Police ploy?
Yesterday I went to my cousin's Silver Wedding celebrations at a hotel just outside York, a good opportunity to catch up with family members, not just my cousin and uncle but also my brother, sister-in law, niece, her husband, and their children. Nice friendly celebration but slightly spoiled by the loud and almost continuous music which made conversation difficult especially if you, like me, listened to the Who at high volume during your formative years.
Anyhow, since![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust and I were driving back to Durham after the event, I had agreed to drive my brother and sister-in-law back to their holiday cottage. On a country road just outside Easingwold we were stopped by the police who said they had checked my registration number with the DVLA and the information had come back that the car wasn't taxed. This was news to me as I had coughed up the requisite £115 last November and renewed the tax via the internet. It was a moment's work for the police officer to check the tax disk and she didn't look very closely to see if it was a forgery. She told me that about 50% of the time the computer got it wrong. She then asked me where I had been that evening.
I told her we had been to a silver wedding celebration and she asked me if I had been drinking. I told her that I had had a pint of beer at the start of the evening and had then switched to Kaliber (a non-alcoholic lager). She then told me that as I had told her I had been drinking they would have to breathalyse me, which they proceeded to do. I confidently expected to be under the limit but was very pleasantly surprised that the reading came up as 000. (I had finished my pint about 2½ hours previously.) We then went on our way.
As we drove off my brother suggested that the line about not being taxed was a ploy to enable them to do, in effect, random stop-and-searches. What do you think?
Anyhow, since
shewhomust and I were driving back to Durham after the event, I had agreed to drive my brother and sister-in-law back to their holiday cottage. On a country road just outside Easingwold we were stopped by the police who said they had checked my registration number with the DVLA and the information had come back that the car wasn't taxed. This was news to me as I had coughed up the requisite £115 last November and renewed the tax via the internet. It was a moment's work for the police officer to check the tax disk and she didn't look very closely to see if it was a forgery. She told me that about 50% of the time the computer got it wrong. She then asked me where I had been that evening.I told her we had been to a silver wedding celebration and she asked me if I had been drinking. I told her that I had had a pint of beer at the start of the evening and had then switched to Kaliber (a non-alcoholic lager). She then told me that as I had told her I had been drinking they would have to breathalyse me, which they proceeded to do. I confidently expected to be under the limit but was very pleasantly surprised that the reading came up as 000. (I had finished my pint about 2½ hours previously.) We then went on our way.
As we drove off my brother suggested that the line about not being taxed was a ploy to enable them to do, in effect, random stop-and-searches. What do you think?