Reporting dangerous driving.

[James Deuce]

Total bullshit ... get the chip off your shoulder Jim.

*555 calls about seriously bad driving are followed up. Get a scanner and listen sometime.

Have you ever gone to a Police station to follow up after making a call?

I have. Nothing happens. As soon as you mention motorcycle, or turn up with a helmet under your arm, they aren't interested in what happened, they're more interested in what you did to provoke the problem.

No point getting a scanner with the imminent advent of digital encryption for Police comms.

*555 is a waste of time, especially if you are a motorcylist.

[Usarka]

If something dangerous is happening on the road, call 111.

10kfc......

Have you ever gone to a Police station to follow up after making a call?

Yep. Won't bother next time.

[crazefox]

Have you ever gone to a Police station to follow up after making a call?

I have. Nothing happens. As soon as you mention motorcycle, or turn up with a helmet under your arm, they aren't interested in what happened, they're more interested in what you did to provoke the problem.

No point getting a scanner with the imminent advent of digital encryption for Police comms.

*555 is a waste of time, especially if you are a motorcylist.

Yeah. WOWCHICKYWOWWOW

[Grub]

... until I get more than a 'please would you now go and report it in person' response, there will be a definite grain of salt held on to!

I think you'll find that if they can't catch an offender in the act then the only way that person can be sought out and charged is if Police are acting on a formal complaint. That's the way the law is and a phone call doesn't legally constitute a "formal complaint"

[scumdog]

I do not, in general, approve of motorists dobbing in other motorists. Contrary to the Biker Code.


One tip, though. If you use the Roadwatch form, don't put your own rego number. Firstly, because it is unwise to draw your rego to the attention of the snakes, and secondly because it will identify to them that you are a biker. The chances of a complaint from a motorcyclist being taken seriously are zero.

(a) Biker Code schmiker code - if they're dangerous dob them in FFS - the life you save may be your own.

(b) You live in a sorry part of the country (why I have to ask) as down here in southern impoverished red-neck land a motorcyclists word is as good as anybodys - even more so because we have a lot of biker-sympathetic cops down here. (and a lot say "If the bugger is prepared to come here, get off his bike, take his helmet off and shuffle up the steps in all his gear then his complaint must be serious")

But hey, I live in a fantasy land it seems.....

[Swoop]

I have dialled *555 twice.
Once when a rather inebriated person was taking a stroll along the North Western carpark when it was not actually a carpark...

The other time was to notify that a large piece of timber was carefully positioned on the Harbour Bridge for traffic to swerve around/hit/collide with.

Who knows if anything was done for either of these. I would like to think that there was.

If important 111.

Dopey cager? Mr Spidi can sort that...

[Ixion]

(a) Biker Code schmiker code - if they're dangerous dob them in FFS - the life you save may be your own.

Dangerous in whose opinion , though ? The interchangeable Mabels think ALL those dreadful motorcycles are dangerous. The trouble with *555 is that it is an open invitation to the doddery and incompetent to secure official sanction for whatever they may consider dangerous. The cops never make any attempt to ascertain the qualifications of the complainant to determine dangerous or not.

I have dialled *555 twice.

The other time was to notify that a large piece of timber was carefully positioned on the Harbour Bridge for traffic to swerve around/hit/collide with.
..

I did use *555 a few minths ago to report a 3 seater sofa in the middle lane of the North Western - which was not in car park mode at the time. When I returned a few hours later the sofa was gone. It wasn't by the roadside . So either the owners noticed it was missing and returned to collect it, or the cops organised a truck, it would not have fitted in a snakemobile.

[rwh]

Dangerous in whose opinion , though ? The interchangeable Mabels think ALL those dreadful motorcycles are dangerous.

I fail to see your strategy here. Presumably you think your own opinion is valid? So you avoid submitting your valid opinion, and leave it to those whose opinions you don't value? Is your goal for the authorities to decide it's useless, because only idiots use it, and abandon it?

Richard

[slopster]

As some will know I got seriously fucked around when a truck driver made a complaint about my overtaking (it was safe and legal and I think he just got a fright). Of course his word was above mine and the local highway patrol cop gave me a ticket even though he hadn't seen it himself. I eventually got out of it after contesting the ticket but not until I had been fucked around for six months.

I can't believe they can give you a ticket because of what someone else has said and its up to you to prove your innocence.

[Ixion]

Well, no, I don't assume my opinion is valid. Generally I either assume that maybe the other person is a better driver than I am, or just chalk them up as General Idiot . If I *555'd every idiot I see doing something stupid, I'd be on the 'phone all day. But I think it usually rash to opine that someone else's driving is dangerous.

Of course there are cases when it really is, but I suspect that they are about 1% of the complaints, the 99% being the holier-than-everybody-else types who consider any sort of driving that does not accord with their own bumbling to be dangerous.

I know of at least one person who makes a practice of *555ing any bike that passes him. 'Cos he drives as fast as is safe (in his truck !) , so by definition anyone who passes him is driving dangerously.

