ANOTHER police car does a u-turn in front of a biker = crash

[scracha]

Company culture and policy directly influences how employees behave.

From the outside, the culture seems to be more of enforcement than protecting the public.....

So I'd assume the dibble will get done for reckless driving or was Helen Clark on the back?

[Tank]

a speeder doing 110kph

Just to clarify he was doing 142 not 110.

Regardless - that was really sad news to come into this morning. There has been enough damage caused by this over the last week to last a lifetime.

I believe that the police need to do something about this as a whole (what I just dont know), but it seems that they are so 'active' in chasing (i.e. the see a speeder and balm they U turn and are after it. No pulling indicating 3 seconds. Pulling over. Checking if the road is clear THEN turning.

I do believe that the officers in this (and the other case) should be charged appropriately, and be stood down from driving police cars - they are obviously not responsible drivers.

[spudchucka]

Company culture and policy directly influences how employees behave.

From the outside, the culture seems to be more of enforcement than protecting the public.....

The police have more policies and general instructions than a bull could shit. They don't need a policy in relation to basic safe driving, it comes down to individual responsibility.

[Usarka]

I agree, policy doesn't change behaviour. Remove the word policy and replace it with culture.

Not meaning to bring up the "quota" argument again, but a key performance indicator for traffic is the number of tickets (whether "officially" or not isnt important).

In any job if an individual is given a priority or a key measure they strive to meet it, often overriding other aspects of the job. The scale of this behaviour depends on the individual and some even go the other way, but most people try to meet what is expected of them.

If you are saying it is solely the individuals responsibility and fault (assuming they are guilty of course) then we're soon going to need to start questioning the recruitment and training standards especially if there is another incident in the near future. Coincidences rarely are, imho....

[Flatcap]

At least this copper had the decency to feel bad, unlike that cocksucker in Buller

[spudchucka]

Not meaning to bring up the "quota" argument again, but a key performance indicator for traffic is the number of tickets (whether "officially" or not isnt important).

They want one ticket per hour of road policing and if you work as a full time traffic cop you can do that in your first hour of duty if you want to. That's 8 or 10 tickets a day. Spend half an hour parked at a reasonably busy intersection and see how many people infringe the road rules, it is very easy to achieve "the quota".

If cops are constantly stuffing up on the road I would look more at their supervision rather than initial recruitment standards. If they aren't measuring up on the job or they are just getting hold of the wrong end of the stick for some reason then it is the supervisors responsibility to pull them into line.

[ManDownUnder]

Sorry - I didn't mention that the wife and I were in the car both times.

Perhaps if they had to count to 3 before responding to a call, in order to check around, or maybe 5 or 10 seconds........

Wouldn't it be nice to point it out to the cop they didn't something wrong... with an airhorn at point blank range...!

[vifferman]

Just to clarify he was doing 142 not 110.

Allegedly doing 142.

I believe that the police need to do something about this as a whole (what I just dont know), but it seems that they are so 'active' in chasing (i.e. the see a speeder and balm they U turn and are after it. No pulling indicating 3 seconds. Pulling over. Checking if the road is clear THEN turning.

The recent accidents do seem to indicate that there is a need for the police to re-evaluate their policy, culture and training. The whole business of having road rules and issuing tickets when these rules are broken is supposed to be to make the roads safer. If in the process of doing this, they are having accidents, or acting without regard for the safety of other road users, then that casts the whole road safety enforcement program in a very bad light.

