bass_straitener wrote:Sorry Jeff, but sadly this is not one of your better post. Speeding is a crime.
Speeding is not a crime or every ticket would also be accompanied by a criminal record, which it isn't. It's a traffic matter, not a criminal matter.
The only thing that is a crime would be your actions (speeding or otherwise) behind the wheel causing injury to someone else, or being used to aid in a criminal act, such as escape from a bank robbery.
bass_straitener wrote:And your suggestion that only people who aren't genuinely concerned for their safety should be police officers is ridiculous.
If one is genuinely concerned about their safety, they won't put themselves at unnecessary risk of injury including taking up job roles that put them in such a position. Being a police officer on the front line is one of the best ways to incur an injury, just as being a high-rise construction worker or a deep sea diver carries inherently higher risk of personal injury than an office desk job does. Ergo, a Police officer stating that you (the citizen) is putting his life at risk is ridiculous, especially when in this case the driver clearly moved over when indicated and was not travelling at an excessive rate of knots when in proximity of the officer in question.
A uniform and a fluro vest does not protect you from injury. If you are standing in the middle of the road waving a sign or a stick and an inattentive driver hits you and kills you, then while the driver is clearly at fault in any case, the death (or serious injury) would not have occurred if the officer didn't just blindly stand in the middle of the road where a normal person wouldn't.
bass_straitener wrote:Clearly you've had a bad experience and thought you'd make a heap of generalisations.
I've had both good and bad experiences equally. There are some officers on the force who are genuinely helpful, courteous and just downright fabulous leaving you with renewed faith in the system, but sadly some are not and it's generally those ones who single-handedly make everyone look bad as there seem to be more of them than the good ones. The key issue here is that they legally have the state-issued authority to make life extremely difficult for you if they so choose, and since the legal system is rapidly moving towards a "guilty until proven innocent" philosophy, unless you have the appropriate evidence to prove the officer made an error in judgement, you don't have much of a leg to stand on.
As I said, I do
not have a problem with police in general or officers doing their job. I have a problem with those who abuse their position of authority with unwarranted attitude, but that equally applies to other non-Police roles too, such as a bossy manager in a typical workplace.
I was going to procrastinate, but I put it off...