Police car crash in Acre lane

[VanManLondon]

I was driving pass when it all happened, got some pics.
Posted in my blog, check it out
http://www.man-and-avan.co.uk/2009/08/undercover-police-car-crash/

 

[Pickman's model]

Ah, I though maybe you thought they were lackeys or summat....

different thread

 

[trabuquera]

I was driving pass when it all happened, got some pics.
Posted in my blog, check it out
http://www.man-and-avan.co.uk/2009/08/undercover-police-car-crash/

at those pics. Cack-handed and irresponsible driving is bad enough, but can you just picture the disciplinary chewing-out that police driver will get, if he's assigned any superior with a sense of budgeting and public relations?

Not only has he crashed a police car, but did so:
- by crashing into a civilian (who was not actually wanted by police at the time)
- and into the driver's side!
- and not only is the civilian a young lady, she's
- a mother with a baby in the back seat, and it happened
- on a main road (no excuses on visibility)
- in Brixton (putting, um, 'public goodwill' at risk) and
- in broad daylight (when there are lots of kids and 'decent normal working people' about and not just skanky stop-out no-goodniks of the early hours)

FULL MARKS COPPER! YOU EEEDIOT!

 

[newbie]

and there was me thinking it was all a cleverly planned manoeuvre aimed at capturing a dangerous desperado

 

[detective-boy]

Was it the idiot in the silver saloon car?

Just in case you are labouring under a misapprehension ... police officers don't all get their own patrol cars ... there's probably something like 30 different officers on the Borough qualified to drive that single vehicle and different ones will be driving it on different occasions. Unmarked emergency response vehicles tend to be staffed by rotating crews, so that the same small number of officers will be crewing it for a month and then there will be a change.

Vehicles assigned to specialist units may well only be used by a small number of officers on a regular basis (still a long way from personal issue though!) but very, very few of these would be equipped with covert blue lights and sirens.

 

[detective-boy]

The police man was insisting that the police would be investigated just as a civilian would.

Far, far more so, in fact. (If that was non-police incident it would get pretty much no investigation at all - breathalysers would be administered, a few details would be taken and 99 times out a 100 absolutely nothing else would happen unless there was absolutely blatant evidence of a significant offence).

As it is a collision involving a police vehicle it will be investigated / overseen by traffic division supervising officers and the level of seriousness at which full investigation kicks in (measuring up, photos, reconstruction) is far lower than for other types of collision (where it is fatal or near fatal only).

 

[snowy_again]

Just in case you are labouring under a misapprehension ...

Vehicles assigned to specialist units may well only be used by a small number of officers on a regular basis (still a long way from personal issue though!) but very, very few of these would be equipped with covert blue lights and sirens.

Long time, no see DB! I wasn't thinking it was his 'personal' car... just that he'd raced up and down so many times that evening, which, combined with the shocking moment meeting him on Railton Road the week before had etched his face into my memory! Wasn't the same car as the one involved in this crash though...

 

[detective-boy]

Long time, no see DB!

Got fed up with the fuckwits following me about and disrupting threads and so disappeared for a few months - have only come back a bit - usually just have a quick look at General and UK Politics but I was asked to have a look at a thread in Brixton so I stuck my head in.

Nice to see driving standards (police or otherwise) on Acre Lane are still as bad as ever! (I used to come in to work that way and it was extremely noticeable that any semblance of adherence to the Highway Code evaporated about the junction of Clapham Park Road and Bedford Road ... (when I later worked in Nigeria for a bit, I started having flashbacks and worked out some of the reason why ... )

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Someone I know who was an aid worker in war-zones and was no stranger to hair-raising journeys in speeding vehicles said that if you can drive unscathed down Acre Lane, you can drive anywhere!

 

[gabi]

Far, far more so, in fact.

What, like Stockwell? What was the upshot of that investigation? Oh yeh, promotions for all concerned. Cigars all round!

 

[detective-boy]

What, like Stockwell?

