Shelley Marder's blog

Car Vs Tractor

I am currently up at Ashdown forest, Colemans hatch where there has been a collision between a car and a tractor. The weather up here is very foggy.
Both drivers are ok and only have very minor injuries which is very lucky considering the front axle of the tractor was ripped off and is laying at bottom of a steep ditch.
This a big reminder that it is so.important to slow down when.there is fog as you never know what is around the corner.
Please see photos.

Fri 2 Mar 10:37AM

Consequences of your own actions

Well it is the first week in February; this year is already flying past.

Already in 2012, we as East Sussex RPU have had 26 drink driving arrests, 1 person arrested for disqualified driving, 10 arrests for crime related offences and 3 arrests for other traffic related offences. Whilst it is good that we are out there arresting people, it is sad to see that the message about drink driving is still not getting home to some reckless and selfish people.

As the recession tightens peoples spending and with the weather getting colder over the next few weeks, I would expect more people will choose to ‘risk it’ and drive home rather then get a taxi, bus or walk.

But these people forget that we are out there patrolling the roads, in both marked and unmarked police vehicles and we WILL catch you.

I don’t think the people who choose to drive after drinking fully understand the potential consequences of their actions.

Just one drink can affect your ability to drive, slowing your reaction times to hazards with potentially catastrophic consequences. You could have an accident, damaging your vehicle and someone else’s property or in the most severe situations cause injury to another or even take their life. You might think you feel ok, but just imagining how you would feel if a drunk driver crashed and killed your loved one and then stood there and said ‘I only had the one, I felt fine’ is a sobering thought. Tragically, drink drivers also often kill or injure those closest to them, a guilty burden which must be hard to live with.

A question I often get asked by members of the pubic who I stop when they commit road traffic offences ‘Haven’t you got any thing better to do? Why aren’t you out there catching the murderers or rapists?’

Well the simple answer is “THIS IS MY JOB”; and I think drink drivers are important to catch as well. As Roads Policing Officers my colleagues and I have the task of attending and investigating fatal collisions, and informing relatives of those who have lost their lives on the roads of the death of their loved one. It is a harsh reality that although our vehicles are more sophisticated and our roads safer now than in previous years, more people die on the roads of Sussex than are killed in any other unnatural way, including murder. If I can prevent just one more family having to suffer that terrible loss, then I know that I am doing my job.

I stop people committing offences on the road. If you choose to put others in danger through drink or dangerous driving, you WILL be arrested and put before the court. I WILL seize your car from you if you have no insurance or licence. I see no reason why honest, law abiding people who pay for their road tax, MOT and insurance and who don’t drink and drive be penalised in their premiums for other people’s blatant disregard for others safety and the law.  

Both of the below links are examples of incidents dealt with by my RPU colleagues in Sussex. The first shows the extent some people will go to try and get out of the punishment but they will always get caught.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/20/ukcrime

The second link is the stark reality of what drink driving can do to you and those around you.

http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/local-news/drink_driver_died_after_car_ploughed_into_tree_1_3482120

Sat 4 Feb 10:01PM

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Well Christmas is over and a New Year is just about to start.

We have been very busy on RPU with the Christmas drink drive campaign; we have been conducting early morning, lunchtime and evening drink drive checks everyday which will continue up until 1^st January 2012.

So far 42 people have been arrested for drink driving, a high proportion of these drink drivers, were breathalysed in the morning and were still drunk from the night before.

This just shows that there are still people out there who have no regard for the law or other peoples safety, luckily only two of these arrests have been a result of an RTC, the others have been stopped and taken off of the road before they have hurt themselves or more importantly other people.

One of these early morning arrests, the driver was taking their partner to work and had their 1 year old child in the back.

We have brought out a new text number - 65999 where people can report drink drivers who are or are about to drive, with this direct information from the public we have been able to get to the driver and get them off of our roads quickly.

Please spread the new text number to friends and family, the more people know about it the more drink and drugged drivers we can get off of our roads.

