Police Officer taking questions and preparing for hate mail

Nobody automatically deserves respect. But it is just common decency towards someone you have not met, you should at least treat the person civilly. From a personal point of view, I extend common courtesy to every person I meet in my professional and personal life, and it is good when that is returned to an extent.

 

I will never be able to defend every police member that pulls cars over and delivers bad service, just the same as it is impossible to defend every driver that has done the same.

What we have to remember is that cops wear a uniform, all recieve the same training and do the same job, but they do not all do it the same way and some are better than others. Every person that plays for a given football team wears the same uniform, trains the same way, strives to accomplish the same goal, but some of them are just better at it than others. It's human nature.

Some of the cops I have worked with don't have an ounce of "people skills" in their bodies. They are out there and speak the wrong way to the public and get themselves and me in the shit all the time. That is just their personality and try as we might, that is a hard thing to change. It is impossible to pick out every single person's traits and prevent them from joining. In an organisation of 10,000 people, there is always going to be some tossers that get through.


Let me tell you a story about the only ticket I ever got from a cop for speeding (well I have got 2 from speed cameras, but thats my own fault). It was before I joined the police force but I don't think I was really that different to how I am now.

I was driving along Mountain Highway, Bayswater. Its a 3 lane road that is generally 80 km/h. There is a section near the train station where it changes to 60 km/h for about 500 metres or so. There are some shops and stuff in the area, so thats why the speed limit differs there. Anyway, I was driving along in my V8 VN Calais (which I sold before I got the Z for the sum of $400) at 80 km/h with my girlfriend at the time. I go past the shops and continue on, a police car pulls out of a side street and pulls me over.

Cop says to me "Are you aware that you were recorded on the laser travelling at 80 km an hour?" He pulled me over literally 20 metres from a sign post that said 80. I look at that sign and say "Yes, isn't it an 80 k road?" He replies that its only 60 where I was there and that he was personally responsible for getting the speed limit changed on that stretch. I told him that I must have missed the sign and that I was sorry, to which he says you can't have missed the signs, there are five of them. He asks where I live and I told him, Knoxfield. So he says to me that I must have known the speed limit cos I use this stretch of road all the time (which I didn't), and I told him that. I was only going down Mountain Highway because I picked my girlfriend up from one of her friends places and we were going down to Vermont. He scoffed at that and told me that I must use this area all the time. I shut up and accepted it, no point arguing with him I figured.

He then went off and checked my details back at the police car. He comes back and says to me "Have you been in trouble with the police before?" I replied no, no speeding, no parking tickets, nothing. He looked straight at me and actually clapped and rubbed his hand together, saying "Excellent, you're my second virgin for the day." He then went off and wrote me a ticket for doing 80 in a 60 zone.

I was absolutely furious that such a blatant asshole could do that to me. I didn't argue with him, and in the end I paid the ticket. Looking back, I should have taken the ticket to court and I don't think that any magistrate would have made me pay after he acted like that.

I never got his name, but I wish I did, because if I saw him now I would be able to tell him what a dick he is and that the way he acts does nothing to help the appearance of himself or the police force in general.

My experience with him has ensured that I never act like that to a motorist, and I can promise that I never will. I do understand that there are tools that wear a uniform and I cannot defend them. All I ask is that people understand that not every person is like that.

 

I have been a police officer for almost 6 years in the South Eastern suburbs.

The post was essentially a way of re-introducing myself to members on the forums and let you all know that you can message me if you have any issues on the legality of mods or a ticket you got or anything else like that. I haven't posted a lot, but I have read a lot over the years and I felt that especially with the current media focus on sports cars and the "hoon" buzzword, it might comfort some members to know that not every single cop is a robot programmed to fight crime and make sports car drivers lives hard.

I do not profess to know everything, but I am in a good position to get the correct advice for people if they need to find out something (a few members have PMed me for advice and I think I may have saved them the possibility of a ticket or canary).

