Those Dangerous Roads

In the Barossa Valley there has been a lot of press about an intersection where two traffic incidents occurred within a matter of weeks. As I understand it, nobody was killed, but injuries occurred. 

The intersection has a lot of heavy truck traffic and was controlled by stop signs. The local council, in its wisdom, replaced the stop signs with give-way signs. This was considered to be an error that was increasing the danger within the intersection. After much public reaction, the council was pressured by public opinion to remove the give-way signs and replace them again with stop signs.

Numerous people said the intersection was "dangerous" and that stop signs would prevent crashes from occurring. Good luck with that.

One thing I discovered during 12 years of police service, four of which were spent full-time investigating traffic incidents where fatalities or evidence of dangerous driving occurred, is that it doesn't matter how straight, how good a surface, how many signs or road markings there are on a road, drivers will still manage to crash.

The cause of 99%* of traffic incidents is drivers. Let me say that again; drivers cause crashes. Not roads. Not signs.

There are people who wilfully disobey stop signs and give-way signs in the same way there are people who use mobile phones while driving (inattention), and consume drugs or alcohol before driving. There are also people who have a propensity to collide.

If drivers disobey give-way signs and can't manage to avoid traffic travelling on an interesection road, why would we expect drivers not to disobey stop signs? In fact, everywhere I drive, I see people who don't stop at stop signs.

According to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (Australian Standard 1742) stop signs are used when there is a visibility problem or other feature that requires a driver to stop.

I've attended dozens of traffic incidents (mostly fatalities) where people have failed to stop.

I hope the so-called dangerous intersection doesn't have any more crashes, but I know where I'd place my bet.

Robin

* I'll discuss a fatality I attended that was brought about by mechanical failure next post and two where people weren't wearing seat belts that probably prevented them from dying.

What does Jesscia REALLY want?

 

Jesscia, which is probably a misspelled Jessica keeps sending me these emails that end up in my spam folder. The screen capture at left is one day's worth of spam from Jesscia.

Some moron sitting in Africa, Russia or somewhere else is pumping out millions of these spam messages daily. And there are plenty of others of various types promising large sums of money, unsubscription from porn sites and on it goes.

If Jesscia was really contacting me to see her naked pictures, wouldn't she just send one message? Why send multiple messages every day? She must think she's special.

As you'd expect, I never click on any of these messages. If I want to, I can see plenty of naked women online without risking my computer and the data I have stored thereon.

My email client always sends these annoying messages to the spam folder. Why don't they just delete them? Every day I receive the same lot of stupid messages.

Does anyone ever click on these? Somebody must be doing so otherwise the spammers would probably stop. 

In the meantime, I'm getting so much spam I'm thinking about changing my email address. Also, the "Have I Been Pwned" site tells me that my email address has been spread far and wide through security leaks.

If you haven't done so, take a look at Have I Been Pwned to see if your address has been compromised.

Good luck.

Robin

Executing an 'Instantia Warrant'

Most people have heard of warrants but to make sure we're on the right track, I'll explain the two main types of warrants available when I worked as a police officer. 

One was a search warrant, the most common that obviously gives police and others the right to search someone's property. The second was a warrant of apprehension that allowed police officers to legally arrest someone. These were also called 'Bench warrants' because they were issued by Magistrates at their court bench.

Some statutes provide powers of arrest under different circumstances eg, if a police officer finds someone offending. Other statutes or parts of statutes require that a warrant be executed.

A warrant must always be executed as an original and signed on the back to state that it has been executed.

In Queensland, we had a process that allowed a person who was of the rank of Inspector or above to issue an instantia warrant ie, a warrant completed on the job. Presumably, a police officer would go to an Inspector and swear using a Holy Bible that certain offences were about to be committed or being committed and insufficient time was available to obtain a warrant through the usual court-based process.

One such time a few police officers including an Inspector were observing a criminal organisation when they saw that offences were being committed. The Inspector had a blank instantia warrant in his possession and decided to write in the details to allow a search of the property under surveillance.

The police team subsequently burst into the property, seized stolen goods and arrested a number of offenders. The offenders pleaded not guilty and a committal trial was conducted in a Magistrates Court.

During cross-examination the defending counsel was examining the Inspector's evidence and the conversation went like this:

Defence: "Inspector Doe, describe how you took out the instantia warrant."

Inspector: "When I saw that an offence was being committed and that a warrant was necessary, I took a blank instantia warrant sheet from my briefcase. I then completed all the details and swore that the information contained therein was true and correct."

Defence: "How did you swear that the information was true and correct?"

Inspector: "In the usual manner. I held the Holy Bible in my right hand and swore on the bible that it was true and correct."

Defence: "Where did you get a bible from at such short notice?"

