Facebook Won't Take Down Undercover Cop Page In Australia

New submitter jaa101 writes "Facebook has refused a request from Australian police to take down a page with details of undercover police vehicles saying it cannot stop people taking photos in public places. The original story is paywalled and it doesn't give a link to the relevant page which seems to be here . This page for the state of Victoria has 12000 likes but a similar page for the state of Queensland has over 34000, and there are other Australian pages too."

Comments

Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

If the police are being outed undercover then don't whine when crime occurs.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Frosty Piss]

If the police are being outed undercover then don't whine when crime occurs.

If "Law Enforcement" didn't regularly abuse their sweeping privileges, maybe this wouldn't even have come up?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be allowed to people to post pictures of under cover cops.

They should also be held liable when that police office gets killed or the suspect they are investigating commits a crime.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Kinky Bass Junk]

There isn't really any problem here, this is just the Vic Police overreacting. The vehicles are 100% obviously cop cars, with exactly the same antenna and will always have some form of lightbar inside or outside the vehicle. Anyone who can't spot an undercover cop in Australia needs their eyes checked.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

Everyone is neglecting the fact that this isn't about outing police officers who are undercover. It's about outing unmarked police cars, which serve no purpose other than to try to catch people for traffic violations and in fact are going to be worse at deterring crime than a marked police vehicle, since the sight of a cop car is a powerful deterrent. It's not like undercover cops drive unmarked cop cars with light bars and antennas; that would be a dead giveaway. Frankly, I like police vehicles to be visible so that I can find them in the event of an emergency if I need help. I care far less about fining the people who are driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[digitalchinky]

They are outing undercover police cars, not the police themselves. Big difference. Given the many makes and models they use and how common those vehicle types are on the roads, a public database is not going to put a dent in any undercover operation at all.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Afaik these are the unmarked cars, typically used to bust speeding motorists - not Inspector Gadget's crack team of undercover cops. If you think they've unearthed a ring of criminal masterminds using facebook to pass information, you've been watching far too much tv.

Also, can someone PLEASE explain Streisland to these morons?

Lists like this have been circulating for as long as I can remember. I started driving in the 70's and (for example) when speed traps became popular, so did lists of speed traps on BBS's - AND lists of where police cars liked to hide in wait, unmarked or otherwise. Now you can download databases of thse things onto your gps.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Yeah this is usually the case, criminals already know what the make and model of the unmarked cars are.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[rmdingler]

If you find a single biped not abusing sweeping privileges, please check for a pulse...

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Frosty Piss]

If you find a single biped not abusing sweeping privileges, please check for a pulse...

My wife gave me Sweeping Privileges, but I declined. Also, I am not Marty Feldman.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[CaptainDefragged]

Yes they are not "undercover" as such but just unmarked or covert cars. The are generally easy to spot unless they are behind you. New South Wales Police are even taking advantage of this with a special batch of 50 highway cars highly marked and extremely visible from the rear, but almost covert from the front. They even have photos of their covert cars on their own Facebook pages. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.420791607956995.85178.217834118252746&type=3

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

If you think an unmarked police car's primary purpose is catching people "driving 5 mph over the speed limit" then you've been listening to too much reactionary "why don't they go after real criminals?!" and "don't they have anything better to do?!" arguments, usually heavily promoted by people who have been caught breaking the law for 'trivial' reasons like speeding.

Unmarked cars *are* used for "better things" than catching speeding motorists (even ones doing a mere 5 over - no cop stops you for 5 over, especially not an unmarked unit, you also get a 10% leeway to account for speedometer inaccuracy so the only time that "5 over" would be even close to something you could be pulled for would be in a 30 mph zone) - they're used primarily in the investigation and containment of stolen cars and for major crimes involving motor vehicles such as drugs, burglaries, etc.

They certainly do stop ordinary motorists if something flags you to them (impaired driving, excessive speed, tax/insurance issues etc) but they're not there to "catch you out" - you make it sound like it's some trick to make you break the law when you think they're not looking.

I know for a fact that Cheshire Police in the UK doesn't care if you know what unmarked cars they use - I have seen them personally show large, unobscured photographs of them with number plates showing clearly in public settings - because they're not designed to trick you, they're designed to be less visible than a panda car so they can tail suspect vehicles more easily, and your "5 over" driver is not such a motorist.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that the Police are to blame when they fail to enforce the law, but are to blame for their failure to enforce the law?

Perhaps you could outline precisely how thin you believe the thin blue line should be? A venn diagram may be helpful.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about outing unmarked police cars, which serve no purpose other than to try to catch people...

.. committing criminal offences? Damn those Police, trying to catch criminals!

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn your eyes!

