QLD Police – above the law
June 8, 2007 by Alborz Fallah
There is no doubt about it, QLD police are coming down hard on speeding drivers and those caught talking on their mobile phone. So we thought we’d contribute and help them catch some more “criminals”.
A member of Cruising Brisbane forum managed to take this shot on his mobile phone. Both cars were moving at the time.
Since we already know the Police officer won’t get a fine (as there is a clause in the legislation that allows police officers to use mobile phones in order to avoid sensitive information traveling the airways), it begs the question, since the photographer was using his mobile phone to take this photo, will he get a fine?
Print it: 
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Of course they’d give you a fine! P platers can’t even have their passengers talking on phones because apparently they’d freak out and cause a 10 car pile up.
I don’t agree with the ban on talking on mobile phones anyway, I mean what’s next – banning people from talking to their passengers, or banning passengers altogether? Oh wait… they did that.
I think as long as he shows leniency to other people using mobiles then I don’t really care.
but you know that he won’t!
He has to meet quota after all..
Police, ambos and fireies are allows to talk on mobile phones/radios whilst driving. Whinge about it all you want but if the ambulance coming to pick you up had to stop every time they talked over the radio, you’d be dead.
They are allowed to talk on the radio – which is built into their car. Not a personal call on a mobile phone!
I think that both drivers were at fault. It is against the law to use a mobile phone whilst driving and for good reason…doing so will definetely increase the likelihood of an accident.
Certainly the officer should be fined/reprimanded. But in my opinion the guy taking the photo was undertaking a far more serious manoeuvre…its likely his eyes weren’t even on the road, at least the copper was watching where she was driving!
Cops are always breaking rules. How can we be expected to follow them when we see stuff like this? If we can’t talk on mobiles cops shouldn’t be allowed either. I agree with Alborz, that’s why they have radios.
In Qld, the Police can talk on the mobile phone, whilst driving, if it’s an emergency or operational matter. That’s the law.
But if they are on the phone for personal reason’s, yes they can get in trouble,but it is something that would be very hard to prove by a normal civilian.
If you are concerned about a Police Officers actions, take down their rego and brief description of what they were doing and what they look like and lodge the complaint at your local police station, where they must forward it to the appropriate authorities for an investigation.
John, it is next to impossible to prove it was for personal reasons. The police know this.
The law is there to avoid the transmission of sensitive data over unprotected channels. Which is fair enough. However it does not set a good example.
It just goes to show, that the police can do what they want, and the law protects them – they break the law.. the enforce the law.
Alborz, how do you know for sure that cop was breaking the law, could have been work related for all we know, and also I bet that police car was probably parked, maybe the member of Cruising Brisbane is just trying to make a story!
Aston, I don’t know – but when a police officer pulls you over and gives you a ticket for talking on your phone when you were scratching your ear, I think assumptions are something they work on too!
hahaha, are you speaking from experience alborz. Yes they do act on assumptions too, I guess they have to at times.
looks like he was parked and from what we know, the car may not have been running, meaning it is perfectly normal.
remember police are exempt from the road act, except for drink driving of course
it coould have been an office matter that is important but not important enough to clog the radio as such.
nonetheless, not leading the best example
Alborz,
“ticket for talking on your phone when you were scratching your ear, I think assumptions are something they work on too! ”
If you show them your recent call list you can disprove this theory…
Just a suggestion
What a joke. Some people need to do their research before going ape about the cops. They are allowed to speed, run red lights, speak on their phone, whatever, because that’s what needs to happen when you have an emergency to attend to. They don’t even have to have their sirens on (unless going through a red light, cause that’d definitely cause an accident or two).
So. Get your facts right before trying to start another smear campaign. Cops are assholes when you treat them like assholes. Remember that.
I was once caught in Sydney using a mobile phone whilst driving. When the Highway Patrolman asked me if I knew I was breaking the law I said yes but I had arranged to have a hands free kit fitted that very day.
Knowing that I was lying, he asked me where I worked and what time the kit was being fitted. I quickly blurted out 4pm and gave him my business card.
He told me that he would be at my workplace at 4pm and if there wasn’t a hands free kit being fitted I was in deep dodo.
I must have rang every phone dealer in Sydney that day until I could find someone to do the job at 4pm in our office car park in Parramatta. Luckily I did, and sure enough at around 4.30 the copper pulls up in his own car (now off duty) to check on my bullshit story.
He laughed and asked me how many phone calls I had made to get the guy to come and fit the kit at 4pm.
No fine, but I did learn my lesson.
Ashley, no one said cops were Arseholes,just like people in any profession ,some people are great and treat you with respect but others are just plain RUDE!!
The Police are no different !!
People who talk on the mobile phone whilst driving should be ashamed of ourselves
no Bavarian Missile, most police are actually assholes (apparently), as found by a US study, it was found that 63% of some 3000+ officers had control issues, and 71% had tendencies to look down on non serving civilians?, maybe its just those yanks. listen to the tone and attitude of the officer that pulls you over next time you know for sure you were in the right.
