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Oh hell NO!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by banjo
Want to make new drivers realise how dangerous the roads are? Make then all ride a motorcycle for 6 ~ 12 months before they can have a car or anything 4 wheels - then see how they drive.
But of course that would mean training to people & a cost to the government which means they will come up with new fines :eek: :cool: Wonderful place we got ay :) ?
What Alpina would that be? A modified BMW or something different? Pics?Quote:
Originally Posted by flagg
It wasn't that many years ago that you wouldn't have got an ingringement notice for obscured or missing P plates.....you would have been sent a summons to go to Court and in most cases, would probably have lost your licence for a short time and an extended probationary period..........if the copper could be bothered with the paperwork.Quote:
Originally Posted by v12stuart
Simple rule of thumb.....make sure they are clearly displayed.
:nazilock:
I got done by a hidden speed camera in Victoria late last year, for doing 3km/hr over the limit in a 50 zone. I sucked it up, whilst it seems petty and pathetic, fact is, there is a speed limit and it doesn't take much effort to do it.
I am not that much beyond being a P-plater (I'm 22), my car all through my P's was a 1.2L Holden Barina, and a 2.4L 1985 Diesel Hilux. Neither are high powered fast cars, but by god, they can both be just as deadly. I thought I was invincible on my P's - who knew a little piddly engined Barina would do over 170km on GPS, and a 20 year old smokey diesel hilux would do 150. At those speeds any slip up would cause death. I was stupid, and I realise that now.
I have massive respect for the job police do now. I wish there was a higher presence on the road. The big turning point was when I rolled my first Land Rover - unfortunate accident - out near Cameron's Corner, cresting a hill and corner in late-ish afternoon, cow was on the road, only doing about 65km/h, but instinctively tried to swerve, hit a patch of bulldust and rolled 4 times. It was a policeman who picked me up, come 120km from Tibooburra driving the local ambulance. It was the same policeman who made the phone call to my parents telling them I had suspected head, neck and spinal injuries and was going to be flown by the RFDS to Broken Hill in a serious condition.
With respect to the original poster and topic, your P plates were obscured by a dirty windscreen, the police sound like they had a legitimate reason to write you a ticket, albeit slightly petty - what's your big gripe? If you REALLY think you did absolutely nothing wrong, take it to court and have it heard in a manner that might change the situation for you.
Let me just say I get upset by uppity young uneducated cops who throw their weight around. I have great respect for the professional intelligent sensible members of the police profession, just its been years since I have run across any. Like any public job its the bad ones that wreck the respect for the good ones. I profusely apologise to any people I have offended.Quote:
Originally Posted by mudmouse
Ahhh the good old days of policing...everyone wants the local cop to "kick their son up the arse and send him home..." but are the first to complain.
Below is an excerpt from a book - 'The Snowy - The People Behind the Power'... there is a Land Rover reference :) (that's for you LongingforaLandy) as it was used as a police vehicle. Tells of the legend of Bev Wales...we could do with Bev around still...but somehow, he probably wouldn't last 5 minutes in today's police farce...errrr force..
"Of all the men who policed the construction camps, only one man, however, became universally regarded as a legend in his own time ... Constable Bev Wales.
Bev Wales was renowned as being totally and utterly fearless. In 1955, after three years in Cooma, Bev began nurturing the idea of taking over a one-man station up in the mountains. He was about to marry the daughter of one of the Cooma sergeants and didn't want to stay too close to home.
Also, while conceding he had learned more about real police work in a month at Cooma than he would have in five years in Sydney, Cooma too was starting to become routine ... paper work and more paperwork and always to do with the same things -- brawls and road accidents.
"The locals and the 'wogs' as they were called were still feeling each other out. The local lads were toey. They didn't like the young foreigners coming down from the mountains with all their money. The migrant fellows didn't want trouble but they were only prepared to take so much. So there were hundreds of brawls and if a non-Australian was involved, it meant double the paperwork.
"And alcohol, speed, poor roads and extreme weather conditions meant a lot of pretty horrible accidents. Plenty of cars, often loaded with blokes, left the road in places where they'd drop hundreds of feet."
Bev wanted a beat where he took on all work. In December 1955 he sought and was happily granted, the job as replacement constable at Happy Jacks which had the reputation as the roughest camp on the Snowy. The workers there had grown accustomed to being a law unto themselves and had virtually driven out the previous constable.
