Speeding and Dangerous Driving

[MikeL]

And the Police wouldn't be disliked so much, we took most of the flak.
Lou

And this is the main reason why I think keeping the MOT separate would have been better in the long term. I presume that the accountants' mentality prevailed.

[Lou Girardin]

And this is the main reason why I think keeping the MOT separate would have been better in the long term. I presume that the accountants' mentality prevailed.

Not quite; the Minister of Police back then, John bloody Banks promised 900 extra Police and there just happened to be 900 MOT cops.
Lou

P S. I was in Avondale this morn. 30 km/h limit on Ash St, I was doing 40 and I get overtaken by a cop. I can't be bothered reporting him. But, to the driver of BDD864, you're a tosser. Mind you, he looked guilty as hell when I pointed to the speedo at the lights.
Lou

[spudchucka]

I did 7 years on a bike and no car job in sight. You could get into cars earlier if you transfered to some shithole no-one wanted to work in. And our training was suberb, road riding, a bit of track work at Manfield and some off-road stuff, two day each week for 12 weeks. That's why our accident rate was a fraction of the cops.

It's no good giving Police bosses a hard time, spudchucker. They're insulated from it, never hear the public's abuse. The only to get to them is via disgruntled rank and file cops. It might not seem fair, but that's life.
Lou

And has sticking it to the troops actually made any difference?? I don't think so. In fact you are probably just fuelling the overall problem by creating a self fullfilling prophecy due to your attitude being reflected when you are dealing with the police. If your attitude is' "all cops are revenue gathering, arogant, self righteous, power hungry pricks" this will be reflected in your manner and you will no doubt get a response from the cops that is reflective of your attitude. It's a vicous cycle that achieves nothing worthwhile.

Relying on the disgruntled troops to influence the bosses would require that a strong union was in place. Sadly that isn't the case.

I can appreciate that the public get disgruntled for all sorts of reasons and that will always be the case. However I would have thought that someone who is so obviously driven to force change would come up with more sophisticated ideas to make it happen. I'm not trying to flame you, I just want to make others here think about it too and there might be some good ideas come from it.

[spudchucka]

Hell, there were even some OK council traffic cops!
.
Spudchucka, people may realise it is the bosses who are so far up their own promotion scales they wouldnt know a crime priority from a bedsore, setting all these crap goals, but it is the copper on the beat/road who the public has to deal with. If the feeling that the public get, rightly or wrongly, is that they are being shafted, then the cops are going to get stick.

And why do they have the crap goals in the first place? Because that is how they are funded these days. They get $$$ from ACC, LTSA and local bodies to deliver X amount of traffic enforcement hours. It's a contract that has to be delivered or they don't get the funding.

Again the problem is Govt related because it is their mickey mouse way of delivering the funding. Without the funding the police don't get the troops on the street that the public has asked for. But what they do with thoose troops again relates back to the need to deliver on contracts.

[MikeL]

If your attitude is' "all cops are revenue gathering, arogant, self righteous, power hungry pricks" this will be reflected in your manner and you will no doubt get a response from the cops that is reflective of your attitude. It's a vicous cycle that achieves nothing worthwhile.

I agree that it becomes a vicious circle, but the question is, who is in a position to break that circle? Whether the pressure is from the rank and file on their bosses, or from the top down, ultimately it has to come from the police, because we the generally law-abiding public are not going to change our perception of the police when the only contact we have we them is usually in the context of a traffic infringement (regardless of the rights or wrongs of the offence: if there are not enough police to attend to real crimes, but plenty of them issuing speeding tickets as anecdotal evidence points to quite clearly, then there is an obvious injustice).

[spudchucka]

I agree that it becomes a vicious circle, but the question is, who is in a position to break that circle? Whether the pressure is from the rank and file on their bosses, or from the top down, ultimately it has to come from the police, because we the generally law-abiding public are not going to change our perception of the police when the only contact we have we them is usually in the context of a traffic infringement (regardless of the rights or wrongs of the offence: if there are not enough police to attend to real crimes, but plenty of them issuing speeding tickets as anecdotal evidence points to quite clearly, then there is an obvious injustice).

I agree that the police are in the best position to "break the cycle" as you say. Most cops endeavour to be proffessional and they are encouraged to be by their bosses.

But at the same time if they are proffessional and polite and are met with smart mouths and shitty attitudes then that will often be reflected in the cops attitude to the subject.

The attitude test is the first one that is conducted at any traffic stop, before breath testing or licence checks etc. If the attitude is "f**k you pig" then the cops will probably respond with a similar attitude.

[Firefight]

Or, if you're really in trouble. Yell Fire!
Lou

Happens more often than you may think!

firefight

[Firefight]

The problem is that there is no driver training at all for the services.

