[Richard]

JayCeeDee wrote:

Ed P wrote:

When I had a small role in anti-terrorist planning our main objective was to persuade any attacker not to hit our important areas, and try to persuade them to look for apparently softer targets elsewhere (preferably ones that were actually well defended, low value or belonged to our competitors).

That sounds very similar, in style and substance and intent, to what I was told regarding home security, by a Home Beat Officer. The most important aspect is the F*ck-it Factor. If they look at your property and think, “F*ck it, there’s an easier target somewhere else.” and leave, you’ve accomplished your goal.

—–

I absolutely agree, ‘pass along nothing doing here’.

[Richard]

I can assure you that it was not any sort of body representing French Tax inspectors, Political interests, accountancy buffs or any of the many other special interest groups. The details were very technical and deeply buried, which is handy as I shredded all notes long ago and cannot go down into them from memory these days.

I am not going to be drawn on search parameters, except to say that mine were supplied by a chain that had no more than a very few steps and was derived from very active investigations. It was nothing like the mismanaged infoslime that I would despise leaking from the likes of RIPA, etc. going rogue was not an option. To be fair neither was issuing warrants with wrong details either which is another ‘well documented feature’ of our present (non) system.

Still enough of looking for rabbet holes down which to fall, I believe that secret services need to be secret and that investigations need to be secret until there is a clear justification for publication. The recent money wasting follies over celebrity witch hunts and other equally crippling transgressions give me more than enough reason to consider public disclosure before verified evidence is found cannot be allowed. Hertfordshire police (the county where I live, thanks guys and women) have paid out £60,000 over one such folly yet the victim is still stuck where he should never have been placed – sadly he is not alone. All because of a stupid, unchecked typing error, the sort anyone of us could fall victim to. Travesty of justice or what?

[Richard]

JayCeeDee wrote:

When you have “Amateur Hour” ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, instant amateur radicals become their public face and willing resource, and they can be anybody. Literally. Having lived through the IRA bombing campaign in London, giving blood for the victims of the Old Bailey attack, shutting the business down for hours on end with bomb scares and explosions in Kensington, Steve’s right. Get on with life, feel sorrow for the victims, but move on. If we let them disrupt our lives, they are half way to their goal because we let them. If any of this post seems at all blasé, it isn’t meant to be.

I do not think your post was in anyway blasé. I hope you did not think I was in any way disagreeing with Steve.

I was also in London for part of that time.Though never involved in anyway in any aspects of an aftermath.

I applaud your efforts and should only offer you thanks for doing what you could at the time

The best monument to the fallen is to continue with life, at the rest of repeating myself it is not to play loop tapes that heighten fear.

[Richard]

Why everyone and their dog has too much access here I will never know.

Though not being related to any UK police I possible have less to worry about.

I am not going to say how or why I had an involvement, I will say that access was ‘very limited’.

There needs to be a balance, and controls, after yesterday’s fiasco had I been in position I would have been expecting to be ‘busy’ , at the beck and call of authorised others, in my long ago role. I would and neither would any of the small group involved have wanted every unfocused prat and their dog getting into their pet theories. Neither would I or anyone else have wanted to take minutes, let alone hours or days ‘asking someone nicely’.

The French attitude to data was ‘interesting’. I was at one meeting that spent several hours discussing and agreeing something. The following day the French delegation leapt to their feet, they had been given strict orders to stop the agreement as it would have limited a department’s actions.

[Richard]

Sorry Steve, I pretty much agree with you on this one. The ‘news’ coverage was more or less a few sound bites on loop tape. The greatest damage was almost certainly done by the wild speculation aided by the constant repetition. OK some nutter showed he was nuts. He was known and sadly not stopped in time, hopefully his friends and fellow travellers will be ‘taken out of service’. That is all there is to the matter.

Tear jerking interviews with the friends and family of those killed or injured are what the nut jobs hope to produce to stir up fear, their greatest friend is fear. My hope is that those families get quite dignity and support not publicly used, (abused) as adverts for the depraved.

