Thread: What a Joke

In todays day and age - its become a real issue.

Kids have worked out, - what with the intranet, texting, smart phones, Facebook & social networking etc that - the fines for NOT doing something now are so far out of date that the actual cost of getting caught without a drivers license - is cheaper than the cost to get a license and what happens if you then get caught doing wrong.

Simple answer - don't get a license.

My own daughter - 22 - has NEVER had a drivers license (has had learners permits since age 17) but worked out it wasn't worth the time cost and grief to actually get a license My Nephew 24 likewise. A family member is a driving test examiner.

They all KNOW from their friends experiences, that if you use your head and don't drive like a peon, its more cost effective NOT to get a license.

Politicians and Police have made using your possession of license against you into an art form of tax collection - all the fees and log book hours now in the hundreds+ then there's multinova's and demerit points & now they can take your drivers license away for non traffic convictions as well (non payment of parking fines by local govt for e.g.).

Ever tried to book a drivers test? (6 WEEKS + WAIT).

Our own dept of T/port Minister Buswell recently had to get his ministerial staff to book a driving test for his son after waiting more than 2 hours on the line for his own dept to answer the phone to book a test before giving up in frustration. Then he was accused of abusing his ministerial position.

He got all his top Transport Boffins in one room - and asked each to ring their own book a driving test hotline...to make a booking as theio r clients have to do.

After more than 2 hours non had got thru to anyone to speak too.

Now it appears they realize they have a problem.

All of a sudden - compulsory drivers tests for 85+ aged persons, have been dropped coz the testers all said they were too busy with aged re tests to do new tests for kids 17 and the road stats don't show the aged to be disproportionately represented in road fatalities stats.

The kids have worked out that the new laws all target them unfairly in the way they are exercised by Police (confiscation & crushing of cars for hooning (speeding 45km's over) for e.g.

If your caught speeding by 45km's and plods of a mind to coz your young - you lose the car for 1 month and fine can be anthing up to $1k + all the police storage costs (hundreds), to get the car back...

Whereas.

If you are caught driving without a license the max fine (after multiple convictions) is about $400 - BUT they can't take your license off you and make you jumo thru the re licensing hoops (tests & log books etc etc) if you never had a license in the first place!

One kid had a uninsured car impounded by police and charged the storage fees - BUT it was stolen while in police custody, plod couldn't locate it, and said it was the private contractors responsibility to pay compensation - THEY had a "all care no responsibility clause" on their contract with Plod - so the kid was out one car - and still legally liable for the storage costs even to the car wasn't there it was stolen while in police custody etc

Kids have worked out our corrupt cops get kickbacks from the private storage co - for the cars they impound & then can't even maintain security on someone elses property and then try stand over tactics for the storage fees on the car they lost!

Then Kids see this type of stuff..

Perth policeman charged with child sex - Yahoo!7

Perth policeman charged with child sex

Our kids are not idiots. They have about zero respect for Police nowadays.

Broome police conduct criticised - Yahoo!7

A former police officer has lost his court battle to keep from public view CCTV footage of him allegedly brutalising detainees at the Broome Police station in March and April.

Police currently are understaffed by more than 1000 officers - so they have a "step forward" campaign.. to try and recruit kids into the force.

Step Forward

They can't get the numbers into the police academy - to be able to keep up with natural attrition and sackings etc, let alone increase force numbers to the numbers that Politicians have promised.

My own eldest son (A firefighter, who drives, trucks, loaders, dozer's etc at forest fires), thought he might enjoy being a copper maybe... and with all his quals, (4wd courses, Truck and machine Licenses, as well as skippers quals and diving quals) thought he might even get into say the water police maybe.

So he rings up the Police Academy, and says he wants to know about the "step forward recruitment program...

He is told that coz he has a traffic offense hooning conviction from when he was 18 - he is NOT entitled to join Plods until he has had a clean driving record for 10 years - i.e. when he is aged 28!

His crime? When he was 18 a local country cop saw him pull into a gravel shopping center car park on a Sat arvo, when the center was closed and the car park empty of cars, and he slid sideways with the handbrake into a park spot to show off to some of his girlfriends peer group who were there egging him on.

