eBay Terror Ambulances of DEATH menace UK - top cops In a move which would, three decades ago, have seen classic movie The Blues Brothers stillborn, British cops and officials are seeking to prevent private sales of ex-police and emergency services vehicles and uniforms. The Telegraph reports today that senior plods at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), allied with …
Er, wouldn't the 'taking the stripes and the flashing blue lights off it' gambit, which already happens suffice? As evinced by the white ex-police Astra driven by my dad, which has neither police insignia or lights. Neither did the rather elderly Bedford CF ex-ambulance that I used to use to go to festivals in. Although, to be fair, it was missing rather more significant items than flashing blue lights and natty stripes; chiefly a windscreen...
that the police apparently presume that anyone driving an ex-police car is a member of the police force.
Does this mean that I can get a Vauxhall Omega and gain access to any police station. Maybe I could get a Defender 130 and potter around Hereford's #1 army base.
The vulture? Because somebody needs to put these idiots down.
"*Always common practice when writing classified intel. Or at least it was back when your correspondent was compelled to read the monthly JTAC summaries and similar products, anyway."
Lewis,
Reminds one of the days of Jackanory and Romper Rooms, although you can be assured that things have moved on quite a bit from those early days/steep learning curves. They may have gone away, you know, but what was learnt, as opposed to what was being taught, hasn't gone away and is being actively built upon to Generate Greener and more Pleasant Lands.
The best thing about the newswire article was that each of the instances of Red Crescent ambulances being used for other purposes was done by people who worked for Red Crescent.
I'm waiting for the law that stops anyone from being an ambulance driving if they are a) muslim b) foreign c) a bit funny looking
That'll stop 'em.........
Mine's the one with "Throw rocks at the emergency services, they might be terrorists in disguise!" on the back.
...if they think that terrorists are just going to 'buy' ex-emergency services vehicles when they could steal one. How many fire engines are there out there being used as limos, or even legitimate private ambulances - or St.John Ambulances?
If stealing is a bit too naughty for your terrorist, and they're not sooo keen on the suicide part they could always buy one of these from our very own Ministry of DEFENCE for a mere £25k+VAT
http://www.edisposals.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Disposals-Public-Site/en_US/-/GBP/ViewProductDetail-Start;pgid=MieqQ4wkQg8000ArvQ_8K1sp0000lkRUhnGV?ProductUUID=PcHAqBEL2fAAAAEa9YzbFish&CatalogCategoryID=l2jAqBELYFwAAAD_F2Vpc4d5&JumpTo=OfferList
Why don't they just RFID Chip all authorised vehicles? Or use ANPR at Emergency scenes. Either of these would show up a false vehicle if the databases were up to date. It doesn't allow, however for the hijacking of a vehicle or for loss of control of registration plates and RFID tags... or for data base errors or infiltration or numberplate/tag swapping or any number of other "system failures".
How paranoid do "they" want "us" to become? Yes, there is a risk. There always has been and always will be as the article points out.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance but it becomes very time consuming to separate the genuine from false when our "Leaders" trot out such bilge in the form of "assessment". One day, even with constant vigilance, they'll get something past us and we'll be on our way to Germany '33 - or is that their aim?
Just put an RFID tag in any official vehicle (we are going to get one in any vehicle anyway), link it to a national database and automated retaliation equipment at critical intersections (any building with a CCTV, the ones that terrorists keep photographing especially in the summer, dressed with Hawaiian shirts and in group of 20s).
So any ex-ambulance for which the government made any cock-up in the database (no risk there) will be instantly destroyed.
At least it will reinforce public trust in a ID card scheme... once all those terrorists are destroyed, we'll be happy to have a chip implanted in our arms....
Of course that won't do anything against those laser carrying fanatics wiling to explode moisturiser at high altitude....
I'm a member of an organisation that delievers blood and other urgently needed medical supplies out of hours for the NHS. We rely on a supply of ex-police and ex-ambulance bikes for our use, as they come ready kitted with "Blues & Twos" ready for use. All we have to do is change the decals.
If this numpty's suggestion is made a paranoid reality, then we're screwed, as kitting the bikes out from scratch costs a small fortune - that is if they don't ban the purchase of the kit as well.
As an aside, anyone who remembers the "IRA Troubles" of the '70s must think this paranoia with "Muslim Extremists" as making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Perhaps it's just a way for certain members of certain organisations to keep themselves "gainfully" employed?
Am I being daft?
