How to discover cop's name after incident?
I was the fourth car in a group of eight travelling loosely together this morning (other vehicles were in between us) when I suddenly noticed the guy behind me swerve violently to the left as he was overtaken on yellow lines by a red Commodore. I thought "bloody idiot" then noticed red and blue flashing lights and realised it was a mufti cop. I immediately put my indicator on and moved as far as possible to the left (it was on a blind corner coming up to an overbridge, hence the yellow lines) to allow him to pass as he was hoofing it and I assumed he was on his way to an accident or other serious incident. The three vehicles in front of me did the same and he overtook at least one on the overbridge. We were all travelling at about 100-105kph so there was no need to check the speedo to see if we were speeding.
A few seconds later we came around another corner and found the cop had pulled to the left, jumped out of his car and was standing in the middle of the road waving for us to stop. I thought there was perhaps a serious accident up ahead and the road was about to be closed. He went to the first vehicle in our group, then the second and third, then came to my car. He stuck his head in the window and said "your group was going a bit fast back there in the passing lane and one of you - I don't know which one - was doing 136 so you need to keep an eye on your speed." I said it certainly hadn't been me.
After speaking to each of us in turn (but waving on the car we had both overtaken), he got back in his vehicle and did a U-turn on SH1 and headed south. When we got to our destination it was the hot topic of conversation and we found more bizarre elements to the saga. Apparently the last car in our group had seen him do a U-turn and he then tailgated him for approximately 4kms before overtaking him and the other four or five vehicles behind me - and at least two of these drivers said he overtook them on yellow lines and at high speed.
We certainly all dispute that we were going anywhere NEAR 136 (all but one of us were driving 1970s and 1980s classic cars) and nothing we were doing warranted this cop doing a U-turn, following us for several kilometres before overtaking us on yellow lines through blind corners and waving for us to pull over, then just giving us a warning.
I want to make a formal complaint about his behaviour, but unfortunately, as I was the fourth car in the group and the others who also wish to complain were further back, we didn't get the chance to get his registration number and we were a bit dumbfounded and didn't ask for his name either.
Is there any way of finding out this officer's name and where he is based? This incident occurred just south of the Marton turn-off where the Halcolmbe Road also comes out, so I'm not sure if he'd be from Bulls or elsewhere. I have a good description of him and this happened at about 11.30am today.
There was a lot of traffic on the road and he was lucky he didn't collect anyone when he did the two U-turns, but it's the extremely dangerous overtaking behaviour on blind corners and yellow lines that concerns me and the others. His tailgating was also not appreciated and the driver of the one later model vehicle he did that to said he wondered if he was hoping he'd put his foot down and he could get him for speeding. One driver is in the 60-plus age group and he said he had never seen such dangerous overtaking and thought the cop must have been on his way to a serious incident. When he realised he was trying to get in front of us all so he could give us a warning, he was disgusted.
If anyone can give me any pointers on how to identify this officer, as in which station to ring, I'd appreciate it. Perhaps the weight of seven or eight complaint letters may hold more sway than just one.
Yes, I am pedantic about spelling and grammar so get used to it!
Bookmarks