A Lack of Respect

I was alerted to the existence of this story from Big Brother Watch. What I learnt is that a gentleman in Grimsby has been fined £175 and ordered to pay £250 costs after being found guilty of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of her duties. So, what did Mr Thompson do that led to him gaining a criminal record? Well he flashed his headlights to warn oncoming motorists of a mobile speed hand gun.


Now, forgive me for being naive but I thought that the point of a speed trap in any form was to encourage drivers to slow down. I think that Mr. Thompson’s actions were made with the same intent. So how can he be considered to have been ‘wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of her duties’?

As a mathematician I am aware that a proof using Reduction Ad Absurdum means that an absurd consequence implies that the original hypothesis must be false. I have an absurd consequence, namely that Mr. Thompson as obstructing the police officer when he intended to effect the same outcome. Thus my hypothesis that a speed trap exists to reduce speed must be false. This leaves me to conclude that the only reason that the police officer was there was to capture speeding drivers in order to gain revenue.

There was a time when I used to have respect for policeman; I wonder when I lost it?