Roadside stops by police

Dellortoman

Dellortoman

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Location
Tasmania, Australia
Someone in another thread (I think it was chrisk) mentioned police powers of search at a roadside stop. That can be a complicated issue and police powers vary between states and countries.

Like Chris, I'm no lawyer either, but like most of us I've had my share of cops pulling me over (especially when on a bike) and trying to bully me with bullshit that's beyond their legal power, so I've educated myself a little on police powers at roadside stops. I live in Australia, so my comments are relevant only to Australia. If you live somewhere else, you'll need to research your own legal system.

I should acknowledge that cops being arseholes doesn't seem anywhere near as common as it was when I was a young bloke, but I guess it still can happen occasionally. Cops I've had contact with in roadside stops in recent years have been polite and considerate. But it's still worth knowing what your obligations are.

Getting back to searches ...
In Australia, police generally require a warrant to search stored data on an electronic device. That includes stored electronic vehicle data.
But there are a couple of exceptions:
They do have authorisation to search without a warrant if they have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed. I suppose "reasonable suspicion" can be interpreted pretty widely.
Also, they can search your vehicle (including its electronic data) if you give permission, even if you don't realise that you've given permission. They can ask rather sneakily or casually by saying something in a friendly manner like "Nice car mate (or truck or bike) do you mind if I have a look?" If you say OK, you've just given permission for a comprehensive search.

One of the reasons for starting this thread is to introduce this Australian YouTube presenter. His name is James Glissan and he's an ex-cop turned lawyer. I have no connection with him other than watching his videos. He's very credible and easy to understand when explaining legal issues. He has a number of videos covering many aspects of Australian law besides traffic laws. Some of his videos may be applicable to other aspects of your life. This one is relevant to roadside stops and searches.

 
Got another Loophole for you, Cam. For a good few years, local council Parking Officers could get away with not putting a parking ticket physically on your vehicle. All they needed to do was take a picture of it, date and time coded. It's pretty shocking to get a plain envelope in the post with a massive fine inside. I got one years ago for $450 for parking on a No Stopping sign for 2 minutes getting lunch, a month later, the fine arrived. A month back, with huge fanfare, the State Premier announced that no more driving or walking past and taking a picture, they must put the physical ticket on the vehicle. Last week I got another plain notice, and inside was another $330 fine. No ticket was ever presented. At the time, I was in the car and spoke to the parking cop and said I was leaving. The prick must have sneaked a picture. I was thinking I had an escape clause because I got no ticket. I looked it up, there allowed to just do a picture IF they feel threatened. I made no threat, but how do you prove that? I learned years ago, pay up and just smile and forget it. I know I committed these crimes but that's an insane cost. Just another joy of inner city life.
 
Vid was really intetesting and very similar to UK powers. Being Ex Old Bill one thing he didn't mention was the fact that the coppers themselves are very often very shakey on their own knowledge of Police powers. We got almost weekly courses on things like diversity, race relations, gender equality etc but very little in the way of refreshers on actual police work.
 
Perry said:
Vid was really intetesting and very similar to UK powers. Being Ex Old Bill one thing he didn't mention was the fact that the coppers themselves are very often very shakey on their own knowledge of Police powers. We got almost weekly courses on things like diversity, race relations, gender equality etc but very little in the way of refreshers on actual police work.
Click to expand...
That's why there's a judicial service.
Paul
 
I got pulled up by an unmarked car (detectives) in Melbourne, near Box Hill. They pulled the car to bits, leaving the contents spewed over the roadside. I said on numerous occasions, tell me what you’re looking for…… without response.

They took off leaving me to refit the back seat, boot and contents. I heard on the radio that there had been a jewellery store heist in Box Hill by a bloke in an early model white Holden, as I was driving

I’d like to finish the tale by saying they should have looked in the roof lining 😜 but it wasn’t me!

Anyone want to buy some cheap jewellery? 😆😆😆
 
Even social media posts could be incriminating! 'Yeah, I had it up to 285 on that stretch' ... next thing you know you;re in court for another speeding offence and they dig it up to prove you are an inveterate repeat offending speedster criminal. I reckon being 70 and having very grey-white hair might change the way the coppers treat me these days - haven't tested it out yet. But as a long haired motorcyslist in Oz in the 70s you were instant cop harassment bait. If they did play bad cop-bad cop routine I'm of a mind to say 'I'm not some naive long-haired sucker these days mate, and you can't treat me like that. Would like an assault charge with that hamburger?!'.
 