Please just text in where the driver is, the registration number of the vehicle they are driving/about to drive and any other details that you can provide about the driver, and we will do the rest. You can stay anonymous if you wish but please do not hesitate to text or call us.

And just to leave you with a little note titled Dumbest drink driver yet -

A person was arrested for drink driving, taken to custody and when they had sobered up they were charged and bailed to court. As the person was ready to leave they called someone to come and collect them, after a short wait a car pulled up outside the police station. The officers thought the driver was drunk by the manor of their driving, so they breathalysed the driver and low and behold the driver was also drunk….what were they thinking???

Myself and everyone from RPU would like to wish all our readers a very

  Happy New Year

Fri 30 Dec 1:55PM

Pursuit - Hastings

I have just come back from my rest days after completing my first set of night shifts since coming back off of maternity leave a year ago.

I was really dreading the night shifts; I did not know how I would feel.

However my first night back could not have been more interesting.

I started at 2200 hours and went straight out on patrol, my crew partner for the shifts and I stopped and spoke to a few people driving but no tickets were issued only advice given.

We were called at about 0130 to travel over to Brighton so that we could respond to any RTC that may come anywhere in Sussex. This is because the Haywards Heath unit went over to Littlehampton to assist the Chichester Traffic unit with a potential fatal RTC.

Whilst we were in Brighton we dealt with a few minor traffic offences including a young male who decided that the 30mph limit didn’t apply to him and it was ok to speed along the road, whilst there were people walking out of pubs and clubs drunk.

At about 0315 hours, as we finished dealing with the young male, we heard an incident on the Hastings and Rother radio stating that a male had been seen by police to drive onto a forecourt in a rather suspicious manor, the officers approached the driver and upon speaking to him could smell alcohol on his breath, his eyes were really red and glazed and looked drunk. The officer asked him to take the keys out of the ignition and wanted him to provide a sample of breath in the roadside breath machine.

The driver did not like this idea, so put the keys back in the ignition and drove off followed closely by the officers.

The vehicle did not stop when the officers put their blue lights on and sirens, the driver continued to driver away from them albeit as safe speeds.

We immediately started to make our way over to Hastings, as we are roads policing officers we are trained to deal with vehicles that fail to stop for police and have equipment and tactic available to use to being the pursuit to a quick and safe stop.

Firearm units are also trained in these tactic and they made their way over from Lewes to assist us.

The officers behind the vehicle that was not stopping were excellent with their commentary, they provided precise locations and speed at all times and other local police units were able to join them.

The vehicle drove all around Hastings and then went to Winchelsea Beach. This gave us and the firearms unit time to get over to Hastings.

Because of the good commentary we knew exactly where the vehicle was and where they were likely to go.

My colleague and I set up the HOSTYDS (Stop Stick) in Icklesham. We made sure that there were no other members of public on the road at this time.

As luck would have it the driver decided that they were going to head back into Hastings and right into our set up.

As the vehicle approached me, I pulled the stop stick directly into the vehicles path and the vehicle drove straight over it piercing the front two tyres of the vehicle.

As the tyres deflated the vehicle slowed down we followed the vehicle for a short time whilst the firearms unit came over to Hastings.

They waited at the top of Guestling Hill and as we approached them they pulled out in front of the vehicle, we then attempted to box the vehicle in between us however the driver tried to go around the firearms car, we then pulled up along side the vehicle and gently pushed it to the side of the road where it stopped.

The 3x occupants of the vehicle were arrested, it turned out that the driver had stolen the car, he was a disqualified driver and he was drunk with no insurance.

The whole incident lasted 40 minutes, No-one was hurt and no property was damaged.  So all in all it was a good job.

The next 3 nights were not as exciting as that, but we did arrest two people for drink driving just after midnight just as the drink driving campaign started on Monday 14^th November.

Sun 20 Nov 2:47PM

what a week!!!

Well life on RPU has been interesting this week; we have dealt with a lot of different incidents but not all incidents are what they originally are reported. For example:

I attended an RTC on the A27 in Wilmington the report that came into police was that a vehicle had hit a lorry head on…….