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[rmdingler]

My wife threatened declining privileges so I swept. Also, Sergio killed me too neither.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Police reaction to speeding in the UK and US is often quite different. The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour and got no tickets despite passing several marked police cars. I presume it's because I always stayed left except to pass, was diligent about signaling and generally being polite in my driving behavior aside from the speed.

In contrast, a co-worker of mine received a ticket for 2 mph over the limit last year in the US.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

Perhaps that is your experience with the police in the UK (or wherever you happen to reside; making the assumption given what you said), but where I live, it is very different. A friend of mine was ticketed for going 63 in a 60 MPH zone (no erratic driving, no alcohol, no anything). I saw the ticket with my own eyes. While that is exceptional, you can regularly get pulled over for 5 over on the freeway here (Oregon/Washington). And the vast majority of unmarked police cars I've seen around have been pulling over people for driving 5-10 over, not tailing suspect cars or some more justified purpose, as you've said. This is of course anecdotal and YMMV with where you live; just saying what is true for where I am. Don't get me wrong; I am all for police officers doing their job and keeping people safe and certainly people who are clearly driving unsafely, driving while intoxicated, etc. should be caught.

But the fact of the matter is that the focus of the police should be on preventing crime, not on increasing revenue. A clearly marked police car is the most effective thing there is for ensuring that everyone around is driving safely. You stick a cop car in the road and people will drive quite carefully. Unmarked cars are specifically meant to not be observed by people so that they will commit crimes in front of them and thus get ticketed, crimes that potentially would not have been committed if the car had been clearly visible. To me, this is like making the argument that police officers shouldn't wear uniforms so that muggers will beat up people in front of them and get caught, rather than the beatings never happening in the first place. I understand and respect that you can make an argument both ways here, that there is the potential for the mugger to commit crimes later, etc. but in my personal opinion, it is of dubious morality to allow people to be injured today in hopes of avoiding injuring people tomorrow. When I'm being assaulted, I want to be able to look around and run to the nearest cop car, not to miss it 'cause it's unmarked.

Ultimately, my complaint is that the motorists who get "caught" by unmarked cars who wouldn't by marked cars are the 5-10 over motorists. If someone is truly driving dangerously, they're not going to stop because of a marked car. If you're driving 100 on the freeway, you can't slow down fast enough upon seeing a cop car to not get caught. If you're driving drunk, you can't magically sober up because you saw a cop. The people get caught by unmarked cars rather than marked ones are the 5 over motorists, so I fail to see how they provide sufficiently valuable service to outweigh the crimes they fail to prevent.

Anyways, it's all anecdotal, and there are arguments for both sides. YMMV.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia, there is widespread contempt and disgust at the unfortunate police who are tasked with raising revenue for cash-strapped states/cities. They will cite for 'speeding less than 1Mph over - and do. They have re-jigged traffic regulations, so you are guilty, until proved innocent, and deliberately use unmarked cars in excess, because that garners more revenue.
Like the army of 'parking inspectors' that also skulk about covertly taxing motorists with 'drive by camera plate number recognition'. Combine that with speed cameras, and heavy handed 'collection' tactics, has everyone angry. (Note- normal police in marked units are respected) .

No laws broken, as unmarked does not= undercover. But now the undercover will have to make an effort not make a few more dollars writing out tickets on the way back (to make their monthly quota of infringements).

The Police can easily fix this, just ask that just the tiny miniscule set of true 'undercover' cars be removed nicely. Some even think this this site may have been set up by the police to help the police, as any right minded criminal will think 'crap, they have a speed trap set up in my street'. You can see by the numbers, that there are hardly any marked cars nowadays.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Unmarked cars *are* used for "better things" than catching speeding motorists (even ones doing a mere 5 over - no cop stops you for 5 over, especially not an unmarked unit, you also get a 10% leeway to account for speedometer inaccuracy so the only time that "5 over" would be even close to something you could be pulled for would be in a 30 mph zone) - they're used primarily in the investigation and containment of stolen cars and for major crimes involving motor vehicles such as drugs, burglaries, etc.

You don't live in Aust(drive 5 under or we'll get you)ralia do you?

Here, they are slowly and surely reducing the tolerance for speeding violations. Victoria seems to be leading the way and they now have a pretty-much zero tolerance on many automated detectors. They also rolled an ad campaign a few years back called "Wipe off 5", trying to convince people to not drive that little bit over the limit. The net result was that a good number of dumb people started driving 5 under the limit. Gee, funny that they moved to zero tolerance enforcement policy soon after.

Other states are following suit; I have seen the very same wipe off 5 ads on the tele and radio in SA and NSW and those states are progressively reducing the tolerance on speeding violations (SAPOL recently refused to publish the current tolerance even under FOI, and they refused to publish statistics on the number of infractions for between 1-5 km/hr over).

It's a good way to increase safe^Wrevenue.