Here a nice story on this topic my mate Juergen told me the other day:

… at 4:00 PM I hopped back on my bike and went for a short ride. I ran into a roadside stop for two-wheelers in the Wied Valley. They were busy pulling over a quad rider (2 times 2 wheels, or do I get something wrong ..?).

The officer was a nice enough young bloke who asked for my license and registration. He was then baffled by the fact that my Laverda was first registered in 1979 and that I was the original owner.

We then had a pleasant chat about the Laverda, cyclists without helmets on the road despite the bike lane, and the impending downgrade of his police car from an Audi A6 all-wheel drive with a six-cylinder engine and 286 hp to a VW Passat four-cylinder with just 190 hp. And he was probably right about the fact that, with his (quite typical) 12-hour (!) shift and traffic stop in good weather, he was still far better off vs his colleagues who'd to protect a right-wing populist party event in a (more distant) area.

... And during our small talk, 4 - 5 motorcycles beamed past the parking lot far too loud & fast. I saved their bacon most probably. And the officer maybe is pondering tonight over a story I told him about a police roadside stop on my Laverda which happened in Italy in 1986. The year he was born …

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I have often been stopped by the police wanting to look at my bike.
The most worrying was coming out of London on my then new Gilera Saturno. A police car pulled in in front of me forcing me to stop.
"Sorry sir, we just wanted to have a look at the bike".

The time the UK customs started looking in every nook and cranny of my then new 3CL was more worrying.

Paul
 
Mount White, NSW bunch of Laverda's pulled up, fresh faced lad in nice blue uniform.... comes over and gives us the third degree, me to fresh faced lad in blue ( once black in the day )... "... just like the old days, maybe your dad or grandad pulled me up all the time.." fresh faced lad started reving up ( without a motor ), older sergeant comes over after hearing my observation, old days and new days looking like old days... told us all to get going... fresh faced did not have a good look as we "move on"... and we did.... there are endless encounters with the lads and gals that police the highways, the world over. Much is about making better manners for all road users, not an easy job and some are not so good as the many others in policing roads, j
 
Amusing roadside stop story from a long time ago:

We used to have some quirky speed limits in Tasmania that were applied to specific vehicles, like 80kph for a car towing a trailer, and 80kph for a motorcycle with a pillion passenger. Some time I'd guess in the mid 1970's the authorities realised that those limits were a bit silly and the laws were repealed, so that cars towing trailers and bikes with passengers were subject to the same speed limits as everyone else. But it seems that they didn't tell all the traffic cops that the vehicle specific speed limits were no longer in effect. Or possibly the law change was circulated, but it didn't sink in to at least one cop's brain.

It must have been about a year after the law was changed when I went for a ride with a mate, Geoff. We were on a weekend ride up the east coast of Tassie, staying overnight in Bicheno and going home via St Marys, Conara and the midlands. We both had our girlfriends on the back of our bikes. We stopped for lunch on the second day at St Marys. The next town on our route was Fingal, a small country town of a few hundred people. It was once a boom town due to a local gold rush, but those days were long gone.

Geoff and his girlfriend Sue were relating the story of the last time they passed through Fingal a few months earlier, and were pulled up by the local cop for exceeding 80kph with a pillion. Geoff told the cop that the 80kph limit no longer applied, but the cop didn't believe him and booked him anyway. Geoff obviously chose not to pay the fine and took the matter to court. The charge was of course dismissed and the magistrate admonished the cop for bringing a non-existent traffic infringement to court. We had a bit of a chuckle at the story about the dumb Fingal cop, and continued on our ride.

We trundled through Fingal at a legal speed and were a few km outside the speed limit on the other side of the town when a cop car came hurtling up behind us with lights and siren going. He overtook us and indicated that we were to pull over. We dutifully stopped in a gravelled area on the side of the road as instructed. It was the very same cop that had booked Geoff a few months ago. He got out of his car with clipboard and pen in hand, apparently ready to book us for something. As soon as he said what we were about to be booked for (the same offence of exceeding 80kph with pillion passengers), Geoff said "That's funny..." but before he could explain why it was funny, the cop cut him off mid-sentence in an apoplectic rage. His face went bright red and the veins stood out on his neck as he screamed at Geoff about 6 inches from his face. I don't remember his entire speech but it started off with something like "You think it's funny that you're a menace on the road and that you and your passenger could be killed on the next bend because of your idiotic speed" he went on for some time yelling and spitting his invective in Geoff's face until Geoff finally got got a word in edgewise. He calmly asked the cop if he remembered booking him for the same non-existent offence a few months ago and it was thrown out of court.

