Jaywalking laws now being enforced?

Last time my car was stolen I was pissed, but the bus ride home helped me calm down.

I had insurance, I had a family car I could borrow, it was not the end of the world.

I’ve got a bit of a bleeding heart (educated by hippies), so I felt sorry for the hoods. Their life is probably shit, living in poverty with no responsible role models to look up to. The incident just made me think about how lucky I have been in life.

On profiling: XD-XF falcons are a dirt cheap car to buy and relatively simple to repair. So besides the fact they are often stolen they are mostly driven by people on the lowest rung of society (I’m not poor, just cheap).

In my experience, people living at the bottom of society are likely to have unpaid fines, therefore likely to have a suspended licence/rego.

I’ll let you put two and two together, but it’s not hard to see why Police target these cars. The chances of catching an unlicensed driver in a old Falcon is better than in a more expensive car.

I’ve been publicly told off in Germany for having an open bottle of soft drink next to me.

After 5 minutes of being shouted at unintelligibly in German by an elderly lady a turkish woman intervened and explained that my open drink could attract a bee and for my own good the elderly lady was very concerned that I could drink the bee and get hurt.

My point is that you can get told off in public for just about anything in Germany.

Mind you I’ve been fined in China for sitting on the wrong bit of concrete (the “do not sit on this concrete” sign was not multi-lingual) I still have the receipt somewhere.

In Germany they take jaywalking and crossing against red lights really seriousley and people will tell you off in public for it. They think it encourages kids and the elderly to follow you across the road, not realising the lights are red.

I never worried about it here, until once a group of tourists casually bumbled across the road after me (near Jolimont) and only just made it.
I’ll still cross if clear, but I keep half an eye out for small kids or tourists.

I have driven a worked Lj torana – a worked TC gemini – a standard ford laser a4runner a worked suzuki swift GRi and a ford falcon.

Although I am what society would classify as a bogan or metal head – seems I am invisible to police too.

Car may have a bearing on who they pull up – but its not the be all and end all.

I have to point out – if your falcon did end up being stolen, wouldn’t you have liked the police to have pulled it over and have found the culprit?

Although the profiling does seems a bit illogical – surely there’d still be way more people legitimately owning one than there would be people who have nicked one?

If your wondering why I’ve had so much contact with the police, I used to drive an old beat up falcon. I would get pulled over all the time for no reason other than ‘These car’s are commonly stolen’.

Now I drive a camry I seem to be invisble to the police.

If a copper tries to give me a jay walking ticket (or any other summary fine), my response will depend on their attitude.

If I’ve really done something ‘dangerous’ and they can explain it in a polite way, I’ll be polite, not complain about the fine and be on my way. Cops like that are true keepers of the peace.

It’s the cops that don’t control their body language and are overtly aggressive that piss me off (they become ‘pigs’ to my definition). I find it really hard to treat them with respect and quite often I’ll respond in kind and end up with an extra fine for my troubles (abuse of power anyone?).

Nowadays if I encounter a rude cop, I smile, take the ticket then once they are ‘done’, launch into a rant about either:

How the standard copper defence of ‘I simply enforce the law’ is avoiding personal responsibility for their actions and the impact that they personally have on other peoples lives.

– OR –

‘I found your attitude unprofessional and intimidating. I’m concerned that if I was a women or someone in a vulnerable state I would have your behaviour threatening to the point that it would be reasonable for me to be in fear for my personal safety. As such your actions might constitute an assault.’

– OR –

‘I’ve been nothing but polite and 100% co-operative with you. I’m not a thug, yet your attitude and body language has been rude like you think I am! Were you trying to piss me off and escalate this situation? I thought you guys where trained to deescalate situations and maintain control? I’m not being paid to control my temper. You are!’

does the legislation extend to window washers?

My last parking fine was more than $51, and I wasn’t endangering the life or mobility of myself and others.

Note to firebrand do-gooders: PLEASE don’t start a petition to have the two fines brought into line. We’ll end out paying more for jaywalking.

Hopefully the police will be decent about it and just fine those idiots cross the road dangerously.

And now that our police are more highly educated, they should definitely be able to make these sorts of judgement calls. *cough*.