Inspector: "I always carry a small version with me."

Defence: "Do you have it with you now?"

Inspector: Looking embarrassed and touching each of his suit pockets in turn replied, "No sir, I must have left it at the office."

Everyone in the courtroom sniggered. Only the police officers involved in the case knew the truth.

In courts, it's very easy to get caught with one's pants down - so to speak.

Robin

Police Life - Driver Licence Testing

Here's a photo of me flying an F18 jet fighter simulator. It's a little more complex than driving a motor vehicle, however, it would probably be an excellent idea to have simulators for learner drivers. (Let me know if you have seen any, I know they have them for mining machinery.)

Well before all the automated reverse-parking cams, warning beepers, road alignment sensors, and other fancy technology came along, I spent six months testing drivers every couple of weeks. It was a rostered duty, 8 am to 4 pm with driver testing the main objective.

It was a break from the business of evening and night shift attending pub fights, break and enters, domestic violence, missing teenage daughters, traffic incidents, and drink drivers etc. And it wasn't without a few good laughs, much needed in policing.

The Sexy Candidates

A couple of times in any week I was rostered, an attractive 17-18-year-old woman would roll up for her driving test with the shortest skirt, the loosest blouse, or loveliest nipples I had ever seen either visible or sticking through a tightly knit top.

As they got in their car, they would pull up their skirts exposing their young, smooth thighs and occasionally their underwear. Some of the braver ladies would tell me, "Dad told me if I wore a short skirt, I'd have a better chance of passing."

I was in my very early thirties and despite finding the conversation starters and lovely thighs arousing, I had a job to do and had to do it professionally. I rarely answered the braver ladies and managed to focus on their driving ability and not their ability to arouse me. I was also married and while I enjoyed admiring the beauty of these women, kept my focus where it should be.

Most passed. Not because of their physical appearance, but because they were able to safely control a vehicle and comply with the traffic rules.

The Idiots

These are the one or two people who were stupid enough to turn up for a driving test with a vehicle that was obviously defective. Tyres with hardly any tread pattern, parts of the body of the vehicle missing (under repair they'd say), handbrakes that didn't work, no horn, mirrors missing and a host of other defects.

They didn't get to do a licence test, but they did go home with a defect notice and one or more traffic infringement notices. As the vehicles were unroadworthy, they'd have to get them towed away.

Unbelievable.

The Scary

The scariest two incidents I had during my testing career involved a handbrake failure and an inability to stop a reversing automatic vehicle.

There weren't many hills where we tested, but one was very steep and we used it to test people doing a stop and start on a slope. It led to a T intersection.

I always taught my candidates to turn their front wheels slightly inward and select the first gear so that if something happened to the handbrake, or to move the vehicle, it wouldn't roll down the hill.

One day a young man who had been driving quite well drove up the hill, positioned the vehicle and was just about to turn the wheels inward and "snap!" The handbrake cable snapped and we began rolling backwards towards the T junction.

I yelled at him, "Apply the footbrake! Apply the footbrake!" and fortunately, he managed to stop the car across the intersection road without launching into the house directly behind us. We were both shaken by the incident and needed to get out of the way before traffic approached.

We managed to get back to what we were doing and I gave him his licence despite not having fully completed the handbrake start due to no fault of his. I gave him a defect notice without penalty to get the handrake cable replaced. 

The next case was with a woman driver in her 60-70s going for her first licence (see next topic). Automatic cars weren't as common then as they are now and she had one for her test. It should have been a breeze, but when we did a standard reversing street park, she reversed into the parking spot and then continued in a curve only to pull up in the middle of the road forming a 90 degree angle. Thank goodness there were no vehicles travelling at the time.

I had to decline issue of her driver's licence.

The Fails

Fails during my testing were rare, I can only recall two. One was the woman above and there was another woman in her later years whom I also failed because it would have been dangerous to let them loose on Queensland's roads.

The two women were about my mother's age and it pained me to fail them, however, safety is always the highest priority. Theirs and other road users.

Their stories were familiar. Each had lived on a nearby cane farm and their husbands had done all the driving since they had married. There had been no need for them to drive, but both were now widows and needed to be able to drive to attend appointments, go shopping and visit family.

At this late stage in their lives, they needed a driving licence more than ever.

When someone booked for a test, there was a six-week waiting period. However, I treated them as special cases and told them what they needed to practise and to call me when they felt competent to do a test and that even if I wasn't rostered on to do driver testing, I would do a test with them so they didn't have to wait and I also got them driving to the several key places they visited so that they were familiar with them.

Both improved their driving and managed to pass within a few weeks.

There are some things police officers can't ignore but I and most of the police with whom I worked always exercised compassion when it was called for and endeavoured to be fair and reasonable.

Robin