FURTHER to the saga of sirens and their decibellic extremes, (Guardian, September 16), I read recently in a popular daily paper, a report that police may possibly spend only six hours of a 40-hour week on actual patrol.
A disproportionate part of the rest of their time we may safely assume is spent in satisfying bureaucratic lunacy.
To quote rank and file police leads, ‘officers now do more fire brigade policing, racing from one incident to another, with no time to patrol.’ It does not need a great stretch of the imagination to realise that a vehicle already out on patrol may be halfway to its eventual destination already, thereby decreasing the need for traffic warning sounds, but increasing efficiency.
Policing has always been a difficult job, fraught with many pitfalls, both for patrols and superior officers.
I can’t help feeling that many of these potential hazards are created by ill-conceived legislation, especially so by a remote Brussels dictatorship, which our Government can only rubber-stamp.
ANTHONY KITCHEN Castle
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