In any case, there are some fundamental problems with the whole "road safety programme". It's supposed to have three prongs: Education, Enforcement and Engineering. It seems to me that the prong most likely to "get the general public onside" with the programme is in fact the education one, especially if it is actually educational and informative, rather than propaganda and sloganeering.
F'rinstance - how many times each day, do you see people who don't know how to use flush medians, roundabouts, indicators, pedestrian crossings, and who don't know/observe simple things like "the maximum speed at which you may pass a school bus stopped on either side of the road is 30km/h"?
Education about following distances, how to control a skid, simple safety checks on your car/bike, etc.
I don't think, "If you're prepared to speed, be prepared to kill" counts as education. It certainly didn't have a positive effect on me when I received a reminder in the mail about how many points I have on my licence (2,379), and when they were incurred / due to expire. I honestly thought, "That's a good idea - I was unsure about when exactly that was!" And then there was the preach bold type on the next page:
"If you're prepared to speed, be prepared to kill" and that undid all the goodwill. I didn't think "Yes - that's right; I must not speed in case I kill people!". Instead I just felt at the propaganda-ising I was being subjected to. What a waste of my tax dollars.
Err... ticket dollars.

OK, rant mode off....

[avgas]

Everything on the road has the potential to kill you. The day you morons learn this is the day you stop complaining about cops doing u turns.
Go get yourself and accident and get some hard learn.
The only thing you can guarantee on the road is you.

[Steam]

The day you morons learn this is the day you stop complaining about cops doing u turns.

Right, right, I guess I should stop complaining about drunk drivers, or boy-racers trying to force me off the road and nudging my rear wheel at the lights too.
OF COURSE everything on the road can kill us, and as riders we must take all responsibility to minimise those risks but there are some things just impossible to plan for.
I wouldn't complain if it was a force of nature causing the injury, like a meteor or a flood or a mechanical failure, but in this case it's simple negligence by a driver who didn't care enough to check before he u-turned. Simple and stupid.
That's worthy of complaining.

[WRT]

Hats.

Hat wearers are either 300 years old or have ego/penis size issues.

Hmm, you could be onto something here, Jim.

[Fatjim]

Until recently my most feared list was

1. Taxis.
2. Volvos.
3. Volvo taxis.
4. Buses.

I think Buses come in number 5 now, but where from 1-4 do I put U-turning Coppers?

[Skyryder]

With the proviso that the cops are not going to apportian any blame to the crashed biker unless there is evidence to the contrary I will say very little on this other than if you going to do a u turn or indeed any other kind of manourvre it is up to the driver to perform the 'said' manourve safely.


Skyryder

[Skyryder]

Everything on the road has the potential to kill you. The day you morons learn this is the day you stop complaining about cops doing u turns.
Go get yourself and accident and get some hard learn.
The only thing you can guarantee on the road is you.

Bring back the red flags and anything faster than walking is 'speeding.'



This is not about guarantee's, if it was then the only guarantee not to get knocked of you bike is not to get on it.

Yes there are risk with biking but that risk becomes an acceptable risk with the proviso that there is an expectation that the ‘majority’ of other road users will employ some common sense. Many don't we all know that but to blame bikers in 'all' crash situations on the basis that you have stated seems to me that you have not been riding very long and have little experiance.

We all know there are situations where there is a point on the road that if a vehicle does the unexpected there is nowhere to go. Every car that has it's indicator on ready to pull out from the kerb is a case in point. There is a small window where in passing, if the car pulls out you have nowhere to go.

Should we stop in the middle of the road, pull up to the kerb and allow the car to pull out before we proceed?? No. We make the assumption that the driver will act with safety and we proceed on our way.

I've been riding off and on all my life and this bullshit that bikers can avoid all and everything thrown in their way is bullshit. So too is the assumption that bikers can avoid crashes and if not then they must have done something wrong.


Skyryder

[Skyryder]

Right, right, I guess I should stop complaining about drunk drivers, or boy-racers trying to force me off the road and nudging my rear wheel at the lights too.
OF COURSE everything on the road can kill us, and as riders we must take all responsibility to minimise those risks but there are some things just impossible to plan for.
I wouldn't complain if it was a force of nature causing the injury, like a meteor or a flood or a mechanical failure, but in this case it's simple negligence by a driver who didn't care enough to check before he u-turned. Simple and stupid.
That's worthy of complaining.

Ditto.

Skyryder