Serving police officers need to respond to emergencies quickly and safely.
They rely on efficiency and decent vehicles to get them where they need to be.
So it is a national embarrassment that they can’t even rely on their own patrol cars to make it from A to B without breaking down.
On average, one stuttered to a stop nearly once a day last year.
And as the Record has detailed before, police are using duct tape to keep vehicle parts together.
Ex-heroin addict wants to end cycle of methadone dependency and create recovery communities
Officers worry they’re supposed to be keeping roads safe while patrolling them in cars which are barely road legal themselves.
It’s not just when they’re on the move. Facilities in some stations have previously been exposed for their dilapidated state.
Money is in short supply, even if the Scottish Government is promising improvements.
Cash injections can’t come soon enough to get the fleet up to scratch.
Public confidence in emergency services has to be protected, just as everyone’s safety must be.
Police have a hard enough job on their hands. They do not need any extra obstacles in their way.
Poison pills
Scotland’s drugs-death plague is claiming more victims than ever.
In Stirling, a crisis group was set up in response to six more needless fatalities.
These were people caught in the grip of lethal street drugs. They were among the most vulnerable in society, four of them in homeless accommodation.
Scots gran who has spent 31 years on methadone vows to break free from drug cycle
Readily available pills such as street Valium, or the blue plague, are pushing up Scotland’s dire drugs-death total to levels unseen in the rest of Europe.
The Record has been drawing attention to this scandal for months.
We sparked a nationwide debate by focusing on what is being done, and crucially where it isn’t working.
This latest sad statistic masks a truly shocking national scandal.
The talking is under way – now we need to start getting to the answers.
Sweet dream
Schoolboy Kerr James dreamed a dream of being like his hero Susan Boyle and, a decade after she wowed the world, he is following in her footsteps on Britain’s Got Talent.
Tonight, as the programme airs for the first time this season, Kerr will try to wow the judges with his version of an Otis Redding hit.
Hopefully, Simon Cowell will Try A Little Tenderness of his own as he judges the youngster.
