NZ Police public image

[Coyote]

PVC Tube, HairSpray and Piezo Ignition from a BBQ do the trick just fine - get about 200-300m from one. I can get pretty close to the River Road from the Stop Bank in Upper Hutt over the River

The awesome thing about the P.A.C.6 is that it's semi auto


They managed to shoot a specially made PVC dart 1276m with this

[Jackrat]

Now THATS, a spud gun!

Semi Auto Air Cannon. Capable of shooting 1 1/4" rubber balls or pre-cut spuds 300 yards.

More Cannon designs can be found here:
http://www.xinventions.com/home.htm

Wow,thanks for that,
I'm off to the shed,see ya in about two days

[Jantar]

Regardless of what any citizen believes to be right or wrong the road rules are just that, the rules.

Fair comment, Spud, but at the same time we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that rules are made for a reason. Unfortunately there are many examples of the original reason being superceded, but the rules remain simply as a revenue gathering device. I am a great believer of the concept of laws including the reason, then when the reason no longer exists, the person who breaks the law has an automatic defence.

[/QUOTE]
If you don't think that a particular intersection justifies having a stop sign controlling it and you ignore what you know to be the rules and drive through without stopping then you are knowingly putting yourself in a position where you may receive a ticket. [/QUOTE]

This is one of those circumstances where breaking the rule is likely to have a far greater consequence than a simple fine. If I am riding my bike along a straight road then I want to be confident that the idiot approaching on a side road is going to stop at that stop sign. I have no sympathy for anyone being ticketed for failing to stop at a stop sign. That is a potentially dangerous intersection, otherwise it would have a giveway sign.

[/QUOTE] Same as when you speed, overtake on yellow lines, run a red light - whatever. You choose to break the rules. It is completely innapropriate for people to decide when and where the rules will apply to them. If everyone did that there would be no order on the roads and it would be survival of the biggest..... [/QUOTE]

I disagree with you here spud. Speed is relative to such things as driver or rider ability and experience, vehicle type and condition, road conditions and traffic conditions. Unfortunately we hav a single blanket rule which doesn't take these factors into consideration. There are many roads in this area where I wouldn't consider travelling as fast as 100 kph in my SUV, yet I wouldn't hesitate to do 115 kph on my RE5, or 120 kph on my GS.

Overtaking on yellow lines is a definite NO. they are there to indicate that visibilty may not be as good as it appears.

Run a red light? I wouldn't normally, but I have doe so on a few occassions. You try sitting a t a red light in the middle of Taupo at 02:00, no traffic in sight, and after 12 minutes it still hasn't turned green. Yes, there are times when the reason for that red light just do not exist.

[spudchucka]

Now THATS, a spud gun!

Semi Auto Air Cannon. Capable of shooting 1 1/4" rubber balls or pre-cut spuds 300 yards.

More Cannon designs can be found here:
http://www.xinventions.com/home.htm

Thats quite impressive but I never truly enjoyed compressed air cannons as much as a hair spray combustion type cannon. The boom and the blue muzzle flash were a lot more satisfying than the wet fart sound you get from an air gun.

But thanks for sharing all the same.

[Clockwork]

This is one of those circumstances where breaking the rule is likely to have a far greater consequence than a simple fine. If I am riding my bike along a straight road then I want to be confident that the idiot approaching on a side road is going to stop at that stop sign. I have no sympathy for anyone being ticketed for failing to stop at a stop sign. That is a potentially dangerous intersection, otherwise it would have a giveway sign.

How or why would this situation be any different if the intersection was controlled by a Give Way sign..... or no sign at all? :unsure: If the other vehicle needs to give way then he must give way regardless of how the intersection is marked. I can't honestly say that when I am approaching an intersection where I have priority, that I am genarally aware of the constraints placed on the other traffic. I treat all intersecting traffic with the same suspicion. :sly:

This thread keeps trying to become about stop signs. Let me make this clear one last time. IMHO at an appropriately marked compulsory stop intersection right-of-way traffic approaching (ie Jantar in the example quoted above) would have no idea that anyone was intersecting until it was too late to stop because of the poor visibility offered by the intersection.

Jantar, if you can see them and presumably they can or should see you and they could pull out safely if the intersection was marked Give Way....... what's the problem?




Jantar, I used to own an RE5........ way way back!

[Clockwork]

Regardless of what any citizen believes to be right or wrong the road rules are just that, the rules. If you don't think that a particular intersection justifies having a stop sign controlling it and you ignore what you know to be the rules and drive through without stopping then you are knowingly putting yourself in a position where you may receive a ticket.

Same as when you speed, overtake on yellow lines, run a red light - whatever. You choose to break the rules. It is completely innapropriate for people to decide when and where the rules will apply to them. If everyone did that there would be no order on the roads and it would be survival of the biggest.

