Is mouthing a swear word at a motorist illegal?

[super-vixen]

A car swerved in front of me today and when I later drew up next to him at a roundabout I mouthed a swear word at him. He then honked his horn and turned on and pointed out a flashing blue light on the dash board of his car. He then made a big show of checking my number plate but he never actually spoke to me or stopped me or got out of his car he just drove off onto the roundabout. Have I broken any laws or will I have an repercussions from this?

[andy-hughes]

I would suggest that if he was going to make an issue of the incident, he would have done so at the time.

The moral of the story is - just because we are cocooned in our cars does not make us immune from the consequences of our actions.

You never know how big another motorist is, until he decides to get out and have a full and frank exchange of views about something!

[ummmm]

Just trying to scare you I'd say.

[Gormless]

Probably Secret Service or MI6. A similar thing happened to me, I was being tailgated by a plain dark saloon and being a bit of a joker I played around, jinking and blocking him. Eventually we both had to pull up alongside each other at lights. The passenger wound down the window, held up an official-looking card and shouted "lucky you're not NICKED!"

I showed him my Tesco clubcard then scarpered.

[Gormless]

(Actually that last bit's not quite true. I locked all my doors and nearly crapped myself)

[B00]

pmsl @ gormless, brilliant ;-)

[sn�gged]

''I showed him my Tesco clubcard''

I'll have to remember that one lol

[GINGER BIRD]

for future ref if you blow a kiss or smile sweetly it really pees road hogs off!

[Kidd72]

Maybe he was just excited having bought a new blue flashing light and just happened to collect number plates?

[Cockney_si]

Not sure but you also have the right to remain silent.....

I thought unmarked police cars had blue lights behind the front grill...

[Ethel]

Where did you get that load of nonsense from, Cockney?

It wouldn't be very unmarked if it was showing a blue light to the front - it is illegal.

[Buenchico]

Ethel:
Unmarked police cars around here in Suffolk definitely have blue lights behind the front grill. I've worked on traffic surveys where uniformed officers have stopped traffic, so that I can interview them. When unmarked police cars approach the survey point, they always switch their 'hidden' blue lights on, to identify themselves to the uniformed officers, so that they don't get stopped.

Super-Vixen:
Mouthing a 4-letter word (of the offensive type) at someone, other than when in a dwelling, is an offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. The maximum penalty is a fine of �1000.

However, if the action is done "with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress" it then becomes an offence under Section 4A of that Act. The maximum penalty then rise to a fine of �5000.

In practice the police normally deal with such matters through an �80 fixed penalty notice.

Chris

[TWR]

Thank you Buenchico, your answer is Definitely correct, But some times some of "us" do get it wrong!!!!

[ebuzz1964]

i was stopped by the great brittish police force whitch i have so much resect for (not) and called the policeman a xxxxin arxxhoxx he replyed "u cant call me that sir u can think it but not call me that " so i replyed " i think ur an xxxxin arxxhoxx