Now when he's 25 (7 years later) grown married with 2 kids and pulling people out of burning buildings in the Margaret River fires (without all the civil fire brigades breathing apparatus - he's a forest fore fighter remember - so putt8ing his life on the line to save others) that hes not "responsible enough" to be a Policeman?.

Really?

Our Police Minister has a prior Drunk Driving conviction - but its OK for her to be Minister for Police.

Cop fined for high-speed Jimmy Barnes escort - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Cop fined for high-speed Jimmy Barnes escort

So I say to the son "Maybe try again when your 28?"

And he says to me... "Dad - why bother...with the truck & machinery quals and experience etc that I have, I will have a mining job paying $180k a year by the time I am 28... more than double what a 10 year veteran Policeman on Sgts salary earns and if I become a copper I have to put up with being every bogans punching bag every weekend - where if I am injured/killed on the Job WAPOL aren't going to look after me or my family!".

Matthew Butcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I had to agree with him - Hard to argue with his logic....

The plods driving around whacking every kid with a new drivers license with "hooning offenses" for simply speeding once, are cutting out for the next 10 years - the very kids they need to recruit into their police academy once they grow up in 5 years time - BEFORE they establish themselves into some other more lucrative & less risky career!

Then Plod complain they can't recruit anyone that meets their criteria!

You know these hooning "traffic" offenses stay with you for LIFE, they are a cumulative LIFE sentence - issued in the court of petty sessions without trial by jury...they never go away if you get done when your a kid once or say twice in say the first 10 years of driving they STAY on your record forever they NEVER re set (the way say demerit points do after 12 months)... You could be speeding thru a 40kph school zone 35 years later at say 85km's and at the wheel of your corporations Rolls Royce and - sorry that's it - 3rd cumulative offense & your cars crushed.

So they will accept you in the Academy after 10 years without a further hooning offense conviction... BUT your record never resets back to zero as long as you live?

Any kid of 17 or 18 caught the first time - by the time he is eligible to sign up already has a career by then - so who are you going to get joining up?

Exactly the ones who couldn't get a job anywhere else - because they are thick as 2 short planks!.

And who'd want to work for these speeding, sex offending peons Police anyway?

And - what about punishing these kids so harshly with these new hoon laws?

Do they understand this form of corporal punishment?

I don't think so....

Why not?

Because we are punishing the Dolphins.

What that I hear you asking?

Hon Minister for Police Liza Harvey

Punishing The Dolphins.

This is a suggestion document for your consideration of the issue facing our society of Hoon drivers and how one goes about modifying unwanted / anti - social behavior involving motor vehicles driven by our youth of today.

High speed motor vehicle death crashes, and innocent victims of same are at epidemic levels in our society, few would argue with that, and the fiscal and emotional costs to that same society, are already huge & escalating.

How does one modify that behavior?.

One method is to punish the unwanted behavior. The idea being that if punished severely enough and often enough eventually a lesson will be learned and the individual will modify their own behavior in order to avoid repeat punishment.

Once upon a time this method was utilized in schools – i.e. caning naughty boys until they stopped doing whatever unwanted behaviour was the problem. It seemed to be effective enough at the time – but today we frown upon this approach. Indeed children who passed thru schools after caning (a form of corporal punishment) was outlawed, under human rights legislation, have a LOT of difficulty learning by reprimand, much less corporal punishment models today, because it’s a model that’s foreign to them.

Those children were likely still schooled relatively successfully – yet without use of a corporal punishment model.
Once upon a time – we also trained dogs this way – rub their nose in a mess and throw them outside into the cold, give them a smack on the rump or nose etc. Again it seemed effective enough at the time.
I recently had occasion to train a new dog, and decided to have a quick look at some books on the subject.
One of the best training methods for dogs was developed, believe it or not, by not a professional dog breeder or dog trials performer – but a Dolphin trainer of all things!.
So – just how do you punish a Dolphin?
Deny it food?
Then you get a starved dolphin and a big vets bill to cure it.
Smack it? - Good luck with that – first catch the Dolphin to smack it (underwater).
Yet Dolphins which perform in shows to entertain the public at big aquariums, perform tricks far more complex than any dog will ever learn.
So how do the trainers get such obedience out of Dolphins without corporal punishment methodology?.
Positive reinforcement – is the answer!.
Catch the Dolphin performing a behavior that you wish it to repeat / learn, and immediately reward that behavior with a food (fish) reward, or later just praise, and a pat in the case of dogs, for example.

