<< The whole question of reducing the Road Toll, does NOT lay at the feet of police. They're constrained by money, manpower, and the will of government. >>

Yes o sung wu, I fully agree. It was not my intention to be particularly critical just of the police. The real problem lies with a lack of political will to employ enough police to do the job….

Community policing also needs to be implemented, so that it is not just the thin blue line out there, but rather, it would be anyone who could do a bit of policing by making a complaint and then having the police act on it. In my experience of making quite a few complaints over a period of a decade or more, the police just really aren’t interested…. and I only bothered to make complaints about the very worst incidents of rank driving that I’d had imposed upon me.

I find this totally deplorable. We are encouraged to report litterers. Neighbourhood Watch is all about reporting suspicious activity. We are generally encouraged to report wrongdoing of all sorts. And yet when it comes to road safety, the police effectively put up a brickwall to exactly the same sort of approach!

This is something that has really bothered me for a very long time.

So, if the public was encouraged to report incidents of dangerous or risky or silly law-breaking driving, those would-be law-breakers would soon realise that it is not just the cops that can bring them unstuck, and that the chance of getting sprung would suddenly be much greater than it currently is with the very thin blue line.

The police would then be somewhat freeer to increase their effort on aspects of road safety that are not easily reportable by the general public, such as drink-driving.

You make some excellent points LUDWIG. You say you're annoyed when you take the trouble to make a complaint to police having witnessed examples of particularly bad driving behaviour, and they appear to have little or no interest in what you say.

Again I agree with you. I've laid an information twice, in the last four years, having witnessed two serious examples of DMD ('Drive manner Dangerous'). Again, police were not particulary bothered, even when I said I'd 'jump the box' in both matters. The only response was, the raising of a cynical eyebrow ?

LUDWIG, even as a retired Detective, 'I can walk the walk and talk the talk' and when I enquired why the constable didn't appear to be too anxious in what I was saying, he stated inter alia, '...you should know what it's like, all the paperwork...'

'...Like establishing, and then interviewing the alleged driver, taking your (the informant's) statement, establishing the whereabouts, and available evidence, of other potential witnesses, adducing from the 'Eagle' system, the specific traffic antecedents of the alleged offender, and so it goes on...!

Yeah, sadly I do know what it's like, overburdened with far too much unnecessary paperwork. Before the days of computers, manual typewriters, which were unmercifully poundered by large coppers with 'worn short' stubby fingers because of all the bloody typing associated with being a 'street' copper...........?

Indeed, I do know what it's like, all too well I'm afraid ?

Thanks o sung wu. I am pleased that you can appreciate what I am saying.

I’ve stated this stuff many times on OLO over the last seven years, but the response has been minimal. Not vehement disagreement but not very much support either. Just a whole lot of apathy actually.

And therein lies the guts of the problem. The general public is not holding our politicians to account for the terribly inadequate regulatory regime.

We hear and read about road fatalities all the time. It is such a commonplace news item. But as a society, we’ve become desensitised to it.

'afternoon to you LUDWIG...

Again you're so right ! But when you come to think of it, it's not just law enforcement it's everything. Our brilliant Pollies don't seem to heed anything the electorate, asks of them ?

It's as if we (the electorate) are invisible - we've no voice, none at all ? Except every three or four years, when they won't leave us alone !

LUDWIG, in my dotage, I often doze, and in so doing, dream of possibilities & probabilities like, one day.....

Wouldn't it be good if, whenever a politician;

(i) Broke a promise ('core' or otherwise);

(ii) Knowingly misled the public and/or parliament;

(iii) Knowingly lied;

(iv) And having done so, compounded that lie, by employing language calculated to deceive;

OR;

language of a kind, designed to deliberately obfuscate the facts...

That politician having done so, is criminally charged, and brought before a Court of his peers, and upon conviction, sent to gaol, an old Gaol...!

Long haunted by those hapless, faceless souls, who were badly done by, through the complete absence of character of that wilfully perjured politician.

Then LUDWIG, * POP * I suddenly awaken, and snap back to reality, sadly.

Take it easy ol' friend.

Cheers...Sung WU.