I'm all for the use of police discretion and consider myself to be fairly liberal in its application, however if you want fairness then the only truely fair method would be to take a black & white approach, ticketing whenever an offence is disclosed. Then surely people wont get pissed off because they know without a shadow of a doubt what the outcome will be should they get nabbed flauting the rules.

People who think they are being victimised by receiving a traffic ticket need to wake up and start taking some responsibility for their own actions. These are the same people who always have someone else to blame when something goes wrong in their lives. They need to take a long walk out to the Hard Creek and have a very long drink.

I guess we are starting to go in circles here. Your post implies that you belive that every ticket that's ever been issued by a Cop was thoroughly deserved by its recipient. But you also consider yourself a liberal applicant of the use of discretion so presumably you feel that in some circumstances ticketing is not appropriate. (Hey, so do I! ) Now, if you're a liberal applicant then this implies that some of your colleagues are less forgiving and maybe this is where the public perception issue arises. Particularly in an environment where the Police Management are proudly boasting their ever increasing ticketing expectations. Like I said before, the more citizens who get ticketed in a way that they perceive to be unfair or unreasonable the bigger the issue will become.

Yes, in a fair world maybe the Police should ticket everyone and let the courts sort it out but I've already had my say on that. (This subject may make an interesting poll if I can get around to figuring out how to set on up)

[spudchucka]

Like I said before, the more citizens who get ticketed in a way that they perceive to be unfair or unreasonable the bigger the issue will become.

What I often see however is that many people who receive traffic tickets perceive it to be unfair or unreasonable despite acknowledging they have done wrong. It seems that whenever a person is "punished" for a minor wrongdoing they suddenly develop very strong opinions about what police should be doing with their time. It appears that people are quite willing to label themselves as victims of the state when they receive traffic tickets when they should be taking responsibility for their own actions.

While I agree that the balance between traffic and general policing is too far in favour of traffic, I have no problem with the current level of traffic enforcement or the policies involved. What I would like to see is the balance leveled off by increasing the resources for general policing.

If people want to judge the police solely on the traffic side of police work then public dissaproval will be something that the police will have to live with. The road policing branch is the most visible branch of the police. They are on the road during peak traffic times and are noticed by more members of the public than the general duties branch who are often either knee deep in paper work or stuck in Otara or a similar suburb refereeing domestics.

The public perception is that the cops are out gathering revenue 24 / 7 yet you can't get a cop to take your burglary complaint. For many people this is likely the case but don't blame the traffic cops who are simply just doing the task allocated to them. If you want to blame anyone get stuck into the police hierachy and the Govt as they are the folks that determine how the police are resourced and from a general policing point of view the problem stems from a lack of resources.

[Clockwork]

When anyone gets in the firing line, its human nature to look for a scapegoat , not nice but there it is! Average Joe citizen is bound to feel his misdemeanor is petty when compared to the other sorts of issues that the Police deal with so I guess that is generally going to be their first line of defense. (that aside, from your earlier admission do we now agree that some offences can be overlooked? ).

Perhaps the biggest problem was the Government merging of MOT with the Police and then making road policing a high profile activity.

As far as resourcing is concerned, I guess everyone feels they could use more resources to do what's important to them. My feelings are that where resources are finite then your next recourse is allocation and that is probably a big cause of friction between the Police and the public! And yes I know that this imbalance is largely driven by the Government but maybe many others don't. Its an annoying fact BUT, catching criminals costs the Government money; catching motorists makes the Government money. Its bound to make you suspicious of their priorities.

[DrDee]

Some good examples of police common sense from recent times:

1. Ticketing some 17 year old kid for driving while disq, no helmet, no rego, no wof for riding down the footpath on a childs electric scooter (confiscation of the scooter as well). Stangely if he was under 14 it isnt a crime.
2. Sending a taxi to a woman in distress and not following up, I mean come on!!
3. Shooting some guy 6 times, including twice in the back after he allready had sustained mortal wounds for breaking windows, can anyone say 'itchy trigger finger". Note a week later a lone policeman singlehandedly tackled a gunman who had just shot someone in Eltham from memory. Because all policeman know that a golfclub is far more dealy than a gun!! Also at the same time a US policeman shoots a gunman in the knee from 200+ yards on the whitehouse lawn after he discharged a weapon at the whitehouse. There is so much more to this story than the police are evr going to tell.
4. Spending $180million a year (plus court costs and time) prosecuting people for possesing minor amounts of class B drugs for personal use and NOT TARGETING THE DEALERS! Duh!! This should be an instant fined offence like speeding.... unless you are a DEALER!
5. Saying there is not enough police to combat serious crimes (car theft, burglary violent acts to name a few) as they dish out a record number of minor traffic offences! Hmmmm..... priorities??

[Kickaha]

Some good examples of police common sense from recent times:

So what you are trying to say is that for the same time period you can't find anything positive they have done? yeah right!

