Re: FFS M62 WANKERS

formatting link

Well that wasn't there when I posted and a search on "m62" still doesn't find it.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice
Loading thread data ...

They've passed laws that allow plod to cart off those who look slightly like they might want to do something resembling a protest near the houses of parliament, for "security reasons" obviously. Thinks like reading out lists of names of people killed in the Iraq war are a threat to national security. Ditto heckling politicians at labour party conferences. A bunch of people clad in cowskin with their heads in bowls thronging around Westminster isn't likely to be met with a polite response.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

There probably is after the Fuel Protests of a few years back but would you want to try and arrest and process through the courts 500+ bikers?

And they're nasty, oily, violent bikers... at least that is how they will be percieved but that is the wrong image. I can't see what the quote about blocking off Downing Street would achieve, it's a cul-de-sac and blocked off with fecking great gates and armed police from Whitehall anyway.

Anyway would anyone notice a traffic hold up in London in the first place?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

They seem to handle it in South Wales ;-) Besides, no need to arrest all of them, just keep going until the rest disperse. If they turned up on their bikes they'd just process them using the usual automated systems using ANPR.

In Australia they apparently have a "problem" with biker gangs, in that the bikers don't commit more crime than anyone else but local politicians make a big noise about it safe in the knowledge that they're picking on an unpopular if insignificant target, much as our lot did with 4x4s.

Of course, there are no traffic problems in London, the Congestion Charge solved that ages ago ;-)

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the only thing this retarded, blinkered, out-of-touch bunch of self-centred f****it muppets calling themselves a government will take any notice at all of is this :- Bring the country to its knees and let industry apply the serious pressure on the politicians, and one of the only ways this can be done is by taking action such as the truckers did some years back now. Had they held out for another week or so back then they'd have got a result, but they backed down for various reasons, one of those reasons being the public turning against them because they couldn't get fuel to travel to work/school run/shopping/etc. The usual case of "nimby"ism! A case of cutting one's nose off to spite one's face I feel. For what it's worth, any such action being repeated now would undoubtedly have a knock-on effect on my business but that's something I'm prepared to accept if it is for the greater long term good and benefit. As such, it would have my full support. If the hold-ups caused by the bikers were to spread and many more such events (by all road users) were to take place on a regular basis throughout the country then the muppets in westminster would have to acknowledge the issues - especially when big-business became affected and applied pressure. Bring it on! Badger.

Reply to
Badger

It's an effective and fairly simple strategy - and only takes three vehicles - one in each lane, all driving at a legal speed, side-by-side - and staying there. This could be repeated randomly on a totally ad-hoc basis nationally until the gubbishment do something. Mind, 'doing something' would no doubt involve rushing through badly written anti-terrorist legislation...

Reply to
.mother

And the two in the outside lanes probably getting done for "failure to make progress" and/or "obstruction of the Queens highway" or similar offences.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Bear in mind though that the truckers and farmers weren't protesting for lower fuel prices, they were protesting for lower fuel prices *for them*, which is easily forgotten. The same happened this time around, the truckers were protesting in support of them being given special status that allows them to claim some of their fuel costs back from the government, as already happens in some industries (the Essential User rebate). Truckers are not currently on this scheme and they've been campaining for them to be put on it, the whole thing about wanting lower fuel costs for everyone is PR and isn't something their spokesmen ever explicity claimed.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Er, I didn't think an "Essential User Rebate" or "Scheme" actually existed? Certainly a quick google only shows truck/haulage pressure groups try to get HMG to introduce one...

Oh no underneath that noise it appears that (some) Buses & Coaches get a

41p/l discount/rebate. Fecking useless HMR&C site search engine doesn't turn up anything useful at least not obviously. Dig dig elsewhere ah it's called "Fuel Duty Rebate" (FDR) still no help on the HMR&C site...
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I think I can say with some degree of certaintly that the CPS wouldn't dare take either of those into a Court!

Reply to
.mother

Maybe not but can't the police just arrest people for it then not pursue it, which has the effect of getting them out of the way and of putting the frighteners on anyone else who's thinking of trying it?

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Fuel Duty Rebate applies to regular stage carriage bus services, registered as such.

