Reasons why the ACT is better than NSW - The Australian Federal Police

AFP have numbers. If you have a genuine complaint, you have an expectation that your complaint will be actioned reasonably.

The AFP are also rostered on conditions that are designed to allow for them to perform at the desired performance level when they are on duty. Some of the desired performance levels also include how polite and courteous an officer is expected to act while performing their duties.

If an officer has been discourteous, or needlessly rude, it can be a marker-sign of bigger issues that the AFP and the individual needs to recognise and act upon. You are not doing any harm in notifying the AFP via an independent process that an officer has acted discourteously, or was needlessly rude in the conduct of their duties.

All my experiences with the AFP have been great. Much better than the policing levels across the border!

cmdwedge said :

It was coming up Mirabei (sp?) Drive from the Len Waters St end, and it’s the final roundabout before the bridge. There’s a fair bit of foliage in the middle of the roundabout, so all I could see were the flashing lights + couple of cars on the side of the road.

I know that it’s difficult to express in a post on RA, but I’ve run into 95% good, decent police, but 5% are power trippers and complete wankers. This guy was DYING to nail me for something, but I was clean, sober, the car was registered and completely roadworthy; I explained apologetically that I had made a mistake in believing that it was not an RBT but an accident, but he was a complete knob about it.

No skin off my nose, I simply started the car and was on my merry way.

I believe that the police are providing a service, and have a responsibility to be polite and professional. As long as I’m polite and clear in response to his questions, I should be treated the same way.

5% wankers is a pretty good percentage within the police then, you’re probably more likely to find a wanker in the general population…

I don’t remember the police being employed to being nice warm and fuzzy to everyone either, and I don’t think there’s a rule anywhere that requires them to say please and thankyou.

Doing a u-turn after seeing the police ahead would be considered suspicious by most people’s standards as most people would continue on past the accident, unless there was an obvious road closure… The police car was obviously there to pick up the people doing exactly what you did to avoid the RBT, even though you didn’t do it for that reason. Anyway I bet the number one excuse for someone doing a u-turn like that would be something similar to what you used, and any smart officer wouldn’t say “oh ok, off you go then”.

The police do their jobs on the most part fairly well, and it’s funny how if you’re not doing anything wrong or suspicious you never have any problems!

Vic Bitterman said :

ant said :

The two I particularly remember on that group used the pen-names Shane, and Spooky.

I loved reading his stories, and watching the pursuit videos he’d occasionally share. Pity he got told by the brass to stop posting…. he did so much to bridge the gap between motorists perceptions of crinklybacks…

Vic Bitterman, yeah, I think Spooky left the force along the way… I think he was a bit older. Shane was evidently quite youthful, and it was rather fun prodding him and watching him go off. Very loquacious when excited, was Shane. He was telling some story one day, and came out with something about police in the squadroom not being allowed to use anything dangerous or sharper than a tennis ball that had me laughing for days. He was good value, and it’s a shame they leaned on him.

WMC, I might not have spelt it out in enough detail for you and it would appear that you and CMDwedge are making a very serious complaint of Police harrassment. Nobody likes harrassment do they? It is really tiresome but this might help to explain why Police sometimes harrass you and your friends:

The question from WoodyManCaruso was: “If it’s not illegal, why is a police car deciding to drive after you and pull you over a ticketable offence?”

This sounds like a definite complaint of police harrassment to me WMC so let me answer the question for you in really simple terms.

In the ACT we have about 800 coppers for about 300,000 people. About 60% of those cops are on duty at any one time. This “On duty” time is where we do most of the harassing. One-fifth of that 60% are on duty at any moment and available for harassing people. So, one on duty cop is responsible to harass a hell of a lot of people. When you toss in the commercial, business, and tourist locations in the ACT that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible to try to harass 20,000+ people a day.

A ten hour shift runs 36,000 seconds. This gives a cop only one second to harass a person, and three-fourths of a second to eat a donut (Yes Ant – we do eat donuts) AND find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. Most cops are not up to it day in and day out. It is just too tiring.

Since you now understand why we cannot harass everyone let me explain briefly what we do to utilize some special “tools” to help us narrow down who we harass, so we can focus our limited “harassing resources” to those most worthy individuals. They are as follows:

The Phone:
People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus
on another person for special (concentrated) harassment. “My ex-husband just beat me and my boyfriend up and he is barricaded in the bedroom with our baby and a gun, or “My neighbor is beating up his wife and she is screaming for help” are a couple code phrases that are frequently employed. Then we come out and give special harassment to the wife beater. Another popular one on weekends is “My neighbors are out of town and their kids are having a loud party.”

