Good cops.....bad cops.
Britain is full of the latter kind but you do still find the odd good one around.
I remember the 1st time I ever got pulled over. Ok, fair enough, I was speeding. 65mph in a 40mph zone past the front of Gloucester Police Headquarters. Yeah, I was young and stupid but I was late for a date so........
It was 8pm on a sunday evening, great weather, no traffic around.....I went wizzing past, didn't even notice the cruiser waiting to pull out onto the road I was on. Bout 1/2 a mile later I'd slowed right down, was indicating and had turned into a filter lane when a siren goes off behind me. And I mean right behind me. Panicked, checked mirror and there's a damn police car about a foot off my back tyre. Didn't see him before cos it was daylight and you couldnt see the blue light reflecting off anything and......the mirrors on a Suzuki RGV250 are crap, all you can see is the inside of your elbows.
The upshot was I almost lost it but managed to complete the corner and pull in. Numbnuts behind the wheel immediately starts giving me loads of sarcasm about my riding skills and then asked if I'd been drinking. Told him, no I didn't drink and drive and he goes even more sarcastic on me. He looked quite crestfallen when I blew a green on the breathalyser.
The git charged me with dangerous driving (penalty can be anything from a 1yr ban to 3yrs in prison), lied through his teeth on the statement and shot himself in the foot cos I could prove some of the things he lied about weren't true........and managed to plea bargain my way down to a £30 fine for the speeding.
This is more or less when I started using the slang term 'Filth' to refer to police officers.
Few years later and I had my first propar bike (cos the RGV was an ickle bike), top end was supposed to be 160mph ish so just hadda try it. Pulled on to the M32 near Bristol at midnight, no traffic around so wound it on up......130, 140, 150.........'End of motorway 1 mile' !!!!! Then I started to wonder if the brakes worked. They did. As I rode into Bristol there's a copper stood next to a layby with a big smile on his face, waves me in.
This fella (old bloke, 40 ish, beard) walks over and says "We've had a report of a motorcyclist travelling at excessive speed on the M32."
I said "Well I havn't seen him."
He burst out laughing. Gave me a lecture for 15 mins on being responsible on the roads and sent me on my way.
What a nice fella.