[Mongoose]

So what you are trying to say is that for the same time period you can't find anything positive they have done? yeah right!

Take your pick, that was either a show of imagination skills, or half truths

[Jantar]

How or why would this situation be any different if the intersection was controlled by a Give Way sign..... or no sign at all?

If you re-read what I wrote, you'll not that I comment that STOP signs are generally placed at dangerous intersections, ie ones where you can't see that other vehicle approaching from the side. Intersections with reasonable visibility usually have Give way signs.

I must fully agre with you though, that its best to treat all intersections as potentially dangerous, and all cage drivers as utter idiots.

[spudchucka]

Average Joe citizen is bound to feel his misdemeanor is petty when compared to the other sorts of issues that the Police deal with so I guess that is generally going to be their first line of defense. (that aside, from your earlier admission do we now agree that some offences can be overlooked? ).

All average Joe has to do to avoid the police attention is stick to the rules. Its that simple.

I agree that minor offences can be overlooked or dealt with by way of a warning, thats what police discretion is for and I totally support a common sense but reasonably liberal application of that discretion.

Perhaps the biggest problem was the Government merging of MOT with the Police and then making road policing a high profile activity.

Thats a definiate possibility but people love to moan about something and if the branches were separated they would probably just moan equally about MOT and police.

As far as resourcing is concerned, I guess everyone feels they could use more resources to do what's important to them. My feelings are that where resources are finite then your next recourse is allocation and that is probably a big cause of friction between the Police and the public!

I agree that reallocation is an option but it just won't happen anytime soon. So the only other thing to do is lobby for my GDB cops on the street, something that the police association is active in.

http://www.policeassn.org.nz/

Have a look at the latest media releases. Also have a read of the most recent couple of association news editions, there have been some interesting items on this topic recently.

ts an annoying fact BUT, catching criminals costs the Government money; catching motorists makes the Government money. Its bound to make you suspicious of their priorities.

Preventing fatal and serious injury crashes saves the country billions, money that can be spent on other health services, education, better roading etc etc. There are always more sides to a story than the one you might think is the most obvious.

[spudchucka]

Some good examples of police common sense from recent times:

1. Ticketing some 17 year old kid for driving while disq, no helmet, no rego, no wof for riding down the footpath on a childs electric scooter (confiscation of the scooter as well). Stangely if he was under 14 it isnt a crime.
2. Sending a taxi to a woman in distress and not following up, I mean come on!!
3. Shooting some guy 6 times, including twice in the back after he allready had sustained mortal wounds for breaking windows, can anyone say 'itchy trigger finger". Note a week later a lone policeman singlehandedly tackled a gunman who had just shot someone in Eltham from memory. Because all policeman know that a golfclub is far more dealy than a gun!! Also at the same time a US policeman shoots a gunman in the knee from 200+ yards on the whitehouse lawn after he discharged a weapon at the whitehouse. There is so much more to this story than the police are evr going to tell.
4. Spending $180million a year (plus court costs and time) prosecuting people for possesing minor amounts of class B drugs for personal use and NOT TARGETING THE DEALERS! Duh!! This should be an instant fined offence like speeding.... unless you are a DEALER!
5. Saying there is not enough police to combat serious crimes (car theft, burglary violent acts to name a few) as they dish out a record number of minor traffic offences! Hmmmm..... priorities??

1: Who cares - one less half wit on the road, or footpath for that matter.

2: Go back and read the threads on that one, theres no point in digging it up again.

3: 6 shots, two in the back?? Have a read of the report attached below. Educate yourself, gain an actuall understanding of some of the facts of the case and then form an opinion.

Also, go join a gun club, get a high powered rifle with a scope, have a go at aiming at an object the size of a knee cap (from 200 yards) and see how long it takes you to hit the object. Once you have done that see if you can get a hold of a 9mm semi auto pistol and do the same thing from 200 yards. We'll see you back here in about 15 years, by which time you should have thrown enough ammo in the general direction that you have had a reasonable statistical chance of actually hitting something.

4: Stop smoking so much of it yourself, things will become a lot clearer over time.

5: Perhaps when Joe public wises up to the fact that they will cop a fine when they flaut the road rules and they start to drive properly, then we will see a more balanced police service. As long as the great unwashed keep supplying opportunities to write tickets there will be cops there with the ticket book at the ready.

[justsomeguy]

"Also at the same time a US policeman shoots a gunman in the knee from 200+ yards on the whitehouse lawn after he discharged a weapon at the whitehouse. There is so much more to this story than the police are evr going to tell."

That sounds like a complete fluke or the fella is a retired/reassigned sniper......Impresive none the less.....

http://science.howstuffworks.com/sniper.htm

How much range time/ testing/whateveritiscalled do you guys have to pass before you are allowed to use a firearm?