NationStates Jolt Archive

It's ok to drive like a bat out of hell if you're a policeman with special training, even if you're not answering a critical call.

Hey! I was just honing my skills on the motorway!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/16/npolice116.xml

It's ok to drive like a bat out of hell if you're a policeman with special training, even if you're not answering a critical call.

Hey! I was just honing my skills on the motorway!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/16/npolice116.xml

Where does it say it's ok? The guy was prosecuted and found guilty of dangerous driving

And that was overturned, and it's ok for him to do it.

No, it says that he has the right to appeal the conviction. Learn to read mate, thats the second time today you've done it.

Six threads begun by EO on the first page...you're a bigger thread whore than even I ever was!

Some places don't have hard number speed limits, so you can not be ticketed for driving at a specific speed over the limit. However if the police believe you to be driving at a dangerous speed, you can be ticketed for this.So as I'm reading this, it seems to me that he was not charged with breaking any SPECIFIC speed limit, but rather under the amorphous charge of "driving dangerously".

So he was charged with driving dangerously, and he argued that because of his special police training, he was in full control of the vehicle, even at his high speed, and it thus could not be considered he was driving "dangerously" as this highly trained police officer could handle his car at these speeds.

So the argument is that the driving dangerously charged should not be upheld because, due to his special skills, he wasn't driving dangerously.

I don't really see the problem here....

Where does it say it's ok? The guy was prosecuted and found guilty of dangerous driving

And that was overturned, and it's ok for him to do it.

His conviction was overturned, though.

No, no it was not. Read the article. "A police officer "with unusual driving skills" has won his High Court bid to appeal his conviction for dangerous driving after reaching speeds of up to 159mph in an unmarked patrol car."

His appeal was not won. He merely won the bid TO appeal. In Britain you don't get mandatory appeals in call cases. Sometimes you have to argue that your case meets the circumstances to be granted an appeal.

That's all that has happened here. He has not won an appeal, he has won his attempt TO have an appeal.

His conviction was overturned, though.

If he hadn't been driving at 159 miles per hour, I might agree with the guy...but at that speeds, you're just asking for someone to be killed regardless of why you're doing it.

Oh, and his eyes are really creepy.

A police officer "with unusual driving skills" has won his High Court bid to appeal his conviction for dangerous driving after reaching speeds of up to 159mph in an unmarked patrol car.

It's the first line for gods sake, does nobody read here?

And that was overturned, and it's ok for him to do it.

learn to read. His conviction has not been overturned. He has not won his appeal. He hasn't even HAD an appeal yet. He merely won his bid TO have an appeal.

Really, you should know better.

Where does it say it's ok? The guy was prosecuted and found guilty of dangerous driving
His conviction was overturned, though.

If he hadn't been driving at 159 miles per hour, I might agree with the guy...but at that speeds, you're just asking for someone to be killed regardless of why you're doing it.

Oh, and his eyes are really creepy.

Oh, and his eyes are really creepy.
His eyes? I think the way he's grown his moustache is more creepy...

Some places don't have hard number speed limits, so you can not be ticketed for driving at a specific speed over the limit. However if the police believe you to be driving at a dangerous speed, you can be ticketed for this.So as I'm reading this, it seems to me that he was not charged with breaking any SPECIFIC speed limit, but rather under the amorphous charge of "driving dangerously".

So he was charged with driving dangerously, and he argued that because of his special police training, he was in full control of the vehicle, even at his high speed, and it thus could not be considered he was driving "dangerously" as this highly trained police officer could handle his car at these speeds.

So the argument is that the driving dangerously charged should not be upheld because, due to his special skills, he wasn't driving dangerously.

I don't really see the problem here....


Every road in the UK has a specific speed limit, even if it's unmarked you can tell by the distance between the lamposts, crazy huh?

It's the first line for gods sake, does nobody read here?

kinda sad really. I can understand people reading the OP, assuming he's right and just skimming the article. So I don't blame people TOO much.