To your point: Every police vehicle in the area I live, marked or not, has a mobile radar mounted on the roof. You can spot them a mile away, but they are allowed to ping you from about that far away too. I regularly see unmarked police making what look like routine traffic stops on the roads around here. I am sure that a lot are for offenses other than speeding (mobile phone use is being targeted here, and failing to come to a complete stop or turning 5 seconds before the prescribed time on a sign was popular for a spell).

My point is that unmarked police are doing a lot of traffic work from what I can see. I was even pulled over a few years back by an unmarked police car for a very minor infraction.

The one time I needed to actually use Police services (to report an assault on a family member that had happened the day before and gone unreported) they sent a marked car containing two plainclothes officers to take the report.

So I would say that the use of unmarked cars really does depend on your location.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone is neglecting the fact that this isn't about outing police officers who are undercover. It's about outing unmarked police cars, which serve no purpose other than to try to catch people for traffic violations

That's ok then they should be held liable for any traffic accidents and deaths resulting from them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps that is your experience with the police in the UK (or wherever you happen to reside; making the assumption given what you said), but where I live, it is very different. A friend of mine was ticketed for going 63 in a 60 MPH zone

He was breaking the law.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

They will cite for 'speeding less than 1Mph over - and do.

As they should be. Speed limit means that is the fastest you can go. Anything over including 0.0000000000000000000000001 over is breaking the law and should be ticketed.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Bacon Bits]

See, I think this could be due to observation bias and a self-selecting bias. You're probably a good, upstanding citizen and so are the majority of your family and friends. Therefore, the vast majority of the police experiences you, your family, your friends, and your co-workers have is traffic tickets. This doesn't mean there *aren't* dozens of police who do nothing but write traffic tickets to earn money for the PD all day every day, but I don't believe that's all the cops are actually doing.

Looking at these pictures, though, these police cars are about as well camouflaged as the so-called "stealth" cars my local police department uses. Look guys, nobody other than cops has that much crap stuck to their dash, that many antennas attached to the car, or has hand-operated headlamps attached to the driver and passenger side windows. If you're aware at all and know what to look for, unmarked cars are as subtle as a fart on a long elevator ride.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[F'Nok]

It's nice that you've completely ignored the article in question, so I'll try and clarify.

This article is about Australian unmarked police cars, whose only purpose pretty much is to pull over speeding cars.

Because any police car can pull over any car for a random alcohol or drug test, they don't need to be in an unmarked car or have reason (ie, impaired driving). They're legally entitled to do it to anyone, any time, if they are driving a car.

Because in Australia there are no tax/insurance issues, because that's covered by the road authority and police have no authority to even ask you about it.

Because in most states of Australia there is no 10% leeway any more, it's a fixed leeway. You can and do get fined for being 5km/h over the signed limit. I once got fined for being 5km/h over because the road change from a 60 zone to a 50 zone and the unmarked police car behind me thought I didn't adjust me speed fast enough.

In Australia the unmarked cars really are there to catch people speeding, it's their primary purpose.

So perhaps you should pay attention to the context of the story, especially when every other reason you've listed as a purpose for unmarked police cars do not exist in Australia.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[FirephoxRising]

Over the last month unmarked police cars have been all over the highways. They are patrolling out on the road and they stopped my wife for doing 106km/h in a 100km/h zone on a steep downhill section of the road. My wife was in 3rd gear to slow the car down, but like everyone else here, she didn't ride her brakes to keep it under 100. She now has to pay $100 dollars or take it to court. I have heard numerous similar stories, I'd be OK if they were in some of our dangerous curves or in school zones where idiots keep speeding, but they're not. Personally I think the unmarked cars should be strictly for investigation unless they see something dangerous. Oh and before you say speeding is dangerous, piss off, 106 isn't excessive speed. In fact I support calls for the 110km/h zones to be expanded and even 120 on the divided freeways, roads are better now, cars are better now, we don't need the old limit. Conversely, if people drive too fast in poor conditions/faster than they or their car can handle, then throw the book at them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLucless]

The thin blue line should be thinner around consensual crime, and around extracting cash from motorists by parking themselves on mis-zoned "speeding hotspots", and thicker around thefts and violent crime.

The police near us regularly set up speed traps along a six-lane, divided road zoned at 60kmh (it was zoned thus 20 years ago, when it was just a two-lane road, and hasn't been changed as the road's grown) or just before the onramp to the freeway, where the speed limit changes from 60kmh to 110kmh over a few hundred metres.

Meanwhile, when some friends of ours were robbed, the police just told them to call their insurance company, and check out the local pawn shops.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

It wasn't a matter of whether or not he was breaking the law. Parent claimed you don't get pulled over for 5 over, but in fact you certainly can where I live.

