Stopped by the police

I have been looking at the comments about the productivity of using Police Officers or DVSA personnel.

I have also observed the reasons for 'stops'

The reasons obviously include breaches of traffic laws such as overweight.

It has also been stated that 'stops' can identify other crimes. These other crimes could range from theft to drugs offences.

I doubt whether the authority of DVSA officers extends to these crimes.

I therefore think that police doing stops on the likes of vans and MHs are more likely to catch those crimes, particularly amongst the 'tr*velling' community. Whereas HGVs are not so much likely to be found to have committed such offences, but more likely to have committed traffic offences.

So maybe the police 'stops' on smaller vehicles and the DVSA 'stops' on HGVs is an appropriate division of resources.
 
busby said:
You need your documents for travelling abroad,,BUSBY.
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Including in France 'Proof of Ownership', which the V5c specifically states on page 1 that it is not.

Under English and Welsh Law the best proof is a Bill of Sale.

How many owners have a Bill of Sale executed by the Seller whether a Dealer or Private?

Of course an Invoice and Receipt may suffice, but is not as good.
 
nicholsong said:
Including in France 'Proof of Ownership', which the V5c specifically states on page 1 that it is not.

Under English and Welsh Law the best proof is a Bill of Sale.

How many owners have a Bill of Sale executed by the Seller whether a Dealer or Private?

Of course an Invoice and Receipt may suffice, but is not as good.
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I have but wouldn't normally think of travelling with it.
 
nicholsong said:
Including in France 'Proof of Ownership', which the V5c specifically states on page 1 that it is not.

Under English and Welsh Law the best proof is a Bill of Sale.

How many owners have a Bill of Sale executed by the Seller whether a Dealer or Private?

Of course an Invoice and Receipt may suffice, but is not as good.
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I carry at least 3 soft copies on my/ wifes phone and the motohomes phone and tablet of all doccumentation i have even the Rapido CofC. I also have paper photocopies of relevent documentation (including every single V5 even ones with incorrect information).

I dont know how many moons ago the advice was given but i was told the Police advice in the UK was not to carry ownership doccuments in the vehicle.
 
busby said:
That's the law,,why at 69 years and 11 months I can drive up to 7.5 tonnes and at 70 years and one day I am not legal.Making laws must be very difficult and keeping everyone happy harder still..How would you alter the law?BUSBY.
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I have no magic wand but I do know that law evolves, simply look at mobile phone legislation, sexual offences legislation, consumer protection etc. etc. It may not be overnight stuff but it tries to keep pace with contemporary issues.

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gus-lopez said:
Why would I ask for the police at a road accident? An ambulance yes, possibly fire brigade. Wouldn't even occur to me?

Yes it isnt enough to remove all the Darwin contenders
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Those other agencies do not record collision data to assist any relevant prosecutions or inform relevant highway authorities about causes or contributory factors with regards to the collisions. Ambulance/fire have no training or equipment to put on a lane three closure to deal with a motorway collision. The point of having specialisms is quite self evident, same reason dentists don't do much heart surgery.
 
St3v3 said:
Unless you've paid a few quid and had a cert issued to up-plate the van. Then those extra kilos are fine without any physical change to the vehicle 🙄
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Not really the case.

Globecar bought my van from Fiat and if left Fiat plated at 4.5 tonne GVW.
Globecar then down plated it to 3.5 tonne GVW so anyone could drive it.
I bought it and got it re-plated back to 4.5 tonne GVW as a simple paper exercise.
No need for any physical changes as the van was designed for 4.5 tonne GVW.

I have weighed it fully loaded for a trip to France with four people and four bikes on the back and I am well under weight.
 
PaddyM said:
Well if I’m ever burgled and there’s no coppers to attend to investigate then I’ll be content in the knowledge that they are weighing motorhomes somewhere .
A pathetic waste of scarce resources. 💡
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I was burgled and the Police reacted quickly and did attend including a DI

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Larrynwin said:
I wonder just how many accidents or injuries are caused by overweight motorhomes.
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Certainly a lot fewer than caused by speeding. The equivalent resources would have had a bigger impact on safety by focussing on that problem. (and that also includes motorhomes).
 
1ten said:
Not really the case.

Globecar bought my van from Fiat and if left Fiat plated at 4.5 tonne GVW.
Globecar then down plated it to 3.5 tonne GVW so anyone could drive it.
I bought it and got it re-plated back to 4.5 tonne GVW as a simple paper exercise.
No need for any physical changes as the van was designed for 4.5 tonne GVW.

I have weighed it fully loaded for a trip to France with four people and four bikes on the back and I am well under weight.
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You ve proved St3v3 case there; You could have left it at 3.5t and taken your chances but because you ve chosen to pay a few quid and get the paperwork changed then you re legal.

