A police officer was caught driving at 136mph while on a training exercise on one of the north-east’s busiest roads.
The officer, from the serious crime division, was spotted speeding on the A90 Dundee to Aberdeen road while at the wheel of a marked Scottish Police College Training Vehicle earlier this year.
However, the driver was granted “emergency service exemption” under a law that allows no imposed speed limit on vehicles being used for fire brigade, ambulance or police purposes.
The speed was faster than any other vehicle caught on camera this year that was attending a real emergency.
According to the figures, released under freedom of information legislation, the officer was travelling 16mph quicker than the highest speed recorded by police personnel on an emergency call in all of 2013/14.
Only 354 of 90,000 police caught on camera speeding or jumping red lights last year were punished.
Last night forces were accused of double standards after it emerged that only one in 200 officers was fined or given points, compared with 84 per cent of ordinary drivers.
In a quarter of the cases the police cars had their blue lights flashing, suggesting officers were attending an emergency.
However, nearly all of the rest had the slate wiped clean by senior police, saving them from three points on their licence and a £60 fine.
Managers have the discretion to cancel tickets if an officer can persuade them they had a good reason for speeding, such as pursuing a suspect or trying to find a witness.
But critics point out motorists enjoy no such rights and that if they want to challenge a fixed penalty notice they must go to court.
They also say the disparity between the figures raises the suspicion that thousands of officers are being let off even if they do not have a valid excuse for speeding.............................. 'hmmmmmmm'?
I can't comment on your figures, I can only speak from my own experiences
But a few facts
- officers do not have to use thier emergency equipment eg lights and sirens when responding to an incident or using a lawful exemption. I won't go into specifics but for some types of crime in progress, hearing sirens approaching would quite obviously alert an offender and give them a chance to run. This May for example mean an officer carefully runs a red light without thier sirens etc on. Yes to the public it looks bad. But on balance, in comparison to the greatly increased chance of catching say a dangerous knife wielding street robber, it's worth doing. And is lawful.
For driver training, it is lawful. By driver training I mean instructed courses, not bobbies 'honing thier skills' alone. On the course I did, setting off cameras in the nationals at high speeds was the norm.
The reason most of the officers you mention above didn't go to court is because they would have been using totally lawful reasons for breaking the traffic laws
To suggest officers should account for themselves on court every time they use a lawful exemption is out of the question. Breaking speed limits isn't ideal but by nature of the police, and thier role, there are occasions they have to do it.
As with any occupation yes you get an odd bad apple. But the vast majority of officers work hard and with integrity, despite constant scrutiny which is often the result of public misconceptions
If the above figures are from freedom of info requests, I'm afraid in light of the above, I'd question thier reliability.
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Topic: Dangerous driving? (Read 3787 times)