Hello everyone, greetings from Durham Police. My name is PC 2056 John Lamb, and I’m a newly appointed beat officer very recently posted to Newton Aycliffe. Prior to this however I’ve been a front line response cop for many years, a good deal of which was spent in the town so I’m looking forward to being reacquainted with old haunts.
I had a few things planned for my first article in Newton News, however looking at the incident logs and the weather reports today (Wednesday 28th, as I write this prior to publication) the snow is of course causing a great deal of disruption. Based on my experience of the roads from a police officer’s point of view, whenever there’s bad weather the accidents increase markedly.
Please please increase your following distance behind other cars in bad weather – something as basic as dropping back by a few car lengths can save injury, bent metal and the nightmare of navigating a disputed insurance claim. As a general rule, a gap of around 3 seconds will suffice for most speeds (although you may wish to increase this in particularly bad weather). Try it, and see. You will notice you can still maintain the same speed, just with a far safer distance between you and the car in front.
And please make sure to clear all your windows of snow before driving off – it’s amazing how many cars we see driving about with mirrors and rear windows left untouched.
Hand in hand with the snow of course comes the thorny issue of anti-social behaviour, and what can be done about it.
In looking at some of the repeat problems on the town, I notice that on occasion people make use of off-road quads and motorcycles in public parkland and are then surprised when a ticket or warning notice results. Please be aware that there are places you can use recreational vehicles of all kinds, but it’s illegal and dangerous to use them on pavements or residential greenbelt.
Often police are criticised for taking action by owners describing the activity as harmless, but it’s important to bear in mind that a) quad bike collisions with pedestrians do happen, sometimes resulting in serious injury and b) its illegal, so when it’s reported to police we are directed to take action.
There’s really only a very small minority of people that use these vehicles anti-socially, but once police arrive social media comes alive with ‘police spoil harmless fun’ comments. It may seem harmless at the time, but if somebody was hurt the rider concerned would really which they’d left it in the garage.
We can all help each other with anti-social behaviour of all kinds, just by employing a little courtesy and thought. As we head towards the warmer weather, being observant and doing such things as taking a moment to look out of our windows as we close the curtains at night really can help keep our neighbourhoods safer.
If you see illegal activity taking place or behaviour that is likely to lead to such and require police assistance, please include as detailed a description of those responsible as you can. If they’ve run off, then please report in which direction. If you’d rather not have police officers arrive at your house and cause potential embarrassment, just tell the call operator and we won’t.
If you’d rather report something completely anonymously, then just explain this to the police control room and we won’t press you for who you are. And remember if it’s not an emergency then you’ll find the 101 number is just as quick to connect.
In closing, after speaking recently with the Newton News staff I’ve been listening to the very excellent Aycliffe Radio (the app for which is newly available). I understand the police will soon be recording some material for broadcast (not hugely pretentious ten minute guitar solos, don’t worry) which we will endeavour to make interesting and informative for all.
I’m very much looking forward to meeting people in town, but I’ve been asked by all of the Aycliffe beat team to thank you all for your continued support that we absolutely could not operate without.
Stay safe
John.
