That does not surprise me in the least! We are always led to believe that speed traps are not there to fleece money from unsuspecting motorists and yet their cloak and dagger actions speak volumes. Yet another example of hard working taxpayers money wasted away and West Mercia’s ineffective policing.

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Dear Mr Cox

I can understand your frustrations, but let me provide you will some facts, because you have clearly not carried out any correct research.

1.CSO’s are not paid anywhere near £25,000, more like £16 plus overtime.

2.You state, that he is paid by mine and your money, as a public servant who do you expect him to be paid by?????????

3.CSO’s DO NOT act as a “Decoy”

4. Local communities ASK for a clampdown on speeding within the areas they live, so i suggest that this has happened.

5. If you were not speeding (as you suggested) what is your problem with catching law breakers that do. Or do you condone people that do speed?

6. As you have stated CSO’s are serving the public, and in this case it appears that they were trying to prevent speeding. Which as we all know is a contributing factor to road traffic collisions. So with that, they were protecting the public…

7. Officers who operate speed guns DO NOT legally have to make themselves visible, whilst carrying out any speed checks..

I hope you have become a little more educated before firing off inaccurate letters..
Oh and by the way, i am NOT a CSO!!

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Mr Factual
“6. As you have stated CSO’s are serving the public, and in this case it appears that they were trying to prevent speeding. Which as we all know is a contributing factor to road traffic collisions. So with that, they were protecting the public… ”

Interesting Comment
So are you saying it needs 2 officers to man/set-up a speed trap ? (because it doesn’t)
Also i’m sure anybody who has had their car broken into or their house burgled will be pleased to hear that you beleive this is an example of an efficient use of manpower

I’d Agree Speeding drivers are a problem BUT they are also a soft & easy target
Real Criminals are not…

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RGA Dave:

Better get curtain twitching then if that is your belief!

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if the police want to catch drivers commiting crimes maybe they should do something about the idiots who dont know how to use a roundabout or the ‘hot-hatch / sports’ drivers who have no idea what lines in the road indicate and drive the wrong way. The money should be spent on more police ‘Patrolling’ the streets not hiding behind bushes or using CSO’s who dont have any powers of arrest. or maybe heaven for bid, cameras that monitor junctions and pick up the offenders.

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Maybe , if they want traffic to slow down, they should have a pretty girl in a bikini stood at the side of the road, probably cheaper and more effective than a CSO..any offers, Lucy?

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Brian2 you have been playing too many RPG games:-)

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EXPLORER:

May i suggest you follow the link below. As stated before the RESIDENTS and local community have brought speeding to the attention of its local meetings. So the police are acting on behalf of the residents.

http://www.westmercia.police.uk/localpolicing/shropshire/oswestry_rural_south/index.htm

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I dont really understand why camera’s are out on display, if you drive within the law it shouldnt matter where a camera is or who is holding it! Problem with this country, everyone wants change, as long as it doesnt affect YOU! And, arn’t CSO’s basically people waiting/trying to join the police when intakes start so in the meantime they earn a very small wage gaining experience?

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Mr Factual

Interesting Link

Your going away from the original posters concerns though
Which was the need to use a CSO as a ‘helper’ to the police officer or a ‘Distraction’ to the Motorist
If your saying that crime in the area is that Low that the CSO didn’t have anything to do
then good for the folks in that area

However not everybody is that lucky..

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I still struggle to see why people want to drive on the road but complain about the police attempting to keep them safe.
of course it takes more than one officer to deal with speeding drivers – one to operate the gun and another to stop the driver WHO HAS BEEN COMMITTING AN OFFENCE – hence why they were on opposite sides of the road from each other.

i am sure the officers involved would have much rather been out ‘catching burglars; but unfortunatley when people insist on BREAKING THE LAW by speeding the police are duty bound to repond to it, and as shown by someone previously they were responding to community concerns.
If you could see the officer putting the speed gun down then im assuming that at the very least his/her upper half was exposed and im assuming he/she was also wearing a flourescent jacket – they wouldnt win any games at hide and seek, probably because they were not hiding- they were standing a safe distance from the road so as not to be mown done by SPEEDING DRIVERS.

as for catching ‘real criminals’ – do they not speed? im sure there are many examples of a ‘real criminals’ being caught when pulled over for speeding.

