A few years ago I stopped to help a copper who was in a dismal spot. It was raining after a storm and part of a tree had fallen into the road on a blind bend on a hill. He had the joy of controlling traffic around this hazard until the council clearance crew could be roused (it was a Sunday evening).
I sized up the task and reckoned I could clear it with the small wood saw I carry in the boot in case I end up with the car in a bush, or something. After some bloody hard work I cut through the thickest branches at key points and then the PC and I were able to drag the bits out of the road.
He was pretty grateful to be out of that situation so quickly and 'insisted' on taking some details to pass on to his superiors. Somewhere in a draw I have a letter of commendation from Leicestershire Constabulary thanking me for my assistance in releasing the officer for other duties.
Trouble is, nowadays I would most likely leave him standing there in the rain because those "other duties" could quite likely be gratuitously booking motorists for technical offences for the purposes of meeting targets and raising revenue. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time for plod now. As others have observed they have become the equivalent of being the paramilitary wing of the Guardian newspaper; just another aspect of the great parasitical infestation of statism that is crippling this country.
When my car is vandalised it's "sorry, we don't come out for that" from a civilian filtering assistant. Yet they find plenty of time to sit in camera vans lurking on stretches of road that have ludicrously low speed limits, just to grab some dosh from the motorists' pockets. They're happy enough as an organisation to make themselves the enemy of the people who pay for their existence, so I've little sympathy for them.
Having a tough time officer? Sorry, I don't come out for that.
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Topic: free country perhaps not (Read 3034 times)