Fire & Uninterested Police

[northumbrian]

Not sure a blocked driveway is trivial. If you cain't get your car out you're pretty much trapped. No way to get to your Dr.'s appointment, the grocery store, no way to take the kids to school (and then the truant officers start to get involved), etc. In effect blocking a driveway amounts (in some states) to 2 possible criminal acts:

1) Depriving one of property (the use of my car which is blocked in)
2) False arrest (trapping me in because I cain't drive out. This one would be especially applicable if the victem is wheelchair bound)

here's an idea ! get out of your car and catch the local bus ! simples ! lol

 

[British Red]

Absolutely. When someone parks illegally, punish the victim.

 

[WoodMan]

Kepis, to be fair, and with only the information from your original post to go on.... you saw a fire and reported it to the Police and you used a non-emergency number not 999.

For the system to work it has to be simple, you see a fire you ring 999 and ask for the Fire Brigade, it is then up to the 999 operator and, in turn, the Fire Service co-ordination centre to prioritise the call and task the appropriate response.

I'm a Coastguard (as well as my day job) and we respond by a pager the same as retained fire fighters, for either of these services to be effective in real emergencies we have to cut out delays. It takes me several minutes to get from my home or work to the Coastguard Station and then several more minutes to get details and respond, it may then take upto 20 minutes to get to the extremes of our area even on blues & twos, lose another 10 minutes because the initial call went to the Police control centre not the Maritine Rescue Co-ordination Centre and before you know it, its taken us nearly an hour to get on scene and, in a real emergency, that is not good enough.

Not meant as a critisium mate, just an observation. At least you called someone. Too many people assume someone else will do it or they simply don't want to get involved.

If you think the call is worth making and it requires a response, phone 999, thats what its there for.

Glyn.

 

[Opal]

+1.... I agree. Officers want to catch people, its why they join the job. The problem is that there are simply not enough of them to go around.

From experience, if you call the cops because someone is blocking your drive, if there is a cop available, they will come.

Oh I think there is, they're all in the Matrix, nobody on the beat but they're all in the van.

 

[beenn]

Police in my area are not the best, used to have a regular visitor jumping over my garden and taking random things until i forgot i had left a brick balanced on the gate

 

[santaman2000]

here's an idea ! get out of your car and catch the local bus ! simples ! lol

You labor under the misconception that there is a local bus. Local buses only exist in large cities (I mean very large cities) and even then they don't allow your dog (and that appoinment might well be his vet appoitment) Taxis are expensive (much more so than owning a car) and usually involve waiting an hour or more for a ride in a filthy vehicle with a driver that doesn't speak English. And taxis also don't exist outside city limits.

But you do illustrate my point. TFan originally thought the call was trivial likely for similar reasons as you stated. What's trivial in one area might not be so in another. Rather like comparing apples to oranges. It might be interesting to listen to a scanner of police calls to UK police (assuming such scanners are legal there) to hear what kinds of calls they are getting. There is a tv show here called "Bad Boys" (at least I think that was the name of the show) that puts cameras in the police vehicles on actual calls. There were a few episodes filmed with the London Police and from what I saw they were fairly busy.

 

[santaman2000]

FWIW I'm not anti police; I was a cop for 13 years. However I agree with BR, "When seconds count, the police are just minutes away." That doesn't change on either side of the Atlantic.

Even if there are "enough" police, priorities dictate where they are. If there is a call to respond to a knife fight in progress you can bet that every officer that hears that call will be blazing toward it with lights & sirens whether it's his call or not. It's the nature of the job to want to be where the action is; to insure the safety of your fellow officers through numbers and to be part of the action. Often that attitude has 6 or 8 officers congregated on a single call that could be handled by 3 or less while other areas are unprotected. But their first instincts dictate that they insure mutual safety and be involved in the action. Granted violent crime is less prevalent in the UK but the basic point is the same; the more dangerous (and exciting) calls get precedence (both officially and unofficially) That's why they joined the police. Would you really want someone with a more timid attitude in that job?

 

[northumbrian]

You labor under the misconception that there is a local bus. Local buses only exist in large cities (I mean very large cities) and even then they don't allow your dog (and that appoinment might well be his vet appoitment) Taxis are expensive (much more so than owning a car) and usually involve waiting an hour or more for a ride in a filthy vehicle with a driver that doesn't speak English. And taxis also don't exist outside city limits.

But you do illustrate my point. TFan originally thought the call was trivial likely for similar reasons as you stated. What's trivial in one area might not be so in another. Rather like comparing apples to oranges. It might be interesting to listen to a scanner of police calls to UK police (assuming such scanners are legal there) to hear what kinds of calls they are getting. There is a tv show here called "Bad Boys" (at least I think that was the name of the show) that puts cameras in the police vehicles on actual calls. There were a few episodes filmed with the London Police and from what I saw they were fairly busy.

yeah we get that show here to i think its called cops? we used to be able to use scanners here legaly but they banned em when the criminals used to listen in where the cops were and plan their crimes accordenly.

 

[mrcharly]

Whilst I don't wish to upset the OP, if I was mugged and rang the police, I'd be a bit miffed if I found they'd been busy attending a rowdy group in some woods. It's upsetting, having someone mess up an area like this, but it isn't a huge damaging crime.

I've had three occasions to phone the police. One to report a bloke beating up a woman in the house next door. The police took less than 10 minutes to get there (we had to be 15min drive from the station). Once to report a burglary. Once to report a suspected drowning (long story).
I don't have any complaints to make about their response times. When it was something where they could make a difference by getting there quickly, they got there.

 

[Ogri the trog]

Closing this thread.
What began as a mild annoyance has become a rambling political rant and contravienes Rule 5, Subject Matter.

Ogri the trog