Police And Road Safety....

[james22]

I gotta say, its not everyday it backfires like this....

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ipr...-1225848243240

[platinumXR]

Hardly fair.

One was responding to urgent assistance, the other; well until you know why don't judge too soon.

[james22]

What did I judge?

[james22]

And the other one...

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/new...-1225847778877

[SB076]

Police are human and as such prone to make mistakes. Not every officer beleives cameras save lives, or doing 5k less that the speed limit makes you a good driver.

Edit: I am not a member of the police force

[geckoGT]

FFS!

Give the guys a break, they are driving fast due to the fact that someone is in trouble.

I am sure the person that is being beaten to a pulp, having their home invaded etc wishes the police get there as soon as possible. All emergency services drive as quickly and SAFELY as possible, sometimes it does not work out though. That is life, we are human and can on the odd occasion make a mistake. I bet for the number of K's driven and the conditions we work in we make far less mistakes than the national average.

Perhaps we should make a law that all emergency vehicles have their lights and sirens removed, remove the provisions for emergency vehicles in state road laws and just travel at 5km under the speed limit to everything.

Don't worry about your house burning down, the fire service will get there, soon. We know you are getting bashed by a mob of 5 males but the cops can not go fast, it is too unsafe, 5 under for them too. We know you can't breathe and are going blue but, hold your breath, the ambos are another 25 minutes away, traffic is heavy you know.

Really tired of everyone quick to criticise emergency services, meanwhile many of these people sit there and state speed limits are too low, 20 km/h ids not unsafe blah, blah, blah.

[Redrum]

Originally Posted by james22

What did I judge?

The way you have written your topic us does appear judgmental. You appear to be basically saying that the police message about road safety has backfired because police themselves have been involved on some road accidents.

[zetec]

Certainly would have been pushing that Falcon if it was equipped with DSC they've definitely lost control. Glad they were OK and looks like the Falcon's built-in safety helped them in the eventual crash.

[james22]

These forums certainly have gotten agro in the last couple of months havnt they. If I hadnt posted the link someone else would have. Don't flame the messenger

[gtxb67]

wow, 2 crashes by police vehicles compared to how many by non police vehicles. i would hazzard a guess and suggest that police vehicles are involved in many less accidents per vehicle to general public cars

Originally Posted by james22

These forums certainly have gotten agro in the last couple of months havnt they. If I hadnt posted the link someone else would have. Don't flame the messenger

i think agro is coming from the police bashers and the nanny state bashers rather than those supporting/not putting down the police or general rules

[james22]

Thats my point. Not one single post has flamed / put down the police. I posted a link, and all of a sudden i'm the biggest **** in the world. The amount of threads where people are going off at eachother and and on a tangent has gone through the roof.

Undoubtedly someone will argue the point...

[james22]

And as for backfired... Police are asking for road users to slow down / be safe etc. My point being that a police car on it's roof doesnt exactly convey that point. I'm not saying they are being stupid reckless etc, but with this big campaign on road safety, it doesnt make them look very good in the general public view does it?

Quite honestly I can imagine the editor's eyes lighting up (media) when they heard of these incidents

[flappist]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

FFS!

Give the guys a break, they are driving fast due to the fact that someone is in trouble.

I am sure the person that is being beaten to a pulp, having their home invaded etc wishes the police get there as soon as possible. All emergency services drive as quickly and SAFELY as possible, sometimes it does not work out though. That is life, we are human and can on the odd occasion make a mistake. I bet for the number of K's driven and the conditions we work in we make far less mistakes than the national average.

Perhaps we should make a law that all emergency vehicles have their lights and sirens removed, remove the provisions for emergency vehicles in state road laws and just travel at 5km under the speed limit to everything.

Don't worry about your house burning down, the fire service will get there, soon. We know you are getting bashed by a mob of 5 males but the cops can not go fast, it is too unsafe, 5 under for them too. We know you can't breathe and are going blue but, hold your breath, the ambos are another 25 minutes away, traffic is heavy you know.

Really tired of everyone quick to criticise emergency services, meanwhile many of these people sit there and state speed limits are too low, 20 km/h ids not unsafe blah, blah, blah.

Police (and ambos and fireries) are far more highly trained than the average driver and are often put in situations which are more dangerous than most people see in a lifetime.

F1 and V8SC drivers occasionally prang and they are in much better equipment driving on roads that are in much better condition with other drivers who are all professionals so if the odd copper has the odd prang while doing his duty it is perfectly understandable and it is a tribute to their training and dicipline that it does not happen more often.

[GS608]

Just as a side note, those articles, especially the last, are poorly written, hell i could have written something like that, would expect something a bit more professional from someone who studied journalism

[xrford]

Its called "DRIVING ACCORDINGLY" there is no excuse for "driver error" on the way to a call out when the only one at fault is the person behind the wheel.
Driver training is to make it safer when attending a call out, you are expected to get there as quickly and safely as possible not a ****** breakneck speed!