In essence this is what’s done now in schools with kids – who are taught without corporal punishment models, they receive praise and or tangible rewards (gold star on their report/homework) for good behavior and maybe a spell in the naughty corner for unwanted behavior occasionally if required.

And some of the best dogs being trained now, are trained with the positive reinforcement methodology developed by dolphin trainers.
So the method seems to work with most animals to some extent but Dolphins, Dogs and Kids it would seem are great candidates for positive reinforcement methodology.
Why are we having so much trouble with the hooning legislation – seemingly not working to keep our kids from carving up our roads every weekend and late at nights in otherwise peaceful suburbs and killing themselves & innocents in high speed chases crashes?

Is the hooning legislation – which we know is a corporal punishment model – not working with kids because they have never experienced it at school?
Where’s the positive reinforcement….for Kids raised thru school with a positive reinforcement model of learning, just like the Dolphins, within our road licensing and fines system of laws? Have pour laws not kept pace with new teaching methods & models of today. Are we just totally out of touch with the youth of today? Do they perceive us and our corporal punishment system as antiquated and a barbaric hangover from a previous unenlightened millennium?
How many youths in Western Australia, have had their driver’s license for 5 years, from age 17 to say 22 – without a single infringement… for speeding, by multi-nova camera, or radar trap, zero accidents reported, and no booze bus, DUI or drugs etc while driving, convictions?
I am sure there are some out there in our community… (I know I have one, of my 2 grown lads)
Where is the positive reward model of encouraging & rewarding that positive behavior?

Do these kids receive after 5 years, say a 5% discount on the renewal of their annual driver’s license fee, in return for being responsible, safe & considerate drivers who do not tie up police and insurers time and money, trying to police them and a note of praise from the Police Commissioner/Minister for Police?
In fact why not institute, a “driver rewards system” for WA for all drivers?
0 - 5 years accident and infringement free & you get “a WAPOL responsible driver” round red sticker for the corner of your windscreen, denoting that you’re a 5 year member of an elite driving group? Maybe even a extra demerit point credit? Why can’t you have more than 12 demerits Credit on a license?
5 – 10 years and you get a green sticker and a 10% license renewal discount & 2 demerit credit points.
10 – 20 years and you get a Blue sticker and 20% license renewal discount. & 3 demerit credit points
And so on,
If it’s OK to double both demerits and fines on long weekends and holidays – why not a few bonus points credits for those who do the right thing over 5 or more years?
The moment a policeman pulls up a driver – he can see at a glance whether he has a habitual repeat offender / speeder / hoon on his hands – OR perhaps someone who’s not so far, put a foot wrong in 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 years on the road from the sticker on the window (or gold stars on the license)!
Even allow the officer, if the offense is of a minor nature and the driver is a responsible record holder (sticker based), a little exercise of judgement with some leeway – a caution issued this time and some advice about what to do to improve, but no fine or demerits for example.
Maybe the stickers (gold stars etc) are printed onto the license card even, 1 star for every 5 years with an exemplary record.
Maybe after 50 years a Police Commissioners commendation ceremony and certificate issuing ceremony once a year?
The point I am attempting to make, is that our system of laws and punishment is corporal in nature (punishment based) and not in tune with the current system of instruction that our kids are taught with all the way thru their formative years in schools.
They get a license and get out onto our roads, with a corporal punishment system they have never experienced before, and for which they (rightly) have zero respect, and in some cases just cannot comprehend.
These youths see the corporal punishment (rightly from their learning experience) as against their basic human rights. They see the fines as blatant revenue raising – by the government.
When we need more revenues – let’s introduce even more harsh corporal punishment laws, and larger fines and in the process turn more of our youth into criminals under a system they don’t / cannot recognize or understand from their experience growing up.
Simply put – we are beating the Dolphin with a big stick – a method only likely to get us a big vets bill to fix the injury and disease we are creating (increasing high speed youth deaths and hooning behavior & the associated costs to the community that entails).

Sure, you need to have the penalty’s as a deterrent – (and the enforcement) & there must be acceptable limits to human behaviors for us to function as a society, however as the old saying goes you catch a lot more bees with honey than vinegar – there is nothing wrong with a combined carrot and stick approach (combined positive reward and corporal punishment).

