Looking for advice, bit of a strange one...

[ITSv40]

It is quite obvious what he is up to - he fancies the driver.

His modus operandi is to be in the same place at the same time every day and do something to draw attention to himself in the hope that the driver will stop to ask what he is doing. Then he will either ask for a date or ravish the driver there and then. Personally I would be afraid, very afraid.

[DaveNP]

Looking at the minutes of the April meeting of the Linton on Ouse Parish council there is an item about Community Speedwatch, so some residents must be concerned about speeding through the village (and looking at it on Streetview it's not a major road to be going fast on). Plausibly he is one of the concerned residents who is trying in an imperfect way to gather some better data than 'There's hundreds of people speeding through the village', if he's got no measuring equipment and got no legal powers then he can't do much about it other than take his slightly more rigorous findings to the council and/or police to persuade them to do something. Noting your number just makes his campaign a bit better researched. I don't know if writing down your reg invokes a different law but as far as I know you can legally take photo's of a public place eg of a road with a car on it.
I'd say just drive carefully within the speed limit and give him a cheery wave.

[christheancient]

A daft question...

How do you know he's noting down your registration number?

Maybe he's just cataloguing vehicle types that pass through the village for some reason such as the aforementioned traffic survey for the council.

[Considered1]

Is there a significant military operation near by in Linton on Ouse?

[Grimble]

Quite often I see what looks like 'pensioners' sitting at the side of the road (with their own fold down chairs) and clipboards noting down something as people pass by. See it on motorway bridges as well. I assumed it was traffic surveying.

[Welton]

I drive through one of 'those' nice Villages twice a day, it's a significant short cut between two major routes, lots of people bezz through it. On 'bin day' all the residents wheelie bins have [30] stickers on them, you get the sort of thing.

Few years back a group of them were perched at the road side with Flasks and foldy chairs; the 'leader' had a speed camera and he was boldly pointing it at cars in a sort of 'official' capacity. I don't know how they got their hands on a camera but I very much doubt anyone got clobbered for speeding. Anyway a year or so later and after no recorded accidents the residents proudly received 'traffic calming' in the form of Chicanes and Priority signage. They must have campaigned hard.

Now the cars still bezz through the same but make more noise in slowing down, accelerating from standstill, papping each other and increasing local pollution.

[ITSv40]

Originally Posted by Welton

I drive through one of 'those' nice Villages twice a day, it's a significant short cut between two major routes, lots of people bezz through it. On 'bin day' all the residents wheelie bins have [30] stickers on them, you get the sort of thing.

Few years back a group of them were perched at the road side with Flasks and foldy chairs; the 'leader' had a speed camera and he was boldly pointing it at cars in a sort of 'official' capacity. I don't know how they got their hands on a camera but I very much doubt anyone got clobbered for speeding. Anyway a year or so later and after no recorded accidents the residents proudly received 'traffic calming' in the form of Chicanes and Priority signage. They must have campaigned hard.

Now the cars still bezz through the same but make more noise in slowing down, accelerating from standstill, papping each other and increasing local pollution.

They are handed out by the Police.

I live in one of 'those' villages too and whilst we do not suffer from speeding traffic we do suffer from officious busybodies within the village who love nothing better than ordering eveyone else around and while they are not doing that they are twitching the net curtains.

Anyway a few of the busybodies got themselves in to a lather about perceived speeding through the village, mounted a campaign to get 'traffic calming' measures installed and as part of that campaign were issued with a speed gun to provide evidence of the need for traffic calming.

The evidence is recorded in the same way as an official speed gun and any speeding motorists are sent a warning letter by the Police saying their car was seen speeding in such and such a location, a record is being kept and if they are caught again will have a good talking to by a Police officer.

No calming measures were installed and now the latest 'campaign' is spraying dog poo with fluorescent paint. Not that we have a problem with that either. I counted one heap last weekend when I walked through the village.

[GreenBrick]

Originally Posted by ITSv40

... spraying dog poo with fluorescent paint...

Is that so you can avoid treading in it at night?

[Grimble]

Originally Posted by GreenBrick

Is that so you can avoid treading in it at night?

Sounds to me they are doing everyone a favour.
I live in a 'nice' village. Busybodies are one of the crosses you have to bear. Plus relatively little crime, noise, parking problems, traffic, hordes of other people, litter etc etc.

Yep, its tough!