I work general duties in the station or on the "divvy van". I have worked plain clothes concentrating on drug dealers and other "real" criminals for a while and recently came back to uniform duties.

I am not a member of the Traffic Management Unit, and never want to be. I personally do not worry about a lot of the things that I said, but it was more a consolidated list of cautions about what various cops might find offensive written in the first person.

My personal views:

I don't care if you call me mate, sir, officer, or many other names. I am more than likely to pull you over and call you mate, so that would be hypocritical for me to expect differently from you.
I really don't like the "what seems to be the problem" quote. I don't know why, it's just the one thing that raises the hair on my neck and gets me a little annoyed. I have no reason why it annoys me, it just does sorry.
I've been pulled over by a dickhead cop before and I will never, ever act that way with anyone I intercept.
I prefer the driver to stay in the car. It's purely a safety thing. When you are pulled over by a cop, then that cop is responsible for the safety of themselves, you and any cars that are driving past. If you are in the car, I know that you won't wander into traffic, I know that it's hard for you to hit me through the car window, and I know that other cars won't crane their necks as much looking to see what we are both doing outside the car. It wasn't that long ago that a cop was shot and killed with his own gun when he pulled a car over and I don't want anyone having to go and tell my family that happened to me.
If you really want to or have to get out of the car, I prefer that you walk around the front of your own car and go onto the footpath. Again this is a safety issue of you getting run down by passing traffic or crushed in between my car and yours when someone runs into the back of the car with the flashing lights.

I do believe that people have to show a basic respect for the law, if not the police representing it. A break down of that respect ends only in chaos and problems, which I saw first hand a few weeks ago. I assure you that nothing in the world and no amount of pay can prepare you to attend an incident with over 1000 people blatantly ignoring the law and fully willing to hurt or kill you in a mindless mob. There is only about 1 cop for every 500 people as an average through the state of Victoria. We rely on the fact that the majority of people will respect and obey the law the majority of the time - there is simply not the manpower to function effectively as a society otherwise.

I have never booked a driver speeding while using a radar or laser - I am not qualified to use them.
I have never booked a driver that was doing less than 25 km/h over the limit. I understand that people lose track of exact speed but you can never justify a gap of that much on inattention or a badly calibrated speedo.
I never walk up to a car that I have intercepted with the certainty that they are going to get booked for something. To be honest, I am 90% likely to issue a warning unless the driver does something to talk me into giving them one.
I have only ever pulled over one Z and that was funnily enough, at Noble Park McDonald's a few years ago. I just wanted to ask where he bought his rims...

 

I think he meant Mahatma Ghandi?

 

Ah ****.

I never expected someone to say I had no balls.

I will condense everything in my mind in regards to this right now..

If you are wronged and want to stand up for yourself, everyone here respects that.

If you're wronged and you're just telling everyone here because you want to whinge, and not actually do anything about it.. Well.. bugger, hey?

aK, I wasn't questioning anyones respect for the copper who came onto the forum and gave tips on how to better deal with getting pulled over. Maybe when I read the original post I didn't pick up the "Don't **** with the police" attitude, but everything he's said sounds like sound advice to me, and I mean, it's not like it's anything hard. It's just like anything with anyone, Don't try to piss people off unless you want the repercussions. Which is something the bad cops should think of..

So Apologies, I didn't make my original point clear.

 

lol ya tourist!

 

This is true for everything. When im hiring Computer Techs im not real interested in how good a tech they are. I can teach computers but I cant teach a personality.

 

i was told once that if you start getting shit from an a$$hole of a cop, then make a point of grabbing a piece of paper and a pen and asking for their name and badge number.
Was told that this would make them 'back off' a bit due to thinking that you may take them to court...????

 

Yea ask Topher how well that went down People in authority will always have difficulty backing down once a decision has been made regardless if it is right or wrong. Challenging them only makes them puff up. I've been playing basketball for 23 years and not once have I seen a ref change their mind cos you start arguing, the more you argue the worse it gets. Suck it up and deal with it after the game. Same applies with police, some of you might remember the bitch police woman that pulled me over at work with no seat belt on, she wasn't going to have a bar of what I said even though I knew I was in the right. I wrote a complaint to Snr Sergeant R Ritchie and the fine was revoked.