Someone who CREATES a thread on the other hand really should know better than to comment on an article that he apparently hadn't read nearly thoroughly enough.

Every road in the UK has a specific speed limit, even if it's unmarked you can tell by the distance between the lamposts, crazy huh?

hehe. Even so, generally you can get two charges. You can get charged for breaking a limit, and if you're going fast enough you can be charged, in the US it's generally "reckless driving", where in the UK it appears that it's "driving dangerously".

I guess he's not claiming that he wasn't speeding (IE violated the hard speed limit). He IS arguing that because of his training it was not reckless/dangerous

And all that's happened here was that he won the right to MAKE the argument on appeal. Not that he won it.

Hot damn, if he'd been going 11mph faster then he wouldn't have been caught. Silly cop should watch top gear more often.
I thought it was 173mph...

That was one of my first thoughts as well.

Hot damn, if he'd been going 11mph faster then he wouldn't have been caught. Silly cop should watch top gear more often.

District Judge Peter Wallis, sitting at Ludlow Magistrates’ Court, found him guilty after ruling that his expertise as a Grade 1 advanced police driver was “irrelevant” to whether or not his driving was dangerous.

But Lady Justice Smith and Mr Justice Gross, sitting at London’s High Court, said the district judge had “misdirected himself”.

They sent the case back to him to decide whether “Pc Milton’s unusual driving skills were such as to make a crucial difference to the dangerousness of his driving”.

When you're telling the lower courts that they made a mistake, if the lower court doesn't correct itself, it will be overturned on appeal.

He's as good as gold.

No, no it was not. Read the article. "A police officer "with unusual driving skills" has won his High Court bid to appeal his conviction for dangerous driving after reaching speeds of up to 159mph in an unmarked patrol car."

His appeal was not won. He merely won the bid TO appeal. In Britain you don't get mandatory appeals in call cases. Sometimes you have to argue that your case meets the circumstances to be granted an appeal.

That's all that has happened here. He has not won an appeal, he has won his attempt TO have an appeal.
Hey hey! Once again I make myself look like an idiot when I agree with Eve on something...and I dared to say HE needed to learn reading comprehension...

I V Stalin: It's the combination...and his expression doesn't help either.

It's the first line for gods sake, does nobody read here?Why bother to read the article? Just assume the opposite to what EO has stated...

Pwned

Did you just celebrate yourself getting pwned :confused:

Hey hey! Once again I make myself look like an idiot when I agree with Eve on something...and I dared to say HE needed to learn reading comprehension...

I V Stalin: It's the combination...and his expression doesn't help either.

Pwned

Meh, the more I read about this case, the more sympathetic I am towards the policeman.

Did you just celebrate yourself getting pwned :confused:

No, he delighted briefly in my self-pwning despite his massive amounts of such in his "Does the opinion of Iraqis count?" thread.

When you're telling the lower courts that they made a mistake, if the lower court doesn't correct itself, it will be overturned on appeal.

He's as good as gold.

Not so, the judge was dinged for describing the fact that the cop was a highly train driver as irrelevent. If he looks at it again and still believes it was dangerous driving then there is no guarantee the driver will get the conviction quashed on appeal again.

When you're telling the lower courts that they made a mistake, if the lower court doesn't correct itself, it will be overturned on appeal.

Do you even bother to read? It was held that the lower court should have considered whether due to his special skills the conduct could still be considered "dangerous".

In other words the lower court made it's decision without considering whether or not the speed at which he was driving would still be dangerous if you factor in his special skills.

So the higher court said, since "dangerous" is subjective, you should consider his special skills in making that determination.

That is all. All it said was that the lower court erred in making its decision that he was driving dangerously because they did not consider his special skills.

The high court did NOT say that the special skills made it not dangerous, only that the lower court must consider his skills in determining that he was driving dangerously. The court can STILL come out in the same way, or it could find that he wasn't driving dangerously because of his skills, which, it would seem, is a perfect defense to the argument that your driving was dangerous.