Right O’ Here I go………
We are required to advise our communications centre of at least one phone number in the vehicle at the start of every shift. The phones we carry and use are our own personal phones which are paid for by us. The phones are carried as a secondary mode of communication but due to a dead battery, radio black spot or a technical failure of the radio system they are our only point of cantact. So if we need help in helping you it’s the phone or nothing!
A great deal of what we communicate between units would generally make most everday people (which we are of course!) vomit on the spot! Sometimes these conversations are required to be had on a closed phone network rather than the open Police radio network. The legislation allowing the use of an officers mobile phone whilst driving is there for a bloody good reason. I’m not excusing or justifying the pictured offciers actions BUT and it’s a BIG BUT…….
The next time I get a call on my mobile phone from Police communications asking me to attend someones address to inform them their child is dead after wrapping their car arround a power pole (this sort of job is quite often given direct to the cars via PHONE not radio!) I’ll remember the comments and understanding that has been expressed here in this forum…..Maybe just maybe thats what is being discussed during that call. Maybe he’s just about to tell the parents of another young driver their child is dead.
As for being assholes, the next time I’m writing a mobile phone ticket to a driver that DIDNT SEE THE FLURO COLOURED POLICE CAR FOLLOWING THEM FOR 2Ks I’ll be sure to smile and remember being vomited on by a drunken lunatic at 4am, Punched by a wife beating child abusing moron or bled on by an Iced up junkie who’d have me shoot him and end it all. Grumpy! I wonder why…………
Drive Safely
Big G
If you expect your handyman, doctor, shop-assistant or waitress to give you friendly and COURTEOUS service (despite their problems of finance, marriage and children) then the Police should too. Hopefully they are not above common social courtesies? Those police that can’t hack it should find a less demanding job. And yes Big G, I have dealt with junkies, psychotics and parents of dying children too.
It’s funny that it is illegal to use a mobile phone whilst driving – no matter what you are using it for. You may be checking your calendar, reading a message or taking a photo.. It is all illegal.
But there is actually no explicit law against taking a photo with a camera (as opposed to a camera phone). So your happy snapper who caught the cop chating away here could claim that the photo was taken on a regular camera and suddenly it’s not illegal…
Now the reality is that when a cop sees you all over the road as you pull your phone out of your pocket, and line him up on your screen, you’ll get done for dangerous driving or one of the other vague ‘we just want to give you a ticket’ fines, and you’ll have little argument in your favour..
Ashley said:
“What a joke. Some people need to do their research before going ape about the cops. They are allowed to speed, run red lights, speak on their phone, whatever, because that’s what needs to happen when you have an emergency to attend to. They don’t even have to have their sirens on (unless going through a red light, cause that’d definitely cause an accident or two).
So. Get your facts right before trying to start another smear campaign. Cops are assholes when you treat them like assholes. Remember that.”
and talking on ur phone during an emergency behind the wheel wont cause an accident or 2?
maybe u should get ur facts right dude. as we all know, using ur phone while driving is a big distration and is more likely to cause an accident. if police were to go at high speeds in a chase, then pull out their mobile to make a quick office call, thats gonna give u a better chance of a crash!!! police cars have their radios for a reason. quick and easy to use while driving. and if ur going to use the excuse of “oh but u can use a phone if its real important inofrmation that cant go over the airwaves” well wat information could be so bloody important during a casual drive, that she cant use her radio! face it. the only leg this cop has to stand on is that she knows she can get away with it coz of the messed up law.
btw, if cops are speeding in a chase, they must have their sirens on. ive seen cops pull over a cop car for speeding without a siren.
cops are meant to set an example in Australia. i dont care wat the law says, but allowing cops to break the law with a mobile phone is a really bad example for a lot of kids out there
The police will always be above the law, searching cars without court orders, breaking laws, illegal street race and many more.
This was an incident involving 2 police officers and me in the month of MAY that i will share with you about searching my car: And yes the really did do that to me without telling me anything, i was on my way home at 3am from a mates house who lives an hour outer town. The sirens and lights came on, i pulled over immediately as you would normally do, then have a police officer (1) was screaming at u whilst hold his gun in its holster. After opening the door the officer told me to get on the ground still holding his gun in his holster. So i laid on the ground facing my car and i saw him searching my car while his partner (officer 2) was standing over me holding his gun like the first officer did. After about 30 minutes of searching my the 1st officer tried to open the boot of my car. Since my car was a commodore at the time they tried pushing the button in my glove box to open my boot. That same officer kept hitting the Button until i shouted, “you cant open my boot with that button.” So officer 1 took the key out of my ignition and searched my boot and found nothing. He put the keys back into the ignition 10 minutes later and left with his partner doing a u-turn on double white lines. I got up didn’t know either why they wanted to search my car for. But got into my car and left.
