Monday, June 28, 2010

Thank cops

Let's Hear it for the Traffic Cops.

Some examples cited are a few years old but the principle remains the same. The cop you just saw could have saved your life in the ordinary course of duty.

Hoon runs out of luck.
A HOON had a double stroke of bad luck when he decided to "smoke it up" in a suburban Palmerston street early on 30 April 2010. He blew a tyre, kept driving on the rim and the police were watching. The driver was under the influence of alcohol and had a suspended licence for unpaid fines. He was arrested on the spot.i

Tip for 'Pizza Boys'.
We have in Darwin's Northern Suburbs another example of a traffic cop enforcing the law on what many people would consider to be a relatively minor matter. (I would like a dollar for every driver who shows by their actions that they think exceeding the speed limit by 20 Km/hour is acceptable.) An anonymous police officer pulled a 'Pizza Boy' over for doing 100 Km/hour in a 80 Km/hour zone then found that the driver was not licensed to drive and pressed charges appropriately.ii

The tip: GET A DRIVER'S LICENSE BEFORE YOU DRIVE.

I have a friend woman who was a single mother to three children and had been trying to get a driver's license for many years, she told me that she had driven her children to school. I warned her to never do it again because sooner or later the police would catch her and she would get no sympathy from me when they did. That was years ago and as far as I know she has never done this again, nor to my knowledge has she got a driver's license.

Traffic Cops Make Ecstasy Bust.
Police uncovered more than 100 ecstasy tablets and $2,300 in cash while searching a car pulled over for avoiding a breath test and for “speeding”. It appears from “reading between the lines” that a driver avoided a random breath testing station in Sydney and followed this with exceeding the speed limit. It is likely that at least part of the reason for the driver exceeding the speed limit was to elude police who were in pursuit. “A 29-year-old Guildford man was charged with supplying a prohibited drug, possessing a prohibited drug, and having goods in custody.”iii

In a separate incident a 24 year old driver was found to be in possession of more than 2000 allegedly illegal DVDs in similar circumstances, while pirated DVDs do not normally endanger people's lives, try telling the music or movie making industry that it is not a serious crime.iv

This article raises 2 issues:

  1. It appears that this person first came to the attention of police who were quietly enforcing a law (a very good one that deals with the major cause of death and trauma on the road) that does not relate to the possession or sale of illicit drugs. There have been plenty of other examples of people being busted for possession of drugs after coming to the attention of police for committing a traffic offense. In my former capacity as a taxi driver I met plenty of people who were caught driving under the influence of alcohol because a police officer observed them committing another traffic offense and noticed the smell of alcohol after pulling them over.

  2. Given the fact that drivers pulled over for relatively minor traffic offenses are sometimes found to be committing much more serious offenses I consider the value of “automated” traffic offense detection devices (such as speed and red light cameras) to be questionable.

Random breath testing stations are used to remove drivers who endanger their lives and those of other people by driving under the influence of alcohol from the road. The police officers who work them deserve the co-operation of drivers. Who knows you may be alive today because a constable quietly doing his job, removing unsafe drivers from the roads prevented an accident.

Please be polite to police, they do a difficult job.

© Ken Glasgow 2010

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