What do you do when you see petty antisocial behaviour?

[Senor Chevalier]

Today sat in traffic tights near East Dulwich Grove and Townley Road, the guy in the car in front of me dangled a plastic bottle out of the window for 5 mins before throwing it into the road. It was one of those situations where he appeared to be weighing it up (toying with me?) before eventually doing the inevitable.

Obviously a tosser in at least 2 and presumably all 3 senses of the word...

So what to do. Options going through my mind at the time:

a) Pick it up and throw it back through his open window

b) Make a note of his number plate and start a naming and shaming thread (ooh scary) or report to someone (who?)

c) Seeth with rage but do nothing

d) Hit the accelerator and ram his car hard from behind

Luckily the wife was with me and talked me down from a few of these, so now I am sat here still a bit cross wondering what to do with his number plate details...

Thoughts?

[Salsaboy]

Difficult.

I too have a problem with this sort of thing. My main one is people on the phone whilst driving. I want to buy a set of blue strobe lights that can be put in the windscreen when I see someone doing it, just to frighten the shite out of them, however I suspect this is highly illegal. I have shouted at a few people as I have driven past them whilst they are on the phone but what I tend to do now is give a long blast on the horn as I drive past them.

With regards to the water bottle incident SC mentioned, I would have picked it up and put it back through his window gently saying 'I think you dropped this accidentaly', just to see what he said.

[Senor Chevalier]

I think it was a Frijj milkshake rather than a water bottle with the added benefit of dripping sickly flavoured milk on upholstery...

[Thomas Micklewright]

Interesting OP.

I struggle with this aswell. Re. People dropping litter I usually don't have the balls to confront them, wish I did. Re. Bigger things like what I saw this morning (lads smashing bottles in the street) or bikes being stolen, I call the ED safer neighbourhood team or 101 to report it to the police. I think we all need to take responsibility and confront / report more. Also police funding is allocated to areas where crimes are reported, so if you don't report it nothing changes.

Tom

[ibilly99]

Since a burglar with a phone was found by the cops under a car and let off I suspect telling the authorities will be met with incomprehension so I would go for a or d.

[Nero]

Confront them if you are reasonably sure you won't get a smack in the chops, or worse. I do it often and have not had anything more than unimaginative and repetitive back-chat. The last time was on the 40, near to CPR: a woman chucked stuff from the window on the lower deck, so I said to her 'please don't do that'. She could only respond with 'shut up' which she repeated about twenty times! I pointed out that her anger was a sure sign that she knew she'd done wrong and that I was not in the least bit embarrassed about pulling her up over it in public.

[Thomas Micklewright]

Ha great Nero! More stories like this please!

[Sue]

ibilly99 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Since a burglar with a phone was found by the cops

> under a car and let off I suspect telling the

> authorities will be met with incomprehension so I

> would go for a or d.

xxxxxxxx

It's not true to say he was "let off", if you are implying that the police should have done more than they did.

The CPS wouldn't prosecute because they didn't think there was sufficient chance of getting a conviction. There was no evidence, or insufficient evidence, to prove that the person under the car had stolen the phone, even though it was not his phone.

Circumstantial evidence is not enough in a case like this.

There is a long discussion of this incident in another thread - which presumably you have read.

[DJKillaQueen]

In Southwark Community wardens hand out ?50 fines to those they see dropping litter, but no good when it comes to people in cars obviously. I've confronted people for dropping litter within easy distance of a bin but if they reply with a mouthful there's not a lot you can do.

[Thomas Micklewright]

I think something needs to be done about smokers who think its ok to drop cigarette butts anywhere! Ideas?