Now at the time my car had too many problem like if i would do over 70km my car would cut out completely, and the speed zone on the road was 80km so i wasn’t speeding. but i wasn’t out anywhere except at my mates house that night, so i wasn’t doing burnouts or “hooning” like everyone claims we do. So can anyone with at least half a brain tell me why would i have been put through that for no reason at all? i never did drugs in my life, and never consumed alcohol b4 i drove home that morning. If i remembered the names of those 2 officers i would have taken them to court over this, because that wasn’t legal, inappropriate and abusing police powers.
You have all stated good points about abusing police powers, for example police driving through red lights without sirens or lights flashing, or police setting bad examples for the youth of today. But what can be done about it? nothing, because the police have a badge to hide behind they can even get away with murder if they wanted too. What gives them the right to do this, i blame the badge they carry, its what lets them do what they want when they want, for example; i was sitting at an 4 way intersection controlled by traffic lights. The lights hit green and the tyres screeched as the police vehicle (6 cylinder VZ Commodore) raced through the intersection beating a skyline which wasn’t even trying, at i was doing was the speed limit, whilst the police vehicle was more than 300meters into the distance. i know the skyline was doing the speed limit because i was behind it.
Now tell me, that these new laws and ridiculous restrictions should apply to us again?
# amanda Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Of course they’d give you a fine! P platers can’t even have their passengers talking on phones because apparently they’d freak out and cause a 10 car pile up.
OH MY GOD! I didnt read any more after this…. They confiscated my new car cause I was 24 years old on my P2\’s and it has 307Kw…. I got it back and it had traveled 443KM … Did the judge do anything? No, gave me a bigger fine for “false” accusations even though i took photos of the tires, odometer and petrol gage before I let them take it (someone take your baby you at least wanna know where its going right?)
The car the photo was taken from is a Fairmont Ghia.
Michael says:
But there is actually no explicit law against taking a photo with a camera (as opposed to a camera phone). So your happy snapper who caught the cop chating away here could claim that the photo was taken on a regular camera and suddenly it’s not illegal…
But Michael, to prove that they’d have to present the camera and the original image complete with metadata don’t they?
I don’t understand the level of defensiveness some have with the police, I guess that those with something to hide have something to defend.
I have seen a police unit driving around at night (not dusk) with their only foggies and parkers on! Work that out! I have seen a number of cops on the mobile while driving, who knows what they are talking about.. If they want to keep this (bullshit) sensative information then they should spend the money and go to digital! They seem to spend millions on 300KW+ highway patrol cars, even though they say they are lessening the high speed pursuits because they are deemed “dangerous”. Mobiles are just, if not more, unsecure than their intra-radios that they have now.
Let’s face, I really dont see anyone on this site backing the cops up, 10 – 15 years ago.. there would be alot more people for the police and their service. Now, it seems that all the police do is pick on people. Now they think they can take your blood, they can go and get f-cked if they think they can take my blood to test, bad enough breathing in some machine.
I have met some genuine coppers, and i have met some as-holes with a huge head. Unfortunatly, the egotistical tools are becoming more and more common. I have sold my Turbo car because i was continously followed around in my area and watched for no reason. I had police units roll up for random defect checks when the car was 20m down my drive way and under the house, yes, thats right… they came down my drive way with out consent and defected the car. I later took the matter into their own hands and took it court and won. Their pigheadedness eventually wore thin and the “law” threw the book back at em! I have gone back to a stock N/A for police reasons and I still get harrased, not so severely though.
I am ashamed at the body who is controlling and dictating the Police force. Good luck, you will need it!
Friday, 4 July 2008
I was walking back from a friends place and I knew there were many police in the area tonight, so I decided to do the right thing by not jaywalking and use the crossing at the lights. I pushed the button and waited for my que to cross the road, a police car casually pulled up behind me facing the crossing paralell. Sure enough all of the lights went red. I walked across the crossing, and less than halfway across the police car rev’s forward ans turns left on the red signal without using any lights or sirens and as I was crossing, please share your thoughts on this.
Well, it’s up to you whether you allow our police the appropriate tools to do there job, you can’t divulge everything over a radio, people own scanners you know. There on the way to save a life, your talking to a friend about your day, that can wait till you get home.
plus look at the hypocritical person that took this photo, whilst driving, thats safe… The police are doing there job, your just head hunting… which is what your against anyway isn’t’ it??
It truly is a thankless job.
The person who took the phone can actually be done for taking a photo without the officers concent which is illegal however that isn’t the point i am going to make i agree with someone else comments in regards to Comms call phones instead of over Radio say for Gold Coast for instance all of there Radio Communication are unsecured meaning any nut job with a scanner can listen to say maybe a drug bust. in brisbane they do have secure radios however three quaters of the time another officer is at someone’s house and probably wouldn’t want them to hear say A… please respond to a 2 car MVA possible DOA how do you think the person is going to feel when they are tieing up an officer when he could be out helping. not good in my eyes
Got pulled over D’s though i was on the phone when both hands on the steering wheel and i showed him my phone when they need a warrant but to prove i wasnt lying to the D’s i showed him that i wasnt the he defected my car