Ask The Copper

[helly]

Allocations of vehicle's are different depending on where you work or what you do.

Simple run down...

General Duties Cops, pretty much junior cops get the trucks and the senior ones get sedans. But it depends, I used to get sedans a fair bit when I was newish cos, they new I'd go out and patrol and be seen. Other will just get sedans and asume it means they don't have to work. The trucks get dir4ected to the lock up jobs most of the time.

In Highway Patrol, most of the time you get allocated a car with another guy, so the two of you share the car, ie one has it on day the other on nights. If you work together then you flip as to who drives (usually the senior guy though).

Where I work we just have one HWY car.

Someone else asked me which I prefer a bit earlier. on Page 4

 

[9C1pack]

Helly,
By trucks I guess you mean the rodeos etc with cages in the tray.
In Vic they don't have those, there are lots of falcon utes with custom bodies in the rear, also there seems to be a few crewman's around with a custom lock-up body also. I am guessing that Holden must have sold them to the force prety cheap as they don't seem to sell too good. How a police officer is supposed to fit in the rear seat of one of those is a joke. A mate had the chance to get one as a company car, but chose a station wagon so his teenagers would have some leg room!

 

[helly]

Yeaj we refer to the them as trucks... Just cos they have the equivalent turning circle of a Kenworth.

We had a crewman as a trial car in the city before I moved... It wasn't too bad to drive, but it seriously wasn't good enough to justify the loss of space from the Rodeo.

The Rodeo's are really quite good for what they are used for...

At one state they were trialing the Mercedes Transport Vans like the ambo's use now... They were terrible!

 

[holden#1]

from a coppers point of view, how do you see police staffing levels? are they way off the mark in NSW??
I suppose its no where near so bad in the country.
I bit of overkill wouldn't hurt I spose when it comes to the number of peace keepers(!?)

 

[helly]

Its all the worse in the country...

Where I work we have 5 in general duties and two in HWY.
1 is hurt and can't be on operational duties (ie is behind the desk)
That means we have one cop on each shift (if that) and we cover 15,000 square kilometers...

In the city the numbers are pretty good. The real issue is not tying up cops with bullsh*t functions. There needs to be a real charter for what police will and won't deal with. My honest opinion is that the RTA (in NSW) should cover traffic enforcement, and that's coming from a HWY guy!!!

However the more the merrier in my books...

 

[holden#1]

helly,
very interesting....
RTA - Traffic Enforcement. At first thought it seems like a lengendary idea... give them the mundane ticket writing duties for run of the mill traffic offences, freeing up officers to concentrate on more serious stuff like crime. I think there should be that differentiation between 'Minor Offences' and 'Serious Crimes / Felonies'

It would be interesting to know what approx percentage of total police resources are spent on Traffic Law Enforcement. I would imagine it to be around 50%??????????????

more decent(?) blokes like meself, and yeah, it would be merrier!

 

[helly]

I used to do very little less than 10% I would say... I was just too busy with other things.

But my boss still used to yell and scream wanting us out there doing RBT for an hour at 10am on a Tuesday??? I reckon I have breath tested well over 1,000 drivers at stationary RBT sites and might have nabbed maybe 20 drivers for PCA offences.

On the other hand I reckon I would be in the 200 mark for mobile RBT (driving around pulling cars). My personal opinion and obviously not that of the NSWP is that Stationary RBT is a complete waste of time... But the boss's love it, because it's high visibility... I just hate it when they publish the statistics saying the NSWP did over 25,000 breath tests this long weekend and charged 150 people for drink driving offences... In my opinion it just makes us look so inefficient.

I say give the RBT to the RTA...

 

[helly]

Sorry, I'm going off

But would you be impressed reading that the other way and putting out a headline that said, "The NSWP this long weekend tested 24,850 drivers who were sober!" Well done what an acheivement...

I just think its hilarious, how much money an time gets spent on trying to show that we are doing stuff rather than just doing it... The reality is that you have say 15 cops doing RBT on the side of the road and they get one bloke with a positive test... Out of say 100 tests. While thats happening two of the best break and enter merchants are walking 3 streets away breaking into cars and houses. That kind of thing only gets stunted by police being out and about. And while we are doing that if we see some driver who is a bit suspect, we'll pull him over for a quick test.

Anyway, I'm better now that's off my chest... CHEERS

 

[vlv8vic]

If you wonder why the cops don't attend, buy yourself a radio scanner and hear what the cops get involved with! In my quiet part of country victoria (Bendigo) it would seem that the Police are more like social workers, as they continually get called out to jobs such as, "person has taken pills or threatened to harm themselves", plus welfare checks on elderly and ill people who's family have tried to ring them, but they uncharcteristically don't answer their phone, plus all the other things previously mentioned.
Since the governments closed down loony asylums and the well paid mental health people seem only to work 9 till 5, it is the poor old local cop who has to act as social worker. Leaving them less time for the things that concern us, such as being harassed by unsupervised kids on their trail bikes.

same story here mate, old man has one for the CFA and i was amazed at the welfare this welfare that, "old marge didnt collect her paper today so better make sure she isnt dead in the kitchen". all very important, im not debating that but yeah i was just amazed at all that stuff.
Domestics.... sheesh. dont i get sick of hearing about those time wasters (because more often that not they seem to be repeat offenders).

 

[Julie]

Thought this site may be of interest to some people, Its like an online radio scanner where you can listen to various emergency channels :thumbsup: