Originally Posted by Full Noise
Interesting this, Trev. Obviously a very sensible copper here.
Just for those who aren’t aware regarding some police procedures in Victoria.
When police pull over a heavy vehicle, their procedure is pretty much the opposite of what it is for a car. We all know that police use their vehicle as a block to create a buffer zone between them and the vehicle they’ve intercepted by pulling over well to the right, sometimes even having their vehicle protruding into the running lane to protect the officer as the “average” car driver will not be asked to get out of the vehicle unless there’s something wrong.
Often, when a HWP unit intercepts a car, they would have most likely already run the rego, have the registered owner’s details and may have run an IBR giving them a fair amount of info on their criminal history before they’ve even hit the angry lights. For reference, angry lights - red blue flashing lights. They can’t do this with a heavy vehicle as they tend to be registered to companies and most of the time, rego plates for the prime mover are not visible until the police unit is very close to the rear of the prime mover. Trailer registrations aren’t much use to them as the trailer could be owned by someone else.
With a heavy vehicle, the police pull over at the front and use the heavy vehicle as their block. There’s a few reasons for this. One that we’d like to think is that many of them are too lazy to walk the 30 metres or so to the cab of the truck but in reality, they want to keep a good eye on the cab of the heavy vehicle. The procedure that the HVU “Heavy Vehicle Unit” or “task Force” as they’re know as, when they pull you over, sometimes before they’ve even come to a complete stop, the officer in the passenger side exits their vehicle and pretty much runs to your door and kindly opens it for you giving you little time react. I’d love to see how all the bleeding hearts in the general population would feel if the police did that to them.
Myself and many others have a few tricks that we use to render some of their antics less than effective, but that’s not something that’s discussed on an online forum.
The police also have the option of using the “rear” angry lights only as well. I have been pulled over at night with a reasonable amount of traffic so when they use the “rear” angry lights, the cars in front of the police will not think that they are wanting “them” to pull over.
Also, the behaviour of the police is very different with a heavy vehicle compared to a car “before” an intercept. Sometimes the police will give the angry lights a “quick flash” to get your attention, then instruct you to pull over in a safe place over the UHF or simply use their left indicator or dot matrix sign to let you know where they want you to pull over. Ignoring their instructions will generally end up in a lot of pain. With a car, they can’t just assume that the driver will understand what they mean so the lights are used constantly and sometimes, a quick tap of the siren is also required.
Most of the time, the police are pretty reasonable, not all the time though. Once they’ve pulled you over, some will turn their angry lights off, some don’t. There’s various reasons for this, although, my understanding is that while an intercept is taking place, their angry light must remain on.
This is why dash cam footage is so important these days.
I was travelling north on the Hume Highway recently, near Baddaginnie, one morning around 9:15 am, when I noticed another B-double pulled over well off the side with his four ways “Hazard lights” on. I did him the courtesy of moving to the right lane “as we all should do if able” and once I got past him, I noticed a bloody HWP car tucked in front of him with his angry lights on.
Whether I like it or not, I have just committed the offence of not slowing down to 40 kp/h past a stationary emergency vehicle even though the emergency vehicle was “not visible” to me before I’d passed it.
So… common sense would suggest that there’s no problem here but…
What if the officer is having a bad day?
What if the officer had been directed to “go hard” on this offence?
What if the officer has a past history with “the” heavy vehicle?
What if the officer has a past history with “the” company name on the trailer?
What if the officer is a snowflake and thought his/her life was in danger?
What if this occurs during operation Austrans?
Who do you think a magistrate will believe in court?
This stupid law needs to be altered as it’s not a one size fits all situation. Even NSW have changed it so that you are required to move over “if possible” and pass at a safe speed in speed zones over 90 kp/h.
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