[Richard]

About the only separators that can be easily installed and removed are those either concrete, or water filled plastic barriers. Others, e.g. bollards do need potentially difficult civil works especially on bridges where service tend to fill the pavement substrate. There are still considerable cost and logistics issues with them. Are there enough spares waiting at the moment and how long would it take to put them in place. As it will apparently be a long term need the barriers could be made a feature and be planted out with suitable trees and plants assuming a suitable design of barrier was made available.

[Richard]

Speculation is always dangerous, many if not all ‘lone wolves’ have turned out to be ‘loners’ with consequent mental health issues, often made worse by their worship a the alter of drugs and drink not religion. Some based overseas in their once ‘safe’ hideaways rejoice at the killings and maiming, and claim the perpetrator as one of their own, I have real doubts that the loners had any real basis for their misguided actions.

To assign, race, religion or anything else except a life of as a failed criminal to the one in the Paris attack would be wrong. I do not speculate about the London attack though I await with interest news of their background.

I hope that the car was not hijacked ‘with prejudice’ to the owner.

If there was any good news, my fears about a hijacking were unfounded so at least one or more casualty did not happen.

[Richard]

Steve, I think you know the type of ‘operator’ I meant. An honest trader does none of the things I listed and does have their name and contact details for all to see. They want contacts as contacts lead to more business

The sort I referred to does not want any contacts or follow up. They are the fleecers and rip off merchants.

Richard

[Richard]

Remember that Putin is a failed KGB officer, he does not need a RIPA or an IPA. There are only two sides you are with him or you do not matter. Above all do not get noticed or you will be dead as many corpses can attest in very many places, including London.

In a past life I often used to machine scan hundreds of thousands of records, perhaps millions looking for perhaps one or two that matched certain criteria. Only that subset was ever examined; it was more like ANPR checking for markers ,though not in real time and long before ANPR ever existed.

It is salient and perhaps salutary to remember that we have been subjected to bombs and other unfriendly actions in the past, but for the moment other targets across the waters are being preferred due to their softer profile. Even Germany is hardening its efforts, while some of the other recent targets are trying to close the critical structural gaps in their capabilities, e.g. France which, while an assiduous data gatherer after its recent history during the Algerian ‘episode’, has known ‘administrative’ issues due to having a number of different parties handling matters.

The very recent prohibition on electronic devices is a reminder that threats do not lay down and wither they simply change, though this is not the first time that electronic devices have been a vector for mischief.

Another very different closed user group to which I belong, reviewed and discussed some material that was not restricted, though it is only available after effort in disparate forms and locations. The discussion was ‘noted’ as I feel it should have been.

[Richard]

After some comments here I started to think about a few rules of the road as practised by very many people.

1. The indicator rule, If you have a faulty indicator bulb use the indicator on the other side to cover up the problem. Use it at all times whichever direction you want to go.
2. Roundabout rules. This gets complex. One local town has built a number of roundabouts with multiple entry lanes dedicated to different exit directions. Generally left lane goes left, right lane turns right and centre lane goes straight on. To assist there is usually one exit lane from the roundabout. The roundabouts are also provided with three lanes and this is where the fun starts. Reps, builders, office workers, and mums with kids and even some truck drivers will not only use any of the three lanes as though they own them, they also believe that three lanes will go into one exit. The constant sounds of tortured tyres and motor horns must keep the locals on their toes and awake.
3. While I hate the drivers who only use the left lane on a roundabout whichever outlet they want, they can usually be spotted in advance, so avoiding action can be taken. This covers, some elderly folk, drivers of any age who are lost and simply dithering round, mums with kids who like the nearside lane ’cause its safer’ and so on. Age is no badge for this stupidity.
4. Then there is the rep. They always use the right hand lane wherever they are heading and will always make their left turns almost too late requiring them to cut across however many lanes of traffic they carve up. This applies equally to roundabouts, dual carriageways and even motorways. Any complaints about their manoeuvring are always ‘the fault of the other jerks who should have got out of their way’.
5. .Speed limits are only set to confuse rather than inform. Some think they indicate the maximum permitted speed in good visibility with dry road surfaces,. Others mainly reps, delivery vans and rip off builder types with unroadworthy transit pickups regard them as minimum sustained speed settings to be exceeded at all times. The clapped out ‘builders’ transits are only used until  caught and being unregistered to the driver they do not care who sees them. In this case they are often ‘in transit’ to illegally dump rubbish or getting away as fast as possible from a ‘drop’. Fog, rain, ice or snow make no different to their speeds, though trees and other road hazards , e.g slower moving vehicles often apply the emergency brakes on such machines and very quickly. It appears to be located at the front of the vehicle behind the bumper (if any) and only takes effect when the vehicle get distorted.