If I was of mind to blow up things/people using an ambulance as my means of transport...
I think I might have just stolen it, rather than bought it...
"It's a lav-ah-ly runner, just pop ya details on this 'ere V5 for me mate...
... Well thanks you very much Mr..er.. Deathtoalltheiffedels..."
Paris, 'cos I imagine she's had her fair share of policeman strip-o-grams..
I think someone has been playing a little too much GTA!
As any Top Gear watching fule knows, any car can be turned into something resembling a vehicule belonging to one of our fine racist camera hating officers. I regularly see what I think are police officers on the roads or in town only to find that they are traffic wombles or community support wombles. It's been so long since I saw a bobby that I am not sure if I would recognise one.
'lack of legislation' ? But there is clear legislation prohibiting impersonating a police officer.
These unelected, officious, politically-motivated gits will continue to demand more & more powers, that is the nature of unimpeded bureaucracies who have forgotten the moral basis of their existance, they grow like tumors.
Enough! Go catch some burglers & remember who you work for.
"is the lack of legislation available for the police service to adequately address the threat of pseudo-emergency service vehicles."
Methinks that despite their low IQs, the cops are finally realising that our government will seriously consider legislating against and criminalising just about any behaviour that they request.
Since when did impersonating a police officer cease to be adequate?
I imagine that within times gone past, a top cop could approach the home sec, and ask if they would be so kind as to pass a new law against whatever, as it would make their jobs so much easier, thanks very much. Only to be frequently told to piss off and get on with their jobs using the existing laws as they stood.
It seems to me that those kinds of responses haven't been as frequent as they once were, and that the Old Bill are only just waking up to this. I'm dreading what awful afront to personal liberty they're going to think of next...Once the ACPO have shared this new found enthusiasm for law making amoungst themselves I'm sure there's going to be all manner of requests heading to Jacqui Smith's inbox. Who knows, perhaps this is how she thinks she can assuage her guilt over stiffing them on back pay.
"Yes, sorry about the back pay and all that, it was out of my control, the chancellor point blank refused to pay it. Not my doing at all you see. How can I make it up to you then? Got any new laws you want passing? What? 42 days with out charge? I think I might be able to help you with that. Any thing else? Robot T-shirts, public photography, citizens disputing their rights with you? Oh yes, I think we do something about all those too."
Black Helicopter, 'cause I'm sure there will be one overhead shortly, now they know I've rumbled their ruse.
Why not ship all the politicians, plods, security twits etc. off to some place like St. Kilda. That way we could put the running of the country out to tender.
Seriously, we survived the IRA without all this stupidity, I can only assume that NuLabour thinks that by appearing to do something the wishful thinking will make it go away or they are following a stalinist agenda and are hoping we won't see it.
Their continual 'consultations' and 'reports' have only one purpose - money laundering on a grand scale at our expense. If they cut out all the useless paper pushing and 'jobs for the boys' they would have time and money to look at the cause and not the symptoms.
If somebody is driving an ex-police car, and assuming that he didn't steal it from a police officer, doesn't that mean that the POLICE have sold that car?
Not necessarily, to the person currently driving it, but they have surely sold it to SOMEBODY in order for it to be RE-sold.
The police have the necessary power to stop people reselling police vehicles on ebay or anywhere else for that matter -- they simply don't SELL the things when they reach the end of their intended life.
It would be difficult if the Chinese were making fake police cars ... but that's a different ebay story.
We know that all shoes must be checked on airplanes because a terrorist once used a shoe to conduct a (failed) attack.
We also know that terrorists have used official police/military uniforms while carrying out attacks.
Therefore, we must instigate mandatory and highly intrusive checks on all potential terror suspects - ie anyone wearing an official uniform.
Checkpoints, mandatory DNA id (something not currently required of UK police, interestingly), scanning equipment, civilians trained in strip searching, etc. All these must be put in place at any location that may be threatened or frequented by uniform bearers.
The legitimate uniform wearers have nothing to fear. Only those with something to hide need have fear.
When this is done, we can once more feel the gentle breeze of freedom upon our great land.
"... is every movie plot threat that I get a script for..."
He went on: "These Movie script writers have incredibly well developed imaginations. They invent threats where none really exists and generally make it so that EVERYTHING is a risk; thus we need to 'protect' EVERYTHING imaginable.
Admittedly, this requires a HUGE amount of resources that don't exist and stops us from concentrating on genuine threats - but so long as it increases our budgets and restricts the freedoms and increases the inconvenience to the proletariat, sorry, citizens, then we're all for it.