Additionally, due to inaccuracies in speedometers and poor reaction times (e.g. to changing slopes of hills), it's impossible to drive at or under 60 without having your speedo sitting more like 53-55, in which case you will in fact be driving dangerously by going significantly slower than the flow of traffic. The problem with speed limits/speeding is that speeding is not inherently dangerous (at reasonable speeds; certainly driving 150 is). Rather, moving at a significantly different speed than the flow of traffic is dangerous. I am in fact putting myself and those around me in more danger by driving at 60 if everyone around me is going 75 than by driving 75 with them. The answer certainly isn't to abolish speed limits, but the point is that strict enforcement of speed limits increases revenue, not safety.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

100% surefire way to not get speeding tickets: just don't speed. Funny how well that works.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

Nowhere in what I wrote did I claim that was all cops do (or if I did, I misspoke). I certainly don't think that lowly of the police and respect them for the valuable service they provide. I just claimed that the "stealth" cars serve little purpose other than writing traffic tickets, and so outing them isn't going to somehow result in a rash of major crime.

Yes, the "stealth" is often not particularly stealthy though. :-)

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

It's nice that you've completely ignored the article in question, so I'll try and clarify.

This article is about Australian unmarked police cars, whose only purpose pretty much is to pull over speeding cars.

Because any police car can pull over any car for a random alcohol or drug test, they don't need to be in an unmarked car or have reason (ie, impaired driving). They're legally entitled to do it to anyone, any time, if they are driving a car.

Because in Australia there are no tax/insurance issues, because that's covered by the road authority and police have no authority to even ask you about it.

Because in most states of Australia there is no 10% leeway any more, it's a fixed leeway. You can and do get fined for being 5km/h over the signed limit. I once got fined for being 5km/h over because the road change from a 60 zone to a 50 zone and the unmarked police car behind me thought I didn't adjust me speed fast enough.

In Australia the unmarked cars really are there to catch people speeding, it's their primary purpose.

So perhaps you should pay attention to the context of the story, especially when every other reason you've listed as a purpose for unmarked police cars do not exist in Australia.

Then we fall back to the first point I made - people going "whaaaaaaa! I got a ticket for doing 5 over! How unfair! I couldn't see the police car! waaaaa!"

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. It's not suddenly "unfair" because you don't think a cop can see you. If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Jo ham is a fucking idiot. Just my personal estimation.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[F'Nok]

I do agree with you, though I do think my fine for not hitting the brakes after a sign change was a bit harsh.
You're supposed to adjust speed slowly to avoid increased danger. Everyone hitting the breaks at the 50 sign wouldn't be safer at all.

But the point is actually that the cops in such cars are out there to raise revenue.

I'm not complaining about any fines, I used to pay them and get on with life - I now live in the inner city and don't even own a car.

I'm saying these cars are pretty much exclusively for the purpose of raising money, not for making the place safer, as police should be doing.
Objecting to unmarked cars because their purpose is counter-productive and a waste of police resources is not the same as whining about a speeding fine.

I object in principle to the laws on speeding, but when you speed you know the possible consequences and must accept them. We have speed cameras all over the place here that get a hell of a lot of people for it.
You speed, you pay the fine.

Unmarked police cars are a completely different issue. They do not contribute to safer roads, and do not contribute to a safer society. They are a waste of police power.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

Jo ham is a fucking idiot. Just my personal estimation.

My username begins with a small letter and has an underscore in it. Just my personal estimation.

Also, I'm sorry about your speeding fine. Maybe take more care next time, eh? Log in too - more carelessness!

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[F'Nok]

I should actually add a little more to that and point out that I have seen (and also been subject to, but did not speed up) unmarked police cars tailgating on freeways in an attempt to make people speed up to just over the limit and pull them over.

That's not only fairly dangerous, but should say a little more about the intent of the cars when they resort to such tactics.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[psiclops]

you've really never heard of inaccurate speed cameras or insufficient training in how to use them?

it happens

A portion of NSW speed cameras have been installed by Poltech International, some of whose installed cameras gave wildly inaccurate readings in Victoria. ...
Some motorists claimed they had been booked doing speeds their vehicles were not capable of reaching ....
Last month, following checks of these claims, it emerged that three of the cameras were faulty. ...
The readings had led to fines and licence suspensions for some motorists.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

OH really. So that speeding ticket I got doing 55 in a 50mph zone had a 10% leeway? It was at night and there wasn't a single other car on the road. The officer was obviously fishing for a DUI. I still got a ticket.

Cops most definitely do stop people for doing 5mph over the limit. It happens all the time. ANY reason to pull you over to fish for bigger crimes. Ah well, what are you gonna do, cops are scum. The police in my area do not have "real" criminals to chase after, so they pull you over for some bullshit reason, search your vehicle, 3 other cop cars show up and its a big scene. I once got a ticket after 2 hours of searching my vehicle (without my consent) while I was handcuffed and being accused of being on drugs. I was sober, driving a nice car and do not look like any sort of "profile." My ticket was for not changing the address on my drivers license after moving (I had moved a couple months earlier.) 2 HOURS, 4 police cars, handcuffs, and unreasonable search. No reason given for pulling me over either. Just fishing.

