More car v foot

Apologies, my research isn't quite as thorough as I thought. Pc Bloggs over at Blandmore posted on this issue a while ago (Blogger posting isn't let me put hyperlinks in at the moment for some reason- click on Bloggs's link to the right and its the "Celebrations Are In Order" post in the November archive) and there has been quite a response.

Bloggs I think people weren't too happy with yours because you fairly comprehensively dismiss the calls for Pc's on the beat! Correct me if I'm wrong, heh thats another advantage of blogging, you can tell a skipper he's talking crap without fear of red pen in pocketbooks.

Anyway. My point was that from a response point of view Pc's on foot are next to useless. However, from a preventative point of view in a very small geographical area, they are considerably more effective than a car. I've seen it myself. Scroties see a marked car coming and dive out of the way, and hide behind walls etc until job car has trundled past. They are quite happy that the chances of job car returning there are slim- that street has been patrolled now and they won't be back for a while- so they carry on with their crafty joints and cans of spray paint.

However, stick someone out on foot and makes a heck of a difference. They know that PC Shankpony isn't going to blat off to somewhere else, and that they can't make a deal of noise as Constable Shankpony isn't insulated by steel and glass, and will hear their shouting and their moped revving (Oh how I hate mopeds. Even in Nicetown where I reside I find myself glaring hatefully at a moped driven by anything with a hoodie.)

My biggest whinge is that because response teams are response teams, I have to put people in the cars first, and to be honest I usually expect them to stay in the cars. I barely have enough officers to crew the cars, so any benefit of foot patrol is, for my part of Suburbia, just theory.