Firstly, did anyone hear anything about operation Blackbird 1???

Unfortunately, some times our perceptions of the constabulary are
also wrong, the officers I spoke to on Sunday we all quite
intelligent and appeared to be just doing their jobs, i.e. what they
we told to do through the chain of command. I think perhaps it is the
upper echelons who are pushing for this sort of action. "Go get some
tickets, I want big speeds so I can be quoted in the media."

If there intentions were to have no accidents or persons injured,
they were sadly to fail, on our way through, 2km from Colo, 2 Harleys
went down. 1 of the riders was thrown over the embankment about 15m
down from the roadway, lower and upper broken leg and broken arm,
they were just the injuries I could easily see - he was looking
pretty bad (rescue helicopter called). The other rider was OK.
Apparently the rear wheel of the bike locked up as they entered the
corner causing the back of the bike to hit the guard rail throwing
the rider over, the bike continued down the road along the guard rail
another 50m. Speaking to one of the riders, they were not speeding,
older Harley riders, out for some fresh air, gone terribly wrong.

The real problem I have is why so many cars were apparently detected
speeding and subsequently were let off. The statistics published by
the police media branch are absolutely appalling and will lead people
(rightly) to again ask about police corruption. The officer I spoke
to at length, both before and after being given a little birthday
card (those carbon copies are hard to read but I'm sure that must be
what is says), Is a motorcyclist, his brother was badly injured on
Putty Rd. Apparently hospitalised on a motorcycle, because a car came
around a corner 1/2 in his lane going the opposite direction, he hit
the car lost control and spent 18 months in hospital for it. He knows
cars are at fault in many "single vehicle motorcycle" accidents. He
is also aware of the additional risk involved with larger vehicles
speeding because of additional momentum. A motorcyclist can kill
themselves and worst case 1 or 2 others, A car or truck can kill
easily 1 or 2 whole families. Who do you think they should be
targeting????

I was told by the officer they were also targeting cars not staying
wholly within the lane as they believed this showed they were not
sufficiently skilled to keep a vehicle within the lane at their
speed. I see no mention of this in the media statement and certainly
no evidence of it with so few infringements issued. I was also told
they had 11 highway "cars" there that day (perhaps that's why so
many "cars" were detected speeding but so few infringements issued?)
I vaguely recall a statistic of an average of 20 tickets a day for
the average highway car a few years ago, according to these
statistics that has dropped fairly dramatically if Putty Rd 29th May
is anything to go by....

Vehicles stopped 58
Motorcycles stopped 139 (most of us were stopped twice, were we
counted twice?)
Number of speeding vehicles 31 (does this include police cars?)
Number of speeding motorcyclists 17
Number of defects (vehicle) 1
Number of defects (motorcycle) 28 (all the bad boys and girls without
exhaust stickers are a danger to themselves and to others)
Number of infringements issued (vehicle) 16 (must not have been able
to catch the 15 others or were they just let off?)
Number of infringements issued (motorcycle) 16 (looks like they
couldn't catch one, now who was it? they definitely would not have
let them off with a caution... after all motorcyclists are a bigger
danger to the community than trucks 4WD's and cars combined)

Shannon



"Why are you so surprised at this kind of discriminatory attitude by
the constabulary? It is a well-known fact that bikers are seen as
lawless fringe dwellers by the populace in general and the Police in
particular and as such have to be controlled and put in their place.

The stats of the operation made me LOL even before I finished reading
the proclamation of its success. Although these stats obviously prove
the opposite to the Police Service's perception of bikers, there is
such a distinct paucity of cerebral avoir-du-poids in the ranks of
this esteemed body of men and women - I've actually met a number of
them who could hardly string three words together - that they are
crowing about an operation which they are still to realise did NOT
turn out as intended: they went after shark and they got flathead!

Carry on NOT breaking the law, fellow-sharks and really piss them off.
An interesting question arises: why were 16 out of 17 motorcyclists
issued with infringements but only 16 out of 31 vehicles? Maybe the
15 speeding drivers apologised really nicely or worse, maybe the
Police ran out of Infringement forms!!

Ride safely, everyone."