This week my local paper, the Courier, reported an 'initiative' which uses civilian volunteers to help catch speeding motorists. The idea may soon be used in Cupar, a small county town in Fife.
A Community Speedwatch Initiative, which allows residents to use handheld radar guns and pass information to police in a move which has been welcomed in other parts of the UK, has led to concern about vigilante activity.
In other places where the scheme has been tried, apparently mainly in England, volunteers are trained by police and they work in pairs in speed limit areas.
If the scheme is adopted it will run during the simmer months of July, August and September.
Why just during summer? Will the poor Righteous get cold and wet during the other months of the year? I was discussing this with friends last night and even the most Righteous of them was against the idea of civilians doing work which taxpayers expect to be done by professionals. The main objection was that some volunteers could work to their own agendas.
Who's to say that traffic police don't work to their own agendas? Nevertheless, if this initiative was adopted in this area, it would get short shrift by all accounts.
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