Ending up in someones front yard after losing control on a slippery bend is not driving to the conditions and poor decision making... simple as that!
Trying to catch the person in the stolen car is one thing, but killing your colleague in the process will ******** you for the rest of your life!

[Airmon]

Hardly surprising, nobody is perfect.
The reactions are a bit different though. Even though there were police officers witnessing both events they wouldn't comment on whether speed was a factor or not.
Yet a single vehicle accident with any other circumstances is automatically assumed to involve speed.

I suppose we all know they weren't speeding, because nobody dies, and we all know, speed kills.

Im not trying to cop bash here, but it does seem a bit hypocritical how governments and police and media are so harsh on others who have accidents.
I'd bet that neither were speeding, just travelling too fast for the corner, and lost it, happens all the time. But if it was a P-Plater in a commodore who went through that fence the tables would be turned wouldn't it?

And what's the go with having 7 officers in a paddywagon?

[deesun]

Police speeding to a call is 100% fine by me. 7 police in a paddywagon I'm not too happy about. 7 policemen to blame for that because at least one of those should have stood up and said NO.
At almost every interview I have ever seen or read police have said speed was a factor and in particular this one had witnesses but police were not so forthcoming in branding this one as speed related. And they include speed related as inapropriate speed.

[Jim Goose]

7 in the paddy wagon... is not a good look.
I imagine that 2 were in the cage????

I think the article is designed to show the Police in a bad light though.
Emergency vehicles are prone to accidents too.
Fire trucks and Ambulances have all been involved in crashes.

[GS608]

Maybe there were an extra two in the box on back, as i seriously doubt anyone from the station would allow 7 people in the cab to leave, it's impossible unless they were on each others laps, and even thats going to be hard with their belts on.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by xrford

Its called "DRIVING ACCORDINGLY" there is no excuse for "driver error" on the way to a call out when the only one at fault is the person behind the wheel.
Driver training is to make it safer when attending a call out, you are expected to get there as quickly and safely as possible not a ****** breakneck speed!

Ending up in someones front yard after losing control on a slippery bend is not driving to the conditions and poor decision making... simple as that!
Trying to catch the person in the stolen car is one thing, but killing your colleague in the process will ******** you for the rest of your life!

And your experience in this matter is?

Let me tell you it is a pretty fine line between getting there "as fast as safely possible" and over cooking a corner and getting it wrong. Thankfully due to the level of training received (500% more than the average road user), this does not happen often. I have had the odd incidence where the vehicle understeered in the wet due to slip levels that I misjudged, none of these resulted in a crash but they could have. These were not intentional, they were a misjudgment when under a very high amount of stress (one was a 9 mth old cardiac arrest, tell me you would not be stressed). I guarantee there is not one person here that can HONESTLY say they have never made a driving error, or an error in their job. I think once you can honestly say you have never made such an error, then you have enough moral high ground to criticise.

Actually they happen so infrequently that in the 6 years I have been in the service and the thousands of crashes I have attended, I have not been to one involving an emergency vehicle, what does that tell you. Lets not forget that these vehicles have a real reason to break the speed limit, not just a perceived one. We also clock up a lot more km than the average road user yet on average we have less crashes. In all the years I have been around the emergency services, I can think of about 12 ambulances that have been in accidents (not one person killed and no severe injuries), about half of those were the result of someone else's actions. Of course I have seen many ambulances with minor damage but the vast majority of ambulance damage occurs in reversing when trying to fit big ambulances in small driveway etc. I am sure the cops run on a similar crash to km traveled ratio tat we do.

I can also tell you the vast majority of emergency service workers could not give a crap about going fast. A code 1 drive is a pain in the butt, it increases the risk for us, increases our chances of public criticism and increases responsibility on us, I would be happy to do without it and so would the majority of my peers. Most of us would much prefer to trundle along at normal road speed, have little risk and happily go home at the end of the day nice and safe, back to our families. Having said that, sometimes the job requires giving the vehicle a bit of a nudge, to save precious seconds, to increase public safety or someone's chances of surviving their situation.

My point is, when under that amount of pressure, a mistake can happen so why is the rest of the population allowed to make them and emergency services are not?

If the cops were not under lights and siren and this incident happened, I would be criticising them louder than anyone else here, those that know me will agree that I would. Also, how quick are you all to condemn them? Some of you here have backed people that have had a crash through stupid actions and said things like "it was a simple mistake" or "we should wait for the investigation before judging". When it is a cop, many here pipe up with "its inexcusable" or it's hypocritical" at the first mention of an article that is poorly written, lacks investigation and is full of bias. Nice work