Anyone recognise any of the above ‘players’?

[Richard]

Bob, while I agree with you and much of my stuff is one line in items such as this. However, there are moves afoot, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/21/home_office_admits_its_preparing_to_accept_eu_ruling_on_surveillance/

Nothing set in stone yet, while I am happy to see some wings clipped, everyone and their dog, plus the flees on the dog and the cat for good measure should go, I will not draw out the agony any more than that.

[Richard]

PlaneMan wrote:

And car transporters seemingly abandoned in the road for hours at a time which block one lane of 2 main roads. And people ask me why I have a helmet camera!

Ah yes, car transporters.

A few days ago there was a really static traffic jam on the main road. So much so that I received phone calls and went to investigate. A long, non articulated car transporter was trying to get into and out of a drive that faced onto the main road. Now this road has 1 lane going north/1 lane going south. The truck had several feet of its back end in the front ‘yard’ of the house, with its front wheel on the 3 foot high grass bank on the other side of the road. He must have done a 100 point turn to get in and out – in the middle of the evening peek traffic time. That last bit was not  hard, it starts about 17:15 and ends about 19:50, it was longer that evening. Interestingly today, about a week later, the police were visiting the place. Initially a police car with all flashing lights was parked across their drive, half in and half out of the entrance, more congestion. Later on when I came back from picking up my daughter the front ‘yard’ space, (it is not a drive or a garden) was full of cars many of them marked police cars and another police car was parked in a side road. Someone appeared to be being ‘processed’ in the front garden.

[Richard]

JayCeeDee wrote:

it seems to have taken 5 1/2 years to confirm the theory and implement it!! .

Only 5 1/2 years? Were they taking speed or something else in the office coffee?

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

There are more types of speed trap than you can shake a stick at. See the drop down ‘Types of Speed Traps’ on this LINK. Beware especially of the ‘grey poles’ Truvelo’ which is shown on the link.. I personally have no issue with speed traps as such except in two cases: a) Inappropriate speed limits. This works both ways. I’d like to see more 20mph zones around schools etc, but I also think there is a strong case for increasing motorway speeds. b) When inappropriate speed limits are used for gathering revenue.

I am not suggesting for a moment that speed limits should not be enforced, in some cases enforcement should be increased. I am well out of favour with deliberate false trails and hidden traps for no real purpose other than trapping. If the reason for a limit is clear, so also should the means of enforcing the limit to ensure adherence. There are some roadworks nearby with a ‘worker’s safety limit’ of 30 mph, however the number of mainly trucks but also a few cars that want to go well over the limit is ‘surprising’. One even crossed the double white lines to pass several cars in a batch, completely on the wrong side of a three lane road. The road is downhill on the single lane, side but double lane on the uphill stretch to allow a crawler lane for heavy vehicles. I would favour a damned big camera right there.

Sneaky cameras on a bridge are not enforcing a limit, they are tax gatherers.

Edit,

I should have added that the two lane parts of the M11 near Bishops Stortford are bing made single lane for trucks due to their habit of travelling for miles while using a 1 or 2 mph differential for one to overtake another.

[Richard]

I was doing one of my regular runs over a bridge across the M11 the other day. The bridge has a wide concrete apron on one side, almost as though it was planned for a wider road. I often see vans parked there with the driver having some sort of break. This time there was an obvious road awareness van parked there, the sort with no real marking, but small windows at the top of the rear doors. What caught my eye was a bundles of wires coming out and going to three tripods with what looked rather like three DSLR cameras facing over the railings down toward the motorway. I assume they were speed trapping or at the very least looking for lane discipline problems, but now wonder f it might have been just counting passing traffic. Anyone  have any other ideas?

