I nearly copped it yesterday .........

[badpenny]

This is nothing to do with slot machines, except that I was driving over to view one.
We were in Doff's car and I was driving when suddenly ........ "whoop whoop" and I saw an unmarked rozzer in my mirror complete with blue strobes behind his radiator grill. Understanding that he wanted to get past me toot sweet I indicated left and pulled into a lay-by.
To my utter astonishment he followed me and drew up behind. "Perhaps he's lost" I commented to Doff.

A 12 year old and his slightly older brother clambered out, very polite, they smilingly enquired if I was driving on my own insurance. Only their on board whizz box had told them that the female owner only had insurance for owner driver and nobody else was named.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why they had assumed that Doff didn't sport a beard. However I've seen the TV programs where they follow traffic cops around and know that my comment would be received as joyfully as .....
"ain't youse twatters got nuffin better to do than hassle scrotes like me?"
And seeing as I've never seen the attraction in wearing a Burberry cap sideways whilst running like my hair is on fire shortly before hiding in someone else's wheely bin I bit my tongue and merely answered in the affirmative.
He asked me the registration of my car so he could check my insurance details.
Now I don't know about you, but I can remember the number plates of all of my Father's cars when I was a child and even the registrations of my first three motorbikes. Ask me what the hall wallpaper looks like or how many ears Doff has and I falter somewhat, so the chances of me reciting the number of my current car were on a par with winning the lottery!

I shrugged my elbows and told him it was a blue S type Jag, "did that help?" ........... it seemed it did! He nattered into his chattering brooch and almost immediately the return reply informed him how many Bri Nylon socks I owned, how hopeless I am with women and why, what my favourite internet sites are, and Yes I was insured with Swiftsure, but No it didn't cover me to drive other vehicles .
Gulp
It seemed I was back in the hands of the "Boys in Blue" yet again, not so serious as 2009 but it was becoming a habit.
We were about to destroy a forest in order to complete the paperwork that was going to result in a shed load of points being deposited on my licence not to mention their purloining oodles of my Gold Splonders. I started to think to myself how much I wished we had come on the bike now, after all I was only viewing a machine, it was on e-Bay I couldn't take it home with me when it struck me....
The Bike!!!!.... that's insured!!!.... "Try my bike insurance" I casually pleaded from my begging position in the gravel.
"What's its registration and which company?" The policeman enquired.
My mind wondered up the staircase imagining all sorts of wallpaper .......
"Errrrr .... silver ..... ummmm .... Harley Davidson" I proudly recalled.

Further mutterings with the tiny voice on his shoulder confirmed that I was indeed covered on that policy to drive all vehicles. .... that was a close one!
I sighed a heave of relief, then realising I'd done that the wrong way round I heaved a sigh of relief, we swopped addresses for Christmas cards and all went our way.

So caution to all UK drivers, that old benefit the insurance companies used to give us whereby we could drive vehicles not owned by us but with the owner's permission and they'd cover us 3rd party is now something else they want us to pay for.

Oh .... and the machine was duff!

[john t peterson]

Fascinating story, BP. Once again, it serves to prove my point that you "originals" are much more civilized than we "upstarts." Here in the US, the police would never think to stop a car to check for proof of insurance of the driver. They're too busy chasing the gangbangers who just shot up the local market as well as the drunk drivers who lost their driver's license (and their insurance) 23 years ago but still have the desire to see the country behind the wheel, three sheets to the wind.

[operator bell]

JTP, I think you're missing the sinister point of this story. In the UK the cops don't need to chase drivers looking for proof of insurance. They don't need to do anything, except be available on call. A surveillance camera photographs a car going under a bridge. A computer reads the car's number plate and looks it up in the database, checking the tax and insurance records and linking to the owner's records. If the driver's face is visible in the picture, automatic face recognition software compares the face with the owner's driver's license photo. If the driver is not identified, as in this case, and the owner's insurance isn't "any driver", orders go out on the radio to the nearest plod to stop and check. As an indication of how real-time this all is, consider that once they'd identified Badpenny, they could access all his vehicle records instantly - they probably didn't even need to ask him any questions. If he had been driving his own car none of this would have happened, except that somewhere deep in the eternal records would be an entry: "Date, Time, Citizen Badpenny traveled from X to Y, purpose unknown".