Fuck the police. Fuck them up their stupid asses.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[psiclops]

If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

because speed cameras have never been found to be faulty, badly calibrated, or officers insufficiently trained in their use?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

Why not brake gradually before the sign? Just because the limit changes at the sign doesn't mean you have to go at that speed right up until that point.

If there's a radar-equipped car on that stretch it is just even more prudent to do it that way, especially if there's a 10% tolerance on Australia's tickets.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[psiclops]

except odometers only have to be accurate to within 10% for a car to be roadworthy

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a 100% surefire way to not get a ticket.

It is quite common in my municipality for cops to make pretext stops and then cite the driver for failure to provide proof of insurance or not wearing a seat belt or some other easy money ticket.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

because speed cameras have never been found to be faulty, badly calibrated, or officers insufficiently trained in their use?

My point still stands. It might be a pain in the ass, but a ticket issued under such circumstances is invalid and you can have it dismissed in court. My wording was less verbose than necessary to handle all the edge cases.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[psiclops]

even if we ignore the fact that they're not actually doing anything wrong and therefore shouldn't be liable for anything - there's still the point of it wouldn't be possible to link any specific accident to the page.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[aevan]

Sometimes you don't have the option.
There is a fun one near where I am at the moment: it's an 80kmph highway. However, it's currently Canada's third season of the year: road repair.
Just on the leeside on the corner of a hill is a sudden drop do to 60 kmph...with 'Fines are doubled when workers are present"

That said, the sign marking the site of the speed change is far in advance of workers (so no worker safety issue), there have been no police cars trapping it, and no one is actually braking for it (so no driver safety issue so far).

Still, it's one of those times where you just don't have any advanced warning unless already familiar with the road.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

100% surefire way to not get speeding tickets: just don't speed. Funny how well that works.

You have nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide right?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[F'Nok]

It's worth noting that signs are not always visible with sufficient distance to change speed before them.
The laws here state that you're supposed to have time after a change of limit sign to adjust speed before you can be fined.
In that case it was a suburban area that entered a shopping strip and the signs had recently been changed. It used to be 60 along the whole stretch.
The 50 sign was not visible until you were very close to it.

With speeding tickets here you are assumed at fault unless you can prove otherwise, so despite the fact these things had changed and there was no signage to indicate that, and also the sign was not visible until too close, and that my speed was acceptable by the legal distance after the sign, the cost to dispute it without being sure of victory (and costs) was prohibitive for me at the time - this was years ago.

Beside that, I said it was harsh, and believe it was, but I paid the fine and don't gripe about it because it was an unmarked car. In that stretch braking would have been unsafe and I would have done the same with a marked car behind.

Thing is though, marked cars almost never pull you over for that stuff, because they actually have priorities other than revenue.
Given that I didn't actually break a law, and they waited until well after I was at the right speed before pulling me over, it was a quota system in play and they were under quota and I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I object in principle to the unmarked cars, my ticket was just an example of how they are sometimes misused. But even beside that misuse, they are still a waste of police resources, and I objected to them long before my own personal experience with them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SJHillman]

In the past month, I've passed three marked state trooper cars on the expressway while doing 80+ in a 55mph. None of them gave me a second look because I drive like you described above - proper signaling, staying the driving lane except to pass, etc

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

since the sight of a cop car is a powerful deterrent

Bull. People regularly slow down at the sight of cop cars or traffic cameras, but speed right back up again once they know theyre past them. It doesnt deter anything, it just postpones it.

which serve no purpose other than to try to catch people for traffic violations

Oh the horror, cops going after folks for violating the law.

Frankly, I like police vehicles to be visible so that I can find them in the event of an emergency if I need help

...Im pretty sure there is a phone number you can dial to have a cop on the scene in around 5-10 minutes. Im pretty sure the chances of just "happening" to see a cop in that time are pretty low, at least based on my experience in and around DC (where one MIGHT see a cop in 10-20 minutes of driving around the capital and RFK stadium).

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually this is Victoria, Australia. There is no 10% leeway on speeding, it's 3kms, and these cars sole purpose is for 'traffic operarions', is speeding, running a yellow, not coming to a complete stop or not indicating while turning.

A massive percent of the states revenue comes from traffic operations, so it makes sense that they would invest to increase it.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

Parent claimed you don't get pulled over for 5 over, but in fact you certainly can where I live.

Certainly you can, but it is very rare and there IS a viable defense for that if you can show your spedometer is 5mph off-- because certainly you ARE allowed to drive with that degree of error and AFAIK you cannot be ticketed for such an error.