This immediately got every traffic officer making to the area as this RTC sound very serious and could even be a fatal, the A27 is a single carriageway road subject to national speed limits, and it was dark, cold and wet.

When we arrived we were greeted with the following pictures:

Peugeot 206 cabriolets

Vauxhall Astra

It turned out that a vehicle had tried overtaking a lorry on a blind bend and hit another car almost head on.

As you can see the damage is very bad. Surely someone would have been seriously hurt.

But luckily the two drivers were out of the vehicles and standing at the side of the road talking and only seemed to have whiplash injuries.

The driver of the Astra will be investigated into they part in causing the accident, however I think that these two drivers were very very lucky to walk away it could have been much worse.

On another incident I attended an RTC that at first seemed a minor injury; an elderly couple had hit another car and had come to rest against a tree.

Local police officers attended the scene prior to me and everyone was out of the car and was talking to the officers.

I arrived shortly after and was holding the elderly drivers hand whilst he told me his name, the elderly male didn’t want to let go of my hand as it gave him great comfort as he was in a lot of pain as a result of the RTC. Even what the ambulance arrived he was reluctant to left go of me.

The elderly male was taken to the hospital however sadly he died the next day.

It was upsetting to know that he had died as he was a lovely man, but I feel some comfort that I was able to provide some form of comfort and reassurance to him at the scene when he needed it.

SO you never know what we will get when you attend a scene of an RTC….things are not always as first reported.

Earlier this week my colleague and I were travelling up the A22 towards Hailsham in a marked police car when a car came speeding around the roundabout and then drove up the A22 at speed pulling into the inside lane and then back to the outside lane, it was very strange driving, we though the driver might be drunk or drugged.

We stopped the vehicle in the Knock hatch entrance and spoke to the driver. The first thing the driver said to me, ‘I might as well admit it, I have just stolen the car’ I was shocked at his honesty, but then he went further in saying ‘I only have a provisional licence and no insurance’ I arrested him for theft of vehicle no licence and no insurance.

We found the owner of the car and returned the car back to them; they were over the moon as they had not realised that he had been stolen and that it was not damaged.

The driver admitted everything in interview and was charged to court. He was taken home two hours after arrest. It was one of the quickest incidents I had ever had, and the most honest criminal I had met.

He said that there was no point in hiding what he had done as we would have found out eventually and it would have drawn out the whole process and he wanted to get home for his dinner.

Tue 8 Nov 2:36PM

Who was watching us online?

Well I finished the live feed for Sussex Police People yesterday, it was an interesting experience!  

We received some good questions and I tried to answer as many as I could live on the night - visit the website for highlights. If I was unable to answer any of your questions or if you couldn’t ask a question on the night please feel free to tweet me at roadpol_east and I will answer it as soon as I can.  

Things were quite quiet on the live broadcast but each shift is totally different, on the live feed you saw me driving around looking for vehicles/drivers committing offences, however the next day we attended a fatal RTC 10 minutes after we started on shift.   So there is no telling what our shift will be like…

Keep reading this and I’ll be sure to share with you what I’m up to out there.

Mon 31 Oct 12:23PM

Hello and Welcome! Safer roads = safer sussex

This is my first blog post so forgive me if it needs some work, I’ll be updating this at least twice a month and I promise it will get better!

I’m a PC on the Road Policing Unit and being based in Polegate I can cover anywhere in East Sussex as part of my job. Where we go changes each day.

This blog was started because I’m taking part in Sussex Police People, it’s a way for Sussex Police to try and engage with the public and help people see the person behind the uniform. Hopefully that way you’ll better understand what we do and why we do what we do.

So why would I volunteer for this? Well because I love what I do and want people to see what it’s all about.I’ll try and share with you what I do each day so you can see what it is like to try and keep the roads free from crime so they’re safer for everyone!

Over the next few months I’ll try and put up pictures and videos to help you see what exactly I get up to as part of my job with the Sussex Road Policing Unit.

So keep watching and see what we’re about!

Thu 20 Oct 10:47AM