There was a traffic collision involving a police vehicle at Stockwell? When was that then? ...

 

[gabi]

There was a traffic collision involving a police vehicle at Stockwell? When was that then? ...

I was referring to your claim that the police investigate their own *harder* than the general public... not in my experience.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I saw the aftermath of one recently-ish on Clapham close to Stockwell tube and I think an ambulance (or yellow removal van?) was involved too, but I was a bit far away and had the wrong specs on. Do they still call them Polacs?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

...and once I saw at least 6 of those undercover cars screaming along the Clapham Road, one after t'other.

 

[Dan U]

Do they still call them Polacs?

i thought that's what they called Polish people in The Wire

 

[detective-boy]

... not in my experience.

I have been investigated as a police officer.
I have conducted investigations into police officers.
I have trained senior investigators for the IPCC.
I have advised police officers subject to investigation.
I have provided consultancy on the subject of internal investigations into the police and other law enforcement agencies.

I KNOW how thorough internal investigations are and how that thoroughness compares to "ordinary" investigations.

Please outline your personal experience of the process and how you know otherwise.

 

[detective-boy]

Do they still call them Polacs?

No.

It was "Polaccs" (short for police accidents and stemming from the good old days of teleprinter communication between divisions and New Scotland Yard - each pre-formatted message had a title, usually an abbreviation of the subject matter ... and the message to be sent to report an accident involving a police vehicle was a "POLACC" message.

In our new politically-correct world they have become "POLCOLs", short for police collisions and consistent with the change from referring to road traffic accidents to road traffic collisions in recognition of the fact that very few actually are accidents.

 

[Pickman's model]

I have been investigated as a police officer.
I have conducted investigations into police officers.
I have trained senior investigators for the IPCC.
I have advised police officers subject to investigation.
I have provided consultancy on the subject of internal investigations into the police and other law enforcement agencies.

I KNOW how thorough internal investigations are and how that thoroughness compares to "ordinary" investigations.

Please outline your personal experience of the process and how you know otherwise.

you're rather defensive here, db.

 

[detective-boy]

...and once I saw at least 6 of those undercover cars screaming along the Clapham Road, one after t'other.

Now that would be a specialist unit passing through Lambeth Borough (most boroughs only have one or two unmarked vehicles equipped with covert blue lights and sirens). Probably something like the Counter Terrorism Command or the Flying Squad (a.k.a. "The Squad on Tour" )

 

[Roadkill]

you're rather defensive here, db.

Pardon me poking my nose in, but please would you stop trying to wind detective-boy up?

Not all of us share your implacable loathing of anyone in a copper's uniform, and detective-boy's knowledge of and insights into the law and police practice are often very interesting, and a much-needed corrective to the inevitable bulletin-board hyperbole about such matters. He's also been a source of very valuable advice for a lot of posters, me included.

I've met him and will say (at risk of sounding sycophantic!) that he's a most affable and interesting bloke - which reminds me, detective-boy, I owe you dinner and a pint at some point!

 

[paolo]

Saw the aftermath of an 'ouch' the other day. New Kent Road closed. Marked Astra had gone for a U-Turn and pinged a bike coming the other way into a bollard. Astra was left in it's final position, 90 degrees across the road. Bike was on it's side into the bollard. I spoke to one witness who said she tried to stop the PC who jumped out of the car from rushing in and taking the biker's helmet off.

The cops who seemed to be doing the investigating didn't look very impressed with the whole situation, not surprisingly. They had to deploy a bunch of PCSOs to close the feed-in roads, etc.

The New Kent Road is dangerous as fuck. Doing a U-Turn in rush hour is nuts.

Years ago I was chatting to some Met guys who specialised in training. They had a lot of disdain for the bottom grade (Class 3?) drivers. Said that even though they weren't meant to get into chases or whatever, there were a few cowboys that would and they were a nightmare.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I've met him and will say (at risk of sounding sycophantic!) that he's a most affable and interesting bloke - which reminds me, detective-boy, I owe you dinner and a pint at some point!

