The Roadside Stop That Cost the Police £100,000 — and the Law Every Driver Should Know

• Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, you must stop your vehicle only when required to by a constable in uniform — or a uniformed traffic officer.
• In 2021 a Lincolnshire man was dragged into a roadside confrontation by a plain-clothes police Inspector in an unmarked car — and the force eventually paid him £100,000.
• It took four years and one piece of evidence to get there, and it’s evidence you’re carrying in your pocket right now.

On the evening of 26 May 2021, a self-employed tree surgeon named Shane Price was driving his father’s van along the A46 towards Lincoln, his wife in the passenger seat, when a Ford came up fast behind him, flashing its lights and sounding its horn.

As it drew alongside, the driver appeared to hold up a mobile phone and photograph them — while driving.

Mr Price signalled for him to pull over so they could speak. Both cars stopped. The man who got out wore a black jacket with nothing to identify him as a police officer, and at no point did he say he was one.

Within minutes, Mr Price had been pulled to the grass verge, punched, and pinned to the ground.

The man was a serving Inspector of Lincolnshire Police — in plain clothes, in his own car. And it would take four years for Mr Price to be vindicated, in the form of a payout of £100,000.

The Stop That Wasn’t a Stop

What happened next reads like a warning label for every Driver in Britain. The Inspector radioed for back-up, and when uniformed officers arrived, it wasn’t the man lying injured on the verge they helped. Mr Price was handcuffed, arrested, and held overnight — told he was being investigated for assaulting an emergency worker.

A drugs test was demanded after an officer claimed to smell cannabis from his van. It came back negative. The small work knife he volunteered to officers — the one he used to cut rope as a tree surgeon — became a second arrest, for possession of an offensive weapon.

Both allegations later collapsed entirely, with no further action taken against him in 2021.

One thing saved Shane Price from becoming the criminal in this story: his wife had filmed the whole incident from the van, from start to finish.

The Law: No Uniform, No Power

Here is what the law actually says, and it is refreshingly short. Under section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a person driving on a road must stop when required to do so by a constable in uniform or a uniformed traffic officer.

That word — uniform — is doing all the work. Parliament’s own explanatory notes to the Police Reform Act 2002 spell it out: the power to enforce a vehicle stop is not intended to be exercisable by a constable out of uniform.

So a man in a plain car, waving a badge or warrant card through the window, has no legal power to require you to stop. It makes no difference whether he genuinely is a police officer. Without the uniform, the demand carries no more legal force than if your neighbour made it.

There’s a very good reason the law is written this way: anyone can wave something official-looking at your window at 50mph. You have no way of verifying it, and the law doesn’t ask you to.

Four Years to the Truth

The aftermath of the A46 incident shows how hard vindication can be to come by, even with the whole thing on film.

The Inspector was charged with assault and acquitted at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court in 2022, the Court finding self-defence had not been disproved. The force’s misconduct findings against him were then quietly reversed, and he was allowed to retire.

That should have been the end of it. It wasn’t, because Mr Price and his solicitor appealed to the Independent Office for Police Conduct — which intervened and compelled the misconduct case to proceed. The former Inspector was found guilty of gross misconduct over the incident, and in 2025 Lincolnshire Police settled Mr Price’s claim for £100,000 plus legal costs.

Every stage of that outcome traces back to one phone, held by one passenger, recording quietly from the cab of a van.

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What You Should Actually Do

This isn’t a rare, exotic scenario. Our founder has been on the receiving end of it himself: an aggressive driver pulling alongside at speed, steering with no hands while fumbling for a badge, then waving it and shouting at him to pull over. With his wife and young daughter in the car, he declined, calmly waved the man on, and continued his journey. The badge-waver eventually gave up and sped off.

So if it happens to you: an unmarked car, no blue lights, a driver in ordinary clothes demanding you stop — you are under no legal obligation to comply. Keep driving calmly and lawfully.

If anything about the situation worries you, drive to somewhere public and well-lit, and call 999 to report what’s happening and verify whether a genuine stop is being attempted. A real officer will have no problem with that; the police themselves advise it in cases of doubt.

And if a roadside encounter has already turned into something on paper — a NIP, a summons, an allegation you know is wrong — remember the lesson of the A46: the official version of events is not the final one, and it can be challenged.

DriveProtect™ Members never face that fight alone. From the moment a NIP arrives, Members get direct access to a specialist Speeding Solicitor who reviews the case and advises them exactly what to respond, for a fraction of the normal cost of legal help.

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