Additionally, due to inaccuracies in speedometers and poor reaction times (e.g. to changing slopes of hills), it's impossible to drive at or under 60 without having your speedo sitting more like 53-55

What, is your reaction time like 10 seconds? You cant see the hills coming? Your car does not just abruptly jump up 5 mph on a downhill unless it is a very severe grade, and even then if youre engine braking / riding the brake you should be able to hold one or two under the limit very easily.

I do it all the time with and without cruise control, claiming its impossible is absurd.

I am in fact putting myself and those around me in more danger by driving at 60 if everyone around me is going 75 than by driving 75 with them.

Some states have laws allowing that. Some do not. Ultimately, being part of society means you agree that society makes the rules, rather than you deciding which rules feel right for you.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Stan92057]

Your right there only job is to collect funds to fill government coffers that's why they are unmarked. They are not ticketing to punish they are ticketing to keep the government funded and that's wrong.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

I just claimed that the "stealth" cars serve little purpose other than writing traffic tickets, and so outing them isn't going to somehow result in a rash of major crime.

Maybe you dont live in a place where causing gridlock (sitting in intersections on red), or red-light running is rampant. I do; every single time I pass the 15th and constitution intersection I see about 5 cars run the left-turn red light because they think its their turn.

Honestly, I think we need fleets of undercover cops, so that maybe we could curb some of the worst of the "road belongs to me" behavior. Ive even seen metro busses blocking intersections, I dont think youre aware of how bad it can be.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

you've really never heard of inaccurate speed cameras or insufficient training in how to use them?

it happens [smh.com.au]

Its also quite rare, and 99% of the time people complaining about undercover cops / cameras have ulterior motives for doing so.

There may indeed be privacy or abuse issues; but its not the problems with these measures that makes people complain, its that theyre actually effective.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

Not carrying proof of insurance is actually kind of a problem if you get into an accident. Do you really want to hear someone say "ill call you with my insurance details"?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

Then show your car is inaccurate by that degree and get the ticket thrown out.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[petermgreen]

crimes that potentially would not have been committed if the car had been clearly visible.

That is true, however preventing traffic violations in a small area doesn't nessacerally mean reducing the overall rate of traffic violations or improving safety.

Whereas if someone gets caught they are hit with a fine and here in the UK (and from a quick check on wikipedia a number of other places too) they are are also hit with "points". If they do not know where they are being watched then the risk of being caught will hopefully serve to discourage them from repeating the offense whereever they are. IMO the points are a bigger deterrent than the fines because building up too many of them will end the driver up in court with likely loss of license.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[stephanruby]

They certainly do stop ordinary motorists if something flags you to them (impaired driving, excessive speed, tax/insurance issues etc) but they're not there to "catch you out"...

That's really weird. In the US, if an unmarked police car tries to pull me over for any of those reasons, this only means one thing, and it means that it's a criminal trying to impersonate a cop.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[flimflammer]

You breaking the law in another way that the officer can see isn't an excuse.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[alonsoac]

I am less worried about police abuse than organized crime and government corruption. Perhaps they should just let the police do their job and then keep an eye on them so they do it properly, but messing with them is not going to solve anything.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a considerable difference between 80+ mph and 220+ kph my metrically-challenged friend.

No matter how polite your driving is, a US cop WILL pull you over and WILL ticket you if you pass them doing 120+ mph on an Interstate if you aren't a fellow cop. In most US states you'll also spend some time in jail.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[alonsoac]

better yet get the thing fixed and don't go over the speed limit?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[ireallyhateslashdot]

My point still stands. It might be a pain in the ass, but a ticket issued under such circumstances is invalid and you can have it dismissed in court. My wording was less verbose than necessary to handle all the edge cases.

<sarcasm>Yeah, and judges don't count the opinion of a police officer higher than that of a defendant. Nope, that NEVER happens. </sarcasm>

I've gone to court over a traffic ticket, fought it and won, and STILL ended up paying court costs and fines that ended up being more than the original fine.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[cheekyjohnson]

They should also be held liable when that police office gets killed or the suspect they are investigating commits a crime.

But only if the person who took the pictures was the murderer.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of a case where motorists who would get caught by an unmarked car but not by a marked car. Back around the time when Fast & Furious was a movie a few departments got the bright idea to buy a few cars of the type that young hooligans liked to soup up for street racing, paint/decal them like those hooligans did and then drive around until the hooligans would "challenge" them to a race (stupid revving engines at them and shit). The cops would wait for the idiots take off at high speed and then nail them hard.

Best use I've ever heard for an unmarked car.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[IdolizingStewie]

Incidentally, there's also a considerable difference between 220 km and 220 kph.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[adolf]

If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

That's a mighty fine soapbox you've got there. I want to see you use it sometime where it matters:

"No, officer, you can't give me a ticket! I wasn't breaking any laws!"

