AFP traffic Quota?

James-T-Kirk said :

Speed fines are simply a revenue device

If you don’t speed, you won’t get a ticket (or, if you insist, “you won’t be contributing to government revenue”).

It’s not rocket-science. In fact, there are massive signs everywhere that explain precisely how to avoid “contributing to revenue”. It’s not like everyone hasn’t had this explained to them repetitively from the moment you start driving lessons.

Rather than everyone having to listen to endless whining about how “speeding is blah blah blah my tax dollars blah blah blah damn gummint blah blah blah”, everyone could attempt to use their damn brains once in a while and NOT contribute to the revenue by keeping to the speed limit.

From the looks of how often these threads pop up, the whole speed limit thing is actually an intelligence test: an intelligence test that many people just can’t figure out.

Perhaps I should try to explain it to you:

a) if you are caught going over the posted speed limit, then you will be fined

b) if you wish to avoid being fined, don’t go over the posted speed limit.

There we go – no need for endless diversions about the cause of accidents and road quality and all the rest. It’s painfully simple.

If you receive a speeding fine, it’s because you’re obviously too stupid to figure out how the rules work. In this instance, my suggestion would be to suck it up and act like an adult. Attempting to deflect responsibility (particularly when the rules are completely unambiguous and have been explained over and over and over again) is not the attitude of a responsible adult; it is the sort of thing that a particularly poorly raised, particularly stupid child would attempt.

Why would the police need a quota when there are plenty of idiots driving around, in fact one would suspect enough to completely fill a days work.

+1

I would imagine that the Canberra driving public would present the AFP with more than enough opportunity to get through a book of infringement notices a shift. I doubt that they go looking for extra work.

sloppery said :

Not to be rude, but what does this have to do with potential quotas? Everyone knows the cops have a difficult job, and that if you break the law you can reasonably expect consequences – these things aren’t being debated. The question of how police performance is measured is what we are discussing…

My comment was in response to the usual comments about revenue-raising and fines being given out to fill quotas.

buzz819 said :

Are you trying to say that the ACT Government has told the AFP to go and tell all the detectives, the tactical boys and Kenny Koala that they have to give out a certain number of tickets?

I think you need your head read.

On top of that calling the Police cretins because your wife was speeding? Where was she speeding, where was the Police officer, what was her attitude towards the Police officer, were you in the car?

Hmmm – I have probably miss stated my thoughts. Firstly understand that not all POLICE are doing the same job!

Let me make it clear. I FIRMLY believe that there is some measurement process in place for police. In the case of the tactical boys, then it is probably something along the lines of time taken to control a situation. In the case of Kenny, it is probably something like time spent at community events. In the case of the detectives, it is probably around number of cases worked on per period of time. Those are all real, measurable things.

Now, the police in the cars that cruise the highways…. We really shouldn’t measure the number of doughnuts they eat, so we can oonly measure the number of ticakes they write. Thats their job.. Remember that they didn’t make it up to the dizying height of detectives, and that’s perfectly ok.

Deadmandrinking said :

God, will the conspiracy theory never end?

Don’t break the law and you won’t get a fine. It’s not like their hauling your arses off to the clink for going 20 over the speed limit. If you speed, you increase the risk of an accident, which can have a toll not just on the victims, but the victim’s family and friends, and the person who was responsible.

Every murder in the ACT is investigated. Every reported break-in, police attend. Every reported assault, police investigate.

Sure they don’t catch the offenders every time, but most of the offenders don’t commit their crime in front of police. Just because you suck at being a criminal, it doesn’t mean the police are out to get you.

Not to be rude, but what does this have to do with potential quotas? Everyone knows the cops have a difficult job, and that if you break the law you can reasonably expect consequences – these things aren’t being debated. The question of how police performance is measured is what we are discussing…

Tooks said :

James-T-Kirk said :

Now – tell me that the cretin wasn’t looking *anywhere* for a quick fine to issue….

Isn’t the cretin the one who copped the fine?

“How dare he fine me; I was only breaking the law a little bit.”

That is an amazing assertion.

A speedometer is a measuring device. As with all devices, there is a measurement error. A set of limits around how the device actually functions. To fine somebody because if an error of 5% is a bit rude.. how was she to know that she was speeding – if her error was 5%, then her speedo would have indicated 60, while her car was doing 63….. Oh No!!!

