Quote:
Originally Posted by stewie
im not 100% sure here, but im pretty sure they're personal safety is higher than your concern for their safety.
so a cop is sneaky...would you rather them hide behind a light post with a high visible vest that you can see from 500 yards away??? or perhaps put up a construction sign saying "caution, cop ahead, slow down" gee...thats not a dead give away. if people weren't douches who would learn how to A) not speed. B) wear their seat belts. or C) get off their fucking phones or D) be aware of their current surroundings, they wouldn't have to step out into traffic nearly as much.
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The undercover cops: Sneaky police officers hide in bushes to catch unsuspecting drivers with speed guns | Mail Online
Older article, UK based, but the core principle is much the same here.
What is an officers mandate? To stop people from breaking the law. It is NOT to hand out tickets in any manner possible. Although I guess you could say that handing out tickets is how they teach people long term lessons, but I don't think thats right, they use these tactics to trap people and generate more revenue.
For example an officer is waiting in plain view at a 4 way stop, he won't write many tickets, but I AM damn certain everyone is going to come to a full stop, and obey the law.
Same situation but the cop parks his car in a parking lot out of the way, and hides in the bushes. He is going to write a lot of tickets, but guess what, its only going to be after he sees someone run the stop sign. In an unfortunate situation what happens if there is an accident because of a stop sign runner while the officer is in the bush 20 feet away just trying to write a ticket? In this situation the officer didn't do anything useful to prevent the accident. He just generated revenue for the province. Revenue that is then used to pay for more cops to sit in bushes elsewhere generating revenue.
But I digress, hide behind all the signs you want, just wear the fucking yellow jacket, that way nobody can say they didn't see you when they darted out into traffic to stop a speeding car (One that is potentially texting, or drunk and not paying attention). You will notice that even in the UK where this was a problem, the officers immediately turned around and said "look we were wearing bright green jackets", the officers here can't even say that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stewie
also, 90% of the cops I'ive seen who hide behind poles, have another cop a block ahead of them letting them know which car is speeding etc, so they can step out well in advance in a safe manner.
just my 2cents. i find what they do perfectly safe.
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On saturday of this past week there was 2 officers at the south end of the lions gate, they were clocking speeders coming just over the crest of the bridge.
I was only going about 65 (its a 60), so I didn't really do anything drastic except for let off the accelerator, the guy beside me was passing me so he must have been doing 70-80. The cop walked through my lane, into the vans lane to try and stop him.
The distance from the crest of the bridge to wear they were standing is approx 300-350m. At 60km/h it only takes 20 seconds to travel this distance, now imagine, by the time the cop actually catches the car, clocks his speed, moves to stop the car, walks accross my lane into his and signals him to stop, this minivan which was not moving at 60km/h probably more about 75, panicked and slammed on his breaks, and actually swerved into my lane.
Luckily I had seen everything and I have slowed down enough that I wasn't beside the minivan any longer. Had I not done so, the minivan would have either sideswiped me and caused an accident or run right through the officer.
I was in shock and disbelief that someone would be dumb enough to walk into the centerlane of a road, to stop a car. If something were to go wrong he couldn't jump to the side of the road, because he would be jumping into another lane of traffic. This cop probably played way too much frogger as a kid.
And no he wasn't wearing his High Vis.