The beginning of the end for Police Motorcycles?

[TC]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... bikes.html

Although Thames Valley have just started reforming their bike section!

[D-Rider]

Guess that means the riot squads will be going too .... and patrolling areas of known crime .... can't have those policemen and women being put at any risk !

I'd have thought the bikes would have been lower risk than some of these other situations.

..... and lets face it, it's a job that carries risk .... a bit like the army .... if you don't want to get shot at, don't join up - or if you think that other police risks are OK, just don't move to become a police motorcyclist!

We need people who are prepared to take risk - certainly those with responsibility need to keep the risk within acceptable bounds for doing that task ... but not just give up the task altogether.

Health and Safety legislation does not require that anyway.


What are things coming to ............

[Syltiz]

The world is definately going mad.

[Samray]

FFS !! Ludicrous.

[Falcomille]

Northumbria? Mmm.. let me see... ah sheep rustling. No need for bikes there then.

[Gio]

Shame its not London, at least then Gordon and his cohorts would be easy game.

[bigun]

Just seen this.

I know the head of traffic for Northumbria (friend of a friend), nice bloke who has a Ducati 916 Senna and is a mad keen biker funnily enough. I've not spoken to him about it but I bet its more to do with money. It costs Northumbria approx £18k to buy a bike with police kit on etc which is then knackered and sold on for sod all money within 50k miles. Compare that to a Volvo T5 which they get for £12k (yes, £12000!!) which does over 100k miles, carries 2 officers at a time etc and sells on for a reasonable return and the bikes have had it (plus the cost savings on motorcycle training which is long and expensive).

I wonder if its ALL the bike fleet though. They have a few unmarked SP2's and R1's which they hunt with on our favourite roads at weekends. I've seen them in pursuit and the speed at which they can cover ground is astonishing, truely superb riders.

H&S - I'm not convinced.

[TC]

Just seen this.

(plus the cost savings on motorcycle training which is long and expensive).

The cost of training a motorcyclist is no longer and no more expensive than it is a car driver! Both courses are 4 weeks long, both courses have 1 instructor and three students, the only time it becomes more expensive is when some forces like Thames Valley insist that only those people who hold class 1 car tickets can go onto to do the bike course, which I have to say is a benefit because it meant that I was lucky enough to get both qualifications!

As far as mileage is concerned, most forces reckon on about 75,000 miles out of their machines before being laid up and used for spares for operational bikes, and depending on the area, even then the resale value is still pretty good.

My last operational bike was sold with 125,000 on the clock which I had had from new and was still running well and they stiill got about 2K for it.

Many years ago, Reading sub division (Thames Valley) used to run the BMW R45 which was liveried different to our traffic bikes (and were obviously smaller), but when they came up to be replaced, they replaced them with Panda cars. Apparently response times nearly doubled and the sub division used to regularly call our base and ask if we could provide a motorcyclist to help out because someone in their wisdom had decided that bikes were not a good idea

Thames Valley did disband their bike wing a few years ago. I was one of 42 full time motorcyclists which was made up of 1 Inspector, 1 Sgt and 39 PC's with about 40 part time riders force wide who could use the spare bikes when required (we all had our own personal issue bike). We were used for all sorts, British GP at Silverstone, Royal Ascot, Henley Regatta, Royal events at Windsor, Crusie missile convoys out of Greenham to name but a few. Within a few years there were less than 6 part time riders and non of the specialist events ever got covered properly. I think from what I can gather they have now realised the error of their ways, and 12 bikes are about to go operational once again!

[Chabby]

..... and lets face it, it's a job that carries risk .... a bit like the army .... if you don't want to get shot at, don't join up - or if you think that other police risks are OK, just don't move to become a police motorcyclist!

We need people who are prepared to take risk - certainly those with responsibility need to keep the risk within acceptable bounds for doing that task ... but not just give up the task altogether.

Health and Safety legislation does not require that anyway.


What are things coming to ............

I think you'll find that its management who have taken this decision - not the bike riders themselves.

The latest law enforcement mantra is neighbourhood policing and thats where the government wants the budget spent - not on Gucci bike squads.

[D-Rider]

..... and lets face it, it's a job that carries risk .... a bit like the army .... if you don't want to get shot at, don't join up - or if you think that other police risks are OK, just don't move to become a police motorcyclist!

We need people who are prepared to take risk - certainly those with responsibility need to keep the risk within acceptable bounds for doing that task ... but not just give up the task altogether.

Health and Safety legislation does not require that anyway.


What are things coming to ............

I think you'll find that its management who have taken this decision - not the bike riders themselves.

The latest law enforcement mantra is neighbourhood policing and thats where the government wants the budget spent - not on Gucci bike squads.

Absolutely - I wasn't suggesting it was the riders - it'll be those higher up the tree trying to cover their own arses.

I know of a company that develop things for cars .... senior management have put policies in place that stop staff testing them in a way that is basically the same as an end-user would operate them .... and most of the staff that test have had special driver training to teach how to cope with high workload situations in prototype performance vehicles.

[BikerGran]

Gran Turismo


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I think this is just another step on the way to getting rid of police officers.
'
They've already changed the name of at least one 'Police Force' to 'Police Service' - note the difference there? And they employ more and more POCSOs - 'Police Community Support Officers' who don't have the training that police have, or the powers - and don't get paid anywjhere near the same. In my opinion they will have more and more of these and less police officers. They've taken away the decision on whether to prosecute and given it to the the Crown Prosecution Service - a lot of police officers getr very fed up when they catch the scroates red-handed, do all the paperwork, take all the statements - only for the CPS to decide not to prosecute.

Quite honestly there's not a lot of point in us paying for the police any more as there's very little they can do about anything. It's reflected in the quality of the new recruits, semi-literate at best, what can you expect? Anyone with any intelligence would know better than to join the police nowadays!

Cynical? Me? OH YESSSSS!

Some of you know where I work....................