Our kids do not understand corporal punishment methods and our corporal punishment laws with hooning on their own, are only showing these kids that we are sado – masochists, not capable of any more enlightened approach, than to beat the poor Dolphin into submission with a metaphorical legislative big stick.
Kids are intelligent (well some of them) and those that aren’t listen to the ones that are.
Our strict hoon laws just aren’t working entirely to eliminate the problem – with high speed deaths & anti-social behaviour on our roads, because at best they are only half the solution (“the stick”).
We lack the other half of the equation – (“the carrot”) that our kids understand as their learning model – the positive re - enforcement rewards system.
While your thinking about the stickers idea – back to “the stick approach” – maybe consider a hoon sticker/plate that hoons must display like a P Plate for provisional driver, until their record re-sets to zero cumulative hoon convictions for 5 years. The shame maybe of displaying a H plate for 5 years – so that the rest of the drivers on the road can see you’re a bad boy might have even more deterrent effect than some of the proposed first strike heavier fines and confiscations / crushing of cars, in the eyes of these kids who don’t know corporal punishment system but understand “time out in the naughty corner” philosophy from their schooling and upbringing?.

Something to think about maybe?.
It might be nice to see something “positive” like this offered by the Libs in the way of new Law & Order policy (by Police Minister Hon Liza Harvey) during this election – it would make a nice change from all the get tough on Law & Order negatives of the campaign so far.
Go throw a few fish to the Dolphins on me.

I know WHY we have the problems we do and even HOW it might be fixed - but you try getting any politicians to listen much less actually DO anything about it!

Sorry mate, I have nothing but respect for those who get find some idiot smeared all over the road and then go and tell the family what they found. Granted not all police conduct is what it should be but it is on the whole a thankless job. There is too much grey to point fingers.

Nice rant, been a while since we had one like that.

I'll make you a even bigger stick then - to keep whacking the dolphins with - after all - its working so splendidly well already, isn't it?

The systems broke.

Even the Plods no longer have any respect for their own department heads, minister or commissioner.

O'Callaghan's son charged over 'meth lab' explosion

O'Callaghan's son charged over 'meth lab' explosion

It was a taxpayer owned govt house his son blew up with the meth lab he was running in it.

No Cookies | thetelegraph.com.au

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan refers CCC probe to inspector

Karl O

WA top cop left out of loop as fire raged

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

A 44-YEAR-OLD Perth policeman has been stood down from duty after he allegedly sexually assaulted a child.

Youth in WA just have no respect left for our W.A. Police Force.

Granted its a crap job to have to do 99% of the time.

It also pays peanuts.

So anyone with half a brain gets a different career.

My own local plod Sgt - started out life as a apprentice then tradesman welder. His dada had been a Policeman all his life so under pressure he went into the force...

After 10 years and now on Sgts pay - he helped me weld up an alluminium barra boat... in return for me helping him make a Jarrah dining table.

He enjoyed it so much (and disliked the force enough) that he resigned and took a job back welding with a local mine.

Within 6 months - he was Foreman Welder, and not actually welding any more... instead he managed the works program of all the mines welders.

He was making twice his sergeants salary, and had regular hours - no forced transfers every 3 years to a new town meaning relocate his wife and kids to new jobs and schools etc etc

Who in their right mind would be a copper these days?

And this is why - the best we can hope to attract into the ranks are those who are too stupid to be employable anywhere else.

Then we wonder why we have law and order issues.

We are in the 3rd millennium - yet we have Police still in the dark ages & their legislation is just as antiquated.

The systems broke...in so many areas - that most Police don't think its fixable...

I didn't even touch Institutionalized corruption within WAPOL... The "Fat Wallet Mob" (Drug squad members who pocket 90% of the cash seized at drug raids) and the former Det Insp who framed up dozens of innocents here to get the files off his desk and cover up his corrupt crews crimes.

Innocence Project WA "We Will Keep Fighting" - YouTube

Our Police Force & Justice system is broken & needs fixing.

There is little left to have any confidence in.

It wasn't always this way.

Usually when a barrel full of apples goes rotten, the rot starts at the top of the barrel & works it's way down.