So turns out the police ain't all bad

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I don’t have much interaction with the police - I live in a reasonably quiet, low-crime area in the UK, and not being a member of the criminal fraternity (apart from a little light torrenting of an evening) I generally have little cause to meet with Her Majesty’s constabulary.

Until this morning, that is.

I’ve read lots of threads on SDMB about people’s interactions with the police, and while this story is the very definition of mundane I thought I’d share it because it did challenge some of my expectations (and let’s face it, mundane stories about posters’ lives are how we roll in MPSIMS).

We live on a narrow street in the UK with lots of houses either side, which makes parking a nightmare.

We are fortunate to have a small driveway with a dropped kerb outside our house but this morning someone had parked across it, meaning I couldn’t leave for work.

It wasn’t fully blocking me, but enough of the rear bumper was sticking out to stop me being able to reverse safely.

I asked our immediate neighbours whether they recognised the car, but no luck, and after a couple of attempts to manouver my car it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere.

I didn’t fancy knocking on every house in the street as it could be any one of 50 houses, and there are a lot of shift workers who would not appreciate being woken up at that time in the morning. “Bouncing” the car also wasn’t an option - main reason was that my only assistant was a two-year-old toddler, but I also didn’t want to risk damaging the other car.

So only option left was to phone the local police to see if they could help. It felt a bit overkill to call out the police but I didn’t really have any other choices.

Now in the UK we are much the same as the USA… there’s an increasing perception that the police are useless, and that getting them to come out for anything less than a serious incident is impossible. There’s also an assumption that local stations are always closed, or undermanned, making it impossible to get hold of anyone for non-emergency issues, especially out-of-hours (this was 8am this morning).

So with a degree of trepidation I found the number for the local police station on the Warwickshire Police website and gave them a call. It was answered within 3 rings by an operator who assured me that this was an appropriate matter for the police. She passed me to the Control Room for Warwickshire, who took down the Registration Number of the offending car, and my phone number, and said they’d try to phone the registered keeper.

I then got a phone call 10 mins later to say there was no answer via phone, so they’d have to send a police car round… I was told it’d be 10-15 mins until a car was free.

Sure enough, 12 mins later an unmarked police patrol car pulled up with two officers. They had a look and agreed the car was badly parked, so they went to knock on the owner’s door. Two mins later, after speaking with the owner, the policemen came back with the car keys and moved the car out of the way.

Turns out the owner was in bed after finishing a night shift so was still in his pyjamas, which is why he didn’t hear the police phoning him, and also explains why the police moved the car for him.

It also meant there was no chance of a confrontation - I wasn’t too cross, but was a bit hacked-off at being late for work, and I imagine the other chap was not best pleased to be woken up.

Although it wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things I’m sure neighbours have come to blows over less in the past, so better all round to let a third-party sort it.

From my first phone call to resolution took less than 30 mins, with polite office staff and helpful police officers. One of the officers said he wished all his call outs were as easy as that, and for my part I was really impressed with the way it worked.

So there we go - a fairly mundane encouter with Warwickshire’s finest, but actually a remarkably stress-free and easy process. I wasn’t made to feel like I was wasting police time, the police adopted a sensible approach (so rather than instantly ticketing or towing the car, they just asked the bloke to move it, or offered to move it for him), and everyone’s happy.

I feel like I should write a letter to the Daily Mail etc, just to balance the relentless tide of “there’s no point being middle-class and phoning the police, they only care about fining speeding drivers and protecting the ASBO-wearing classes” stories that are floating around.

Having said that, I am *slightly *disappointed I didn’t see them use a taser but I guess there’s always next time. :wink:

2

[sarcasm]How dare you call the police for something silly like this. You were wasting their time. They have better things to do then move cars for you. You tied up a line at the police station and tied up two officers. What if I had a real emergency when you had officers knocking on doors so you could get to work.[/sarcasm]

3

Wow, everything turned out better than expected. I think you should write a letter for sure. Cops have a thankless, hard job and I’m sure the honest cops would love reading about the incident in the papers.

4

Thing is, that genuinely went through my mind before I called… it was a trivial issue, given an hour and much swearing I *might *have been able to wiggle past the parked car, although equally could have scratched it in the attempt.

It’s because we get fed so many stories about police not being available that I reckon a lot of people don’t bother to make the call in the first place… but I figured the worst they’d say was “sorry, phone the council or wait it out”.

In some ways it’s a shame that I was so suprised at how things turned out… it should be the norm to expect an easy resolution, rather than a suprise.

But then a 10 min job meant a minor annoyance didn’t turn into a major headache, and I’m sure the police would prefer to deal with it this way than get a call to two neighbours slugging it out in the street over who parked where. :wink:

There is a feedback option on the website so I’ll drop them a note this evening to say thanks; hopefully they’ll pass it on to all concerned.

5

Even here in the US, the cops are fun to have around unless there is violence or an actual serious crime evolved. Then nobody leaves happy.

6

Well, if you had ended up hitting the car, the police may have wound up involved anyways. Also, I assure you, if the police were busy, the dispatcher would have sent them over later, and if something more important happened while they were out moving a car for you, they would have left to take care of it. I wouldn’t worry about it.

7

I’m outraged they didn’t taze pajama dude. Outraged!

8

Or at least shoot his dog.

9

I dunno, the cops taking down a really drunk guy at the Bon Jovi concert was fun. I got there when there were already a bunch of cops trying to get this guy in handcuffs so I don’t know what he did, but I am willing to bet it involved drunken violence.

In before saying three cops taking down a drunk guy at a concert is police brutality.

10

And if the cops had actually been busy, the dispatcher could have just given you the name/address from the cars’ license – then you could have knocked on that one correct door rather than the 50 doors on the block. But maybe privacy concerns would prevent them giving that out.

11

The owner should have been dragged out to the car, slammed prone and cuffed over the hood, and THEN tased while prone and cuffed. Then comes the lecture, and the appearance in court, and a suitable time in jail with at least 1 prison rape.

That’s Anerican justice!

12

Good thing this was in the UK then, huh?

13

Depends. For entertainment value, no.