Too many motorhomes are downplated to a weight where they don't actually work so they can sell them to people without a C1 and those people sometimes knowingly - sometimes not drive them illegally.
 
nicholsong said:
Correct, available to UK police, but what about outside the UK?
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I can access the MOT and Tax element online when I'm in other countries. What you do with licences these days is you get a code that you then share, I think this will work anywhere. The only issue is Insurance which you generally get a pdf copy which would probably be enough.

the only issue I can see is the countries where you need a green card, but honestly - would they care enough not to accept the emailed copy? I suspect if they did you have bigger things to worry about.
 
Chrisvh said:
Is a ”fixed penalty offence” really a crime and recorded as a detected crime? Times have obviously changed!
I have stopped vehicles for checks and found victims of murder, body parts, a kidnapped child, firearms, amounts of Class A drugs and even the occasional poached deer. Those that like to scoff and mock the police doing their job obviously prefer to encourage crime rather than allow them to attempt to prevent it.
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Sorry, but the Police only have yourselves to blame for their awful reputation which goes down every year.
As far as most people see the only class of 'offence' that the Police seem interested in is road traffic offences. And an absolute focus within those offences on speeding.
When we lived in Lincolnshire our neighbouring village had an extended length of 30mph as there was a school outside the village. Most people would agree that having a speed trap outside a school would be a great idea. The problem is that I never saw a speed trap when kids were going to or from school. It was always on a Sunday or late at night.
To me anyway, there seems zero interest in the Police stopping dangerous driving, just booking as many motorists as possible for simple easy to catch offences like speeding.
I can't remember ever seeing a Police officer walking around our village in the 11 years that we loved there. But they would sit on the main road with a speed gun most weeks achieving absolutely nothing other than annoying people who in the most part are driving safely.
When we were burgled we never saw an officer and even getting a crime reference number for the insurance took several visits to the station and phone calls. To say that they seemed uninterested would be an understatement.
The day that we had been burgled there was a patrol car with two officers sitting comfortably inside with a speed gun poking out of the window but I guess that as long as the thieves kept to the speed limit they would be safe from capture.
 
David and Sally said:
True. But on multi-agency operations there are Customs & Revenue, VOSA, LA waste checks, drugs squad, police checks on the vehicle, the occupants. etc
It's surprising what offences show up. Not all police vehicles have anpr.
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But where I live it's hard to travel far indeed without driving past a fixed anpr camera looking on the road you are driving on
 
Paul and Val said:
Sorry, but the Police only have yourselves to blame for their awful reputation which goes down every year.
As far as most people see the only class of 'offence' that the Police seem interested in is road traffic offences. And an absolute focus within those offences on speeding.
When we lived in Lincolnshire our neighbouring village had an extended length of 30mph as there was a school outside the village. Most people would agree that having a speed trap outside a school would be a great idea. The problem is that I never saw a speed trap when kids were going to or from school. It was always on a Sunday or late at night.
To me anyway, there seems zero interest in the Police stopping dangerous driving, just booking as many motorists as possible for simple easy to catch offences like speeding.
I can't remember ever seeing a Police officer walking around our village in the 11 years that we loved there. But they would sit on the main road with a speed gun most weeks achieving absolutely nothing other than annoying people who in the most part are driving safely.
When we were burgled we never saw an officer and even getting a crime reference number for the insurance took several visits to the station and phone calls. To say that they seemed uninterested would be an understatement.
The day that we had been burgled there was a patrol car with two officers sitting comfortably inside with a speed gun poking out of the window but I guess that as long as the thieves kept to the speed limit they would be safe from capture.
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I agree it is a shambles. But a government was elected that wished to defund the police. And they did so with gusto! A 20% hit to budgets is fairly devastating for any organisation. If the main component of the budget is wages that means that you lose a lot of people. There was a lot of sneering about “back office” roles but the job the civilian staff were carrying out was vital, and still had to be done. So a front line officer would end up behind a desk. Not a very bright solution.
Too early to be comforted by the recent recruiting figures. The instructive statistics are the number of serving officers who have under 4 years service. And the experience of those training and mentoring them. It takes years to acquire investigative and policing skills to be a competent detective or traffic patrol officer. The newly recruited cohort just will not be effective for a long time.
As a retired police officer I can only apologise for the appalling levels of service the public receive. My service finished long ago and I served during cycles of gross underfunding and times of plenty. Nothing compared to the decisions taken following the 2010 election. You get what you pay for.
 
