Forwarded to me by a friend, I thought it might be especially
interesting for OFATP. Brit-car content is marginal - dvh
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Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 13:47:10 GMT
Subj: If they do this with a Range Rover what would it be like with a 911?
I guess this is Blues Brothers, UK style ...
I don't know if anyone read a story in their Saturday morning tabloid
about a 3 hour chase around High Wycombe and surrounding towns which
resulted 9 [NINE!] police cars being totalled by three joyriders in a
Range Rover. What was printed in the papers was pretty astonishing
(for many reasons); however, it's not quite the full and unexpurgated
story. I live in Wycombe, and about 0200 on Friday morning I was woken
up by a jellywopper hovering low over my house and waving a searchlight
about in my general direction; obviously the police, and it worried me
enough that I went and dug out my old FM airband radio to see if I
might discover what kind of gun toting psycho they were looking for in
close proximity to my front garden. As a result, I listened into the
whole incident in it's un-glossed form; the police don't come out of it
smelling of roses.
The lunatic driving the Range Rover was obviously an excellent driver;
bloody good job, too, because if he hadn't been he would surely have
been through the side of someone's house, the speeds he was being
chased at. As it was, the only thing he hit all night were police
vehicles, all of them deliberately. After three hours every high-speed
traffic jam sandwich for miles around, including the local armed
response vehicle, was a pile of twisted metal. The police were reduced
to following in their bottom-of- range Astra panda cars, or more
accurately hiding from the Range Rover which had gone from pursued to
pursuer; I heard one car calling in an asking if it was safe for him to
drive up the A40. As soon as the helicopter ran out of juice, they lost
the Range Rover...
The Metropolitan plod come out of this really well (not); they wouldn't
lend Thames Valley another helicopter to continue the pursuit. At no
time during those three hours did they apparently think of calling up
Range Rovers, or Landy Discoveries from adjacent areas to ram or box in
the Range Rover; instead they just aimlessly chased it around the area
at breakneck speed. If they couldn't catch it, why on earth were they
chasing it and risking their, the thieves, and many other peoples lives
in the process?
Anyway, the newspapers DIDN'T mention that not all of the police
vehicles were trashed by hitting the Range Rover; at least two of them
hit each other in severely embarrassing circumstances, and a third very
expensive traffic car, provided like the others by the polltax payers
of this fair county, disappeared down a bunker on the 18th fairway at
Flackwell Heath Golf Course while pursuing the Range Rover thereupon.
What really concerns me, though, is the police justification for the
whole incident. The car sped through a speed trap in Wycombe; fair
enough, I wasn't listening to the chase then. The police also allege,
in the paper, that 'The three occupants of the car could be seen taking
drugs while they were driving along'. I presume that this is designed
to lend weight to the police argument that apprehending these people
was worth the risk to life and limb, not to mention the entire new
vehicle budget for Buckinghamshire this year and next. But all I can
say to that is 'B*ll*cks'! The police couldn't even see their faces
well enough to describe them, let alone 'see them taking drugs'. Unless
they were shooting up with their arms out the window, I don't know how
they could have. A Range Rover is four feet above a cop car anyway, so
they'd have a job seeing anything going on inside, and the way this guy
was driving, it was very unlikely he was on anything except, just
conceivably, speed.
Besides, I was listening to the whole thing and I didn't hear drugs
mentioned once in all of the commentary or discussion from the police
in the two hours I was listening. My conclusion: They're making that
bit up. Inspires confidence doesn't it?
You couldn't have made a film about this; this is High Wycombe, not
Hazzard County. What exactly do we pay our police for? Is it enough
that they risk their lives, as they clearly were here, or do we require
that they do it competently, and to a purpose, and cost effectively,
without risking our lives as well? Or perhaps it is that they behave
like the Keystone Kops, as they did on Friday morning... And what, dear
reader, would have happened if any really significant crime had been
committed in Bucks on Friday morning, while the ARV, and most of the
other Police Cars were gaily sticking out of the scenery in and around
the High Wycombe area?
The final result of this sorry debacle, of course, is that the driver
of the Range Rover is going to be a real hero among his friends. After
all, Smokey and the Bandit has nothing on him... even I can't help but
have a sneaking admiration for the little toe rag, so his peer group
will have no trouble. We will now be invaded by hoardes of his pals,
probably less able than him, all keen to be a hero like him. People
will be injured, or even die as a result of all this. No doubt the
police will then bleat about how they need more resources and more
powers and more this and more that... how about new commanders, new
training, new objectives and new brains?
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