Bev put a lot of thought into how he would approach his new assignment, his first lone command. From the start he decided he would not wear a uniform as his predecessor had done. He also realised he had to earn the men's respect using the only language they understood. It was a question of his own survival.
On the drive from Cooma to take up his new position he stopped at the wet canteen at Junction Shaft, which was on his new beat and was where a lot of the Happy Jacks' workers drank.
There were a dozen or so fellows drinking. Bev stood, framed in the doorway, until he had their attention: "My name's Bev Wales. I'm the new constable," he said simply.
For a moment the men looked as though they hadn't heard him clearly, then responded with a chorus of whistling and cat-calls.
"So if there's anyone here who thinks he can stop me, then he had better try it now before I unpack my Landrover."
The wolf whistles and jeers got even louder and four solidly built Australians slid off their stools. It wasn't every day a copper actually asked to be punched. They approached the young constable, leering, savouring the moment. They paused just beyond an arm's length, then moved in swinging.
Every account of the incident is the same. Bev Wales used four, maybe five punches to lay the four men out on the floor. He bundled them into the back of his Landrover and continued on to Happy Jacks to lock them up for the night.
"They got a bit of a surprise," Bev said later. Everybody did. Within hours the incident was being recountered throughout the surrounding camps. Happy Jacks had won a package deal, a new constable and prisoners in the one delivery.
By the end of his first month Bev Wales had locked up forty men, most of whom spent several nights in a cell nursing bruised jaws and foreheads.
"Over the years they had gone berserk. There was no law and order whatsoever. Living up in the mountains they thought they were beyond the law. The lawlessness had to stop and I was the one sent to do it," Bev said.
He rarely worked less than sixteen hours a day. His patrol ranged from Eucumbene Portal near Adaminaby (the entrance to the Eucumbene-Tumut tunnel), to Tolbar Camp, up to Happy Jacks, Cabramurra, Kiandra, Kenny's Knob, Tumut Pond, Tooma camp and all areas in between. He was a lone policeman among six thousand workers and the only link between most of the camps on his beat were rough bulldozer tracks.
Bev Wales backed away from no situation, even when he was out-numbered. When brawling men were told Bev was on the way, his reputation preceded him like a bow wave, often quelling disturbance before he arrived. Bev spent sixteen years in the mountains while the Snowy was under construction. He survived through a mixture of police field-craft and bush psychology shaped by the instincts of a boy from the bush.
He attributes his success in handling the men to his decision not to wear a uniform and not to carry a baton: "Bring out a baton in a brawl and you would put everyone offside. But take a man on with just your fists and the others respected you. If you did get into trouble they'd even help you ... but belt one of their mates with a baton and they'd kill you."
What most endeared Bev Wales to law abider and offender alike was that it became apparant at an early stage that he cared for people. He often preferred to allow bush justice to be dealt, rather than invoke officialdom by which a man might lose his job.
"Often I'd arrest a bloke and he'd say: 'Let me fight you Mr Wales. If I win you let me go, eh?'
"The fellows were afraid of losing their jobs so I'd say okay. We'd pair up in the lockup, exchange a few blows till I gave him a good thump and it was over. It was summary justice, something you couldn't do today but it kept the peace there.
"They had no respect for anybody who was soft. They were tough fellows and they expected you to be the same. You had to meet them on equal terms."
But Bev Wales didn't spend all his time thumping recalcitrant construction workers. The biggest workload for all policemen in the mountains arose from the horrific death toll, both on the roads and at the construction sites.
"At Khancoban alone I handled ninety inquests and no death was clean. Men were cut in half, decapitated, blown to pieces, or squashed by huge boulders.
"Death was frequent and it was part of my job. Tunnels collapsed, air hoses burst, truck brakes failed and bulldozers and trucks and cars toppled into ravines. You had to handle a lot of grief and tragedy."
