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- Apr 11, 2013
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The people working on these sorts of teams, are consummately professional. I know I know I know I come on here and have a laugh, take the piss and add smileys and maybe make it all sound a bit blasé .... but in many ways the forum is my way of relaxing and unwinding after what can sometimes be a bloody stressful day.
There is a job to be done, and my God .... you think it doesn't play on peoples minds the consequences of getting it wrong? If a copper tells you that pursuits are a hoot and a laugh, then they have little experience in the matter. They're mostly terrifying for all the reasons that you allude to.
The drivers and riders on these specialist teams are highly trained, and I'm not talking 'reactions', 'car control', I'm talking attitude and professionalism, decision making, being calm under pressure - red mist versus cancelling. So please don't think that travelling in such a manner is 'having a good old spank and being paid for it'. It has to be proportionate.
There are some teams out there that do genuinely need to get the job done, and that getting the job done is constantly risk assessed and judged.
If for example, a surveillance team are working on a subject and he gets on a train to Leeds ..... that's what the bike is for, and that's why they'll ride Hayabusa's and K1300 and the like. That operative needs to be at the train station before the train gets in. If that rider missed the train, lost the subject, and returned to the office saying something along the lines 'well it was a nice clear motorway, the weather was good but I didn't want to go any faster than double the motorway speed limit cos .... well you know how it is ... it wouldn't have looked to good would it ...? ' Then he'd frankly be no good to the team. They need a professional rider who can assess, self manage, and justify his actions; 'It wasn't safe here, it was busy, and there wasn't the justification or the necessity' .... or ..... 'It was safe here, it was quiet, there were four lanes, and I was able to make up some time at a speed that was appropriate'.
The trip to Barking? A team we'd been working on for weeks. Stealing what amounted to thousands and thousands from the elderly (your Mum in her 80's ...). Phoning through to another county and asking if they could park up a suitably trained car and wait for a vehicle that's likely to be on a particular road any time in the next ten minutes?? Do you realise how ragged the service is being run at the moment? The phone call itself would have probably taken ten minutes .....
I accept the criticism for sounding lairy(It's unwinding ...
), but I don't accept the criticism that it's irresponsible. The peepes are utterly professional, are constantly under the spotlight of justification, and will do their job to the very best of their abilities putting the public first ....
Ok Enough of the piss taking about doing favours and the like
Giles makes a decent enough point that although riding at thos speeds at first glance seems like fun to us on the outside (It must be a good buzz regardless) the chances of being killed whilst performing a vital job for Queen and country are probably quite high and i for one would not like to do it. Susan worries about me when i am on the bike for fun (un necessarily of course) but the wives and girlfriends(possibly both) of bods such as Giles must worry every single day when their men go to work because at the speeds they have to go to perform whatever task they are given leave very little room for other peoples errors
)
but must say I thoroughly enjoyed the banter. Now what was the original question? Lol