Speed fines are simply a revenue device – Australian governments are well known internationally for being extremely enthusiastic about nailing everything on speed.

Remember the 50 zones… They were originally installed as a TRIAL, and when the trial was over (ie they had been demonstrated to NOT CHANGE ANYTHING), it was decided to just leave them in, as it would cost too much to remove the signs…..

Why not actually get to the issue at hand. Driver education, not blind obedience to the speedo.

Yes, I completely agree that SPEED IS A FACTOR in all accidents… If they were only traveling a 0km/h, then there would be no accident…

God, will the conspiracy theory never end?

Don’t break the law and you won’t get a fine. It’s not like their hauling your arses off to the clink for going 20 over the speed limit. If you speed, you increase the risk of an accident, which can have a toll not just on the victims, but the victim’s family and friends, and the person who was responsible.

Every murder in the ACT is investigated. Every reported break-in, police attend. Every reported assault, police investigate.

Sure they don’t catch the offenders every time, but most of the offenders don’t commit their crime in front of police. Just because you suck at being a criminal, it doesn’t mean the police are out to get you.

Where are the Police when you really need them?

ExFeds said :

VG what station do you work at?

He said on more than one occasion he’s happy to beat you up if you turn up at the Charnwood PCYC on certain nights, if that helps.

Keep that in mind next time you have to tell someone a member of their family just died amongst that ‘pretty low’ road toll

A sad and I would imagine extremely difficult part of what would already be a dificult job. But part of the job nonetheless. You know: heat, kitchens and all that.

Everywhere, and nowhere…..all at once

vg said :

“Shocking road toll? That’s 1 a month. We’d all love 0 road toll but 12 is pretty low.”

Keep that in mind next time you have to tell someone a member of their family just died amongst that ‘pretty low’ road toll

I’ve been one of those family members, VG, so of course I think any death from a car prang is pretty shocking.

My point – which I explained poorly – was that a shocking road toll would indicate one that is far in excess of the norm; that’s my definition anyway.

Father of an old friend was a traffic policeman in Brisbane. We were in the father’s private car on Old Cleveland Road one Saturday. Every half minute or so he’d say “That’s a breach”. If any reasonable quota existed traffic police would have no trouble in exceeding it.

VG what station do you work at?

“Shocking road toll? That’s 1 a month. We’d all love 0 road toll but 12 is pretty low.”

Keep that in mind next time you have to tell someone a member of their family just died amongst that ‘pretty low’ road toll

cleo said :

Tooks #6

No I’m not, I think with the shocking road toll there could have been more cops on the roads, and don’t tell me your pefect, maybe you don’t drive, the parking spaces in Dickson is almost non existant.

Shocking road toll? That’s 1 a month. We’d all love 0 road toll but 12 is pretty low. How do YOU know how many cops are on the road?

No I’m not perfect, but I don’t blame others when I get parking fines (I’ve had quite a few over the years, and one was in similar circumstances to your one at Dickson).

No – there isn’t a quota.
Police are expected to hand out tickets. It’s their job and it’s a measurable statistic on performance.

ExFeds said :

VG….haha…take it easy 🙂

Common point of discussion at parties. ‘Oh, you’re a cop…..you know I got a speeding fine once.’

Are you a cop in the ACT?

I’m guessing by your name that you may have worked for the AFP?

ExFeds said :

We all see breached of the road rules and I am sure it would be easy (maybe not in a marked car)to rack up a few fines each day, I just wanted to know if there was some sort of expectation put on the Cops to get a certain number of tickets each month.

No, still.

Special G

Special G said :

Parking snooker – awesome. You’d need pictures to prove that one or when calling it off on the radio include the colour. Do you take turns between you and another inspector?

As for the quota thing, would it make a difference if they did? When you are out in your car today have a look at how many breaches of the road rules you can see. Then think about being on the road as your job. How many tickets could you give out in a month.

What would be a reasonable quota? 5, 10, 20, 100 a month?

We all see breached of the road rules and I am sure it would be easy (maybe not in a marked car)to rack up a few fines each day, I just wanted to know if there was some sort of expectation put on the Cops to get a certain number of tickets each month.

VG….haha…take it easy 🙂

Common point of discussion at parties. ‘Oh, you’re a cop…..you know I got a speeding fine once.’

Are you a cop in the ACT?

If you get a ticket, pay it and move on. It costs stuff all anyway.