Your whole argument is that the higher court made a ruling, and if the lower court doesn't follow that ruling it will be overturned? Well, no shit. But that has nothing to do with the argument, that has to do if whether the court follows procedure or not.

Really, you don't have a leg to stand on here.

His eyes? I think the way he's grown his moustache is more creepy...LOL, that was my first thought.

The appeals process is similar in the US (no surprise, considering we imported much of our legal system from England). The terminology is what's confusing.

When someone "appeals" a ruling, they're really "requesting an appeal".

An appeal can therefore be "granted", and all it means is that you've earned the chance to have your case heard by a higher court.

To "win" an appeal is meant to convey that the appeals court you earned the right to re-try your case in front of has agreed with you and their judgement supersedes the original court's.

I think.

I thought it was 173mph...

That was one of my first thoughts as well.I dunno... I just remember that it was in the low 170s.

The 14th is getting pretty damn close...

The appeals process is similar in the US (no surprise, considering we imported much of our legal system from England). The terminology is what's confusing.

When someone "appeals" a ruling, they're really "requesting an appeal".

An appeal can therefore be "granted", and all it means is that you've earned the chance to have your case heard by a higher court.

To "win" an appeal is meant to convey that the appeals court you earned the right to re-try your case in front of has agreed with you and their judgement supersedes the original court's.

I think.


You're MOSTLY right. It is however incorrect to say you "re-try" your case in front of the appeals court. This is not 100% accurate.

Rather, when you appeal, you do so on one (or both) of two arguments. Either the court misapplied the law, or misinterpreted the facts. Which is to say that the lower court either applied the law wrongly, or applied the law correctly, but reached its conclusion on a wrong interpretation of fact.

In an appeal you don't retry your case, not entirely. All you do is present your argument as to why the lower court either/or:

1) misinterpreted the facts
2) misapplied the law

You don't do a whole retrial, no witnesses are called, no additional evidence presented. An appeal is focued on those two arguments only. You argue how the judge/jury below either applied the law wrongly, or interpreted the facts wrongly. That's all you get to do.

One more thing -- the car this lunatic was driving was unmarked, right?

That being the case, without any lights or sirens to warn other drivers of his presence on the motorway at 150+ mph, guess what? Still dangerous, regardless of any skill the driver has from training.

Why?

A time-tested truism: it isn't you that you always need to worry about, it's the other drivers. At those speeds, given the haphazard use of mirrors that passes for driving skill for the average motorist, he was damned lucky he didn't get hit by someone changing lanes who didn't see him, or saw him once for a split second a quarter-mile back and thought he had plenty of time to move.

Your training means precisely nothing in an enviroment where the "walls" of the "maze" you're weaving through can move without warning or reason.

You're MOSTLY right. It is however incorrect to say you "re-try" your case in front of the appeals court. This is not 100% accurate.

Rather, when you appeal, you do so on one (or both) of two arguments. Either the court misapplied the law, or misinterpreted the facts. Which is to say that the lower court either applied the law wrongly, or applied the law correctly, but reached its conclusion on a wrong interpretation of fact.

In an appeal you don't retry your case, not entirely. All you do is present your argument as to why the lower court either/or:

1) misinterpreted the facts
2) misapplied the law

You don't do a whole retrial, no witnesses are called, no additional evidence presented. An appeal is focued on those two arguments only. You argue how the judge/jury below either applied the law wrongly, or interpreted the facts wrongly. That's all you get to do.

Got it. Thank you!

One more thing -- the car this lunatic was driving was unmarked, right?

That being the case, without any lights or sirens to warn other drivers of his presence on the motorway at 150+ mph, guess what? Still dangerous, regardless of any skill the driver has from training.
True, but it was also very early in the morning, so there would have been rather few cars on the road. No doubt that argument was used in the original trial, though.

One more thing -- the car this lunatic was driving was unmarked, right?

That being the case, without any lights or sirens to warn other drivers of his presence on the motorway at 150+ mph, guess what? Still dangerous, regardless of any skill the driver has from training.

