Labour redneck huff and puff

GROAN...

Impound fleeing drivers' cars - Goff
Drivers who try to outrun police should have their vehicle impounded and licence suspended on a first offence, Labour leader Phil Goff says.

Here we go, Labour always try to manage rednecks, never challenge them, that's their problem. Here we go with the old 'we can be more huffer and puffer on law and order than National' crap. This is a carry on from Clayton Cosgrove's redneck song and dance, the problem with Police Chases has been well canvassed in the Independent review of the Australian Police Pursuit Policy from 2007

“There are serious safety risks associated with police officers driving at speeds in excess of prescribed speed limits, and with the pursuit of drivers who refuse to comply with a direction to stop. The sworn duty to protect life and property will always have primacy over the need to apprehend offenders, especially when the offence involved is relatively minor, or where there are safer options other than immediate apprehension.

Officers who choose not to commence a pursuit or to abandon one that has commenced will be fully supported by the AFP, even if it results in an offender escaping immediate detention or from being prosecuted.”

The bloody Australian's can see it - somehow daring to question it in NZ means you love criminals and want them to race away free.

The politicians are no help. Crusher Collins couldn't get TV cameras down to a car crushing car yard fast enough when she got into power, increasing the bullshit boy racer crap that Labour started, Crusher has done more than anyone else to put the fear of God into young people and we see that hardline approach bear a bitter harvest. Why minor offenses need to end in death is ignored in the scramble by Police apologists to scream that the Police must chase everyone - must they? Other countries have adapted their chase policies so that only serious crime is the starting point rather than revenue gathering, as the Candor Trust pointed out on Tumeke...

The Goddard report identified that in the last 5 years almost all chase deaths started with minor infringements that would almost certainly have not ended in death with no chase. 1 in 4 chases ends with a bang. We're not talking axe murderers here - we're talking letting aome people get away with being 10k over the limit as the cops allowed before the quota software was bought in. Chase deaths happen inevitably in the first few minutes of chases as people are paniced. A 50% rise in police highway hours (funded by the revenue approach) took highway crash costs from 1.61billion to 1.6 billion - it overrode the safety savings made by a lot of safety engineering. Minister Hawkins signed off use of the quota software in 2003 explained to him by Rob Robinson as "a large increase in tickets" (meeting 30 National Road Safety Committee). The software is a prototype invented in NZ by Dr Guria and others at MoT (it sets district police quotas for drink drive busts and speed tickets) and is likely for roll out in the 2nd world under the tutelage of the new Wellington based agency Roadpol (global police under UN) which Rob Robinson heads up. 3 early reviews in 2005 found that the quota software - a formula created as part of the MOT RAM project "to develop and refine a resource allocation model for road safety" - had reverse to intended effects. It increases crash trauma as the dose of quotas rises.

... that Goff is following mindlessly in the footsteps of the redneck huff and puff over more powers to terrify more boyracers into fleeing Police and causing more death suggests Labour still don't get why so many core Labour Party voters in Auckland walked away from the Party in 2008 meaning it was one of the lowest voter turn outs in NZ's political history.