Blue Mountains Highway Patrol HIDING in bushes.

David Markham

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Location
Blue Mountains, NSW
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Australia
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Thinkware Q800-Pro
This footage of mine was taken yesterday 14th April, whilst travelling eastbound on the Great Western Highway at Woodford NSW 2778. Within 9 seconds of the footage can be seen a local Blue Mountains Local Area Command highway patrol car - a BMW 5-Series - parked in a side street (Glen Street, Woodford), whilst a highway patrol officer is spotted sitting crossed-legged, behind foliage on the street corner, aiming a radar gun at approaching eastbound vehicles: Hence, my expletive at the 10-second mark.

This sort of underhanded behaviour by Australian police has been noted and reported on in the past, the most immediate example I can bring to mind is the following article from 2019:
'A new low': Speeding tickets issued by police officer hiding in bushes will stand
 
I assume the only people being ticketed were those breaking the law by speeding?
 
There's a spot in Greenville SC where similar happens. On one stretch of Agusta Rd the speed limit drops from 35MPH to 30 MPH and almost nobody slows down. One Cop stands behind a large hedge with a radar gun, one beside him to direct people to pull into the side street, and a few more on that street writing tickets. I've seen about a dozen cars getting ticketed in passing. They do this set-up 2-3 times a year, perhaps more.

When driving that stretch the smarter locals are always looking to see if someone is standing at that hedge. I think the Police resources could be better used but I have no complaint about the set-up as the speed limit signs are very visible, the lanes are narrow, and it's at the beginning of an area where there are many pedestrians and also a school located on the street diagonally across from the hedge. Nobody should be speeding through there.

Phil
 
It is not uncommon here to do speed tests and ticket writing at schools here, where there are by default lower speed limits.
You can also be almost sure that every year after the summer break the police will be at the schools writing speeding tickets - parking tickets - no seat belt use tickets and phone use tickets.
The children of sane parents cycling to school, well if they do something wrong the nice policeman will also tell them what they can do better the next time.

Danish schools are not designed to parents driving kids to school or even school busses for that matter, so not really any offloading area there, traditionally kids walk or cycle to school, and most often that can be done very safe, it is extremely rare you hear about a kid to or from school getting hurt in traffic, all other not so much, a lady was creamed / killed by a R turning van just yesterday.

Of course the supporting infrastructure near / around schools are made to cater for the little cyclists, and as a motorist them being safe and sound are pretty much your problem, which many adult cyclists know and abuse, and therefore get in accidents.
you pretty much can not touch a pedestrian or cyclist with your car, do so and you have to retake the driving exam.

I think the Danish traffic speeds are sensible, no matter what sticks you live in you can up and drive to the other end of the country i 5 - 6 hours or so, keeping to the speed limit.
 
dont know why he was told to stop, the speed cameras in the cars are more hidden than he is.
 
In Manly, Sydney, the central area has been reduced from 40 to 30 kph.

Long gone are the days where you keep your eyes on the road, it's the Speedo you have to watch.

Also factor in larger tyres!
 
i normally use cruise control everywhere i go. if in a ZB commodore they have an adjsutable speed limiter, its brilliant.
 
i normally use cruise control everywhere i go. if in a ZB commodore they have an adjsutable speed limiter, its brilliant.
Does it automatically adjust when you enter a lower/higher speed limit?
Not heard of a car doing that yet, but it seems sensible, as long as you can easily override it if you want to.
 
Does it automatically adjust when you enter a lower/higher speed limit?
Not heard of a car doing that yet, but it seems sensible, as long as you can easily override it if you want to.
you just need to adjust it on the steering wheel when you enter a new speed zone. you can accelerate hard off the line, not full throttle, and it will stop accelerating when it nears the set limit and wont exceed it. if you go full throttle it overrides it.
 
Blaming the cops for "being sneaky" is just lame. If you don't want a ticket, don't speed, it cannot be more simple than that. Actions have consequences.
 
Yeah.
Or just trust luck,,,,,, to this day i am still amazed i have never gotten a speeding ticket, and my driving in the 90ties, that was the kind of driving that today would get your license taken and your car confiscated.
In a month with the new law, police have confiscated 52 cars, several of them million DKkr sports cars, others vans belonging to some contractor but whose employees have operated it while drunk.

The new laws are a bit harsh, but all other approaches have been tried and failed in the past decades,,,,,, if only they would be this resolute in other areas, Denmark would be a sweet country.
 
That is one sneaky cop, but they have to bring the money in !!!

The problem is not speeding, here the speed limits change often within a small area. Too many variations make it difficult to do the right thing. There are all sorts of variables in a busy city: time of day, schoolzone, workzone, heavy-traffic limits, as well as multiple limits within the same street. It is a winning formula for the government.


1620439877715.png
 
Agree, too many different speed zones, my old office I used to cross through 16 different speed zones each way between home and work, used to drive me nuts
 
I will agree if you have one speed limit after another on pretty much the same road, thats also no good and probably a reason for accidents.
In that case planners should probably do their things to even speeds out, and by that i dont mean just paste the lowest speed on every stretch of road.
But i also know this is not a overnight thing, something to compare to could be the Danish cyclist infrastructure, trust me motorists was not happy loosing a lane or two on congested city streets to cyclists getting bicycle paths.
But it was actually a good idea, even in "little" Danish towns the bicycle are by far the fastest mode of personal transport, and i think within city limits we car owners sooner or later will learn that we are no longer welcome, at least cars with combustion engines, but probably also electric cars as they do after all take up a lot of space too.
And i am also sort of okay with that, but then the people living in rural areas must have a break of some sort, cuz they can not be without a car as there are no public transport out there and places to do shopping are far in between, so you need to have a car in the household, maybe even 2 cars ( which are still unusual for Denmark, personally i have never known anyone which have a 2 car household )
 
Not only far too many speed limit variations along a length of road. Some of the speeds change for various reasons. Together with the plethora of street advertising. Speed, safety and street signs are lost amongst the crowd.

You can't see the trees for the forest. One's head is a yo-yo oscillating between speedo and the nature strip. With any luck you may get a chance to look forward!
 
Time square in New York, i am pretty sure i would feel dis comfortable there, and the fault will probably be the horribly commercial spammed buildings, those big LED billboards are so awful.
The big roadside billboards in the US, they would probably trigger me too, i would prefer a unobstructed view of the sewage plant behind it over such a monstrosity.
Even if i was in the market for the new Chevrolet,,,,,, something.
 
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