Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road…

Sundays are a good opportunity to check your car over including tread depth (Image from ProjectManhattan)

Whilst Sundays are traditionally reserved for hangovers, eating roast dinners and ploughing through papers swollen with supplements, they are also a working day for us police.

This means that when our shifts dictate we’re on duty on the seventh day, rather than sleep in and then get dragged around the park by the dog, we all get up super early and head to the station to solve crimes.

As good as Sundays are for solving crimes (or at least, they’re no worse than any other day), we find they’re also a good day for checking over our vehicles to make sure the wheels aren’t about to fall off.

A periodic check up is always a good idea to keep your motor-vehicle safe and Sunday represents an excellent day to use as a sensible period.

Here’s what you’ll want to check for in a list that’ll eat up no more than five minutes of your valuable Sunday –

• Grip – Have the tyres got enough tread? 1.6 mm is the legal minimum, peek at the wear indicators to quickly see how deep your tread is
• Tyre pressure – Is the tyre pressure right? The correct pressure should be on the wall of the tyre, check it for free at the garage
• Illumination – Are all of your lights in working order?
• Visibility – Are your windscreen wipers showing any sign of wear? Have you got screen wash?
• Seatbelts – Are they in good order ready to prevent you doing an involuntary Superman impression through the window during a collision?

The above are all road safety-orientated checks that take moments to complete and help keep you and other road users safe.

Less essential but still important checks are as follows –

• Apparel – Are your manly leather driving gloves frayed? If so, replace them!
• Snacking – Do you have a ready supply of non-brand specific circular mints in the glove box?
• Tunes – Are any of your ‘Classic Driving Power Ballads’ CDs scratched?

And if you happen to be driving a police car, you’ll also want to check –

• Are you carrying a scene log and tape?
• Have you got enough exhibit bags and tags?
• Does the police Airwave radio work?

Whilst I’m happy to accept that a lot of the points off the latter two lists are probably not all that important, the same can’t be said about those on the first list.

Poorly maintained vehicles, worn bulbs and a lack of visibility are factors that regularly crop up as contributing causes to accidents so it really is a good idea to follow our lead and lend a little of your Sunday to making sure you and your family are safe when out on the roads.

 

You’re the devil in disguise…

There’s been a slight rise in ‘distraction’ burglaries in Streetly and Aldridge – beware!

To write this blog, I’ve had to battle with several competing distractions. They were in no particular order as follows –

• Looking out window to see if there were any interesting shaped clouds to be spotted
• Watching some videos of geeks completing ‘speed runs’ of old video games (‘Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ to be specific)
• Browsing the Krispy Kreme doughnuts website

All in all, none of these distraction actually helped me write the blog. You could say they hindered me.

Anyhoo, the reason that I’m now writing this blog rather than searching YouTube for a ‘perfect’ video combining cats AND bacon is that I need to bring to your attention a slight rise in ‘distraction’ type of burglaries that we’ve experienced recently in the Streetly and Aldridge areas of Walsall.

The exact method varies but often it’ll be some heartless miscreant knocking on an elderly person’s door claiming to be offering roofing insulation, gardening work or maybe even stating that they’re from the police.

Having gained entry, they’ll then use the opportunity to take what they can before making a swift exit with some of their victim’s property.

As I’ve written about lately, a recent variant of this type of crime is the ‘Courier Fraud’ scam whereby the victim is phoned by someone who obtains their bank details and then sends round a courier to pick up their bank card claiming it’s required as evidence.

These crimes are particularly cruel and so I’d ask that everyone remain vigilant for suspicious persons in their neighbourhoods and keep an eye on elderly neighbours in case they receive unwanted visitors.

Please spread the word to those folk not yet wired into the internet and remember, if you do notice something or someone that happens to set off you ‘there’s something about this that isn’t right’ alarm, please contact us straight away.

You can phone us on 101 or in an emergency, dial 999.

Gather as much detail as you can safely do – descriptions of people, vehicles, registration plates etc – and let us know so that we can swoop in and investigate before another local person falls victim to the scammers.

Fight crime by PUNCHING IT ON THE NOSE at the following websites:

• Distraction burglary and bogus callers advice from WMP Safer Homes
• Crimestoppers

Why don’t you be the writer?

We’re hosting a Wikipedia ‘editathon’ tomorrow at the West Midlands Police Museum, fancy getting involved?

Do you have an interest in the history of the police, a little Wikipedia know how and a few hours free tomorrow afternoon?

If so, you may just be interested to know that between 10:00 and 16:00 tomorrow we’re throwing open the doors of the West Midlands Police Museum in Sparkhill so that editors wanting to write about policing history can examine the museum’s artefacts close up.

If you’re interested in joining local Wikipedia Wizard Andy Mabbett at the event then please head over to the event’s page and register your interest, there are only a few places left so you’ll need to be quick!

You can follow the event on Twitter by using the hashtag #WikiWMP if you can’t make it yourself to see what’s happening during the day.

I’ll be particularly interested to see some improvements to our own main Wikipedia page as after editing a fair amount of it myself last year using my nerd skills, it is now in need of a bit of an overhaul to bring it up to date and maybe even a little closer to featured article status.

I’d remind anyone who thinks they could contribute to any of our Wikipedia pages but that can’t make it tomorrow, please to consider that anyone can edit Wikipedia and if you think you can help please feel free to get involved.