Cops initiating a Blue Light run before chasing a potential suspect?

[Josh]

(2012-04-25 06:21)Chuck Wrote:  

(2012-04-24 21:44)Josh Wrote:  A blue light run (on TC) is more of a practise run for blue light driving, without !siren.

Woh woh wait a minute: Is there a secret guild which may ignore clearly defined rules or does "blue light run" mean "driving like a civilian car" these days? 0o

What? Blue Light Runs, by this I mean VCU 'driver training' run, not just driving with lights and sirens, have been discussed several times over the last couple of years and agreed upon.

Quote:Also, that reminds me strongly to this thread ( members area, just a month old), which was just abandoned by everyone. http://forum.city-driving.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=2464

The general outcome was the same as it's ever been - To catch up with a suspect, you may use strobes and audio siren, but no visual siren.

As for the time limit of doing this, it's down to common sense as I've said, you can't set what the maximum amount of time will be as it differs with every situation. Obviously 5 minutes is way too much for pretty much 99% of cases, but 30 seconds (for example) may be fine for one suspect, but not long enough for another.

[◄Chuck►]

(2012-04-25 14:38)Josh Wrote:  What? Blue Light Runs, by this I mean VCU 'driver training' run, not just driving with lights and sirens, have been discussed several times over the last couple of years and agreed upon.

Now its getting amusing. VCU is TC only. People around here are certainly aware of TCs recruitment procedure, practical tests etc. So why would a TC need "training runs" on the server

[Josh]

This has already been covered much more than once in the past. I'll post the reason we started/allowed it in the thread in members for you.

[McGherkin]

(2012-04-25 09:29)Bez Wrote:  Just to make things clear. Aren't Med's allowed to blue light run as well? As Med's dont have a list of rules yet what they are or aren't allowed to do its a bit confusing. Iv'e been told by many of people Meds can use audible siren + strobe when going to a scene and when attending the scene only strobe. That they are allowed to do blue light runs. Me and lewis do them all the time and no one says anything. I understand people don't have to move out the way for us, but its just roleplay.

This was commonplace, someone asked if it was OK, and everyone said it was OK, even admins said they did it, and then Chuck turned up and said that this was rubbish and has never been allowed... long and short we're still waiting on a decision on what can and can't be used as a MED. So personally I just do what I always did which is sirens and strobes but no priority over other traffic.

This blue light thing is new to me. Sirens and strobes would kinda make sense, but since I only ever use !chase to turn on the visual sirens, they wouldn't go on until I've caught up. But you'd still need to break the speed limit to get them in range, so +1 for lights and sirens. (but what if you don't catch up?)

[Stevo]

penis

Administrator Message by: josh

need I say what the warning is for?

[McGherkin]

Are you drunk?

[◄Chuck►]

(2012-04-25 23:16)McGherkin Wrote:  This was commonplace, someone asked if it was OK, and everyone said it was OK, even admins said they did it, and then Chuck turned up and said that this was rubbish and has never been allowed... long and short we're still waiting on a decision on what can and can't be used as a MED. So personally I just do what I always did which is sirens and strobes but no priority over other traffic.

The point was, it was never really allowed by the rules. Someone wrote a med-guide (cant remember the author) and wrote using horn#5 would be ok. I said "stop", you can't simply write a guide which clearly contradicts a rule, I mean its not an official paper, someone just made that one up. What if the next one comes and makes a crashing guide saying ramming is ok? Furthermore, that guide was lost along with the last forum, so it isn't even longer existent. So in that special case, would it mean all the guide once said is automatically revoked because the document is lost?
You can see it cant work out that way. Several admins could follow my reasoning, probably not everybody. However, I don't care at all how it actually is, but then it should be written in the rules, where it is accessible for everyone. Same goes for the actual subject of this thread btw.

[McGherkin]

That person was Mr.NB, a TC member. The guide simply explained the generally understood rules which were already (unofficially) in place, and used widely on the server, both by admin and normal users

[[TC] Brad]

Agreed, it should be clearly defined in the rules. Obviously common sense will have to prevail in the execution of it, for example how long you are allowed to "catch-up" with a suspect using "blues & twos" can't really be specifically defined.

