New Zealand Police - setting fine examples!

[crocos]

Originally Posted by ?>Superman

This thread needs more Cinclant tbh

Cinclant? Nah. Bring back Ducky

[Mojo]

Great thread.

JP, really good read, especially liked the part about our childrens children judging the values of our society.

Fx. asked me in PhXs thread about his flatmate, what I would do to change how the police operate for the better. I didn't respond, but put alot of thought into what my response could have been. The problem being that whatever I write isn't worth shit. I have no qualifications, I don't speak from an educated perspective and I know alot of people will write my opinion off based on a couple of facts they might know about me. But most of all I didn't respond because I know there is no all-enveloping concept that will change this course of this fuck-wagon we are riding.

DrTit, JP can't write something that will make sense to you or seem like a good idea because you lack the perspective to gleam the wisdom from what he is saying.

I am disgusted with the police (again), I think we need to be alot more careful about who become cops in this country, a higher age limit, long probationary period, personality testing even go as far as having "mystery shoppers".

Look at Archibald in the nzherald picture, he looks like a fucking used car salesman.

[crocos]

Personally I'd rather use his actions as a guide for getting him shit-canned from that spot, not that he resembles a used-car salesman that fills the engine with a little sawdust to stop the sound of engine-knock...

Although now you mention it... It those dead shark-like eyes.

[madmaxii]

I am disgusted with the police (again), I think we need to be alot more careful about who become cops in this country, a higher age limit, long probationary period, personality testing even go as far as having "mystery shoppers".

Excellent suggestions Mojo. The selection criteria also needs to be changed. But none of this will help if the attitudes of too may of the senior members of the force don't change. If your superiors are fucked, you will end up either leaving or becoming fucked yourself.

Having said that, there are still quite a few sticking in there attempting to make a positive difference.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by Mojo

DrTit, JP can't write something that will make sense to you or seem like a good idea because you lack the perspective to gleam the wisdom from what he is saying.

He hasn't even suggested anything you dropkick! (see what I did there?)

He just took a bleeding heart liberal approach to a complex problem and made out like "everyone's doing it wrong".

Be pragmatic. That's all I ask. Look it up if you have to.

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by madmaxii

Excellent suggestions Mojo. The selection criteria also needs to be changed.

They could stop recruiting 21 year olds, for starters. I remember when I was 20, I rang their recruitment line and was told to come back when I was actually mature. At the time, of course, I took umbrage, but it now strikes me as an incredibly wise recruitment policy.

Last thing I want to meet on a darkened night is a 21 year old with visions of glory and a state sanction to shoot me.

[Mojo]

DrTit, I don't think a purely pragmatic approach is possible when such upheaval is required. Problems seem to get addressed with a catchy ad campaigns featuring a multicultural cast of "typical kiwis" combined with several million dollars worth of pamphlets no one but the authors and editors of will probably ever read in their entirety. This is hearts and minds shit.

I was planning to say a whole lot more, but I'm feeling worn down by all the bullshit of the world. I miss my cat.

[Juice]

Originally Posted by Mojo

I think we need to be alot more careful about who become cops in this country, a higher age limit, long probationary period, personality testing even go as far as having "mystery shoppers".

Putting aside any history and my gumboots for a minute.

I've had some insight recently into the current police recruitment process. Aside from the fitness tests, they do psychometric IQ type tests and personality profiling tests plus interviewing applicants and referees. If you get accepted it's something like 5 months training followed by two years probation with assessments throughout.

Like any job based on the pool of applicants you choose the best of the ones assessed to employ and train. At the moment due to low attrition rates due to the recession and a high number of applicants they have a large pool to choose from and waiting time for successful applicants is long.

Compare that to 5-10 years ago when the salaries were less attractive and they were actively recruiting in places like the UK offering cash incentives for overseas trained cops to move to NZ. With less applicants to choose from the bar would have been set lower especially if they were short on numbers.

[cyc]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post...lum-London-job

A senior policeman was rewarded with a prestigious posting to London, despite a secret report saying he acted unlawfully and totally mismanaged a complaint about the unlawful arrest of a justice of the peace.

Superintendent Gary Smith was one of several officers criticised by the Independent Police Conduct Authority. But 11 months after the findings, he was appointed as the police liaison officer to Britain.

The wrongly arrested Tokoroa JP, Mii Teokotai, lost her job as a result of the botched police investigation. She was charged with conspiracy to commit arson but the charge was later dismissed for lack of evidence.

The IPCA report also criticised current Southern district commander Bob Burns and former Bay of Plenty police professional standards head Garth Bryan, since appointed to a senior job at police national headquarters.