At work, we get it for the buses, some of the school contracts that run as bus services, & .... that's it. Works buses are only eligible if the service is open to anyone who pays the fare. The private hire coaches have to use full price fuel, even though they're just about the greenest method of getting large groups of people from A to B.

Reply to
John Williamson

And how do you charge the right person? and under what offence. A vehicle number plate does not identify a person. And even if it did and a charge could be applied they have the right to appeal and hearing.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Just go for the vehicle owner and go for something vaguely applicable and offer 3 points and fine, or if they want to defend themselves, it'll be 6 points and twice the fine, that's the kind of thing that's done for other motoring offences. If 500 bikers turned up and tried to block the streets with their bikes, they'd be an easy target, as is the case with all motorists. Fair enough when they're actually causing a danger, after all more people die due to speeding motorists than are killed by burglars, but when it comes to things like this they could easily use the same system they use for catching tax dodgers etc.

When a vehicle is caught speeding, the vehicle owner is guilty and gets prosecuted, never mind who was driving.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

If 500 bikers turned up and tried

Many years ago the Motorcycle Action Group organised an event in London to protest about leg protectors.

They cooperated with the cops who decided to put them well out of harm's way at the back of beyond somewhere in the docklands development on what was then a building site.

After an hour or so of speeches the then leader got up on the platform and said "I'm not going where the police want me to ride, I'm off to look at the queen" and proceeded to ride through central London with 3,000 other bikers at a steady four or five miles an hour, bringing most of the centre of the capital to a halt.

The minister responsible for motorcycles, Peter Bottomley, was promptly shifted to Northern Ireland and was sacked for nothing by Thatcher the next year.

The leg protectors were quickly and quietly forgotten about, and haven't been mentioned since. Neither has any other major change in motorcycle regulations or taxation.

Protest, especially one they don't know is going to happen, is very scary for the politicians because they don't know what to do about it.

They know damn well the cops are lying when they say 'Not a major problem really Prime Minister' because they couldn't get out of their bloody office for three hours...

So they give in, because the alternative, which is jury trials for several thousand people, just isn't feasible...

Drive a thousand Land Rovers without warning at four miles an hour down Whitehall between 9:00am and mid day on a Tuesday and you'd win.

(Tuesday morning at about 10:00am is when the cabinet meets)

Reply to
William Black

These days though, the number plates are read by computer, tickets issued by computer, fines levied by computer, and points totted up by computer. Humans get involved when people want to fight it, and court appointments to try and prosecute those who don't just cough up the reduced fine and take the reduced points, can be scheduled when convenient. The logging could easily be done by a couple of policemen with an ANPR unit and the prosecutions attempted later. Why bother spending all that effort trying to stop people when a few policemen with an ANPR unit can be used to monitor an illegal protest and get the protesters later -- let them commit the crime then try and do them for it after the event. That way you get a load of loot and some prosecution figures rather than all that faff about stopping the protest in the first place.

Yes, like the way the war in Iraq was stopped by two million people marching on London, or "more than 750,000" if you go for the police figures.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Not for thousands.

The system would start breaking down.

Telling the police you're coming is a basic mistake.

If it's a demo on foot you just get beaten up.

Turn up in vehicles, and without warning, and you're a problem on a different scale, as everyone found out today...

Reply to
William Black

Well, I'm not going to repeat myself a third time.

I reckon they could easily handle it, and may well do, with the help of the cameras and the IT systems, they seem to work quite well for the traffic prosecutions and road tax, unlike the ones for benefits!

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

Yeabut most people when done for speeding or WHY just mutter a bit and cough up via the automatic system. A few appeal/deny/contest but as a percentage of the total not very many. Any protesters done via the automatic system would be briefed to contest it just to cause more disruption by overloading the CJS.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I already made that point twice and still Mark still didn't get it, full marks for trying though ;-)

I'm not sure you'd get many takers for a potential 6 points on the license, especially amongst bikers! "overloading" the system isn't guaranteed and wouldn't mean that everyone would get away with it, so if that situation did unfold they'd be taking a pretty big chance.

Reply to
Ian Rawlings

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.