Motoring Discussion > Spying on your fellow motorist? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: PhilW Replies: 28

 Spying on your fellow motorist? - PhilW
Not sure I'm too keen on this - seems like it's open to abuse
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8010471/Motorists-encouraged-to-spy-on-rogue-drivers.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313095/Big-Brother-fears-motorists-urged-spy-other.html
Phil
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - DP
Can't see how this would stand up in court. Isn't it just one person's word against another? If I were accused of doing something by an unnamed source via a letter, my first response would be "prove it!"
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Skoda
If you added a rule like "anybody who uses this service more than 2 times in a year to report something, is automatically banned from driving for 30 days"

Would that solve the busy body's whilst still reaping the benefits?

I haven't thought it through right enough :-)
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - R40

Given the number of drivers I still see each day using their mobile phone while driving I might be risking a 30 day ban ;) The fools deserve reporting and stopping; if this is the only way then I'll take it....................

 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...Given the number of drivers I still see each day using their mobile phone while driving...

Saw three or four yesterday.

I would have no problem making a simple statement I know to be true.

"The driver of ABC 123 was using his phone on the A1234 at noon on Tuesday."

What others make of the statement is up to them.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - John H
>> Not sure I'm too keen on this - seems like it's open to abuse

>> www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313095/Big-Brother-fears-motorists-urged-spy-other.html

>>

That Daily Mail article is headlined "'Stasi spies' on the motorways: Big Brother fears as motorists are urged to inform on each other".

Three days ago, the same paper ran this article
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312080/Driver-eating-cereal-M25-An-hour-lawbreaking-motorway.html
"Captured on camera: Look, no hands... an hour of lawbreaking on the M25"

Guess who took those photographs - yes, it was the Daily Mail! "The culprits captured by the Mail were all van and lorry drivers ". One snap is of a bus driver whose companion is "mooning".


Last edited by: John H on Sat 18 Sep 10 at 14:53
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - R.P.
Well spotted !
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - John H
>> Well spotted !
>>

:-) Well spotted the mail's hypocrisy, or well spotted the "mooning", or something else maybe?
Last edited by: John H on Sat 18 Sep 10 at 15:21
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - MD
Why don't all these boring, nothing better to do people go away and leave normal folk to be.

Do-no-Gooders are getting on my wick.

M artin D.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 19 Sep 10 at 02:15
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - -
>> Do-no-Gooders are getting on my wick..

Couldn't agree more Mart.

A rather nice m'ilf was doing a spot of motorway flashing (any red blooded proper bloke knows exactly what i mean and thank goodness for 'em) and a jobsworth *twerp* at the helm of a truck actually reported her believe it or not, luckily in the ensuing court case they named the busybody twerp, i hope proper truck drivers who know him explained in short words exactly what they thought of him.

** i couldn't possibly insult real truck drivers by calling him a driver.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sun 19 Sep 10 at 02:15
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Zero
I reckon there are many on here who wont know what a milf is without looking it up,

(excluding BBD of course)
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 18 Sep 10 at 20:49
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - -

>> (excluding BBD of course)
>>

And you Z, doubt you had to question googoil.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Armel Coussine
>> wont know what a milf is without looking it up,

Milford Haven

Pretty craven

danced the quadrille with a raven

gnaws the pavin' ...

can't think of any more without looking it up or learning Polish/Finchley Road argot...
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Zero
At your age AC its not worth knowing what it means.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - BiggerBadderDave
"(excluding BBD of course)"

oh yes, it's the reason I do the school run with such a big smile on my face.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Runfer D'Hills
GB ! .....and you a man of religion too !

:-)
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - -
>> GB ! .....and you a man of religion too !

No i'm a lapsed Catholic and a damned poor one at that, if i can find a priest with a week or two free i might just go to confession sometime..;)
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...GB ! .....and you a man of religion too !...

I Googled milf and clicked on one of the sites.

Very 'lowest common denominator' I thought, and far too graphic and obvious to be the least bit exciting.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...Well spotted the mail's hypocrisy...

The Mail would have been hypocritical had it refused to run one story or the other.

Look at each story on its merits and make up your mind purely from that.

1. Drivers are being invited to report minor motoring offences carried out by others.
2. Some bloke stood on a motorway bridge with a camera and snapped a lot of people committing minor motoring offences.