 

Well you sound like a decent enough person, and its good that you have first hand experience of how some coppers like to behave so you can understand how some people perceive the police.
I think you will find a lot of people get out of the car instinctinvely for the very basic reason that we find it uncomfortable having others standing over us. I often get out, but if anything nasty happened to the cops around here Id be more carefull about that.
The last time I got pulled over, the copper was acting very aggitated as soon as he came over and I was sure he was going to try to assault me he was that upset so I was very carefull about what I said. Luckily he had an older and much calmer partner with him who took over, as I dont think having a punch up with me would of been a great idea considering I live two doors down from him (when he discovered that he went back to his car and didnt return). I found the situation a lot easier to deal with standing up as you can imagine.
I dont usually bother asking what a copper wants when they pull me over, they always explain pretty quickly, or its obvious

P.S. You must be a brave man to face this potential flaming for all our police woes

 

aK dude, i dunno were ur rippin this shit from? did u like get really bored n want 2 add 2 this thread? but ur on sumthin good dude and i want 2 teaspoons of it

 

Mate

Always at the regular times l get pulled over
A: l get out of the car
B: l say g'day mate
C: l have my licence ready
D: l make no smart remarks

l get pulled over
It's usually because the officer thinks

A: l might drive like the dreaded word HOON
B: The car is loud it has the GONZO shades and nose and dark tint and
big wheels
C: Other people tend to stuff up our cruising time by smashing shops and
the officers just curious if lm the same type

D: Its been a quiet day the officer is a closet zed fan and just wants to look


Facts

l hate hoons they are are proficient in destroying what could be easy cruisin

l hate people who rubish police only to call them for help as soon as someone acts like they themselves do.

And l realise sometimes they get it wrong JUST LIKE US
sheeeeesh who are they to get it wrong

So in ending arent they just enforcing rules that we the Drivers first supported ( though l do belive the 100 klm speed limit is more for the HQ holdens that first saw it ) and not the modern machines of sayyyy 1989 onward ) heee hee

 

im all for an autobahn like germany has,no speed limits and less deaths than we have.I drove on the autobahn in 1993 in a porsche and can u believe i was warned for going to slow

 

No flamin here

l added a quote at the end of the thread

but as a prison officer l guess l get to see more than some of the guys on here of where it all goes wrong, but lm not preachin, it just doesnt work.
so l wish you luck mate

note the mate wasnt a dig

 

ok ok ok

lm bloody lealous l mean reallllly jealous

 

I don't know if you saw my thread on getting fined for using my fog lights at night (I have a feeling you have), but what's your take on that? I can't help but think that the officer unjustifiably had it in for me.

 

more on roboflops

man come on, we should all no by now that they make up there own rules as they go along. i had roboflops say 1 thing, then another, (damm that was hard to dill with) and if you argue the point they keep writing.


p.s roboflops now targeting zeds be aware.


cheers alex

 

Llloyd i kidnapped him

My inherent desire to shoot anyone whom i disagree with huh? okayyyy

I dont agree with people acting like they got a hand gun stuck up their ass because they got a badge. As far as i know we help pay their wages and their job is to serve the citizens. Not act like sensless creatures who dont like to be called mate. And not to be puppets and revenue makers so that the millions of dollars we pay (in fines on top of the rest of the taxes, tolls, car fees (rego etc) is used for politicians campaigns and trips around the world.

I think you are in the dark Lloyd and need to think outside the square of one helpless and caring cop giving us advice. Come on mate, their is a bigger picture and thats what i look at so dont shoot the messenger

 

Im right behind you on this aK

 

Im afraid from observation they appear to serve the government first, the very wealthy second, the plain rich third etc, not by choice but because thats the chain of power in general. We dont really pay their wages, the government does and they take the money from us with the help of the police.