Police caught driving dodgy motors
10:04am Saturday 17th May 2008
Police have been accused of driving vehicles illegally on Sussex roads.
A police van with no wing mirror and a marked car with an illegible number plate were spotted on the same day in Brighton city centre.
Eagle-eyed Argus reader Joe Parker took photographs of the vehicles on Tuesday.
The van was parked on Western Road outside the Primark store, while the car was parked across two pay and display bays at the Old Steine.
Mr Parker, 22, of New England Road, Brighton, said: ìThe van has no wing mirror and the car has an illegible rear registration plate.
ìUs average Joes get pulled over for a faulty brake light, and yet the police think they can abuse their authority and drive about with similar faults.
ìDriving a van with a missing wing mirror like that is dangerous, especially with no rear view mirror. What if a child was cycling beside them?
ìIt seems it is one rule for them and another for the rest of us.î Brighton and Hove City Councillor Ben Duncan, who is a member of the Sussex Police Authority, said: ìIf there are breaches of any law, even if it is just traffic regulations, then the culprits must be held to account.
ìWe simply cannot have a situation where people think police officers are above the law.î The row comes just weeks after police were criticised for parking in a disabled bay at a supermarket.
Officers parked in the bay at the Marks & Spencer store at Holmbush, Shoreham, despite several other free spaces being available on April 24.
Police said the vehicle was being used to collect a shoplifter who had been behaving violently towards shop staff.
Speaking about the latest case, Steve Percy, of the People's Parking Protest, said: ìThe main thing here is that these vehicles are not technically suitable for the road.
ìYou or I would get pulled over and probably handed a ticket.
ìAlso unless there was an emergency, in both of these incidents the vehicles should have been given a parking ticket.î A spokesman for Sussex police said: "The van in question is one of our prison vans and was one of only two that were available that day.
ìDue to the necessity to deal with prisoners it was decided that the need to utilise it outweighed the fact that one of its mirrors was damaged.
ìThe defect has since been rectified, and was done so within three days of the damage being reported. The vehicle was not in a sufficiently dangerous state to make it unroadworthy.
"The car is one of our response vehicles and was responding to an emergency call at Royal York Buildings where we had received a report of a theft in progress, with offenders still on scene."
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