Vehicles and CSOs

[Delta07]

When I joined the job and was doing my probation I wasn't allowed to drive, so other than the odd tour as operator on the RT car I was always on foot, if I was posted to a beat which was on the other side of our patch I used to take the bus or us the tube, great for meeting the public, so why use cars/scooters/vans if thats what your role is supposed to be?

Get out there and show the puplic who and what we are (the Police service) otherwise we will just go back to what happened in the sixties and seventies, putting more cops in cars which decreased the amount of cops on the beat.

Before long PCSO's will be driving pandas and responding to jobs which they are not trained for.

[chica]

Delta07 I totally agree with your post.  I think my force has it right, less powers than what we can have and no vehicles.  The public want a police presence walking the beat, the PCSO role was intended just for that and I think in time, some forces will take away the very meaning of the role.

[busterbloodvessel]

Chica, what happens if your beat is an hour's walk from the nick? It happens in rural and suburban areas.

[chica]

Walk... We have beats where it takes us 45 minutes to walk there, not what you would call a residential area either, but thats the point of the role.  Saying that, I undertstand if very rural then a vehicle is more of a must.  I hear more and more PCSOs having acess to cars/vans etc and can see it being abused.

[01mterr1]

Bridgend PCSOs are using the old peugeot 307s

[Toyota_driving_Kangaroo]

I think if PSCOs are issued vehicles, they should:

1) be of different markings and colour than a Police Car

2) have "Community Support Officer" marked in reasonably large lettering on the car, and not bear the word "police" or "constabulary" anywhere on the vehicle; the sole excepting being if the word is part of the agency's emblem...For example, having the Met emblem on the rear quarter panel of the vehicle would be ok, but no other marking using the word "Police" or "Constabulary"...

3) No blues and two's, an amber arrow stick in the back window if sufficient to direct traffic to move if the PCSO vehicle is stopped on the roadside in unavoidably hazardous manner...

[ALPHA-TANGO]

Seen GMP PCSO's on push bikes on a friday night too

We use bikes quite alot it makes getting to your beat alot easier you then have the choice of locking the bike up somewhere safe and patrolling on foot or doing a patrol of the area on your bike which great for taking a ride round the back streets, alleys cut throughs etc