Won't pass comment on other services, however, there is a complex system of training for Fire Services, which includes phrobatioary(sp?) period before driving to emergancy calls, TS would be happy to pm you details if you wish !

Firefight

[Two Smoker]

[QUOTE=Firefight]

The problem is that there is no driver training at all for the services.

Won't pass comment on other services, however, there is a complex system of training for Fire Services, which includes phrobatioary(sp?) period before driving to emergancy calls, TS would be happy to pm you details if you wish !

Firefight

Cheers for the info Firefight. What people have to remember is that in the Police there are different branches. For instance CIB (Crime Investigation) CVIU (Weighing Trucks etc) General Duties, then there is STU (Strategic Traffic Unit) Highway Patrol and Motorways. So you cant tell or say that cops that are doing speed traps etc should be out catching real criminals because they are doing their job respective to their unit.

The reason they have the units is because the dumb arse government joined the MOT with the Police ..... Bad move. I agree with Lou they need the attitude of the MOT days....and not give people tickets because they have to make a quota (yes there really is quotas) but give tickets regarding the conditions that the speed was being done in.

[Lou Girardin]

I guess I'm fortunate, spudchucker, I get a ticket about once every ten years. And there are ways of letting the cops know you don't think much of them without resorting to abuse.
Why don't you come clean, who or what are you? If you are a cop, stand up!
Lou

[jrandom]

Why don't you come clean, who or what are you? If you are a cop, stand up!

Yes, I reckon ol' Spud there might have a bit of a background he hasn't posted about yet. Go on Spud, open up, Lou's right, you sound like you're a cop and feeling rather ambiguous about it too... why keep the whole 'third-person commentary' thing going?

And, FWIW, Lou has never made a point that I've felt capable of disagreeing with, but Spud, you just sound like an apologist on the defensive.

By the way, I like your 'letters to the editors', Lou, keep writing them... I never know when another one's going to turn up somewhere to keep me nodding in agreement. Hell, more of us should get off our lazy arses and speak up.

[Jackrat]

Hmmm,This questioning of Spuds profession is pretty pointless,But I have to say I agree with most of what he says.
I have had three contacts with the police in resent times,During all three I was treated in a respectfull manner and have no issue with having been pulled over when I was.As far as I am conserned if I don't get pulled over in some situations then the cops are not doing the job.They don't make the rules and neither do their commanders.The poly's do that,if you don't like it join BRONZ and do something about it.If you can't be bothered doing at lest that,you are just another whinging Kiwi and don't deserve any consideration anyway.Lou, Writes letters to the New papers and I think that is one thing that can be done to be heard but as for most of the noise makers.
Damn not all the sheep in this country have four legs Aye!!!

[dangerous]

But at the same time if they are proffessional and polite and are met with smart mouths and shitty attitudes then that will often be reflected in the cops attitude to the subject.

The attitude test is the first one that is conducted at any traffic stop, before breath testing or licence checks etc. If the attitude is "f**k you pig" then the cops will probably respond with a similar attitude.

The way I see it the cops ARE the profesionals and there for should NOT respond with an attude like you gave as an example above. They SHOULD be above that kind of behaver and then maybe the smart mouthed one might pay attenion and fell like the looser.

And should spud come clean, and is a cop then he should be prowd of that.
We know him as an indervidual not a cop so we will not treat him any different to the way we do now.

My money is on him not being a cop but related to the govt somwere along the line. ( my 2 cents worth)

[Jackrat]

Nobody gets payed enough to be perfect,and the smart mouths usually all ready know they are losers.Thats why they take it out on the cops.
They know they can't get away with it with most other people.
But then thats only because the cops are professionals.A good smack in the teath is probably what they really do need.

[jimbo600]

Mrs What? and I went to town this morning in the green submarine (Subaru in the rain, OK?). Following a cop who spots a lad doing 123K coming up the hill. Cop slams on the anchors, pulls a U-turn, turns on his indicator (1/2 way through the maneouver) then his flashers. I friggin near hit him.
So, I (safely) pull a U and go back to said copper who is busy writing a ticket to Mr 123KpH andd ask him for his identity number.
Monday morning I am going to lay a complaint of Dangerous driving against him. I know it won't go far, but I need to do it. Hopefully a few more may do the same. Might write a letter to the paper as well...

Nice going mate. Same thing happened to me by a snake in a mufty car in plimmerton. My missus was driving at the time as I was pissed. I made a big scene in the car for her to do a u turn so I could get the twat snakes QID number and report him. Assholes reckon they are exempt from the law. Keep up the pressure. If it ever happens to me again I'll not bother braking and just plough into the fucker.