It's a far cry from when I lived in the UK, when the police didn't even have speed radar. I think it's a terrifying state of affairs, more like communist East Germany than what used to be a proud free country.

[john t peterson]

Good heavens Operator Bell, I had no idea! Makes me feel a little safer here amongst the gangbangers.

[ilovemyjukebox]

Operator Bell - It hasn't quite got to that stage yet.. Maybe not a long way off..

The officers that stopped badpenny would have had ANPR (Automatic Number Plate recogniser) in their car
or perhaps they just ran his number through the Police National Computer.

Most, but not all, Insurance companies proivde details of the insurance for a number plate and from there they can work out
who is directly insured to drive that vehicle. It doesn't take into account the "Any vehicle" policy that badpenny was talknng about.
The officers would have had to do a little hunting around to find that.

The face software is available and actually out there but is operated by Local Authoirty CCTV'S. I am not aware of any Police Forces actively using it.

I share some of your frustration having recently received a speeding ticket for 36 in a 30.. Years ago that would have been dealt with by a little bit of discretion. Cameras at fixed points are not as yet fitted with the discretion software update.

[operator bell]

Operator Bell - It hasn't quite got to that stage yet.. Maybe not a long way off... I am not aware of any Police Forces actively using [facial recognition].

Perhaps it hasn't got to the stage of East Germany yet, but there's paranoia, and then there's informed suspicion based on the UK government's known propensities and past actions. Linking ANPR with facial recognition has been the topic of discussion on technical fora for a couple of years now, including the leaked results of trials, so we know it's on the way. And if I may jog your memory, when ANPR cameras were first being trialled on the M6 in the 1990s and someone leaked their true purpose, there was a storm of official denial - this was just to test the technology, there was no intention to make it available to the police, etc etc. We all know how that turned out. Given their known taste for official secrecy, it seems unlikely that the government (or the ACPO) would willingly admit to the public that facial recognition had gone live. Maybe it hasn't yet, but I wouldn't count on it. If we could have a volunteer please, to drive ten miles on the M6 wearing a ski mask....

[badpenny]

Operator Bell - It hasn't quite got to that stage yet.. .........

Actually I am not so sure, because what I didn't say in my original post (mainly because I couldn't extract any comedy value from it) was: -
- At no time did they ask who either of us was
- They didn't ask to see my driving licence
- They merely asked if I was Doff's partner, so probably assumed from that my address was the same as the registered owner's which their whizz box would have told them.
- Having satisfied themselves that there was a Harley insured at that address they didn't ensure that I was the person named as the insured, because as I just said ....At no time did they ask who I was.


So, did they in fact know what I look like, thereby identifying me?

I really have precious little faith in the system after the fun & games I was dealt in 2009, not to mention four years ago when a CRB check (Criminal Records Bureau) by a prospective employer took nearly 6 months to mis-identify me as some scrote I'd never heard of, born in a part of Wales I'd never visited, two years before I gurgled into existence. That little "jolly" labeled me as a criminal complete with convictions for larceny and breaking and entering, and there's no guarantee that the next CRB check won't repeat the whole bloody thing all over again.
It's got so that since 2006 I have been both formally mis-identified and last year arrested on false charges that would make The Hell's Angels consider me twice due to not wanting to tarnish their reputation.

Most importantly, in my consideration, the clowns that store and release this personal information are not only untouchable (you can't even complain about them, only appeal about their decision, for which you will not get an apology!) but ..... and this is a MASSIVE "but" .... if this country does go down the route of Identity Cards it will be this bunch of incompetent, finger fumbling bureaucrats that run it. Think about that when you pour milk on your Wheaty Bangs in the morning!
The Way Forward

[Site Admin]

I've moved this topic to Open Forum lest anyone complain we're straying from our beloved obsession.
I think Badpenny makes a good case for the adoption of the burka as our national costume. Joking aside, I don't see how anyone cannot be alarmed at how quickly we're being pressed into the kind of total surveillance society Orwell envisaged.

[badpenny]

SMILE!

[ilovemyjukebox]

As I read that and nearly chocked on my toast tis morning I thought of you.....

[badpenny]

As I read that and nearly chocked on my toast tis morning I thought of you.....

I am relieved to hear that is all you were doing when you thought of me ...