The cop stood and stared at Geoff for what felt like about 30 seconds, his bulging veins and red face still 6 inches from Geoff's. You could almost see the wheels turning in his mind as the memory came creeping back to him. The colour drained from his face, presumably at the recollection of being admonished by the magistrate, and that Geoff was indeed correct. Without a further word, he threw the clipboard into his car, got in and took off, spraying us with gravel as he wheeled his car around back towards Fingal. We were all left standing on the side of the road scarcely believing what had just happened.
 
My turn, while I was doing night technical College in Suxess St right in the middle of Sydney's CBD, we would have a 20-minute dinner break at 730pm, class went from 530 to 930. This was a weeknight, and the class had people from 20 to 70 years old in it. So one of the blokes had bought a new car, and it was parked in a nearby lane, and 6 of us were surrounding the car and having a look when a cop car with 2 cops stopped. I suppose it might have looked a bit suspicious, but it didn't warrant the maximum aggressive questioning that happened and the threats of arrest. If you got told we all were attending an Applied Science lecture at Sussess St Annex and were on a dinner break, who would make up a story like that to steal from Cars? Some Cops are just locked and loaded constantly and cannot see past their noses. It was one of those smile and nod moments when you get one of those types of Cops, it's been 50 50 for me over the years with good Cops and bad Cops. It's hard to take the abuse from a bad Cop when it's not deserved, but it's better than some alternatives.
 
Had a moment years ago on the Triumph with the missus on the back and got pulled over for overtaking over double lines after a heavily tinted top of the range Commodore braked really hard in a downhill tight left hander coming down the back of a local short mountain road.. nearly ran up of the back of the F**ker, so cleared him and went on my way..

Turned out the driver of said Crummidore (Police plain car) was a certain Sgt. Stern (kid you not) and he was mad keen, angry as and all puff and wind.. pulled us over on the flat at the bottom of the hill, got a couple of tickets and of course went to court knowing this was more BS from these types..
Repped myself, took evidence pictures of the road and corners, and left the missus outside for the hearing until we got to the "what were you thinking..?" bit.

So I walked Sgt Stern through all of his credentials as a highly trained Highway Patrol officer.. once we had established that, I then asked him why he then needed to apply his brakes in a 30klm/hr corner as we were slowly going down that hill.. "was there a problem with the vehicle perhaps..?" I asked..
No he said, it was just that I was riding in a dangerous manner, he didn't cause me any problems..!!
We also had a second officer who was there on the day questioned as to what he saw.. which was not much.. he was going up the hill whilst Sgt Stern was going down.. some kind of double trap these guys were doing obviously..

Enter my missus, who was then asked about how it all happened.. she was able to say she saw it all from the backseat, was alarmed by the sudden loss of speed by the Commodore, (bumped her helmet on mine.. not pillion etiquette at all..), and also that Sgt Stern's other mate, who had pulled up shortly after us, and had parked close to his car had questioned him as what he was doing.. He was proposing unsafe driving, crossing double lines, speeding.. "I'm going to throw the lot at them..!" he had replied whilst his mate was unsure if he could.. after all, we may have ducked by him, but he had no radar etc. on us.. or if he did, we were certainly not above the 80 klm limit on that road that day..
"You can't know that..?" questioned the prosecutor, to which Nanette replied.. "well, after they stopped us, I went and stood in the shade of a tree a little way from the bikes, and close to the Police vehicles.. I heard every word.."

It was at that point old 2nd mate, who by then was in the public section actually groaned and put his head in his hands..
Magistrate put it over to the next day, which is pretty unusual apparently, but returned in the morning with a minimum fine for crossing double lines, which obviously I had admitted to in the telling, but no points on my license, and recommendation that these types of dangerous Police trafficking practices be investigated and remedied for the safety of the motoring public.

Ya Gotta Take Ya Wins Where Ya Can..

:cool:
 
Great stories - I love it when 'the people' take on 'the sate' in court, and have a win.

Your copper in Tassie sounds a lot like Dim, Alexander Dilarge's droog mate in A Clockwork Orange, after he and his other droog mate have become coppers! Dumb as houndshaeze!
 
Here in Western Canada, greater Vancouver, we have a mix of either RCMP (national police force with paramilitary designation) or local city police forces. All have fairly passive policing of motorcycles with our generally 7-8 month riding season, except to do a quick pullover for a license with motorcycle endorsement. Except of you excessive speed 40km over posted speed, then it’s instant bike confiscation for 7-30 days, massive fines!
I’ve been pulled over 6 times in the last 2 yrs, every one of those have been when I was riding my street legal 1974 Honda CT70 (Dax). They all thought it was an illegal Chinese ‘pocket bike’. Quickly let me go on my way after confirming its street legal status.
 
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