Cars:
We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive; They usually ride motorcycles so they can get around fast or cut through traffic to harass as many people as possible in their given shift. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, people “avoiding” RBT stations, cars blasting music, cars with expired registration labels, and the like. It is lots of fun when we pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious then running a red light, going through stop signs, or driving 20+ Kph over the posted limit in a school zone. Sometimes we get to really heap the harassment on when we find they have drugs in their car, are driving drunk, are unlicensed or have an arrest warrant!

Runners:
Some people take off running at the mere sight of a uniformed police officer or a Detective. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a trained
beagle on the scent of a bunny. When we catch them, believe it or not, there is always some good reason to harass them for hours!

Codes:
When we can think of nothing else to do, there are books that give us
ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called Laws,Criminal, Vehicle, Drugs, Health and Safety, Business and Professions… They each spell out all sorts of silly things for which we can really mess with people. After we study these law books, we can just drive around for a while until we find someone violating one of the listed offences and heap on the harassment! Just last week I saw a guy deal methamphetamine right in front of me. Well, believe it or not, one of the law books says that is not allowed. That meant I automatically got to harass this guy…of course he didn’t like it, because just when I got done harassing him, the Police Watchhouse harassed him and that will likely continue until the judge harasses him (unless it is CJ Higgins), then he will probably be harassed by aCorrective Services officer for the next couple of years. It is a pretty cool system that we have set up, and it works very well most of the time. We seem to have a never ending supply of citizens to harass, and we “get away with it” because the good citizens of the ACT pay the tab for us to keep the streets safe for them.

Next time you see a Police officer manning an RBT Station, give them a “single finger wave” as payback for the extraordinary harrassment that you received recently. That is a secret signal that you wish them to take a closer look at you, and maybe find a reason to harass you.

I hope that this makes it all clearer for you.

vg said

vg said :

Sorry…..but that’s the entire story?

Goodness me, big stuff

I agree, that’s hardly news! A Canberra policeperson being surly, whoopee do. I saw a blade of grass today…

I remember ACT Policing having a bad run in the courts, cases tossed out because they lost the evidence or hadn’t bothered to gather it. No idea how NSW compares.

There was the van abandoned by parliament house, after A WEEK, call out the bomb squad and close off the road. True, this may have been the Federal Feds who are doing their best to damage the AFP’s credibility with the Haneef fiasco.

As for RBTs, setting up in the bike lane and being clearly unprepared for a cyclist rolling through.

WMC I suspect that you might fail “The attitude test” on a regular basis. Just to clear things up for you:

Why do Police pull people over, including people who appear to be avoiding RBT Stations?

A: Because they can…..get over it.

A low speed pursuit car?

Hm? A Hyundai? Something tells me that if every AFP officer were off sick and only Const. Kenny were available, the hoodies in a stolen Datsun robbing banks and speeding away wouldn’t have to go very fast to get away.

You would be surprised at how many u-turn and avoid RBT because they are or suspect themselves of being over…..

WMC intelligently asked the question “Is it illegal to avoid an RBT?” The answer is no and it not illegal for Police to pursue you either. Neither is it illegal for Police to talk to people in the same manner in which they are spoken to. Some people are very slow learners and it does not help to aggravate the Police. Have you ever heard of “The attitude test”?

It was coming up Mirabei (sp?) Drive from the Len Waters St end, and it’s the final roundabout before the bridge. There’s a fair bit of foliage in the middle of the roundabout, so all I could see were the flashing lights + couple of cars on the side of the road.

I know that it’s difficult to express in a post on RA, but I’ve run into 95% good, decent police, but 5% are power trippers and complete wankers. This guy was DYING to nail me for something, but I was clean, sober, the car was registered and completely roadworthy; I explained apologetically that I had made a mistake in believing that it was not an RBT but an accident, but he was a complete knob about it.

No skin off my nose, I simply started the car and was on my merry way.

I believe that the police are providing a service, and have a responsibility to be polite and professional. As long as I’m polite and clear in response to his questions, I should be treated the same way.

What do you reckon it looks like?

It looks like some coppers on the side of the road waving you over. My question was whether it was illegal to avoid one. I’m not talking about doing a runner once you’ve been asked to pull over – I’m talking about sidestepping (sidedriving?) the whole thing in the first place. The fact that people get busted for other stuff once they’re pulled over shouldn’t have any bearing on this.

If it is illegal, what constitutes ‘avoidance’? If your mate texts you before you leave and you take a back road instead, is that avoidance? How close do you have to be before turning away is avoidance?