"The more things that we can get the people of this nation to FEAR, the easier they will be to control. We've got them fearing and grassing up photographers, anyone with a tan/beard, anyone with a transformers t-shirt, anyone with a t-shirt that mocks the fear-mongers (security/govt. establishment)... we've got the whole country on the run... They're accepting the need for 42-day detention, ID-cards, CCTV, ANPR, DNA Databases.
"I'm currently reading a new script about the danger of shadows..."
It's almost as if a request has gone out, "has anyone got any new laws for us to pass before we go into recess?". "Come on now, someone must need something?"
Police, "Er, how about one banning ex-police vehicles? They could be used to impersonate the police you know."
Does this mean the end of HATOs (Highways Agency Traffic Officers) in their ever-so-nearly police liveried 4x4s, sitting on roadside ramps and cruising round at 65mph, causing the poorly-informed and blurry-eyed motorist to stick to the 1967 vintage 'temporary' 70mph limit?
Nice to see resources pouring into the security FUD black hole.
You are more likely to be killed by one of Lembit Opik's asteroids.
It's about time Alex (Lord) Carlile crossed to NuLabour as he sounds less like a Lib Dem every day.
He supported the infamous "control orders" and extending the detention without charge legislation.
There is legislation for this already in ECE104 but I believe the Police have never attempted a prosecution.
ECE104 stops ANY vehicle from trying to look like a state emergency vehicle. This includes Private ambulances and private security firms but is never enforced.
Another case of failing to use a law that already exists and calling for another to appear in its place because it will magically cure all of lifes little problems.
ACPO and the Police in general will always be asking for new laws. Anything which makes things easier for them, regardless of what liberties it tramples over. The fact that the Blair, Brown partnership keeps giving it to them results in them asking for more and more ridiculous stuff.
The sooner we get these incompetent loons out of power the better.
No doubt this "loophole" will be closed with another "Christmas Tree" piece of legislation (where everyone gets to hang something on it, like the Serious and Organised Crim Act or the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act) and, under the guise of "protecting us" yet more liberties get whittled away.
Here's an idea for a new law:
"You can't have any new laws until you properly enforce the ones you already have".
If existing laws are not adequate, then they should be amended or repealed and replaced. As a citizen (or am I still a subject?) I have an obligation to know the law (as in 'ignorance is no defense'). Tell you what, we'll all potter down to the library (no wait, they closed it) and spend the next couple of years reading all the new legislation. In the meantime someone else can pay the tax bill.
I'm off to shoot a Scotsman in York (but he must be carrying a bow and arrow, otherwise apparently it isn't legal), go for a wee in a policeman's helmet (after all, equality works both ways these days. What do you mean I have to be pregnant, where's that European Court of Human Rights gone when you need it?) and name my pig Napoleon (can't do it France, thank goodness we won Waterloo!).
Perhaps we should start a protest day, when we all stick the Queen on upside down on our letters and send them to the Police. Safer than deliberately contracting the plague and flagging a taxi down, or at least until they hang us for treason.
I'm off to do my compulsory 2 hours longbow training. Might come in handy one day. V sign to all to indicate I have both my drawing fingers.
Hmm. No V sign icon. have to be Paris then.
"What concerns me," said Hampshire assistant chief constable Steve Watts, "is the lack of legislation available for the police service to adequately address the threat of pseudo-emergency service vehicles."
And what concerns me is that these "pseudo-emergency service vehicles" could be let through security cordons without proper checking because "oh, well, they're one of us, they must be ok..."!
Stop sign because...
If its so important to deny the terrorists these vehicles why don't they just destroy them when they have finished using them, rather than selling them on e bay. Oh I know why! Because money is more important than the reality of the 'perceived' (invented) threat. I would hazard a guess that more people die in accidents involving Police or other Emergency service vehicles than from 'terrorist' spectatculars. Perhaps they should just not buy liveried cars and drive around in unmarked cars all the time.
I guess that they are just looking for ways of spending the treasury windfall that arrived on the back of the rising price of oil via fuel taxes that are really extortion. After all, those nice custom ambulance bodies dont come cheap.
As for Police vehicles, umm... remove lights and livery and t-cut... suddenly you have a saleable civilian car... thus protecting the public purse from governmental waste like this.
"The wearing of large, commodious undergarments in which explosives could be secreted must be forbidden, with thongs compulsory for everyone except authorised government employees wearing special ID badges"
"Project Bareback" is well on its way, with "Project Stripdown" not far behind. ("The Puppet Masters". Go read it. Now.)