ExFeds said :

Buzz 819 – You tell me? You see a Police car sitting off a stop sign for a specific number for tickets then nothing for ages…..yet the same stop sign gets a hammering once a month?

It could be that there are a number of complaints from the residents of that area that people are driving through the stop sign, potentially causing accidents. I don’t know about you, but if people are breaking the law there then that sounds like a good place for the Police to sit to stop people from doing it.

Which stop sign are you talking about so I don’t get caught?

Is there a quota?

No

Why does discussion continue?

Looks like a lot of people ‘discussing’ traffic offences may lack mirrors in their houses, as you can generally find the fault for traffic offences when you look in one.

Common point of discussion at parties. ‘Oh, you’re a cop…..you know I got a speeding fine once.’

‘Really, were you speeding?’

‘Yes, but the cop was a b*stard’

‘But were you speeding, and did you get a ticket for the speeding?’

‘Yes, but the cop was a b*stard’

‘But you are a speeder, what is more likely to hurt someone? Your speeding or the fact their perceived bastardry has given you some feeling of righteousness about your speeding?’

If you get a ticket sack up and pay it or take it to Court. Save your whingeing for someone who gives a rat’s

cleo said :

Yes cops do parking fines as I recieved one, I was only parked for one minute while I picked up some take-a-way in Dickson, most usually let you off but this one was a real PIG!

So you’re admitting to committing an offence, but its the officer’s fault for pointing that out?

ExFeds said :

Buzz 819 – You tell me? You see a Police car sitting off a stop sign for a specific number for tickets then nothing for ages…..yet the same stop sign gets a hammering once a month?

and yet people continue to not stop – kind of stupid aren’t they.

Buzz 819 – You tell me? You see a Police car sitting off a stop sign for a specific number for tickets then nothing for ages…..yet the same stop sign gets a hammering once a month?

ExFeds said :

If the organisation has a global target to be achieved, wouldn’t that be passed onto the members to make sure it happens and used as a measure that they are working each shift?

You’re pretty hell bent that they have a quota aren’t ya? Why do you believe that they do?

Parking snooker – awesome. You’d need pictures to prove that one or when calling it off on the radio include the colour. Do you take turns between you and another inspector?

As for the quota thing, would it make a difference if they did? When you are out in your car today have a look at how many breaches of the road rules you can see. Then think about being on the road as your job. How many tickets could you give out in a month.

What would be a reasonable quota? 5, 10, 20, 100 a month?

#28, I’d expect the ACT road toll to be much lower than the national average given the high quality of the roads here and the very small % of rural roads.

If the organisation has a global target to be achieved, wouldn’t that be passed onto the members to make sure it happens and used as a measure that they are working each shift?

Tooks #6

No I’m not, I think with the shocking road toll there could have been more cops on the roads, and don’t tell me your pefect, maybe you don’t drive, the parking spaces in Dickson is almost non existant.

Yes cops do parking fines as I recieved one, I was only parked for one minute while I picked up some take-a-way in Dickson, most usually let you off but this one was a real PIG!

I noticed something a bit odd in the contract for policing. One of the targets is a road death count of less than 4.2 per 100,000 population. Now the ACT has a population pushing 350,000 which gives a death count of 14.7p/a.

Now may I ask how many road deaths have we had every year over the past 5-10 years? I seriously doubt it is even pushing that amount, most years it is around the 10-12 mark. Though to be honest in a small place like the ACT one accident alone may well make any meaningful statistical average meaningless. Yet we hear week in week out about how speeding in the ACT is out of control and how the government wants to reduce the road toll through more speed camera’s etc.

I find it odd considering we are already under the contracted target and already well below the national average which is 5.6 deaths per 100,000 population.

I’ve have noticed & been told by old relatives that there are actually double the Police on the road just before the Budget is prepared & until the financial year is finished. It may no be a quota thing, but more making the past financial year ending with money leftover in the Budget.

what woody said… 😉 if you do the crime, do the time – quota or no quota

basketcase said :

AFAIK, there is no official quota, only a wink wink, nod nod system between the Treasury and Police. (You do not write these things down on paper)

The Police are aware of this informal arrangement and and apply pressure on the government from time to time by “striking”, ie, not meeting their quota.

I also suspect the Commissioner’s manpower planning is approved with the knowledge that it provides for a level of traffic enforcement, ie read revenue raising.

