Motoring
| Published date | 01 May 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6103400309 |
| Date | 01 May 1961 |
| Author | John Gott |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JOHN
GOTT,
M.B.E.,
G.M.
Chief Constable
of
Northamptonshire
Our Motoring Correspondent discusses the thorny problem
of
the
motorist's attitude towards the police and gives his impressions
of
a
large saloonfitted with a novelform
of
transmission.
Motoring
THE POLICE AND THE MOTORIST
Possibly as a result of the evidence given before the Royal Com-
mission on the Police, too much has recently been made in the Press
of the alleged deterioration in the previous good relationship between
the police and the public upon which successful policing must
ultimately depend.
Many attribute this to over-zealous attention by the police to
what are loosely described as "technical offences
",
i.e. parking
and what some drivers regard as
"reasonable"
excess speed.
These theorists quite fail to appreciate that to turn a
"blind
eye"
to the parking problem would eventually result in a congestion for
which they themselves, if caught up in it, would be the first to blame
the police, and that a
"reasonable"
excess speed depends very
much upon whether one is driving or attempting to cross the road.
On the other side of the picture, some policemen feel that motor-
ists, as a body, are rude, lazy, inconsiderate and selfish and
that
there is much more than a grain of truth in the famous Walt Disney
cartoon which so graphically shows how possession of a steering
wheel can change a courteous, considerate gentleman into a ravening
road-hog, who has no regard at all for the right of other road-users.
As ever, the truth lies midway between the two extreme points
of
view. Some policemen are unnecessarily zealous about trivial
offences which could better be dealt with by a word of caution.
Some motorists are rude and selfish. However, the vast majority
of
both policemen and motorists are only concerned with keeping
traffic flowing, without accidents and without friction on either side.
It
was therefore pleasant to hear such an experienced a motorist
as Mr. Wilfrid Andrews, chairman of the Royal Automobile Club,
tell the Commission that justified complaints of rudeness by the
police to motorists were rare and that most of them started by the
motorist being truculent and the police officer being truculent in
return.
May-June
1961 195
To continue reading
Request your trial