NZ police: full of awesome and cronyism since.... well, forever.

[MadMax]

and what's up with highway patrollers travelling at 97kph in passing lanes - saw one doing it today, two in a row before pulling over and doing a uturn

[Cynos]

Originally Posted by MadMax

and what's up with highway patrollers travelling at 97kph in passing lanes - saw one doing it today, two in a row before pulling over and doing a uturn

I figure they're just trying to intimidate people - "oh hell, better not go faster than the cop".

Saw them doing it on the motorway today. One cop can keep a whole lotta cars travelling slow.

[chiQ]

Originally Posted by MadMax

and what's up with highway patrollers travelling at 97kph in passing lanes - saw one doing it today, two in a row before pulling over and doing a uturn

*555 cops who drive badly.

The one time I have had cause to do this (same thing, except uniformed brass in a plain-clothes car, plus tailgating) they were ringing me for weeks, keeping me informed and asking me questions, as it went up the hierarchy. Odds are he got off scott-free as I was too lazy to take it to court (I kind of regret that now), but I had the impression that until I lost interest they wouldn't let it go. I made a point of pointing out that this guy is a PR nightmare waiting to happen (he is very senior in his police district), and got agreement, so they might genuinely have done something about it. They said at the very least it would go on his record, but that unless I asked to press charges the commander could deal with it as he pleased.

When they asked me what I would like to see done I said a formal warning and a defensive driving course. I hope he got both, but doubt it.

[Xanatos]

[mpx]

Originally Posted by MadMax

and what's up with highway patrollers travelling at 97kph in passing lanes - saw one doing it today, two in a row before pulling over and doing a uturn

What irks me more are the people that automatically think they're guilty and drive even SLOWER than the police car and everyone loses. Though, I guess the police car is still the initiate.

I see their 4km threshold didn't hold up this long weekend and there is death on the road. I still find it hard to believe they were patting themselves on the back for the Queens Birthday weekend and low road toll. If I remember rightly the weather was shocking for the whole country and no one probably wanted to go anywhere - now that the weather is fine and the people are out on the road, there's death.

I'm waiting to hear the excuse for this one, it will probably be something along the lines of, "Oh this weekend was an UNOFFICIAL 4km threshold so people were probably still speeding!!1"

If they spent the revenue they got for speeding into better driver training, desireable advanced driver training, better license conditions, better road conditions and harsher penalties for drink-drivers and repeat offenders rather than adverts for speeding I would hazard a guess things might change.

/opinionated rant over

This rant was bought to you by a young female driver who was talking on her handsfree mobile in a RAV4 using her hands to communicate while putting on what I could only guess was makeup swerving into my lane; followed by Mr Important in his Audi forcing his way into my lane without looking, or indicating and then giving me the fingers when I blast my horn. Events happened yesterday on a relatively deserted North-Western motorway.

[nostrom0]

The 4km over limit is stupid, it's probably causes more crashes... people are spending more time looking at the speedo then the road cause they don't want to get a ticket...

[Dazza]

Middle isle road barriers would cut down most serious crashes in NZ IMO or at least stop as many innocent parties from being involved in a crash. But I don't think our main state highways have enough lanes for that.

[Markh]

Originally Posted by nostrom0

The 4km over limit is stupid, it's probably causes more crashes... people are spending more time looking at the speedo then the road cause they don't want to get a ticket...

I agree - more attention to what you are doing while driving is probably enough to reduce accidents - even if driving over 10kph in excess of the limit.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by nostrom0

The 4km over limit is stupid, it's probably causes more crashes... people are spending more time looking at the speedo then the road cause they don't want to get a ticket...

I thought it had great results Queens b-day? Or was that a correlation ≠ causation thing?

[chiQ]

Yeah, I wholeheartedly support this new measure. At QB weekend it made a huge difference

[Markh]

Originally Posted by chiQ

Yeah, I wholeheartedly support this new measure. At QB weekend it made a huge difference

Sarcasm?

Clearly the toll fluctuates greatly from weekend to weekend and a low toll on one weekend can very easily be a coincidence.

Personally I am against a 4km/h tolerance purely on the grounds of fairness - you just can't drive a car that precisely with your speed varying by only a kph or 2 so some leeway is in order to avoid penalising drivers basically driving at around the speed limit. Especially since the speed camera often seem to be set up on a down slope.

[Markh]

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

I thought it had great results Queens b-day? Or was that a correlation ≠ causation thing?

Do we even have correlation? Surely it takes more than a one off weekend to establish any kind of trend?

[Nahaz]

We did a trip up to Martinborough yesterday and saw 1 parked patrol car, if that's constitutes "more police on the roads this weekend", how many do they have on a normal weekend? Or did they take those resources away from SH 2 and 53 to put them on SH 1?