Edited, typos

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

They tend to be a LOT more strict on the so-called ‘Smart’ average speed sections as it obviously is not a minor incursion when overtaking, but a more deliberate attempt to push the limits. Do a 78 indicated average over a section and the cameras WILL give you a ticket (always assuming the cameras are in service).

I am not so sure that they even give that much tolerance for an average speed section. In the past, on  long sections some had the sneaky habit of putting an instant speed camera in place to catch those who blasted past any vehicles slowed up by e.g. hills. I am not sure if that is the case now. I believe that the average speed cameras on the M25 take the attitude that averaging the posted speed suggests you might have exceeded it somewhere along the line so anything over earns you a letter and a cost. So 41 or 42 ‘might’ be OK in a posted 40 and so on for other posted speeds, but after that it is all automatic action. I do understand the theory born of studies, surging traffic is a problem in congested areas and the M25 used to be terrible for that problem. One minute you might all be cruising along at 50 in heavy traffic. The next you would all try to stop down to 15 as something went slightly wrong, ahead. Minutes later, if no one bumped into anyone you might be on the move again and back up to 45 to 50. at a constant 40 or 50 flow would be smoother and more traffic could pass.

This came into focus when a suspect bridge , (back when box section bridges started to fall down*) had a a low speed limit posted. Due to the increased vehicle density the static load more than doubled. However, the dynamic loads were very substantially reduced as heavy trucks were no longer bouncing about at speed.

*The cause of the failures was found and corrected, Existing bridges were inspected and found not to suffer the defects during construction that had caused the failures.

[Richard]

JayCeeDee wrote:

I’ve just come back from a trip to Milton Keynes and back for the BiL’s 60th. Like you, Bob, I set the CC to speed limit + 5 – 10%. The only problem there is every time you have to brake, like for lorries limited to 60, trying to overtake a lorry doing 58!! Then you have to get back up to speed and I found myself inadvertently close to 85. The point at which a warning becomes a nicking.:( Your style of driving sounds very familiar!!

You succeeded in getting into and out of Milton Keynes? What a godawful place that is to visit. Terrible road layouts and when we went there for a wedding almost every road appeared to be closed or subject to diversions. At one point we were diverted out onto what felt like c or d class country roads. What an improvement that was as we were able to find a road to sanity once more.

I will never again visit the place that navigation forgot.

[Richard]

In a way we were in an easy situation. Everything went in a container except the clothes, baby clothes prams and a few other basics. We were taking our old home from Japan to our older home in the UK last time we moved and everything had to be packed up. Shipping did not take too long but we had a slight issue with the size of the old house which we bought twenty years earlier as just two people. Now we were four and kids have huge amounts of ‘stuff’. A change of venue slightly complicated the issue so the container had to be stored for a few weeks. but the house was purchased and all came through and that was 25 years back. We are still finding things that were ‘put away in a cupboard’ in the rush to get sorted.

[Richard]

I do not know when you last went round the M25 but round from the M11 to the Dartford crossing it has several many lane sections so you need your wits about you or you can end up being shot off to Chelmsford. From about 14:30 onwards it can start to get busy and Fridays used to be hell on stationary wheels after about 15:00 hours. VFM is right watch the space front and back if traffic gets heavy, the queue down to the M25 can get a bit hairy with tired long distance drivers, many of whom are keen to get back to their ‘home’ mainland. They do not always watch out for stopping traffic and of course they also sit on the wrong side of the cab, but I guess that is the case in many parts of the country now-a-days. When the road is clear it is a fine bit of road in good weather, I have often been up to Cambridge (and Duxford as well). My daughter works in the big hospital there and travels up the M11 on many Sundays when the trains are total crap. Her husband takes her up and then come back before returning again in the evening as she does not have a license due to ‘medical issues’ – now resolved. She starts maternity leave in the next few days so that is one set of journeys that will take a rest, no one will cry about that.

[Richard]

I have only moved a few times in this country, a few more than that overseas. Having packers do what is needed and moving the goods is far the easiest and least stressful way to go. I have helped my daughter a couple of times. That was more hard work than going from Japan to here.

[Author]

Posts