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Speeding drivers are “real criminals”. If you break the speed limit you should be punished and the more drivers fined for doing this the better. I bet the person who wrote this letter would demand the police outside their house catching speeders if they lived near a fast road.

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They are doing their job! If they spent all their time catching ‘burglars’ people would complain about speeding and poor driving and if they concentrated on the latter then people would complain that they should be out catching burglars. I am very sure the officer vary’s his work so that he does a bit of both plus all the other things police have responsibility for. Yes, Miss H – obviously criminals do use cars and I doubt they have any insurance, MOT or speed awareness so quite likely they often manage to catch the burglar by stopping him for driving offences in the first place. Get a life Mr Cox – I’m sure you would be the first one to complain if you collided with a speeding burglar with no insurance!

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Dear Mr Cox,

I can see from what you have wrote that you must be frustrated. Obviously you didn’t see the article in the Shropshire Star a few weeks ago stating that two local policing officers would be doing speed enforcement in the surrounding villages of Oswestry.

Also from reading your article I see you feel it’s a waste of time having CSO’s as you called them ‘jokers’. I live local to Oswestry and whether I’m in the town centre or in the village I live I can honestly say that I always see a CSO and they are always very polite and friendly and nothing every seems a problem for them to deal with.

In my opinion it’s great to know we have CSO’s in Oswestry that can be called upon without it being a problem.

If you look on the West Mercia website you will see all the information you need to know about a CSO and actually see how much they do get paid.

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What on earth is wrong with you people. Speed kills and all the cso was doing was helping a regular pc carry out safety checks. You need to go to the scene of an accident where an innocent child has been killed by a speeding motorist. If you don`t speed…..and i doubt that very much….then what have you got to moan about. They are doing the job they are paid to do. If you don`t like it then move somewhere else. As for us being very close to an iron curtain state…you have obviously never lived outside the uk. Please get your facts right before mouthing of.

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These officers would be better off sorting the anti social behaviour out at Dolgoch.
We have no local Police Officer and the estate is out of control!!

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Thank you Miss H and Mr FACTUAL

It does seem that some people tend to believe whatever they want to believe.

Regarding the comment from EXPLORER:
“Also i’m sure anybody who has had their car broken into or their house burgled will be pleased to hear that you beleive this is an example of an efficient use of manpower”

I’m sure if you ask anybody who has had a loved one killed by a speeding motorist (i think we all know the statistics) what their priorities are for police time, their answer will be very different from house burglaries and car damage.

As for the CSO being used as a “decoy”
firstly, i’m sure you know as well as i do how many people get caught by fixed, bright yellow, visible speed cameras and they don’t need a “decoy”. Why should a police officer on the side of the road need one, at the very least you coult look at it as a warning of police in the area!

Secondly, those guns work from over 1km away (feel free to look it up) and they would know you were speeding before you even saw them!

I know it has already been said but if you are not breaking the law then why should you be worried about any “underhand techniques” used to catch criminals.

I hope i have helped to reaffirm your confidence in the police!

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Who cares cso are policeing on the cheap we could have another police officer instead of 2 cso both over seen by one bobbie who in turn is not doing what he/she is paid to do which is get out there and police . The police asked for less paper work so they can get out there and police but many are now used to over see cso who in my opinion even at the low 16k wage is still to much they are basicaly security guards ie £6.00 ph max is sufficiant for their role and they could be commanded by a civi worker .

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And here we go again ….. “speed” strikes again on the S/star forums ….

ISN’T it INTERESTING that..

EVERYTIME there is an article about “speeding”, the forum always gets extremly busy, and overheated with wild statements like “speed kills”, and “if you’re not breaking the law, you have nothing to fear etc etc.

