The Baroness' story reminded me of this
Some time ago I was caught doing 48 miles an hour in a 30mph limit road. It was sunny, clear and dry.

I went to court rather than pay the fixed penalty (I quite like the argument with things like this, in court you can put your side across properly - this was one of the few times I went to court and didn't come away a victor).

My argument being that I was taking a pregnant woman to hospital - which was true; she give birth less than 2 hours after dropping her off!

However, they simply scoffed at the idea, so I argued that if an officer of the law thought that I was putting people in danger, then instead of simply taking my photograph, he should have stopped me - public safety being part of his remit - and by not doing so was complicit and perhaps even aided me in the crime. They didn't go much on the second argument either, and gave me 4 points.

At that point I offered twice as much as the fine in return for a clean licence, as "We are all aware that it's for raising revenue, so let's cut to the chase...". They didn't go much on that either, preferring to maintain the illusion that the limits are there for safety rather than for dosh. Long story, cut short, I refused to hand over my licence and eventually had it 'revoked' for a year (meaning I could still drive??? WTF??).

I still maintain that I was right. If I'd gone on to run a kid down or similar, then the copper, having seen me break the law and doing nothing about it apart from taking my photograph, is surely as much to blame through dereliction of duty.
(dchurch bah, Thu 29 Apr 2010, 7:52, 2 replies)

See now, if your dad was a local councillor you totally could have got away with this.
AND the copper would have had to come make an apology.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 29 Apr 2010, 8:42, closed)

Quite!
You'd think that mitigating circumstances would be taken into account...but then I suppose the power of the lure of dosh instead overtook.

Some common sense might have been applied in this case - the woman needed to get to hospital, I could prove the time that she had the baby by the birth cert. and she would have been a whitness to swear that I drove her to the hospital, but no, they simply were not interested.
(dchurch bah, Thu 29 Apr 2010, 9:23, closed)