*555 - good or bad?

[rocketman1]

Pointless if you aren't prepared to go to a Police Station and fill in the paperwork.

How does this work!!!, If you are following a pissed person, yeah real good, i will just go the police station and report him, like drive 50km to the nearest cop shop while all the time he offs & kills someone.
Bugger off! Its Ph 555 so the cops can get to the action asap and cut him off, and give him/her a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
there was a case a while ago when these , poorly brought young souls from sth jaffa land stole a car and drove to huntly at 180km/hr + mostly on the wrong side of the road.
It was the telephone to the cops that managed to stop them , not a trip to the police station.

[scumdog]

How does this work!!!, If you are following a pissed person, yeah real good, i will just go the police station and report him, like drive 50km to the nearest cop shop while all the time he offs & kills someone.
Bugger off! Its Ph 555 so the cops can get to the action asap and cut him off, and give him/her a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
there was a case a while ago when these , poorly brought young souls from sth jaffa land stole a car and drove to huntly at 180km/hr + mostly on the wrong side of the road.
It was the telephone to the cops that managed to stop them , not a trip to the police station.

The cops WILL stop the car if they can - and if the driver is pissed etc they have him

But if they didn't see bad/dangerous driving that YOU did they will need you as a 'witness', ergo you need to fill in the appropriate paperwork.

And no, you DON'T need to drive '50km to the nearest cop shop' right there and then, just confirm you intend to do the paperwork and do it as soon as you can.

[jimbo_on_travels]

*555 is useful if you are involved in a crash like I was last Sunday and noone was injured (leave that one to 111). Thankfully I was in a car at the time out near Otaihanga and got rear ended by a Beamer.. on a late sunny sunday afternoon I'd usually be on my bike.

So yeh 555 for the win!

[MisterD]

I've done it once after someone in an SUV I was following dropped a beer bottle out of the rear window.

One of the bro's travelling in the vehicle had come running out of the dairy by Jellicoe park to hop in at the lights and I thought he was running 'cos the lights were just turning green but turned out he'd just robbed the place.

Small pieces of info I was able to give, but it helped convict the a-holes...

[James Deuce]

How does this work!!!, If you are following a pissed person, yeah real good, i will just go the police station and report him, like drive 50km to the nearest cop shop while all the time he offs & kills someone.
Bugger off! Its Ph 555 so the cops can get to the action asap and cut him off, and give him/her a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
there was a case a while ago when these , poorly brought young souls from sth jaffa land stole a car and drove to huntly at 180km/hr + mostly on the wrong side of the road.
It was the telephone to the cops that managed to stop them , not a trip to the police station.

Most people who ring *555 don't end up handing off to an HP unit.

Most people who ring *555 aren't prepared to put themselves out by filling in the paperwork either.

This is how it works:

1. Ring *555 and give details.
2. If a unit is both available and nearby it is despatched. If the people you perceive to be behaving badly are still behaving badly they'll get pulled and charged with what the cop saw them doing.
3. If it isn't and you respond "yes" to the operator's question about wanting to take it further you will be asked to go to a Police station and fill in a form at your earliest convenience.
4. The form will be reviewed and may be followed up or may not, a lot of the time due to the reporting individual's unwillingness to testify in court.

For every one off where *555 results in immediate action, there's a large number that don't get followed up. There's 33000 calls to 111 and *555 every week. I'm trying to find a better breakdown of the stats.

[oldrider]

The only time I ever use it (or the other form thing) is if I encounter an incompetent Victor who looks like he might take objection to my riding - usually, based on the fact that I have managed to overtake him despite him having sped up to 120 (after meandering along at 65 for the last 10km) AND swung hard right. Such people take the failure of their "no one gets past me" tactics as a personal offront- and are very willing to brazenly lie to achieve their 'revenge'.

So, I *555 them to get my story in first - or at least independently. Carries much more weight if you put your side up BEFORE a cop asks.

For practical purposes, it's a total waste of time.

I agree with you there Ixion.

Have tried (unsuccessfully) calling them once myself (about a drunk) but often wonder how many times my own number has gone in!

Not personally feeling guilty but once an old Sheila drove up after we parked our bike and abused us for all she was worth!

Telling us (me and Mrs O) what crazy "young" fools we were passing her (she was speeding too) further back down the road!

We took our helmets off and her jaw dropped, she went suddenly silent and slunk away, (I told her to fuck off) we were much older than her anyway!

Some people just can't leave "young" people enjoying themselves, alone!

[one fast tl1ooo]

Good if someone has pissed you of with thier drivin, But very bad if you have cut off, passed to fast , tailgated someone really close, or someone,

[naphazoline]

Well for the third time in my life I *555 someone today. After the call I was told that I shouldnt be so intolerant and should stop being a nark by a family member.

What do you guys think of the *555 system? I personally see no harm in anonomously reporting traffic faults and people being idiots.

If somebody is driving/riding in a manner that is barely out of the norm,then i hate to tell you,but you ARE a nark.

If everyone phoned the cops for every little thing that annoyed them on the road,then we would all be in trouble.

No one's perfect.

[scumdog]

No one's perfect.

Qiute rihgt, noone's prefect...

[Ixion]

Ford is .

[naphazoline]

Ford? who the hell is that?

[Ixion]

Ford? who the hell is that?

Barbarian.

[far queue]

I've used *555 3 times ...

1. Boy racers doing burn outs on the summit road taking up the whole road. I don't know what the outcome of that was.

2. While walking to work I witnessed someone vandalising a car and called it in from a safe distance, and stayed on the phone describing what the guy was doing. The rozzers were there in 5-10 minutes, catching the guy still in the act. I approached the cops and gave my details in case I was needed.

3. A car had rolled, nobody appeared hurt as they climbed out while I watched (others were assisting them), the car was blocking the road. The cops were there in 5-10 minutes.

My reason for using 555 and not 111 is that these weren't emergencies that required fire or ambo in immediate attendance and 555 goes straight to the police comms room without having to go through the 111 operator 1st.