[◄Chuck►]

Saying "should not exceed 30 seconds" is still a lot more clear than "use common sense".

[[TC]►Ras◄]

(2012-04-26 06:34)Chuck Wrote:  The point was, it was never really allowed by the rules. Someone wrote a med-guide (cant remember the author) and wrote using horn#5 would be ok. I said "stop", you can't simply write a guide which clearly contradicts a rule, I mean its not an official paper, someone just made that one up. What if the next one comes and makes a crashing guide saying ramming is ok? Furthermore, that guide was lost along with the last forum, so it isn't even longer existent. So in that special case, would it mean all the guide once said is automatically revoked because the document is lost?
You can see it cant work out that way. Several admins could follow my reasoning, probably not everybody. However, I don't care at all how it actually is, but then it should be written in the rules, where it is accessible for everyone. Same goes for the actual subject of this thread btw.

Yes there were a guide which included it, but that's not the only reason why people are using it. It's because a TC leader has mentioned it was fine to do so. I've personally asked a TC leader about it a few times and got the same answer, that it was fine to do so, and it seems i was not the only one getting that answer. But i must agree that it would clear things up if there were written a few simple sentences about it in the rules, but it has never been done for some reason.

Anyway, not really on-topic now.

[Johan.]

Josh Wrote:The general outcome was the same as it's ever been - To catch up with a suspect, you may use strobes and audio siren, but no visual siren.

Thats exactly what I wanted to know, but thats exactly what some people were doing, but with visual sirens.

[Pipa]

Josh Wrote:The general outcome was the same as it's ever been - To catch up with a suspect, you may use strobes and audio siren, but no visual siren.

Hmm with that logic you can not use visual sirens since the chase has started. So pulling somebody over with visual sirens would not work with that.

To me catching up with a suspect is part of a chase and you should be allowed to use visual sirens. The only difference is that you haven't been able to type !chase yet.

On a Sidenote: These situations happen from time to time and i understand that these grey areas exist, but can we not create unwritten rules that only a small part actually knows about.

[Josh]

(2012-04-26 20:18)Pipa Wrote:  On a Sidenote: These situations happen from time to time and i understand that these grey areas exist, but can we not create unwritten rules that only a small part actually knows about.

That's what we have had for some time.

To catch up with a suspect, you may use strobes and audio siren, but no visual siren.

From my understanding, that is what has always been said and agreed upon. The problem with unwritten rules is the problem we have now - people make their own slight adjustments and a Chinese whisper effect occurs, making the whole topic confusing and unclear.

[McGherkin]

Time to put this into the rules then

(By the way, I did write a set of Med rules as a suggestion for implementing them into the main rules, but they were lost with the old forum.)

[Pipa]

(2012-04-26 21:17)Josh Wrote:  To catch up with a suspect, you may use strobes and audio siren, but no visual siren.

Well i never knew that i have been here for quite a while, to me it was a chase and i used visual sirens aswell.

But that is not really the important bit. I think we are left with two choices here either add this to the rules or let people do what they like.

Some might do it as you described while others like me would add visual sirens. The time they will do so is limited and their aim is certainly not to break the rules at all.
In my oppinion you should leave the rules as simple as they are and let the user make the decision here. Otherwise you would have to enforce something which i would describe as nitpicking.

[Josh]

(2012-04-27 18:04)Pipa Wrote:  In my oppinion you should leave the rules as simple as they are and let the user make the decision here. Otherwise you would have to enforce something which i would describe as nitpicking.

Yep, there isn't any real problem with what we have. If people are using !siren before !chase, it is rarely noticed as it is for such a short time. If they do it for a longer period of time they are often picked up by someone and asked. Action may or not be taken depending on the individual case.

We rarely have a problem with this anyway, so not much needs changing tbqh.

[Pipa]

(2012-04-27 18:38)Josh Wrote:  We rarely have a problem with this anyway, so not much needs changing tbqh.

+1. Good call.