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Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Safety focus on Bay roads, says top cop

Bay of Plenty Times
3 Jul, 2006 11:00 PM4 mins to read

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By Beck Vass
The Western Bay's top traffic cop today made no apology for issuing high numbers of tickets but does not support the "competition" style that has been suggested in a leaked memo.
Senior Sergeant Ian Campion's comments come after an email calling on officers to issue more tickets in the
Central District was leaked. Police have previously denied having a ticket quota.
The leaked Central District Highway Tasking Sheet said " ... as it is the last week before the end of the accounting year for us it is a great opportunity to get our ticket count up to ensure we end up as the top group in Central".
The instruction suggested the traffic police group get together to target areas with high volume traffic flows and has created a political furore.
Mr Campion refused to say whether Western Bay police officers worked to a ticket quota, saying any questions on the issue should be directed to the Office of the Commissioner in Wellington.
"I'm prepared to say that Western Bay staff are tasked to risk, which means obviously that they focus on the high crime or crash rate areas and they comply with the national performance objectives."
Mr Campion would not say what these performance objectives were.
However, he said he would "never support or condone" the "competition" style ticketing that had been suggested by the media in the leaked memo.
"I make no apology for focusing on high-risk driver behaviour which includes speed, includes intersection compliance, which includes the serious offences like alcohol, the boy racers, risky over taking manoeuvres. All of these high risk driving behaviours, we target, and there's a very good reason for that - because it relates to road safety."'
His comments come after Police Commissioner Howard Broad yesterday stated that there was no quota policy for traffic tickets but could not rule out the possibility that officers may informally act as if there was one.
Mr Broad and Police Minister Annette King held a joint press conference yesterday afternoon over the leak.
Ms King said the email - which Central district police commander Superintendent Mark Lammas has described as "daft" - was "disappointing" and "unfortunate".
Mr Lammas was to talk to the memo author about what was appropriate, she said.
"The idea of quotas is not something the Government has asked for nor has the commissioner nor have the district commanders," Ms King said.
Mr Broad said he would talk to district commanders and issue a memo about tickets.
"I'm going to make it absolutely crystal clear that this conversion of our intentions to focus our enforcement behaviour around risk places, risk times for risk behaviours is converted into the advice, the direction, that is given by sergeants to their officers as they go about going to work each day."
He admitted that an informal policy by default may have developed among officers.
Mr Broad said there were performance standards and an expectation some tickets would be issued - the number of tickets an officer issued would be assessed as a performance measure.
"Part and parcel of coaching and mentoring our people to do a better job is about estimating what they've done."
But that was not a quota: "Find me someone who has been charged internally with discipline for failing to meet the quota if this is such a big policy."
Some direction was needed.
"We know previous policies of allowing police officers to simply get into a car and go out to work on a daily basis without any further direction on what policy they should follow wasn't successful."
Police were meant to target areas where there were crashes.
"We do want police officers in those places where risk happens issuing tickets," he said.
"I'm upset and concerned that people have a view that we're sending out our police officers on some sort of bounty hunt."
The aim was to reduce death and injury.
Ms King had little sympathy for those who were caught.
"If you get a ticket you were speeding. You were breaking the law."
The number of tickets issued had reduced by 160,000 last year compared with 2004.
"If there was some sort of measure that the more you issue the more successful you are you'd have to say it was a spectacular failure," she said.
The social cost of vehicle crashes was estimated at $3307 million in 2005, down from $3340m in 2004.
- Additional reporting NZPA

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