This fella's got an 11 year sentence for killing 2 cyclists when he was driving stoned
Stoned driver who mowed down two cyclists jailed for their deaths
We're about due for something similar in Brixton - a lot of people think it's normal and 'cool' to drive stoned. One of my neighbours ran me over when he was high.
The street which joins mine to the main road is all of 30 yards wrong, but 10 pedestrians were run over in a 9 month period. (That's just the ones who reported it, which doesn't include me.) The council's remedy is to make the street one way. No talk of extra policing.
When people do get pulled over around here, it's become quite common for the driver to lock the doors and sit tight. It sometimes works because a crowd gathers and the Police have to give up or get major reinforcements. In the cases I saw, they gave up on one occasion (on the street where I and the other 10 people were run over) and on the other occasion 9 police cars attended and the officers very carefully got into the car, trussed up the driver with lots of sets of straps, and removed him. It took about 40 minutes.
Everybody knows this is an option now. It's probably a better gamble than just giving in, knowing you'll be banned. It's also become normal to drive through red lights here. Either they don't stop, or they stop for a few seconds, wait for gap in the pedestrians. and just push through. If there's no traffic light camera, which there hardly ever is, they think it's fine. I usually step into the road when the light's red, and challenge them to stop or run me over. They always look amazed. One guy only just missed my toes last year so I slapped the roof of his car. He went nuts. Wanted to fight me. But the security guards in Superdrug came out and stood behind me. I'll probably end up getting a pasting from some fucker.
There was a survey in the papers the other day, but I can't find it...something about 3 out of 4 drivers thinking they can do what they want without being caught. And that's the way it is. Hardly any traffic police doing stops. Their numbers in the Met have been cut a lot. Nearly all the motorcycle cops have been put on VIP protection because of terrorism. You actually have to leave London to see a motorbike cop doing traffic work. The ones in cars are busy either investigating fatal crashes or using ANPR to catch thieves or the 2 million drivers in the UK without insurance, many of whom have no licence either.