Continue...............

Belly, just quickly, I too had good experiences with cops when I was young.
I said so in my post.
You might have glossed over it.
It is these current crop of cops that I am referring too.
Oh if only they were like the cops of old, we would not be having this conversation.
So no they WERE great, both country cops and sergeants.
Once upon a time.

ALTRAV no agree and it is this current crop that concerns me, maybe they need more of the older cops around them?

Belly, hear, hear!

I agree some police now-a-days can be too authoritarian, but I suppose that comes from being treated like $#it by young fellers. There is a difference in behaviour between young fellers & older people.

Eg; the accident on TV last night where a young fellers car crashed & the Emergency Services turned up to cut the lads out. Their mates turned up & made the whole place a laughing stock.

Although I've had three incidences in the last three years where a policeman tried to intimidate me. I don't intimidate. It's something to do with Prisoner of War Training. Twice, when I called for them. The Senior Policeman in both cases realized what was happening & put a stop to it before I had really made the young Cop out to be a fool. A little over enthusiastic.

So yes it's a little of both.

We in this area went through an ICAC investigation in to poor police behavior, long time ago but, it included all services likely to be at road trauma events, as to what they saw, some serving officers fell as a result, others? well for some time acted only on the loss not the truth,it took time, and a Chief Inspector, to fix that,yes younger police do some times over use the authority they have, and do, tend to act like every one is a criminal,thankfully not even near most of them

Belly, the reason I even make mention of the negative attitudes of the current crop of cops, is that I have witnessed several incidents first hand, and reports of these actions being a part of the new world order.
I am the first to say, grab the baddies, lock em up and throw away the key.
The cops know who they are, but for differing policies and philosophies within the dept, some baddies are retained and even protected for such purposes as informants and the like.
And so it is that we have this collaboration between the criminals and law enforcement.
It is then a very short distance for the police becoming corrupted because of exposure or contact with the criminals.
These are not the cops I speak of.
It is the run of the mill, or traffic cops.
There is no humility or connection with the public.
They are trained to be cold and distant.
They are told, that they are not the courts and so just book em and if they (the public) don't like it they can take it to court.
Well we all know that that's just BS.
For two reasons. One is, you will never get off a charge because of the wording.
And two, no-one can afford to take time off work.
So we find ourselves in a state of Marshall Law.
People should know that when an incident occurs, such as a serious traffic incident, the cops actually try to coerce the person into admitting fault so as to make their job easier and help get the numbers up.
They're not satisfied that the person is traumatised enough already.