(As folks seem to be fond of saying these days, good luck with that.)

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[thegrassyknowl]

Do you really want to hear someone say "ill call you with my insurance details"

Around here that's what we do. All you need to do is give their rego number (and hopefully name/drivers license number) to your insurance company. It is an offense to drive a vehicle with no plates and you are required to carry your license. Anyway, if you had good insurance it wouldn't matter if the other person didn't. Just snap a photo of the accident scene (presuming they didn't do a runner) that shows the plate numbers and you're able to claim.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. It's not suddenly "unfair" because you don't think a cop can see you. If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

Sure about that? I have court transcripts suggesting otherwise. I received a ticket for an offense that I did not commit. Elected for prosecution, case was thrown out. It didn't matter that in bodging up the charge they completely futzed up all of the details. The ticketing officer could plead negligence or error. The witnessing officer had no excuse (he signed the dodgy ticket as valid even though there was no record of the traffic stop in either officer's notes).

No law breaking occurred on my behalf.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Zemran]

"If the police are being outed undercover then don't whine when crime occurs."

Can anyone really be that dense? No wonder he has to hide as an AC. If you are being burgled, don't whine about it. I did not out the police so that has nothing to do with my upset when a crime occurs. Plain traffic cars are in no way related to burglaries. etc. etc. etc. No point, he is obviously too stupid to work out how to tie his own shoe laces.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not true everywhere, in NYC we have cop cars fully disguised as taxis with the lights hidden in the grill. These are expressly for going after speeding motorists. Do not act as an authority on things you know nothing about.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Zemran]

My g/f turned to me on the way to bed last week and told me that she would do anything that I wanted. I asked her to paint the living room and for some reason she got upset and she never did paint the living room. Women!!!

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Stewie241]

Indeed, one is a unit of distance and one is a unit of speed. To convert, you take the 220 km travel distance, and you divide it by the 1 hour that the poster claimed it took him to make this trip. 220 km / 1 hour = 220 kph.

That being said, I don't see how your comment relates to the post you replied to.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

They certainly do stop ordinary motorists if something flags you to them (impaired driving, excessive speed, tax/insurance issues etc) but they're not there to "catch you out"...

That's really weird. In the US, if an unmarked police car tries to pull me over for any of those reasons, this only means one thing, and it means that it's a criminal trying to impersonate a cop.

That varies by state, but they absolutely can pull you over in many of them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

My point still stands. It might be a pain in the ass, but a ticket issued under such circumstances is invalid and you can have it dismissed in court. My wording was less verbose than necessary to handle all the edge cases.

<sarcasm>Yeah, and judges don't count the opinion of a police officer higher than that of a defendant. Nope, that NEVER happens. </sarcasm>

I've gone to court over a traffic ticket, fought it and won, and STILL ended up paying court costs and fines that ended up being more than the original fine.

Take that up with the court - that has nothing to do with the ticket. I know many small claims court judges get annoyed when cops give out easy-to-invalidate tickets and don't cut them any slack at all - it cuts both ways.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

That's a mighty fine soapbox you've got there. I want to see you use it sometime where it matters:

"No, officer, you can't give me a ticket! I wasn't breaking any laws!"

(As folks seem to be fond of saying these days, good luck with that.)

Nice twisting of my argument. That's not what I said and you know it, but you don't have a valid argument to reply with so you've gone for something I didn't address.

If a cop is giving you an illegal ticket then you just take it at the time and then take it up in court. You don't argue with them.

If you're not doing anything to warrant the ticket in the first place you're unlikely to attract the ire of the cop in the first place, of course. If one of them does pull you over then you don't whine at them that "you can't give me a ticket" (is that how you say it? maybe it explains a lot), you just take a note of all the circumstances involved. The PC for being stopped for one thing.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[adolf]

Not a twist on any argument, just a jab at an ill-placed absolute statement that is obviously false.

You keep on with your bad self and keep fighting the good fight, or whatever the fuck it is that you're doing.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[ganjadude]

police ARE government..

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[ganjadude]

My uncle is a cop, and i have been instructed to NEVER stop for an unmarked car. About 6 years ago now there was a big problem with fake police pulling people over and robbing them. My uncle instructed me if I ever try and get stopped by an unmarked car I should drive directly to the station and worry about it when I get there. Under cover, or unmarked cars are the worst thing ever.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[ireallyhateslashdot]

First: small claims court is not the same as regular court.

Second: How many times have you been to court? I worked in a law office for nearly a decade. You know what lawyers call "court costs"? They call it "The Judges' Retirement Fund", mostly due to the fact that they're a revenue source for the district they're located in. Now, does that sound fair?

