Ingham, ~1999. I went into the police station to report a chronically tailgating large truck on the Bruce Hwy, that gave absolutely no room to move when sitting on a few k’s over the speed limit. Even though the incident had just happened, the cop was just totally disinterested. A week later I submitted the complaint in writing and lo and behold the police acted on it, and copped this guy for various infringements, but only after they had to go chase up his whereabouts interstate!

Cooktown ~2003. I was bitten by a dog in the course of my work. It was immediately obvious where the dog, one of a pack of 4 that harangued me, resided. I went straight to the police, before going to the hospital. Again the cop was just completely disinterested. I followed it up with a complaint to the Cook shire council, and after follow-up letters and phonecalls, the council just insisted on shirking their responsibility to deal with the matter.

The story gets better and better Rex.

So the Bowen council openly promotes its illegal nudist beach. Amazing!

Obviously they can do this without fear of complaint or penalty from the Qld govt or the police. So then, we must assume that the fault lies fairly and squarely with the state government for allowing this blatant duplicity.

I agree – there should be nothing wrong with the promotion of a nudist beach, for tourism reasons or whatever. But not when it’s illegal.

So, what happens if people on this beach start acting in an overtly sexual or harassing manner? Will the police or council officers act then? Would they need a complaint to act on? Obviously they are not going to act on a complaint of nudity itself.

Where are the written guidelines on what is acceptable in an already totally illegal setting??

Who has the power to decide which laws are going to be policed and which aren’t?

How can our government, councils, police and community allow such flagrant legal contradictions to exist?

I think you would find that while some technicalities are left alone police do balance their time attending to occasional little things but prioritising more important things.

"I guess you would agree with me that there should be many more police, and that one of the primary reasons for this is so that the perceived minor things don’t get left out."

Yes unless you would include booking people who might have no way of knowing they are committing a technical breach.

“A million tickets can be written to a million creative versions of John Doe and the riders can throw all those tickets into the bin smugly and tell their mates.”

"...a serious matter, probably a lot more so than the infringement for which they are being fined."

It would be serious for them if anyone knew who they were. Registration would take care of the problem.

“Absolutely. And surely it has got to work both ways."

Absolutely.

I notice that you seem to get tailgated alot. That must be uncomfortable.

Mjpb, I hope you can appreciate now why I feel a certain level of disgust about the standard of policing (following my elucidated experiences).

There are others, but overall they have been few and far between….thank goodness! They do comprise a large portion of all contacts that I have had with police though – about a quarter I suppose. But then most of the acceptable ones have been RBTs and other simple encounters, which you would hardly expect to be problematic. But then in one case it was problematic, as elucidated.

I have no reason to think that I have copped a worse deal than the average person, and hearing of other peoples’ experiences now and then supports this.

So, all considered, I think that policing has got some really deep-seated problems.

I must admit, I thought that this thread would bring out a few correspondents in support of my concerns and with a few examples of their own. I am surprised that this hasn’t really happened.

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“I notice that you seem to get tailgated alot. That must be uncomfortable.”

It is very uncomfortable for someone who knows the law, respects safety margins and risk factors, knows what following distances the police, RACQ and Dept of Transport all recommend, and sees the police ignore their own recommendations and ignore the law of ‘failing to show due care and courtesy to other road users’ …. and has experienced the the police failing to give a hoot about anyone who reports incidents of this sort of driving behaviour (and various other dangerous driving antics)!!

You bet it’s uncomfortable, and enraging. But I ain’t alone. Successive RACQ surveys have shown it to be a major concern.

But it does seem to have improved considerably in the last year or so. Despite any direct message or publicity from police, government or other authorities, what used to be a chronically bad general practice, has become much less of an issue. Or at least that’s my impression.

Thanks mjpb for this discussion. Much appreciated.

"Mjpb, I hope you can appreciate now why I feel a certain level of disgust about the standard of policing (following my elucidated experiences)."

Ludwig if you haven't just had an unusually bad run then I won't argue. I am inclined to suspect you have and the lack of people chiming in with examples supports that. Hopefully you have for a few reasons including the likelihood that you won't get any more problems (and of course the implications for policing).

"Thanks mjpb for this discussion. Much appreciated."

Thank you. It is certainly interesting. Again I hope your experience isn't typical.

I don't like criticising the police service, which I like to think generally does a good job under often difficult circumstances. And for many years I've had friends who are/were either serving or retired police officers, some of them quite senior. But I feel that I have to speak out on this.

About 30 years ago, I was sales manager with a Perth company. I had just completed a satisfactory sales call on a householder and was stood with her on her front balcony. We both clearly saw [it was daylight] a car come down her street and sideswipe mine, which was parked legally and safely and two thirds of the way on the verge and off the road. The driver wasn't going fast, but did not stop.

I chased the car on foot and caught up with it. The passenger side door was unlocked and I opened it and jumped in. I told the driver to stop and wait for the police to come. He told me that wouldn't do me any good, as he was a director of a well-known local company and the local police were friends of his. This turned out to be true.

He was obviously affected by alcohol and he then became very abusive and threatening. Whilst he was shouting, two men came over to see what was going on. He threatened to punch one of them through his open window and run over the one who was standing in front of his car. One of the men said that he knew the people in the house outside of which we were stopped and he would use their phone to call the police. This turned out to be my salvation.

cont