And as none of this is written down in the official documents, so you can safely say it is all bs.

Load of rubbish, firstly Treasury don’t have anything to do with policing or funding it. Department of Justice and Community Safety are the responsible department. Treasury are busy trying to add up with their fingers anyway.

The only “quotas” that exist are, as mentioned before, the service level agreement targets and not targets for individual officers.

Commissioner? ACT Policing is run the Chief Police Officer who holds the rank of Assistant Commissioner and also reports to the Commissioner of the AFP as well as the ACT Government.

what was her attitude towards the Police officer

What’s that got to do with anything?

A little birdie once told me that parking inspectors he knew in Melbourne liked to spice things up by playing “parking snooker” — you ticket a red car, a coloured car, a red car, a coloured car, …

I guess if I had a soul-munching job like that, I’d be trying to spice it up a bit too

No

End of discussion

I doubt there isn’t a quota as such but would be surprised if the local traffic Sergeant doesn’t take ticket numbers into account when determining whether his troops are doing their job.

This is the link to the 2009-2010 purchase agreement between the AFP and ACT Government. I dare say all the previous assumptions about certain things being quotas aren’t in there when you look at the actual document.

http://www.jcs.act.gov.au/eLibrary/act_community_policing/Purchase_Agreement2009.pdf

James-T-Kirk said :

Now – tell me that the cretin wasn’t looking *anywhere* for a quick fine to issue….

Isn’t the cretin the one who copped the fine?

“How dare he fine me; I was only breaking the law a little bit.”

AFAIK, there is no official quota, only a wink wink, nod nod system between the Treasury and Police. (You do not write these things down on paper)

The Police are aware of this informal arrangement and and apply pressure on the government from time to time by “striking”, ie, not meeting their quota.

I also suspect the Commissioner’s manpower planning is approved with the knowledge that it provides for a level of traffic enforcement, ie read revenue raising.

And as none of this is written down in the official documents, so you can safely say it is all bs.

James-T,
While I’ve said above they do not have quotas, make no mistake that they do drive around and spot someone who, in their estimation, is unfavourable, then they will follow that person until they find something they can book them for. If that fails, they’ll breath-test the driver, check their rego & licence, and dig as much as they can to stick something to the victim.

James-T-Kirk said :

Of course they have a quota.

In this age of measuring EVERYTHING, and justifying everything to the bean counters, then the cops have to have a system in place to measure their performance.

How do you decide that Mr Policeperson has done their job unless you have stats on their individual performance.

You certainly can’t find reduced crime stats or reduced road deaths to back up police numbers.

And – the anecdotal evidence is there. While I haven’t been booked for *many* years (and I speed everywhere….), my wife has. She was doing 63 Kph in a 60 zone at 11.30pm on Feb 28.

Now – tell me that the cretin wasn’t looking *anywhere* for a quick fine to issue….

James-T-Kirk said :

Of course they have a quota.

In this age of measuring EVERYTHING, and justifying everything to the bean counters, then the cops have to have a system in place to measure their performance.

How do you decide that Mr Policeperson has done their job unless you have stats on their individual performance.

You certainly can’t find reduced crime stats or reduced road deaths to back up police numbers.

And – the anecdotal evidence is there. While I haven’t been booked for *many* years (and I speed everywhere….), my wife has. She was doing 63 Kph in a 60 zone at 11.30pm on Feb 28.

Now – tell me that the cretin wasn’t looking *anywhere* for a quick fine to issue….

Wow that whole post was based on well… I could not find what it was based on.

Police must have to justify what they do, but you have to realize that every Police department around the world has so many different areas, Investigations (Fraud, murder, property crime, (detectives)), Crime Prevention, Tactical, Traffic Operations and General Duties.

Are you trying to say that the ACT Government has told the AFP to go and tell all the detectives, the tactical boys and Kenny Koala that they have to give out a certain number of tickets?

I think you need your head read.

On top of that calling the Police cretins because your wife was speeding? Where was she speeding, where was the Police officer, what was her attitude towards the Police officer, were you in the car?

Of course they have a quota.

In this age of measuring EVERYTHING, and justifying everything to the bean counters, then the cops have to have a system in place to measure their performance.

How do you decide that Mr Policeperson has done their job unless you have stats on their individual performance.

You certainly can’t find reduced crime stats or reduced road deaths to back up police numbers.