If it’s not illegal, why is a police car deciding to drive after you and pull you over a ticketable offence?

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Is it illegal to avoid an RBT?

What do you reckon it looks like? From many other posts it is common knowledge that a lot of crimes are detected during RBT stops and drunken idiots who drive know the consequences of getting caught – some will not take it on the chin like others and will do crazy things to aviod an RBT

From cmdwedge: He gets stuck straight into me. “What were you doing avoiding the RBT?” “I thought it was an accident and couldn’t see that it was an RBT” “Breathe into this for me” … “You’re lucky, if you were over I would have done you for pursuit” he snarled at us. “Er, ok”. Ignition, drive off.

If it looks like you were avioding the RBT the actions seems justified. As for the language did he really snarl? My advice for what it’s worth: harden up.

ant said :

The two I particularly remember on that group used the pen-names Shane, and Spooky.

I loved reading his stories, and watching the pursuit videos he’d occasionally share. Pity he got told by the brass to stop posting…. he did so much to bridge the gap between motorists perceptions of crinklybacks…

We are truly thankful.

: )

For those of us that aren’t so enlightened, how many police do we actually have visit RA? I don’t visit regularly enough to keep track of who posts what but have found the posts I have noticed from members of the police to be of great value so applaud the fact that they do visit here and help to clear up a lot of misinformation. Kudos guys (even though I’m not sure who you are!).

Is it illegal to avoid an RBT?

Small potatoes, I know, but I’ve had similar from ACT cops on more than one occasion, including bad language. I know they’re only human, though.

Sorry…..but that’s the entire story?

Goodness me, big stuff

Had my first run-in with the po-po last weekend. Was driving to the shops, and an RBT was setup just after a roundabout with a lot of trees in the middle. This was in a built-up area, so I figured that it wasn’t an RBT but it was an accident (flashing lights and all that, with two cars pulled over off the side of the road). Even my fiance said ‘looks like an accident, hope that no-one’s hurt’.

So I just did a u-turn around the roundabout, and as I was most of the way through, I noticed the pursuit car parked on the corner, and realised that it was an RBT. No biggie. So I just went around the corner, drove about 50m, and pursuit policeman pulled me over. I politely switch off the engine and engage the hazard lights before he even got out.

He gets stuck straight into me. “What were you doing avoiding the RBT?” “I thought it was an accident and couldn’t see that it was an RBT” “Breathe into this for me” … “You’re lucky, if you were over I would have done you for pursuit” he snarled at us. “Er, ok”. Ignition, drive off.

Tosser.

For all the long standing humour that its provided, the Kenny Koala program has really been a success. There was a time in this fair city, years ago now, when just about every kid in this town knew who Kenny Koala was.

Bring back Police 7!

I like our occasional policey talkback posters, in that I prefer being reliably informed over being regularly fed bullshit.

Except by ACT Media, who should be far better at release information onto the Interweb in all regards.
(Speed, content, clarity, etc)

Mrs G always looked forward to when Kenny came to the school and did his thing. The kids love him and learn a bit at the same time. It is a great program that helps primary school kids understand the roles of the Police.

JB wrote :”Do you think in NSW community forums are flooded by concerned police eager to point out to everyone exactly why they’re wrong? Taking such care to set everyone straight so that they may sin no more?”

We just don’t want you all to be ill-informed on matters pertaining to law and policey type things in general JB.It pains me at times to read the conspiracy theoreys at times. As VG states correctly – you should all be truly thankful.

actually, quite a few state police do hang out on forums, there were a few who hung out (probably still do) on aus.cars, a newsgroup (not part of the Web for the young folk). One of them had a very short fuse and people would sometimes poke him for a reaction, he was not of taciturn habits and was usually good for a good rant. He was highway patrol. The two I particularly remember on that group used the pen-names Shane, and Spooky.

Years ago the gentleman who ‘administered’ Kenneth was, shall we say, a ‘unique’ individual. One day I saw him pull up at a bowser to fill up the Kenneth-mobile.

Kenny was in (note: not ‘on’) the front seat strapped into a seat belt.

There was also a video of Kenny ‘out-takes’ from the Police 7 days of the 70s and 80s which was, by all accounts, very, very funny and so not ‘G’ rated

Oh, and we’ve got a koala.

what you personally, or the police?

reminds me, must see if kenny koala has been invited to this year’s christmas party. the kids seem to love him…

“Do you think in NSW community forums are flooded by concerned police eager to point out to everyone exactly why they’re wrong?”

For that reason alone the people of the ACT and RiotACT should be truly thankful

That is all