forestfern said:
This is probably not where I should be asking this but (newbie here looking for first MH) but if I buy one which is say 3.5, surely as soon as I put some stuff in it, it’s going to be over that limit? 🤔
Very confused
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Most motorhomes are less than 3.5t and the unladen weight is stated. If you do need more than 3,5t then you can upplate. It’s a paper exercise

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Chrisvh said:
I agree it is a shambles. But a government was elected that wished to defund the police. And they did so with gusto! A 20% hit to budgets is fairly devastating for any organisation. If the main component of the budget is wages that means that you lose a lot of people. There was a lot of sneering about “back office” roles but the job the civilian staff were carrying out was vital, and still had to be done. So a front line officer would end up behind a desk. Not a very bright solution.
Too early to be comforted by the recent recruiting figures. The instructive statistics are the number of serving officers who have under 4 years service. And the experience of those training and mentoring them. It takes years to acquire investigative and policing skills to be a competent detective or traffic patrol officer. The newly recruited cohort just will not be effective for a long time.
As a retired police officer I can only apologise for the appalling levels of service the public receive. My service finished long ago and I served during cycles of gross underfunding and times of plenty. Nothing compared to the decisions taken following the 2010 election. You get what you pay for.
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Chris,

Your last 6 words sums it up. I’ve been retired for a number of years, new District Bosses every couple of years with a new broom, and only a short period to prove themselves or miss promotion.

Anyone living in Lincolnshire, I can assure you there is at least one keen Officer patrolling the county…..and he doesn’t issue many speeding tickets……but he does deal with many, many RTC’s due to bad driving.

So whilst he’s dealing with those RTC’s, he is unable to deal with your burglary, assault, damage etc.

He does, along with many of his colleagues, work hard.;)
 
Chrisvh said:
I agree it is a shambles. But a government was elected that wished to defund the police. And they did so with gusto! A 20% hit to budgets is fairly devastating for any organisation. If the main component of the budget is wages that means that you lose a lot of people. There was a lot of sneering about “back office” roles but the job the civilian staff were carrying out was vital, and still had to be done. So a front line officer would end up behind a desk. Not a very bright solution.
Too early to be comforted by the recent recruiting figures. The instructive statistics are the number of serving officers who have under 4 years service. And the experience of those training and mentoring them. It takes years to acquire investigative and policing skills to be a competent detective or traffic patrol officer. The newly recruited cohort just will not be effective for a long time.
As a retired police officer I can only apologise for the appalling levels of service the public receive. My service finished long ago and I served during cycles of gross underfunding and times
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That is a fair to reasonable assessment of the current situation.

According to google there were 1,371 traffic officers last year out of 135,000 Officers. (c.1% by my maths)
There are 43 police forces to divide these officers giving an average of 32 ish per force.
There will be 4 shifts for these 32 Officers so a maximum of 8 Traffic Officers per shift before any annual leave, sickness or Court appearances.
Dependant upon where you live you might think that is enough, but if you lived in Metland or Greater Manchester you would be wanting more than the average traffic officer levels.
Pretty succesful operation they did yesterday as people all over the country are writing about it on a motorhome forum
 
Paul and Val said:
It seems a ridiculous question but I can tell you that driving at 46 mph in a 40 limit doth a criminal not make.
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Just a question which sadly you have not yet answered.

How do you want specialist road policing officers to spend their time. Surely their remit is the reduction of road crashes and associated injuries or deaths as well as travelling criminals?

Agencies have to decide where their resources go......most common sense is aimed at reducing death or serious injury. It’s why hospitals treat people on the potential for death first before a knee replacement. Few people die from their shed getting broken into. More people die on the roads every day. It’s a fact that speed is a high factor in road related deaths. Roads policing officers deal with road related offences first!

Getting a ticket for speeding doesn’t make you a criminal unless convicted in court. I wonder if you have the same line of argument for fire service.....how many fires do they put out sitting in their station. Why are they not out patrolling for fires.....because their time is better spent on prevention rather than putting a fire out........road casualty reduction is the same......try and improve driver behaviour reduces road crashes.

.....but it is easier just to see what you want rather than understand the practice!
 
Coastal Cruiser. said:
Stopped at 2-00am in my car towing a mini digger coming back from a night job, they kept me for 10-15 minutes while checking and when they left I said thank you very much.
Having had 4 excavators stolen over the years and not recovering any despite 3 having Trackers fitted I’m glad they are doing something and would have no issues with being stopped and checked.
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I used to be a Police Officer way back when, we often stopped prestige cars in the early hours , especially the ones that were prone to being pinched. I dont recall any driver complaining, they all said thank you and were delighted that had their pride and joy been stolen, it would be on its way back to them. Sierra Cosworths were always a stop !!!!
 

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