*555 police procedures

**Sanx** · 20th June 2007, 22:48

Can one of the resident police officers fill me in on what happens after someone calls in a *555 report, assuming that the caller has given full details including description of vehicle and Rego number, and that the details all correlate with what the Police Communications Centre have on record.

**Mole_C** · 21st June 2007, 00:53

Well not a cop but will prob be training to be one soon so ill have a guess.

I would think that if it is a serious concern e.g. drunk and swerving all over the place then they will send a car to have a hunt around and try find them.

If it isn't serious they will prob only do anything if there is a cop car nearby, otherwise send them a letter or something.

If 2 (maybe 3) or more whitnesses report it i think they can use that as enough evidence and send them a ticket for the offence.

Hope im right

**Romeo** · 21st June 2007, 03:52

Don't know the answer to your question sorry, but I do know the link to report a bad driver over the Internets. Just incase you don't have a phone on you, but you've got an Internet connection - don't ask ;s.

http://police.govt.nz/service/road/roadwatch.html

I reported a danger to society,

, and the cops sent me out a nice little letter of thanks. Shat myself when I saw my name on the police envelope though ;s.

I doubt they do much with the reports however...

Originally Posted by NZ Police - Report a bad driver

If you wish the incident to be investigated with a view to charges being laid in Court you must lodge a formal complaint with your nearest police station.

**bert_is_evil** · 21st June 2007, 12:45

I did it last week when a cager tried to kill me - Mole_C is correct in saying if you call they'll send a car if it's near by, however they only send the letter if you fill in a report (Romeo's link).

**Grub** · 21st June 2007, 14:31

Originally Posted by Sanx

Can one of the resident police officers fill me in on what happens after someone calls in a *555 report, assuming that the caller has given full details including description of vehicle and Rego number, and that the details all correlate with what the Police Communications Centre have on record.

If it's a serious offence (crossing centre line, tailgating, speeding, setting up potential accident, obviously pissed) and you have location and rego then they will usually issue a
- "10/1 to all units int the XX area, 1U(vehicle incident) complaint follows in 5"
Followed by
- "10/1 all units in the XX area, be on the lookotu for a 1997 Subaru legacy (its always one of those), registration XXXX, coloured white, heading in a southerly direction on SH2 between Melling and Ngauranga. Vehicle is reported as weaving between lanes and traffic in excess of 130kmh. Last reported opposite Horokiwi BP heading towards the gorge - time delay is 4 minutes. The informant no longer has obs (observation) of the vehicle. 10/1 Out"

In other words, they react quickly to get it on the air, sometimes while you are still giving details. The hard part is whether there happns to be a unit close enough to find the vehicle and often of course, there's not.

The frustration then is that it comes back on the informant to formally lodge the complaint via the forms they send you. That's their only way of going after the bad guys at that point. They couldn't catch them in the act, but they do want to 'have a word' and they can't do that without a formal compaint.

Does that answer your question?

**Sanx** · 21st June 2007, 18:36

Thank you Grub, yes it does.

So to make a formal complaint, one does have to go into a police station and fill in a few forms.

**sunhuntin** · 21st June 2007, 19:38

i dont know for sure, but i have heard of witnesses being asked to tail the offender until police can locate and take over. its this that makes me wish there was enough money for all major centers to have a police chopper on 24/7. i liked having the eagle overhead after the shooting of that kid the other month.

**Lucy** · 21st June 2007, 21:09

What happened to me after calling *555 one day is I got charged for it on my phone bill. Didn't it used to be free?

**Patrick** · 22nd June 2007, 15:37

Originally Posted by Sanx

Thank you Grub, yes it does.

So to make a formal complaint, one does have to go into a police station and fill in a few forms.

They will usually ask if you want to fill out the forms and will post them out to you to complete and send back in... otherwise go to the cop shop and do it, but don't tell Goblin you did...

**Patrick** · 22nd June 2007, 15:38

Originally Posted by Lucy

What happened to me after calling *555 one day is I got charged for it on my phone bill. Didn't it used to be free?

thought it still was... check with Telecom (or whoever)...

**Patrick** · 22nd June 2007, 15:43

Originally Posted by sunhuntin

i dont know for sure, but i have heard of witnesses being asked to tail the offender until police can locate and take over. its this that makes me wish there was enough money for all major centers to have a police chopper on 24/7. i liked having the eagle overhead after the shooting of that kid the other month.

They cleaned up a lot too... tailed some aggravated robbers, burglars and the like and guided in the troops to lock all their arses up.

**BIKEGAL68** · 27th June 2007, 19:47

*555
1)WHEN THE COMPLAINT HAS BEEN TAKEN, AN IF IT IS HAPPENING AT THE TIME OF THE CALL OR WITH IN A TIME FRAME OR POSS UNIT OUT AN ABOUT IN THE AREA, WE PUT A LIVE JOB IN TO TRY AN CATCH THE OFFENEDER.
IF IT IS HISTORIC THEN WE LOG A 1U(DRIVING OFFENCE) JOB AGAINST THE DRIVERS DETAILS, AND A UNIT IS ASSIGNED TO THE JOB TO FOLLOW UP.......
YOU CAN ALSO GO ON THE POLICE WEBB SITE AT WWW.POLICE.GOVT.NZ AN FILL OUT A DRIVING COMPLAINT FORM IN WHICH IT WILL BE ASSIGNED TO A UNIT OR OFFICER TO FOLLOW UP WITH DRIVER/OFFENDER .......

UNITS DO TRY TO DO THEIR BEST TO ATTEND EVERY JOB .........

**BIKEGAL68** · 27th June 2007, 19:55

sometimes we ask the informants to follow the offending veh at a safe distance.this is only asked if the unit close by as so we can catch them, more so when the driver is poss drunk.
once the unit is there they 3t the veh (pull veh over) and ask the informant also to wait as so they can give details (statement) of the bad driving ............ i say well done informants another bad driver off the rd.

as for the *555 charge there shouldnt be one.

**crshbndct** · 1st July 2007, 22:16

i called *555 once, there was an isuzu mu which was all over the road.. they didnt seem to care much until i said "no the numberplate is actually *******"

that came up as a disqualified drunk drunk driver.. they asked us to follow the car and tell us which street it turned down. (but not to actually turn don the street so that there was not risk to us. ignoring this, we parked up about 50m down the road from teh pub where the car was parked.

two police cars arrived shortly afterward (we had told them we were still with the offending car), got the details of the case and took teh charming young lady into custody. the next day we got a call to say that there were 2 young children in the car, and that we had possibly saved there lives. (she was pissed driving)

also, if you say "they appear to be drunk and they are swerving all over the road," they will not do much until you add in "and they are crossing the centreline"

crossing the centreline is the main way to get them to react.