Policeman as witness

In one of my previous posts I wrote about my colleague's view on why van drivers are bad drivers (see 'Professionals can not drive?).

In the same discussion he told me about his own experience when driving a van:

He had stopped at a red light, and he felt a thump, as if something had hit his van. He left the van to see what it was about. And quite right: a car had hit his rear. It had split its radiator, with cooling water running on the road. A young boy was sitting at the cars steering wheel. The only damage to the van was luckily just minor scratching of the back bumper chroming.

Another car stopped behind them, and a man rushed out shouting "I saw it all. I am a policeman". My colleague was gladly surprised: how often do you get a policeman to witness your accident for you.

But the man continued "I am the boy's father!", and my colleague lost his confidence in his star witness. The policeman kept on stressing that he was a policeman, in quite an aggressive style. And my colleague felt that he was being bullied: The boy's father aggressively repeating that he was a policeman, and that he had seen it all. - You know the style. Surely you do.

Yet my colleague politely expressed his content of having such a trustworthy witness, and did not yield to be intimidated. As the policeman finally realized that he was not going to succeed in pushing my colleague, he admitted his son's guilt and offered to have the van's back bumper re-chromed.

But my colleague no longer did agree; he demanded on having the bumper replaced: re-chroming can never be totally trusted, can it? So in the end the boy's insurance company paid my colleague the money for a factory new rear bumper.

I think we can forgive my colleague. After all policemen are obliged to behave in exemplary way even in their private lives.

Yet; wouldn't it have been delighting to hear the policeman's testimony in court: "Now, everybody knows that at least 2 or 3 cars can quite safely pass a red light. That is the common practice."

That by the way is the common practice in Finland. The leading national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat just recently wrote on article on the matter. You do remember that the Finnish police does not seem to be interested in controlling traffic. And it shows.

Police admits not doing their job

Just a few blogs back I wondered if the Finnish police are up to their tasks (see 'Professionals can not drive?'). The supposition was not without factual base: the police themselves have admitted not doing their job.


Some time ago during this summer or spring a police officer was interviewed on the radio. The reporter asked him if something could be done to clean up the traffic, that has grown to be rather reckless. He asked why do the policemen not stop the speedsters and other offensive rule breakers.

- But then we'd have to stop virtually everybody, the police officer replied.

So the police are well aware that the traffic culture has already grown out of control, but yet they seem to have no intention to do anything about it in their everyday work.


According to a recent newspaper writing one police officer has told the writer, that he is aware that some patrol units accept tasks only by the police radio. They do not react on incidents that they see in the traffic.

If the police are patrolling, but doing nothing, they are patrolling for nothing, and we are paying their salaries for nothing. When people have seen that the police do not care of anything, they have learned that they can drive as recklessly as they like. Traffic legislation no longer is valid in Finland; the Finnish police have in practice authorized the reckless driving.


If the police did do their job, they certainly would have to start it by stopping virtually everybody. Similarly if I did leave my job undone for a lengthy period, I'd simply have to do a hell lot of work to clear the piled up work to get back to normal work level. Sitting still like the police do, would only make the pile grow even higher.

So 'stopping virtually everybody' is exactly what the police should now do. We are paying them for doing their job, not for idling in their patrol cars or giving excuses for not doing their job.