It's been a funny few days. As I've been saying we few PA's working here atm are not overly happy with the 'higher ups' not blatantly refusing to do anything about our safety, but certainly not making any noticeable effort either.This culminated on Friday with my colleague getting a right pasting from some drunken gits who claimed he'd ticketed their car. It all came out of the blue, as most asaults do, and was over fairly rapidly as the aggressors went back into the pub. My colleague had his sunglasses broken and a cut to the face as well as substantial bruising, but more than that it is the shock that does the damage. When all this was going on there was nothing he could do to get any help as the only 'aid' we have is a mobile phone.
Immediatley afterwards he phoned the police who took over 20 minutes to arrive - and that is another thing that really annoys us - we have called the police / ambulance for assaults on the public and they attend generally within 5 minutes, however whenever we call for help, they have never yet arrived in under 15 minutes which is far to late. Apparently we are lower on the ladder than a turd on the sole of a shoe - and that came from one of the police when we asked them why they took so long. This has all been reported to our bosses but nothing has ever been done about it as usual.
Anyway, by the time the police had finished questioning my colleague and gone to the pub, the assailants had either hidden themselves or got a pub full of cast iron alibis and, once again, no action will be taken. Suffice to say that feelings are running very hot now and there is talk about refusing to issue any more until some form of safety equipment is forthcoming.
On Saturday, 4 of us were patrolling, in pairs for safety and the day was fairly uneventful while also beeing gloriously warm, which at least made us feel ,to some degree, contented. I had no trouble from anyone at all, in fact I didn't see a single driver on the 14 I issued to, and only got a small amount of grief from the recipient of one of my colleagues PCN's.
Today however I was out on my own, and very very nervous. I had been told, unofficialy of course, by my Super to just stooge about a bit, get a ticket if it is safe, but generally stay out of harms way. So, when I drove past Gloucester Rd in the East area and saw about 15 cars all parked on the DYL there, I was left in a bit of a quandry. Common sense said get the hell out of there and pretend I'd not seen anything, but by then the competitor had woken up and was already parking the car. I was puzzled as to why these motors were there as I'd never seen a collection like that here before, but started issuing nevertheless. There were 3 BB's and I wound up ticketing 13 vehicles in about 20 minutes, again not seeing any drivers. As I drove off I noticed a small church hiding at the side of the road that I had'nt seen before, and standing outside it was a huge wedding party - Oh damn, damn and damn. Now I realised just what I'd issued to I really did feel guilty and accelerated away sharply to get back to the office.
Now. I know that petrol is damned expensive nowadays, but this still seems a bit extreme to me
1 comment:
I could have been much worse, it could have been a funeral. Think what a story that would have made.
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