A Crafty Police Force Has Hired A Bus To Catch Drivers Using Mobiles
Police in Devon have come up with a novel way to catch people breaking the law at the wheel: they’ve hired a bus.
From the top deck of a specially-hired bus, enterprising police in Plymouth can look right down into cars and catch drivers using mobile phones, not wearing their seat belts and a range of other offences.
The point is apparently to catch more of the people illegally using mobiles behind the wheel, and of 130 drivers and riders pulled over for doing something against the law in just a day and a half, 39 were caught texting or using the Internet. Naturally, one or two outlets have taken a light-hearted look at this.
Amazingly, almost as many people were stopped for not wearing their seat belt, which is prime Darwin Award territory. Some 36 were pulled over for that.
The cops on the bus don’t do the arresting. Using hand-held radios they call colleagues on the road, on motorbikes and in cars, who then appear out of nowhere and take over. The penalty for using a mobile behind the wheel, as we reported on at the time of the change on March 1, is now £200 and a hefty six-point wallop.
Elsewhere in the numbers, 53 drivers were stopped for speeding, two were arrested for drug driving and, presumably by coincidence, two cars were seized for being driven without insurance.
All the parties involved in the pilot scheme are said to be patting themselves on the back for a job well done, with the Plymouth Herald reporting that similar schemes will definitely run again. Plymouth residents, you’ve been warned.
Comments
Quick catch them, oh wait nope low bridge ahead.
Someones found a use for buses that won’t annoy us petrolheads!?
Can someone explain the point system for UK licenses for me? We don’t have anything like that in America.
They’re demerit points. Once you accrue a certain amount of demerit points, your licence is suspended for a period of time.
Technically, you’re allowed to accumulate up to 12 points over a three year period, after which you face getting banned. Each offence has different points - speeding is typically 3, unless you achieve hero speeds and end up getting whacked with 5 or 6 points. Over 100mph on motorways is allegedly an instant ban… The law has just changed on mobile usage, and anyone caught now is given 6 points rather than 3. Then there’s a myriad of other offences, bald tires are 3 points per corner and so on.
It’s basically a given that most people in the UK have 3 points on their license, small amounts don’t really have an influence on insurance and the likes, because they are the new normal. However, new drivers (within the first 24 months after passing their test) are entitled to 6 points before they have their license revoked and have to take a retest - both theory and practical.
It’s a good system in theory, but when there are countless people running around with huge points tallies on their licence, it does make a mockery of it - see here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25626147
How can they look down into the car, when it isn’t an open roadster? The angle seat/window/bus shouldn’t allow that.
In Texas, we get tickets for not having seatbelts on and stuff, and recently State Troopers began using a blacked out bus to catch people. But thats too much just for using a phone while driving.
It seems even the police are fed up of driving old astra’s.
Year 2030: Police get higher than ever before by using helicopters. Oh wait, that’s already happened…
When you get caught and are angry at them for it
Personal opinion: People on their phones while driving or under the influence are WAY more dangerous than people going >20mph over the speed limit on the highway.
*actual facts
Green light: face down on phone
Yellow light: face down on phone
Red light: Floor it!