And – the anecdotal evidence is there. While I haven’t been booked for *many* years (and I speed everywhere….), my wife has. She was doing 63 Kph in a 60 zone at 11.30pm on Feb 28. Now – tell me that the cretin wasn’t looking *anywhere* for a quick fine to issue….

Generally police don’t give out parking fines, TAMS inspectors do. I sometimes get parking fines – why? Because I was parked illegally for one reason or another. I’ll wear it and be more careful next time. If no one policed parking bays then what would be the point of loading zones, disabled spots, drop-off only points?

cleo said :

Maybe they should be on the freeways catching speedsters, and saving lives instead of parking fines.

I don’t think the AFP do parking fines in general. Only when its really causing a problem. They leave the rest up to the “Lone Rangers”. But then I could be wrong.

I asked this question to a highway patrol officer relative in NSW about 20 years ago.
His explanation was that there is no quota, but HWP police are unsupervised (naturally) being out in their car for 80% of their shift. And he explained that catching people is like shooting fish in a barrel – there are plenty of targets so using your time productively is a relatively easy thing to do.
So if one officer gets a lower than normal (compared to others, or to his previous stats) infringement notice count, his superiors ask “Why?” Obviously, there’s so legit explanations, so this isn’t of a critical nature, but simply a supervisory thing. The same way you’d be asked why your performance was way below any of your colleagues in any other workplace.
So there’s no quota, but stats are kept just to make sure they’re working and not skiving off to Maccas too much or down the pub.
Plus, HWP officers have to report in by radio when they leave their car – so the control centre knows where officers are when something serious erupts. So if they’re always skiving off going shopping or they’re at home watching TV or whatever, a pattern gets noticed, and looked at.

I dont know about a ‘traffic quota’, but I have heard that some police (not sure if ACT or not) have a contact-quota, whereby theyre meant to have contact with the public on a certain number of occasions (per hour, or shift or something). Who’d have thought that 3 ‘contacts’ would look better to the boss if you issued 3 tickets, than if you dealt with 3 issues requiring 3 lots of paperwork for someone.

Also, youre asking the question incorrectly. You should ask if they have a target or goal, not a quota, they dont use that word anymore since the media got ahold of it, now its a traffic target, same thing but not official and not confirmed to the media.

Let’s say they do. So what? Good luck standing up in court and saying “well, sure, I was speeding, but that copper has a quota to meet!”

I strongly suspect there are quotas around how much compliance checking is supposed to be done (which makes sense), although how many actual fines are handed out would be separate.

There some quota’s, but not for fines. As part of the territory policing contract the boys in blue must do a certain number breath tests over a certain period of time.

ExFeds said :

How can you be so sure? There must be some sort of guide to make sure they are doing their job?

Why must there be some sort of “guide”? As I said, if there aren’t people out breaking the law, how can they be forced to give out a certain amount of tickets?

I’m sure if you look through here: http://www.afp.gov.au/__data/assets/file/132260/ACTPolicing_Annual_Report_08-09.html#Section_A9_2
You will find that the number given out is not even part of the KPI’s set by the Government.

The important things are, number of breath tests, number of burglaries, number of road fatalities, that kind of thing.

There is no quota as to how many fines you are meant to hand out.
However. If everyone else was handing out 10 fines a day and you only handed out 5 for the week. Then it would look like you weren’t doing as much work.

cleo said :

Maybe they should be on the freeways catching speedsters, and saving lives instead of parking fines.

You’re not really that ignorant, are you?

The idea of a quota sounds dangerous to me so I’d be surprised if it’s official policy. The notion of officers being engrossed in filling their quota for the end of the month whilst more serious crimes go unnoticed has scandal written all over it. Hopefully they’re not that stupid.

@cleo; Do cops give out parking fines? I would have thought most of them would be issued by city rangers or dedicated infringement officers.

Maybe they should be on the freeways catching speedsters, and saving lives instead of parking fines.

How can you be so sure? There must be some sort of guide to make sure they are doing their job?

This came up the other day after I noticed a huge police presence going up both sides of the parkway late last month.

In counter though, I have seen more cop cars in the first 11 days of Feb, also…as in some.

I know, the answer is no. If someone is silly enough to opt to break the law in front of the boys in blue, then they can pay the optional tax incurred by this behavior.

If no one was breaking the law then no fines could be handed out, now could there?