who have nothing better to do than pull a car because a rear passenger has not got their seatbelt on.

 

Even in a quiet period of the week I would find this a waste of police time, let alone when they're "stretched to the breaking point"

Damn, I did say rant over in my first post!