[Spoon1]

4km/h limit is a fucking joke - just revenue gathering and nothing to do with safety.

[chiQ]

Originally Posted by Markh

Sarcasm?

No

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by Nahaz

We did a trip up to Martinborough yesterday and saw 1 parked patrol car, if that's constitutes "more police on the roads this weekend", how many do they have on a normal weekend? Or did they take those resources away from SH 2 and 53 to put them on SH 1?

on saturday between palmy and rotorua i saw 2 cobbers - one as above and one doing a u turn north in bulls. coming back however i lost count. and half a dozen of them had their lights flashing parked behind another car on the side of the road.

ps, sux to be those heading north, north of national park today. heading south was sweet as - even the odd patches of heavy traffic we struck were always travelling at a good cruise speed and quickly dwindled to nothing.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by MadMax

cobbers

?

[Delphinus]

For a change I'm actually impressed with what the traffic cops did today. Driving through Lawrence (Otago) and they were stopping everyone in town (for 2 seconds) to offer free sausages in bread, juice, coffee, fruit etc to make people stop and rest. Great idea I thought.

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by CCS

?

copper

[mpx]

Originally Posted by chiQ

Yeah, I wholeheartedly support this new measure. At QB weekend it made a huge difference

Queens Birthday was a washout for almost the entire country, it was a miserable weekend weatherwise and as such there were less people on the road. Of course there's going to be less incidents.

Now we're up to seven fatalities with the same measures in hand and the only difference being that it is a beautiful weekend with everyone out on the road, proving the posted 4km/h is worthless.

If they want to stop fatalities they should look at the drink drivers, the abysmal conditions of the roads and most of all, driver education in driving to the conditions and training. Reducing the threshold on the speed limit is nothing more than a pisstake.

[chiQ]

I'm not saying it works generally, but the one time I have been out in it it made a big difference to my driving experience.

I only over-took a couple of times the first time they announced their margin, because everyone just seemed to be driving well. I reckon the less time one spends on the wrong side of the road the better.

Out of interest, what is the usual Labour weekend incident count? Not deaths, as one accident can kill four or five if a family doesn't like seatbelts.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by MadMax

copper

[A Corpse]

Now they're claiming that there are less accidents, even though there were more fatalities.

I don't think 4km/h is a fair tolerance unless they make speedo tests part of a wof. Fucked if I know how far my speedo is out and I don't even know anyone with a GPS.

[^BITES^]

Originally Posted by A Corpse

Now they're claiming that there are less accidents, even though there were more fatalities.

I don't think 4km/h is a fair tolerance unless they make speedo tests part of a wof. Fucked if I know how far my speedo is out and I don't even know anyone with a GPS.

Yeah lol .... all my cars are 74's ... like FUCK the speedo is going to be THAT accurate ... considering idling it fluctuates up to 5-10 km/h lol.

[chiQ]

I would be all for speedo checking as part of WoF, with the accuracy recorded on the sticker

My speedo is way out consistently up through all speeds (my dash is in crooked), but I've been through enough of those 'your speed' signs to have a good idea of where it should be. I just drive with that in mind.

[Ab]

Let it be known that I am all in favour of the police being equipped with firearms, so long as they are required to use them to summarily execute fucktards who shoot at campers, at night, from the road.

[Markh]

It doesn't matter if your speedo is 100% precise - as a human driver you are NOT. Without cruise control a human driver will not keep the speed to an exact amount within 1 kph, there will always be some fluctuations. There are also times when you must be vigilant and keep your eyes on the road ahead while other times you can easily cast your eyes down to the speedo every few seconds.

So what is a fair & reasonable tolerance? I think 10kph would be enough for most drivers and that 4kph would not be. If I ever got ticketed for 55kph in a 50 zone I know I would not have a very positive view of the police over that incident, whereas at 65kph in a 50 zone I can accept it as 'fair enough'. I consider a 4kph tolerance as overly strict and pretty ridiculous.

[Lightspeed]

Also, the fines are practically negligible.

Originally Posted by Ab

Let it be known that I am all in favour of the police being equipped with firearms, so long as they are required to use them to summarily execute fucktards who shoot at campers, at night, from the road.

Yeah, pretty much my feelings.

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Ab

...fucktards who shoot at campers, at night, from the road.

Link?

[cyc]

Originally Posted by crocos

Link?

It's only been all over the bloody Herald's website.

[crocos]

I tend to avoid The Herald (and Stuff too) unless linked to or someone tells me there's something worth looking at. Ta - will take a look.