^^^
This from me too. His impartial advice has been invaluable and he gives a lot of posters who have victims of crime, or are witnesses really amazing support and advice behind the scenes and sometimes even if they've been complete pillocks and have got thenselves into daft scrapes . I can't begin to tell you how valued he is.

 

[paolo]

It would be easy and perhaps not unfair - based on the public posts - to see DB as unsympathetic to anyone who doesn't have the level of technical knowledge he clearly has, or his belief in certain processes.

But, as you say Magpie, the behind the scenes stuff shows that DB isn't solely strutting his stuff here... probably the best free advice you can get if you've had a scrape with the police or need to understand how to pursue a complaint.

 

[detective-boy]

- which reminds me, detective-boy, I owe you dinner and a pint at some point!

* Reaches for diary ... *

 

[detective-boy]

Years ago I was chatting to some Met guys who specialised in training. They had a lot of disdain for the bottom grade (Class 3?) drivers.

There is undoubtedly a training issue. Training requirements have fallen significantly over the last 20 years. That is absolutely not unrelated to the numbers of serious collisions.

Blue lights and two tones used to be the domain of the advanced driver (couple of week basic course, few years experience, weeks van course, few years experience, four week advanced course). In the mid 90s there was a sudden about turn and blue lights and two tones became the norm on lots of vehicles, with only the more powerful vehicles / unmarked vehicles with covert blue lights and two tones being reserved for advanced drivers only.

This meant that a marked Astra with blues and twos could be driven by someone who had: basic check test (driving licence and couple of hours arond the block), bit of experience (maybe only a few months, usually a year or two), couple of weeks standard driving course.

Anyone that tells you that that is not a vey significant change in training standards is talking bollocks.

 

[Jonti]

It would be easy and perhaps not unfair - based on the public posts - to see DB as unsympathetic to anyone who doesn't have the level of technical knowledge he clearly has, or his belief in certain processes.

But, as you say Magpie, the behind the scenes stuff shows that DB isn't solely strutting his stuff here... probably the best free advice you can get if you've had a scrape with the police or need to understand how to pursue a complaint.

I've found the guy to be appallingly abusive and aggressive myself, and I'm not the only one, not by a long way.

A lot of posters have found he'll rip you a new one with no provocation at all, pick on people, be abusive and generally behave like a right tit. I don't trust him -- or what he says -- in the slightest.

Each to their own, I suppose.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Well, it can't be easy to put up with the constant sniping digs and the level of abuse he gets and sometimes people refuse to accept the info he gives them and go into an ACAB rant, & he does give as good as he gets (and then some!) and although it's sometimes a bit messy, I can fully understand why he loses his rag.

 

[Pickman's model]

i've never been sure he had a rag in the first place.

 

[Missez]

Well, it can't be easy to put up with the constant sniping digs and the level of abuse he gets and sometimes people refuse to accept the info he gives them and go into an ACAB rant, & he does give as good as he gets (and then some!) and although it's sometimes a bit messy, I can fully understand why he loses his rag.

Well he's most likely in a minority group here being a policeman, so he's going to get flack for it. It's the nature of message boards.

Personally I find it useful to hear his opinion on things.

 

[London_Calling]

There was a night time police crash pretty much outside my flat about three months ago. You hear the siren and then the crunching metal, but this time was worse because it was followed by a man going absolutely mental for such a long time. Because of the accident the traffic had stopped and the noise was really carrying. In the end I went down to the street.

Turns out the police car went onto the other side at a junction, hit a car turning and the passenger in the hit car was pregnant - it was her partner going mad. When I got down there she was just laying on her back on the ground, the medics had arrived and it was all pretty heavy.

Turns out she gave birth to twins later that night and everyone was ok.

The policeman in his go-fast baseball cap in his unmarked police car was racing to the local park 50 yards up the road where someone had reported kids messing around after dark.

They don't make it easy for themselves.