Safe Speed issued the following PR at 03:50 this morning:
PR148: Another ton-up police chief hypocrite
News: for immediate release
According to news reports, the Chief Constable of Derbyshire, David
Coleman was being chauffeur driven at 97mph when stopped by Police on
the M1 recently.
Chief Constable Coleman is know for his "anti-speeding" stance and
59,000 speeding tickets were issued in his area last year.
Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign commented:
"This is rank hypocrisy, and he's not the first. Assistant Chief
Constable Steve Thomas was caught and Harriet Harman, the solicitor
General was similarly caught. Perhaps the most famous of all was the
(then) home secretary Jack Straw. When are these people going to
preach what they practice and admit that 100mph on a motorway in good
conditions isn't necessarily dangerous?"
Paul continues: "Road safety cannot be reduced to a simple matter of
vehicle speed. It's more about consideration, courtesy, and matching
speed to conditions. While we've been concentrating on numerical speed
road safety results have stalled, culminating in a wholly
unprecedented rise in the fatal accident rate last year. We must get
back to the road safety policies that gave us the safest roads in the
world as soon as possible."
<ends>
Notes for editors
==================
News reports regarding the latest incident:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4027545.stm
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3781314