Good ride with everyone from The Ace Cafe to Chelsea Bridge, until we found out Adam H had a bit of a coming together with a stationary vehicle. No harm to either party, some broken plastic and dented metal, I’m sure Adam will explain it in more detail if he sees fit… Bad luck fella.
Then a good ride from Chelsea Bridge to Soho, which was packed, mainly due to some inconsiderate car-drivers using up a lot of the lower end of Frith Street, forcing bikers to park round the corner. When a space became available in Frith St, Smiled did what anyone would do and paddled his bike around the corner, to a space next to me which was JUST inside Frith St (one-way remember), when some up-his-own-arse officer (this is no reflection on the service, but this guy and his female cohort were complete tossers, the opposite of what a friendly bobby should be) decided to collar Smiled and tell him to come back round the corner, where he proceeded to give him a ticket for going up the wrong way of the road!!!
Obviously this got a lot of attention and the cops were surrounded by bikers protesting at the complete unfairness of it and the harshness of the way they went about it. I have no idea what sort of training this copper got, but he didn’t go to the place where normal cops get taught how to be nice and get results from people by talking to them, not just getting your notebook out and writing out the strongest ticket you can for absolutely no bloody reason!
I am livid about this!! Smiled is the nicest guy you can meet down Soho, so why does he deserve to be treated like some serial offender?? Well, there’s talk of a court appearance, I don’t know what that’s about, but with CCTV footage showing his engine wasn’t engaged, he at no time used the power of his bike to move, instead paddling his bike all of about 15-20ft max, it’ll get thrown out, and then there’s all the witnesses who saw it and the completely unecessary heavy-handed approach.
Then I got an ear-full by his collegue who seemed to have some serious attitude problem, despite them being addressed in a civil and polite manner. These two came straight out of the university for rude buggers.
I’m sorry if this offends, but it REALLY wound me up. No wonder they lose respect when they run around like Gestapo members and think that just ticketing people somehow gets results and respect. Argh! This annoys me more because we clearly know a number of very nice people who work in the force who have the balance of civility and appropriate response. It is bad for them as these idiots actions and attitudes can only reflect on the good work theyr’e doing. It makes my blood boil to think we’re heading straight on to be a nanny state where the human element is lost in justice & order.
Smiled, I’m gutted for you, you of all people don’t deserve to be treated like a piece of dirt!
it’ll T-CUT out!!
… Hmmm (scratches chin) Don’t suppose even said points-scoring, career-climbing, over-excitable (read forthcoming emotional pysch-evalution failure) would have crossed, or been allowed to cross that line … if people had!