Police

I thought a suitable colour for this page, like fixed penalty tickets and like the police themselves would, appropriately, be yellow.

Before anybody asks what the police have done to me personally, let me make plain that I have been driving 25 years and I have a clean licence.

I am also a firm believer in road safety.

If however you are from foreign parts let us remember that the days of the village bobby are gone. When you are dealing with the police today in Skye, England, or any other part of the UK you are dealing with individuals who have the mentality and morality of a computer.

On Skye, traffic policing, is, if anything, probably more enthusiastic than it is in the cities.

There is very little crime on Skye and the police have to do something to justify their existence. Inevitably, this means that there is a certain degree of zeal when it comes to traffic policing. You will find radar and the breathalyser on Skye in just the same way that you will find it in any other part of this country. The beauty and the remoteness of the island will not provide any refuge for those who want to get piddled and put lives at risk, and it is right that there should be enforcement.

I have no objection to speed limit enforcement in circumstances is where it is done openly and sensibly. Unfortunately, in the United Kingdom, this is rarely the case these days. I often get the feeling that the government policy towards death on the roads is rather similar to the government policy on death by smoking. Is the idea to stop it or is the idea to get a rake-off from those participating in it?

My point is simply this. Suppose you have a fast road on the outskirts of the town. Near the town there is a school and (rightly) a speed limit. Perhaps in the past there has been a road accident involving a child from the school. Surely the idea therefore is to keep the speed limit low and to make sure people obey it.

It would seem to me that the best way to do this will be to have a very large sign some distance before the school saying, "There is a speed limit, a school, and a speed trap a short distance in front of you. If you don't slow down to 30 miles an hour, you will certainly be prosecuted." Shortly further down the road there should be a speed camera, with film in it, painted fluorescent red, and with fairy lights all round it.

Is this what happens? No. The camera is usually painted in battleship grey camouflage and hidden behind something else. We live in the age of the sneak, the unmarked car and the hidden camera. The idea is to hope that the motorist will not reduce speed but a little bit of money will be made out of his indiscretion.

This is of no assistance to the child injured by the speeding car.

I do not believe that speed cameras were introduced to free police officers for other duties. It seems to me that cameras were introduced because they did not require a either a salary or a pension.

If speed cameras have released police officers for other duties then we have not seen a terrific impact on crime in this country.

It seems to me that the people we are paying to fight crime, and make the country safe for our children to live in, have been reduced to a bunch of uniformed revenue collectors while the real criminals go about relatively unobstructed.

I don't know of fixed cameras on Skye, but the radar is often about near Portree, Broadford and occasionally Skeabost amongst other places. So beware.

If you want to educate yourself about UK speed traps then I strongly recommend the Speedtrap Bible website.

Here endeth the epistle

One law for them and one for us: North Yorkshire, England- a police car parks on the footpath and in contravention of a no waiting restriction in order to set up a speed trap.

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