About 6 months back an acquaintance of mine was stopped driving his 38 year old police car to a film shoot and accused of attempting to impersonate a police officer despite the fact that it had a custom made bobble hat over the blue light and didn't show any "POLICE" markings anywhere. I suppose the chrome bell was the giveaway...... he was attired in a T-shirt and shorts....
Years ago a motorcycling magazine (BSH, I think) carried an article about a man (IIRC, white male in his 40's who ran a successful business, so not the type to go out and cause grief for folks) who had been arrested and had his bike "confiscated" because it had a white fairing to which the foolish gent had added hi-viz yellow stripes, and he wore one of those vile yellow vest things to make sure he stood out against the local scenery - the idea being that even the most dim-witted, unobservant, Daily Mail-reading cage (car) driver would see him coming and not convert him to a new variety of Shippam's paste.
All well and good until some overzealous "public servant" in police blue decided the guy was extracting the urine and impersonating a policeman... And the best part of this 'tale of woe' is that it was about the time the Government started thinking (semi)seriously about requiring all motorcyclists to have fairings with dayglo stripes and wear those sodding vests whether they wanted to or not... (which they seem to have forgotten, thank God!)
Mine's the one borrowed from Dave Glover
When I did my Direct Access motorcycle training my instructor rode a white BMW with fluorescent stripes, dark jacket, hi-viz vest and a white helmet.
At one point we'd stopped in a side road when a Police car came racing by with lights and sirens going. Just as they went past there was a quick "toot toot" salute from the Coppers' horn...!
Mine's the one with the built in back protector, shoulder and elbow pads because I don't trust cagers to look where they're going...
My sister's late father in law was a PoW in WWII. As a PoW he had time on his hands, and by steady scrounging/theft got the materials needed to make a replica uniform of a senior German officer.
He and another prisoner executed a very simple escape: he, dressed as a senior German officer, frog marched this prisoner out of the camp and, at each guard point, shouted in his perfect German at the sentry that if they didn't open this gate NOW then they would be in big, big trouble. OK, they were picked up a few miles outside the camp and he somehow blagged their way out of being shot for trying to escape, but the point holds: the trappings of authority can result in remarkable gullibility, as with the Milgram experiment.
However, the fix is not to withold used ambulances, it's to properly brief the people who grant access to controlled areas.
Quote "As for Police vehicles, umm... remove lights and livery and t-cut... suddenly you have a saleable civilian car... thus protecting the public purse from governmental waste like this."
Lets face it, the BiB have even started buying their cars in silver, as they don't look like ex plod when sold on, and hence have a higher re-sale value.
Can't have it both ways guys!
My father was once Head of Traffic Division for a medium sized police force. They auctioned their old cars off regularly and jolly good bargains they were too. Before they went to auction, and under his instruction, all badges, lights, sirens, dayglo stripes etc were removed. End of problem - the result is one ratther scruffy white car......
This used to be common practice.
Might I suggest then that the root of this problem (if it is one at all) lies with poor control, bone idleness, and general incompetance from the very people whining about 'threats'?
'How did Mr Deathtoinfidels obtain a police car?'
'We sold it to him, M'lud'
The mind boggles.........
Around here (near Collier's Wood tube) is the studio for 'The Bill', and you often see their "Police" cars driving around.
They drive around with a nice small strip of black tape crossing out the word 'Police'. I think if Terrorists agree to do the same then there's no reason we can't sell them old police cars.
Jolyon
Well thanks for sharing that news with Al and his Quaeda*- now we have to be vigilant against terrorists impersonating the Bill impersonating the Bill.
*What is a Quaeda anyway - I had an idea it was a jazz quartet plus yodeller but I went to look it up on Wikipaedia and all I could find was lots of stuff about elevationally challenged salesmen with no clothes on being the only true believers/devil worshipping infidels.
I don't remember any of this nonsense coming out when the IRA was blowing things up every month. Detention of people without charge was brought in and then removed because it was counter-productive. Hmmm
Yet with just one successful attack in the UK muslim terrorists are causing the Government to come up with ever more ingenious ways to keep us under the thumb and scared sh!tless.
I notice one difference, parliament is now stuffed with people with law degrees (hence all the stupid laws) but never really made it as a barrister. 20-30 years ago most of MPs had held down a proper job before becoming an MP and one would presume had more than an ounce of common sense.
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