It matters not where the stories come from, only that they are true, which I think they are.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - R.P.
They probably are iffy, just looks a trifle inconsistent to normal Joe Soaps.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...just looks a trifle inconsistent to normal Joe Soaps...

Some people think every story in the Daily Mail has some enormous, complicated, conspiracy theory agenda behind it.

It hasn't.

The 'report on other motorists' story is everywhere else and there's an element of 'me too-ism' about each day's news list.

The only weakness with the taking pics of drivers story is it's not original - everyone did something similar when the handheld mobile law came out.

But hey, if anyone can come up with a constant stream of original, top quality story ideas, a job on the Mail newsdesk is theirs for the asking.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - John H

>> It matters not where the stories come from, only that they are true, which I
>> think they are.
>>
>>

It does in my books. The Mail refers to "Stasi spies on motorway" but forgets that it itself did the same thing three days previously!

:-) But IIRC you are a journalist (not a Mail one, are you?) and so can understnad yourdefence of your profession.


 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...The Mail refers to "Stasi spies on motorway" but forgets that it itself did the same thing three days previously...

The Mail doesn't refer to Stasi spies on motorway, the civil liberties bloke does, the Mail is merely reporting it.

That's what a newspaper does, it's a conduit for information, or in this case, a conduit for an 'expert' comment.

If there's a story about unseasonal weather, you go to a weather man for comment, it's not rocket science.

It matters not to the journalist or the newspaper what the expert says, provided it's relevant and not libellous.



 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Kevin
>The Mail doesn't refer to Stasi spies on motorway, the civil liberties bloke does,

In the link above 'the civil liberties bloke' doesn't say any such thing.

It is the Mail reporters who say:

"Critics have likened the scheme to the East German Stasi - which encouraged residents to inform upon one another."

Without specifying who those "Critics" are of course.

Kevin...
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...The Mail doesn't refer to Stasi spies on motorway, the civil liberties bloke does...

The same line appears in the Telegraph, so someone said it:

"But privacy campaigners have likened it to the tactics of the Stasi in East Germany, which encouraged residents to inform on one another."

 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Kevin
>The same line appears in the Telegraph, so someone said it:

Yeah, probably the freelance or agency hack who sold the story to both papers.

Read the reports side by side and it's an obvious cut'n'paste job.

Kevin...
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Iffy
...Read the reports side by side and it's an obvious cut'n'paste job...

More or less, although each paper will have tinkered with it a bit.

This illustrates my point about the lack of any conspiracy or hidden agenda in the origin of most news stories.


 Spying on your fellow motorist? - diddy1234
I am not surprised there are more stories currently running.

The police would reccomend this wouldn't they ?
What with looming cuts in their budgets, good old Joe blogs will be asked to do more police work.
 Spying on your fellow motorist? - Pat
It's the anonimity of this whole thing that worries me.

If you have a legitimate complaint about someone's driving surely you should be happy to stand up and be counted, and have your own driving record examined in an effort to see if your complaint may, or may not be justified.
VOSA have an anonymous phone line where you can call and report haulage firms you think are running 'bent' ( illegal on hours and mechanical/safety issues)
It's been in place for a long time now and the vast majority of calls it receives are from aggrieved employees who have either been sacked for preferring to sit in a layby instead of working, or who haven't the backbone to stand up and refuse to drive illegally to the boss. In a lot of cases these drivers are still working for them, and still doing it, ( and earning the extra money it brings) but see it as a way of getting their employer to toe the line with no blame being placed on them.

This scheme will just encourage the same thing.

What is an acceptable driving standard?
What is safe and what is dangerous?

You and I both think we're the best drivers in the world, We think our high standards are the ones everyone should aspire to. What qualifies any of us to judge speed of another vehicle or the safety of a manoeuvre if it didn't cause an accident?

I stay out of the tailgating debates on here for one reason only.
One persons view of sitting on someone's back bumper is another's safe stopping distance. I know only too well that the view through a rear view mirror in a car gives a very different view of distance than the one from the lorry cab behind.
That isn't to say it doesn't happen, but I can reverse the CRV up to wall and think the tow bar is within an inch from it, only to get out and look and find that I'm all of 6 foot away. The reason I think is that being used to driving a lorry I use my door mirrors for driving and rarely the rear view mirror which gives such a different concept of distance.

The whole scheme is flawed and Sussex Police need to spend a bit more of their time on visible policing to discourage crime instead of pursuing complaints from unqualified 'experts'.

Pat
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