Our hero
Mr.Plod comes in for a fair bit of stick, and quite a bit of it is well-deserved. But just occasionally he does something that's so simple and sensible we just have to hold our breath in admiration. At the moment we're turning blue in the face over the North Yorkshire and the Dyfed-Powys forces' failure to enforce the new legislation on booster car-seats for children under 12 or less than 4 feet 5 inches tall.
You see, Mr.Plod has been able to work out something that has completely eluded HM Government and the Health'n'Safety Nazis. As the North Yorkshire force have pointed out, it's the parent, not the child, who will be committing an offence if there is no booster-seat.
But to find out if the offence is being committed, it will be necessary to ask the child its date of birth, and measure it. So Mr.Plod will find himself in the invidious position of interviewing someone who cannot possibly be committing the offence in question because children under 12 do not, by and large, own cars. And, even worse, if the child is reluctant to get out of the car to be measured (and who would blame it?) Mr.Plod will have to remove it forcibly which is a gross infringement of the child's privacy and will probably involve a physical restraint amounting to assault.
There's also a Child Protection issue: while the policeman is removing the child from the car and measuring it, who is making sure that he isn't abusing it? This is a knotty problem - perhaps the officials at EasyJet could advise? They seem to know all about child abuse.
Of course the Health'n'Safety Nazis are hopping mad. Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at RoSPA (that's the Royal Society for Politically-correct Advice, I think) said: "Education is an important part of enforcement but ultimately the police do need to take action and use their enforcement powers." Well, bully for you, Kevin. If members of the public refuse to be "educated" - in other words, be told what to do by you - then you want the police to bloody well make 'em listen by stopping them at the roadside and roughing-up their kids. Nice.
Another spokesman for RoSPA has described the issue as "a matter of life and death", and the Department for Transport claims the new laws will save 2,000 injuries or deaths a year. I expect they're lying, though - statistics can be used to prove anything you want proved, can't they? We've seen other figures that show the measures will save just one (count them, that's ONE) death a year. Still, saving just one death a year, that's worth any amount of police time, isn't it? A little bit of child-bullying by the boys in blue, that's OK if it saves just one life a year? Children traumatised and never able to trust a policeman again, but that's OK so long as we save that one life? Despite the fact that the country is under siege from bearded lunatics with bombs, or that our jails are full to overflowing, that we don't know how many criminals have escaped from jail, that we keep letting them out and then losing them, that gangs of boys in Peckham are blowing each other away with guns left right and centre, it's police time well spent stopping cars with children in, just so long as it saves one life a year?
No, this is one time Mr.Plod has got it exactly right. Well done, Constable. Nice hat, by the way.
And exactly why do we need a Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents? We don't have a Royal Society for the Prevention of Unforeseen Illnesses, do we? Or a National Association for the Prevention of Being Bombed by Pigeon-shit, or a British Federation for the Prevention of Being Blown Up by Bearded Lunatics? Is there a League Against Unnecessary Wars in the Middle East?
So why Accidents in particular? Perhaps it's just to give unattached knowalls and Health'n'Safety Nazis somewhere to go. I mean, they can't have much of a social life, can they?
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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