Why?

A time-tested truism: it isn't you that you always need to worry about, it's the other drivers. At those speeds, given the haphazard use of mirrors that passes for driving skill for the average motorist, he was damned lucky he didn't get hit by someone changing lanes who didn't see him, or saw him once for a split second a quarter-mile back and thought he had plenty of time to move.

Your training means precisely nothing in an enviroment where the "walls" of the "maze" you're weaving through can move without warning or reason.


This all may well be true. And it may be exactly why the verdict does not change on retrial. All the appeals court said was, you should have considered whether his training makes that speed not dangerous, and you didn't.

Because you should have, and you didn't, we have to do it again, and this time, you have to consider that argument

He can consider it and STILL reach the conclusion it was dangerous, for exactly your reasoning. All that was said here is that the judge should have listened to the argument. Not that he had to agree with it, not that the argument makes the cop win, not that it will necessarily change the outcome at all.

But rather, he needs to LISTEN to the argument, and consider it, and he didn't. This is the "mistake of law" I was talking about before. None of the facts are in dispute, the question is, as a matter of law, should the judge have considered his training. The appeals court said yes, as a matter of law, he should have. And he didn't. Mistake of law, retrial, with the mistake rectified.

It doesn't mean he's going to win. I have encountered HUNDREDS of cases where this exact same thing has happened, where a mistake is made as a matter of law, the appeals court has a retrial, and the outcome is the same. To suggest that he gets off, or will get off, is nonsensical. The only thing that happened here is there will be a trial, and his argument that because he is trained he could not be considered to be driving "dangerously" will be considered.

Not accepted. Just considered. There are many reasons why, as you said, even with special training that speed is still dangerous.

Every road in the UK has a specific speed limit, even if it's unmarked you can tell by the distance between the lamposts, crazy huh?

What? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Here you can usually tell by how wide the road is and the number of assholes speeding past you.

learn to read. His conviction has not been overturned. He has not won his appeal. He hasn't even HAD an appeal yet. He merely won his bid TO have an appeal.

Really, you should know better.

Know better than creating a sensational OP, intended to misdirect the readers into venting their outrage?

No, that's the standard operating procedure for EO.

What? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Here you can usually tell by how wide the road is and the number of assholes speeding past you.

It's normally by the type of road you are on, as a very approximate guide:

Residential = 30mph unless noted otherwise.
single carrigeway highway = 60mph UNO.
dual carrigeway highway = 70mph UNO.
country lanes = normally 60mph UNO.

the last are single lane roads with traffic in both directions with passing points and right-angle corners and intersections and hedges/ditches each side with no lighting. The government foolishly assume people are sane enough to drive at safe speeds like 20mph, or even 10 rather than the 50-60 that the locals zip around at.

IIRC at 30mph over whatever the limit is you are in "dangerous driving". Get ticketed at 99mph ona motorway and you're speeding, get ticketed at 100mph and you can go to jail

Some places don't have hard number speed limits, so you can not be ticketed for driving at a specific speed over the limit. However if the police believe you to be driving at a dangerous speed, you can be ticketed for this.So as I'm reading this, it seems to me that he was not charged with breaking any SPECIFIC speed limit, but rather under the amorphous charge of "driving dangerously".

So he was charged with driving dangerously, and he argued that because of his special police training, he was in full control of the vehicle, even at his high speed, and it thus could not be considered he was driving "dangerously" as this highly trained police officer could handle his car at these speeds.

So the argument is that the driving dangerously charged should not be upheld because, due to his special skills, he wasn't driving dangerously.

I don't really see the problem here....

In the US it goes from speeding to wreckless driving over 100 mph. Get pinched doin' triple digits and they can take the car on the spot, at least on California highways. There are signs gloating about that on I-5 on the way to LA because it's flat and nothing on it for a really long time, so people tend to floor it on that stretch.

It's much more fun to speed on Hwy 1, though. Any nimrod can jam his right foot down...