Photo: Facebook screenshot
After watching this video, we've come to the following conclusion: British police officers holding their hands in their pockets are more intimidating than an American policeman pulling the gun out.
As you probably know, police officers in the UK are not armed with any kind of weapon. Well, that is if you don't consider inhuman levels of self-restraint to qualify as a weapon. And after listening to this encounter, and to the way the driver got madder and madder as the dialogue went on, you might begin to.
In case you're wondering why there happened to be a man filming everything right from the start, the answer is because this was part of a British police reality show. Does that mean it was staged? It's always a possibility, but if that were the case, male actors shouldn't bother showing up at the next Oscars because this "fella" already got it.
It all starts when the driver is pulled over for what the officers saw as careless driving. To be perfectly honest with the guy, it was probably seeing an old red sports car with the sunroof open that first got their attention - this type of vehicles surely has to deal with plenty of prejudice.
The man is accused of misusing his horn by sounding it at the cars in front of him at a roundabout that were being "extra cautious." The man did not agree with the officer's interpretation. Then comes the second charge: he was deemed to drive dangerously close to the car in front of him. Again, he's not convinced and asks to see the recording.
All hell breaks loose the moment the officer says he is reporting him for "the consideration of prosecuting for the offenses of careless driving and misuse of the horn." The man steps out of the vehicle and starts arguing with the officers on a not so friendly tone.
You have to feel for the guy a little. If he genuinely felt he had been wrong done, he was in the position where he couldn't really do anything about it before going to court. And that's frustrating. There you were, on your way home, when all of the sudden your plans for the upcoming months changed. Now, you have to go to court and defend yourself.
There's also that feeling of injustice - sure, maybe you shouldn't have honked at the other cars, and maybe you did drive a little too close to the car in front, but so do thousands of other people each day. How about sending them to court? What difference does it make if you fine one man per day, when a hundred more likely bad drivers take their license at the same time?
But this just goes to show you the amount of abuse (deserved or not, it's irrelevant) these people in high-visibility jackets can take while also keeping in mind at all times what they're there for: to enforce the law and prevent the situation from escalating.
We also invite you to count the number of times this would have turned into a violent arrest had it happened in the U.S. We're not saying the British approach is better, we just say it produces much longer videos.
In case you're wondering why there happened to be a man filming everything right from the start, the answer is because this was part of a British police reality show. Does that mean it was staged? It's always a possibility, but if that were the case, male actors shouldn't bother showing up at the next Oscars because this "fella" already got it.
It all starts when the driver is pulled over for what the officers saw as careless driving. To be perfectly honest with the guy, it was probably seeing an old red sports car with the sunroof open that first got their attention - this type of vehicles surely has to deal with plenty of prejudice.
The man is accused of misusing his horn by sounding it at the cars in front of him at a roundabout that were being "extra cautious." The man did not agree with the officer's interpretation. Then comes the second charge: he was deemed to drive dangerously close to the car in front of him. Again, he's not convinced and asks to see the recording.
All hell breaks loose the moment the officer says he is reporting him for "the consideration of prosecuting for the offenses of careless driving and misuse of the horn." The man steps out of the vehicle and starts arguing with the officers on a not so friendly tone.
You have to feel for the guy a little. If he genuinely felt he had been wrong done, he was in the position where he couldn't really do anything about it before going to court. And that's frustrating. There you were, on your way home, when all of the sudden your plans for the upcoming months changed. Now, you have to go to court and defend yourself.
There's also that feeling of injustice - sure, maybe you shouldn't have honked at the other cars, and maybe you did drive a little too close to the car in front, but so do thousands of other people each day. How about sending them to court? What difference does it make if you fine one man per day, when a hundred more likely bad drivers take their license at the same time?
But this just goes to show you the amount of abuse (deserved or not, it's irrelevant) these people in high-visibility jackets can take while also keeping in mind at all times what they're there for: to enforce the law and prevent the situation from escalating.
We also invite you to count the number of times this would have turned into a violent arrest had it happened in the U.S. We're not saying the British approach is better, we just say it produces much longer videos.
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