From yesterday's local rag:
Mr Burgess has missed the point (Stop cycling, Letters, March 26). You wouldn't ridicule your
builder for not completing your garage if you'd refused to let him use bricks and mortar and he'd
got five others to build that day as well.
When I was a uniform policeman at the beginning of the 1980s, I dealt with 30 pavement cycling
youths in 90 minutes in total.
Anyone with a previous warning for anything went to court.
A good lesson to take into adulthood.
In 1984 the Police and Criminal Evidence Act arrived and dealing with one pavement cyclist now
became a saga spread over several meetings involving parents, solicitors and eating up several hours
of valuable time.
Add to that the explosion of crime due to heroin addiction and remember most crimes when merely
being recorded (never mind investigating) take a police officer off the street and inside to
record it.
If Mr Burgess genuinely wants positive change, he should write to those who control the rules and
tools affecting the police and that certainly is not the chief constable.
Mr Burgess will find getting any such changes much more difficult than making insinuations of
laziness against hard-working police officers.
Anyone can state the obvious but not many can provide workable alternatives.
Perhaps the time is right for a Royal Commission on policing so the public can decide what jobs they
want the police to deal with and what not.
All obviously in the time available.
G Harrison, Highfield Road, Beverley.
Original letter: I Have read, with a wry smile, all the letters over the years from readers
complaining against cycling on the pavement. Several years back I took up the challenge of trying
to have this stopped, but the chief constable did not even acknowledge my letter.
Cycling on the pavement is a crime. Spitting on the pavement is a crime, as is dropping litter,
parking on double yellow lines and hundreds of other acts, which are too numerous to mention, but
are anti-social and criminal.
Whose job is it to stop crime? Our invisible police force. Until we, the people, are allowed to
elect a chief constable and other officers, we have to make do with appointees.
To end with, I parody what was once a popular song: "Where have all the vicars gone?" Their job is
to be out there ministering to their flock.
I have never spoken to one outside a church and, as I do not attend church, I do not see a
clergyman. But then, they are also led by a bishop who, like the chief constable, is invisible.
P Burgess, St Frances Court, Hull.
--
Simon Mason Anlaby East Yorkshire. 53°44'N 0°26'W http://www.simonmason.karoo.net
Mr Burgess has missed the point (Stop cycling, Letters, March 26). You wouldn't ridicule your
builder for not completing your garage if you'd refused to let him use bricks and mortar and he'd
got five others to build that day as well.
When I was a uniform policeman at the beginning of the 1980s, I dealt with 30 pavement cycling
youths in 90 minutes in total.
Anyone with a previous warning for anything went to court.
A good lesson to take into adulthood.
In 1984 the Police and Criminal Evidence Act arrived and dealing with one pavement cyclist now
became a saga spread over several meetings involving parents, solicitors and eating up several hours
of valuable time.
Add to that the explosion of crime due to heroin addiction and remember most crimes when merely
being recorded (never mind investigating) take a police officer off the street and inside to
record it.
If Mr Burgess genuinely wants positive change, he should write to those who control the rules and
tools affecting the police and that certainly is not the chief constable.
Mr Burgess will find getting any such changes much more difficult than making insinuations of
laziness against hard-working police officers.
Anyone can state the obvious but not many can provide workable alternatives.
Perhaps the time is right for a Royal Commission on policing so the public can decide what jobs they
want the police to deal with and what not.
All obviously in the time available.
G Harrison, Highfield Road, Beverley.
Original letter: I Have read, with a wry smile, all the letters over the years from readers
complaining against cycling on the pavement. Several years back I took up the challenge of trying
to have this stopped, but the chief constable did not even acknowledge my letter.
Cycling on the pavement is a crime. Spitting on the pavement is a crime, as is dropping litter,
parking on double yellow lines and hundreds of other acts, which are too numerous to mention, but
are anti-social and criminal.
Whose job is it to stop crime? Our invisible police force. Until we, the people, are allowed to
elect a chief constable and other officers, we have to make do with appointees.
To end with, I parody what was once a popular song: "Where have all the vicars gone?" Their job is
to be out there ministering to their flock.
I have never spoken to one outside a church and, as I do not attend church, I do not see a
clergyman. But then, they are also led by a bishop who, like the chief constable, is invisible.
P Burgess, St Frances Court, Hull.
--
Simon Mason Anlaby East Yorkshire. 53°44'N 0°26'W http://www.simonmason.karoo.net