So it’s obviously an emotive subject

However

It seems to me that a lot of the commets weem to come from ill-informed people who seem to want to blame “speed” for everything.

And as a consequence, there is always very little comment on any other aspects of driving that are more often the REAL cause of accidents.

Two police officers, CSO’s or whoever they are, operating a speed gun or such other speed measuring device is doing precious little to promote safer driving overall.

So….

Can we please have some intelligent comments, please, rather than just bleating “speed kills”.

Speed by itself doesn’t kill.

However …. A vehicle being driven at ANY speed, (other than zero) by an incompetent driver, or a driver that is not paying proper attention etc, IS likely to be involved in a incident, and THAT scenario is NOT going to be detected, or solved, by the use of speed cameras

After driving for 44 years, and over 800,000 miles without incident, I really do despair.

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Now the above is funny .

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Jeff….

in #40 .. where you say

“I would rather be hit at 30 than 40 any day”

With respect …Is really simplistic nonsense.

A vehicle or a pedestrian doesn’t:

“come out of nowhere” and collide with, or get hit by, an “unguided missile” travelling at “x” MPH or x- “y” Mph (where “y” = the reduction, or effect upon speed by late or panic braking)

Such events are ALWAYS preceded by a fairly predicatable set of circumstances which are succesfully avoided more by observation, and less by curtailment of actual *speed.

(*True – it may be argued that a slower speed gives more time to observe, but the REAL essence here is in the QUALITY of driving AND observation. – AND – by speed, I do NOT mean “excess speed” – which is an ENTIRELY different matter)

The hallmark of an experienced driver is:
“NOTHING should come as a surprise”

And so the scenario where ” I would rather be hit at x mph rather than x-y Mph should NEVER occur, as an impending hazard, such as:

The “child” being hit (in the advertisement shown recently), wouldn’t happen since the hazard would have been spotted, and avoiding action being taken in the first place.

The experienced driver will have aready noticed all the *signs showing such an event being likely to occur.

*Signs such as: The ice cream van, the school entrance, the time of day (is the school open?) , the ball rolling into the road, the mothers talking to each other on the roadside not taking any notice of what their children are up to, The group of guys on the one side of the road chatting up the young girls on the other side The list is endless…. Look at any manual on advanced driving.

As I say …

Let’s have some intelligent comments ?

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The soft body road user does tend to come off rather worse than the car driver at 20, 30 or 40 mph so let’s hope that it isn’t a gaggle of daddys chatting and not watching their offspring when a driver who thinks he/she knows more than the law comes speeding by.

BTW, Brian2 the idea of the pretty girl in a bikini has other merits,surely it means one less lady driver on the road!

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Suellsn Fowler.

A really excellent post, suellan.

Especially:

“Road users should keep to speed limits but …… the police should also not be fostering this attitude that all car drivers are blatantly flounting the law of the road”

Nice to see some intelligent responses at last!

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[Road users should keep to speed limits but …… the police should also not be fostering this attitude that all car drivers are blatantly flounting the law of the road”] ???

The police deal with the realities of cars v people and the consensus of their experience over decades has led to the situation we have today,far more cars but safer roads than in the 1960s/70s.
To maintain and improve on this rules are laid down. The police are not interested in the ego led motorist who is such a brilliant driver he can go faster than anyone else is allowed to.
They know accidents and what causes them are far more complicated than that and readers of the future in crystal balls do not actually exist.

Shops do not consider all their customers are thieves but they still employ CCTV, security tags, guards and psychology to deter or catch those that do break the law.

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I didn’t think that CSO’s did real criminal work, just noisey neighbours and that sort of thing.

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Sorry Tory Boy, but under EU Health and Safety Law you can’t have hangmen going up scaffolds without safety rails and proper training to work at heights, plus you would also have to train those being executed to the same standard in case they had an accident and hurt themselves (and sued the state for compensation) on the way to the hangman’s noose. The reality of bringing back hanging makes it impracticable.

You really just don’t think these things through do you?

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