Members of the police force have been criticised for starting a group on social online networking website Facebook, where they post photographs of crashed police cars and boast about the circumstances of their crashes.The group, named "Yes I have had a POLCOL" (or police collision), currently has 286 members worldwide and was started in London. The Metropolitan Police has received a number of complaints regarding the comments and behaviour of the officers on the site, to which it responded saying that "such behaviour is totally unacceptable."Not surprising when you see the comments some officers have made.One user wrote, "probably not best to be going 75 down it (a bus lane)... with stationary traffic in the (next) carriageway. Oh and a word of advice... 70mph + crash - seatbelts = broken nose." The comments appeared underneath the image shown above.The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into the 'POLCOL' scandal. Expect more on this story to appear on Autocar.co.uk as news breaks.
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Re: Police drivers slammed in POLCOL scandal
I bet it's not the traffic cops that are the results of most of these. I suspect it is the over zealous bobby in the diesel Astra panda car thinking he is god that cause much of these.
It's not putting it on facebook that I find offensive but the blase attitude they have about it considering how much they love to do you for going 1mph over the speed limit and that you are obviously a dangerous driver and they are not.
I am not saying that all traffic coppers are good drivers though. I once had a traffic copper follow me for 25 miles tailgating (in an unmarked car at night) trying to push me to average 86 in a 60 limit (his word were "if you had done 86 I would have had your license). I refused to average over 80 and he had to pull me at this average before he ran out of durisdiction as I approached County Durham from North Yorkshire.
He got pi**ed off after I overtook him as he was dawdling along at 45. He did say that he had no problem with my standard of driving and the well judged overtakes (his words) but only the speed. I still believe him to be an a**hole as this was sheer provocation. (He did have problems keeping up around the bends though in his sh***y Vectra!)
Re: Police drivers slammed in POLCOL scandal
Where I work we see alot of unmarked police cars with sirens and lights being followed by a marked car doing the same. Obviously they are training but at what price. The police have closed so many training centres that they have to resort to public roads, toward the end of rush hour, in built up areas, cars parked on either side of the road. Accident looking for somewhere to happen.
However posting crashed cars on the net is irresponsible by anyones standard let alone the police themselves. What is wrong with this country? not so long ago, they were debating about going on an illegal strike. Does this mean that if they had all those that walked out would be arrested by their colleagues?