Overall, I don't see it contributes much (the *555 system I mean), I'd be just as happy for it to be discontinued.

[James Deuce]

I'm kinda with Ixion here. Both times I visited the Police Station after *555ing, I'd been hit by people whilst moving, thankfully without them knocking me off in the one incident in which I was moto-velocipede mounted. If they refuse to follow up on something so blatantly dangerous as that, what is the point?

[HornetBoy]

ive had a alot of people bringing 555 up in a conversation saying that some elderly drivers had reported them for lane splitting and dangerously rideing etc thats the problem because people have different gauges on whats dangerous and stuff so it can cause alot of wasted time getting cops running around after some motorcyclist who has been dobbed in for nothing more than passing between two cars ... i reckon its pointless really but thats my opinion works sometimes but really just a number to vent your anger and disgust at someones driving/rideing

[Banesto John]

Remember the old black and white cars? Remember the R80RT BMWs? The *555 number was introduced by the Traffic Safety Service, the uniformed branch of the Monistry of Transport. In those days, cellphones weighed about as much as a brick, and cost about a zillion dollars. *555 calls were dealt with seriously, because there weren't many of them.

Now, time warp yourself to 2008, when everyone has at least one cell phone. Some people have a work phone and a personal phone, some have one for calls from their wife, and one for calls from their secret girlfriend. *555 gets called so often the road staff have no chance at all of dealing with every complaint that comes in.

Ade to this the fact that 95% of calls that start out "I'm following a guy that must be pissed to bits.............." and then end in a cop stopping them, to find they are dead sober, just crap drivers.

So, what we have out there are cops who have driven like maniacs to catch "a guy that must be pissed to bits" only to find that the driving required to catch him/her was totally unjustified.

And it's not as if there are hundreds of cops out there waiting for you to call *555. Cops are normally employed doing whatever they are expected to do by their bosses, and each *555 adds to that workload.

Certainly, the cops get some good catches from *555 calls, but more often than not there isn't a spare cop to catch the person you are complaining about, so don't complain when you get a less than adequate response. Does anyone really think that there are cops sitting on their arses waiting for the phone to ring?

Yes, bring on the derision, as I expect to be hammered for my views. Take a look in the mirror first, before you hit the keyboard.

[Genestho]

[QUOTE=Patrick;1375501]By writing to the minister, you turned that complaint into a ministerial complaint. "Stalling" it is not... fine toothed combing in progress and watch the result... Be patient, grasshopper...



Yeah I know - your right, and I often say that exact same thing to myself (Even the grasshopper bit). Ive found time is short and talk is cheap.

By the mixed views in this thread, its as mixed as the many reports Ive received..
If you have a call in centre that is supposed to be all about protecting road users then it should be functional and back itself up, or dont provide the service at all. (Its obvious this service is needed)
I can see the mission in trying to filter the obvious serious calls and the "whinger" calls, and that the police cant be sittin around waiting for the next call.

Theres alot of valid points here, perhaps the treatment of each complaint comes down to whether or not the employee cares about his/her job.
But, the thing is, with us kiwis is theres always excuses for everything, too hard, wont work, cant do it...not enough this, not enough that..

There is no excuse.

Provide a functioning service with the same processes and expected outcomes for each serious call and for once you get faith in this system, or provide a half assed service and nobody believes in it and wont use it.

My husband and his mates may have lived if somebody had bothered to make the *555 call when the drunk driver had crossed the centre line earlier in his journey and had been weaving for awhile.

Nobody made that call.

Strange how so many witnessed it and did nothing.

30000 people caught drunk driving this year and a 1/3 are recidivist drunk drivers, thats one of many pretty damn good reasons to have this *555 working, and I hope this system is working efficiently, before anyone of you finds that deadly oncoming car in your path.

Id really appreciate it if people could continue to post their experiences with *555 here, Id like to be able to keep a log for my own badd use and co alate as much as poss before I speak to the Ministers.
Cheers Jos

[Ixion]

,,
Yes, bring on the derision, as I expect to be hammered for my views. Take a look in the mirror first, before you hit the keyboard.

Dunno why. I reckon you've about summed it up. Every man and his dog, every woman and her cat, reckon they're shit hot drivers, and disapprove of most other drivers. And consider themselves competent to judge other people's driving.

Nine times out of ten, it's the incompetant calling in the incompetent.
Unless it's blatantly obvious, like someone driving the wrong way on the motorway, what's a cop to do? Give a driver a ticket because another driver (who may be a total idiot) says to ? That does happen, and it's usually very unjust.

Does anyone really want to have a situation where Mabel gets to decide what's acceptable driving and what isn't?

Incidentally has anyone else noted the common theme of truck drivers in the *555 thing. Sort of "I can't do that in my 20 ton 18 wheeler, so you're bloody well not going to either". Given the appalling standard of driving I see in some HG drivers, I don't really think they're qualified to judge.