For you Mark...Series I police Landy stationed at Ivanhoe in 1958.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...10/03/1393.jpg
MICKS nice, life in the old days was tough!!!...
nice change of direction!
digger
Bev. Wales boss in Cooma was another legendary & formidable copper whose name has escaped my memory. He was about 6'6" in all directions, no neck, a head like a boiled pudding, and little piggy eyes. His method of breaking up brawls was to wade in, grab two men by an ear each, and slam their heads together with considerable force, then move on to the next pair. With Bev. Wales at his back, this system worked admirably. The occasional European immigrant would pull a knife and then really found out about the "full force" of the law. A period in hospital followed by a prison sentence would follow. "Assault police with a deadly weapon" was frowned upon by magistrates. Other charges usually were "Affray" and "Resist Arrest".Quote:
Originally Posted by digger
Hey Mick! Thanks for the photo and story. My boss knew Bev Wales back in the day, i'll have to see if he can recount the story too. Almost wish there were a few coppers like him in my area, except the lawyers would have 'em for breakfast :(
-Mark
P.S. think i'll get a cops are tops sticker for my County :)
From Jindabyne tunnel and round Island BendIf there was one theme which bound the lives of all Snowy workers, it was alcohol. It was the elixir for camaraderie and the balm for fear, boredom, homesickness and loneliness.
We boys go to Cooma, our money to spend
And we'll buy youse some beer there if you happen to see
Four Italians, three Germans, two Yugoslavs and me
We'll pull up in Sharpe Street by the Alpine Hotel
If you've been to Cooma you'll know this place well
And before we're inside our order rings out
Four vinos, three schnappses, two slivovitz, one stout
From the song 'Cooma Cavaliers' by Ulick O'Boyle and The Settlers.
The wet canteens in the mountains and hotels and nightclubs in Cooma were eventually open twenty-four hours a day to cater for men working the different shifts. Violence and trouble could occur at any hour.
Managing the aftermath of long drinking sessions fell on the shoulders of the handful of policemen scattered through the mountains and on the Authority's patrol officers. The odds against them were sometimes frightening. More than one policeman was transferred out a broken man.
The lot of a Snowy law enforcer, often working alone among populations of hard-drinking, hard living men, many of whom believed the law was an irrelevance in the mountain frontier, was never easy.
Those who did survive in the tough, knock-about world of the construction camps and towns and who earned their stripes in the Snowy hall of fame were men like Fred 'Careless Hands' Chapman, detective Bill 'Homocide' Holmes, Brian Shultz, Bill 'Chubby' Keefe, Harold Etheridge, Kevin 'Lofty' Lomas, detective Bob Blissett, Bill Graham, Lionel Whitney, Bill Head, Bruce 'Bags' Durrant, Rod Murray, Bev Wales and 'The Admiral', Ron Davey. All could handle themselves -- Careless Hands and Ron Davey had both been champion wrestlers -- and all were colourful characters who fitted into the unconventional way of life in the mountains.
Many were regarded as the central characters in the communities over which they presided. They were men who lived by their wits, rather than the rule book.
The mix of nationalities, the language problem and many of the migrant workers' backgrounds created unique circumstances that sometimes required a swift belt behind the ear and, at other times, sensitivity.
Frank Rodwell, a long-serving patrol officer with the Authority often found peace could be restored after a bloody brawl simply by lending a sympathetic shoulder: "I learned quickly that some of these fellows had gone through hell and were living on a razor edge. One time I was called to a fight caused by a Polish fellow who was drunk. As I dragged him away he started screaming, 'they're all dead ... all dead'. His whole family had been killed in the war and he missed them terribly.
"I had another similar experience with a Yugoslav who had opened a mass grave with his bare hands to try to find his mother ... who wouldn't drink and go a bit crazy after something like that?
Working alone and unarmed the patrol officers often found themselves in hostile and dangerous situations: "But it was the job you had to do ... and if you couldn't do it then you were no good to anybody."
At Sue City, the workers took great delight in the antics of their local policeman, Ron Davey and his cherished boxer dog ... whose name was Boxer.
In the late afternoon just when Ron would be about to taste his first cold beer at the end of a long, arduous day, the valley would echo with the Boxer's plaintive wail. To the delight of the regular drinkers, who had come to know the ritual, Ron would storm from the wet canteen, grab a spade and start to climb the steep valley slopes, following the direction of the wailing.
Somewhere up on the mountain, as everybody had come to know, Boxer had tried to chase another wombat into its hole. The dog would always get stuck about a metre inside and then tell the whole world of its predicament. On locating the animal, Ron would dig it out, slap it furiously across its rump with his trouser belt, then drag it unceremoniously by the collar back to his house where he tied it up.
After three or four days Ron started to feel sorry for the animal, "his mate", moping on the end of its leash. In a flood of affection would let it off for a run. As sure as Monday followed Sunday, on the day the dog was free again Ron would be about to enjoy his first cold ale when the valley would once again echo ... Whoooooooooo.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...10/03/1277.jpg