The fact is, traffic tickets don't have anything to do with public safety, and have everything to do with bringing in money. The last traffic ticket I got was for going 36MPH in a 35MPH zone. My speedometer said I was going 35MPH (a little under, actually), as did my GPS. Did the judge or cop care? Nope, all they cared about was the fact that tax revenue for the city was down 35% that year and that they wanted my money to help make up the difference. The judge even offered me a "deal": pay $300 (the ticket was $50) in "court costs" and they wouldn't put the ticket on my record. I declined the offer, and ended up paying $350 ($300 in court costs + $50 ticket). Does that sound legitimate to you?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone does. I see a crown vic as I'm driving? Quick look for a light bar, antenna, hubcap, or reinforced bumper, and I know.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[readin]

I always wondered what would happen if someone on Slashdot got a girlfriend. I guess we know now.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the joke! You said you have a girl friend.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

If you dont get their details and are unable to find out who their provider is, at least around here it impacts your rates.

Not getting their details on the scene changes it from "their problem" to "your problem".

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[eennaarbrak]

Frankly, I like police vehicles to be visible so that I can find them in the event of an emergency if I need help.

Drug dealers have the same desire. For different reasons.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

" (even ones doing a mere 5 over - no cop stops you for 5 over, especially not an unmarked unit, you also get a 10% leeway to account for speedometer inaccuracy so the only time that "5 over" would be even close to something you could be pulled for would be in a 30 mph zone) "

You are wrong. In Victoria you are booked for being 3km/h over the limit. And they are notorious for doing so. And there is *no* 10% leeway. All speedos in Australia are not allowed to read under the speed limit, which no means that most speedos horribly over read.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

A cop stops you for 5 over if it's the end of the month and the quota isn't met. We are just a mark, a target for the armed tax collector, no matter how many lies you use to try and convince people otherwise.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

And I, driving like you described, have done 65 in a 55 mph speed trap on a road where the surround traffic was doing 70+. I always signal, don't weave lanes, and I don't drive recklessly. Officer was hiding behind a wall and pulled out and pulled me over just as I changed lanes for my exit, ticketed me for the 65, nothing about reckless driving or anything of the sort. Let everyone else go. Why? Quota time, end of the month, time to collect the unrepresented taxes from the masses.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

They would have no such desire if sane drug laws (legalize them and treat side effects as a health issue, which they are) were the rule of the day.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

I don't usually respond to ACs, but this time...

If the police are being outed undercover then don't whine when crime occurs.

[rant] If the police don't like it, they can stop abusing THE PRIVILEGE OF DRIVING UNMARKED CARS GRANTED THEM BY SOCIETY when going about their revenue raising^w^w traffic policing duties. [/rant]

I have seen too many examples of police (in marked and unmarked* cars) breaking road laws** to have any sympathy at all for them. If this spills over to other branches - tough; if they can't follow the same rules as the rest of us they should consider a career change (to either the food service or housekeeping industries).

*Been close enough to see the uniform.

**Talking on mobile phones while driving***, exceeding the speed limit without using lights or siren, tailgating (less than 2 car lengths) at freeway speeds...

***Yes, I know that they are magically exempt from this one in Victoria, but they haven't been sprinkled with enough pixie dust to make this safe.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

And if society says X bad thing is mandatory, you refuse, and are not a part of society but are taking the moral high ground. Being a decent human being is more important than following the rules.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

Bull. People regularly slow down at the sight of cop cars or traffic cameras, but speed right back up again once they know theyre past them. It doesnt deter anything, it just postpones it.

Yes, that's my point. People don't commit crimes in front of cops. And frankly, in my experience, if people are speeding and have a narrow run in with a cop, they tend to drive much more carefully for a significant time after the encounter, but that's anecdotal; not sure if anyone's done a study on it. Now you can claim that we should have all cops be undercover, wiretap everyone in the country, and put hidden video cameras everywhere, let every crime happen that's going to happen, and then throw all the criminals in jail. Or, you can have very visible cops, etc. and try to keep most of the crimes from happening in the first place. I'm merely saying that it's not immediately clear that one approach is superior. I personally would rather have less crime and more criminals in the wild then more crime and fewer criminals, but that's my personal preference. I believe that prevention is more important than punishment, though of course the threat of punishment is necessary for prevention.

Oh the horror, cops going after folks for violating the law.

Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be. I apologize in advance for the following Godwin, but were we supposed to applaud when the SS arrested people for being Jewish? When people with different skin colors got arrested for sitting in the wrong place? By no means am I trying to equate traffic violations with such heinous civil rights violations, but the examples serve to demonstrate that making cops more effective at "going after folks violating the law" can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what the law in question is.

...Im pretty sure there is a phone number you can dial to have a cop on the scene in around 5-10 minutes. Im pretty sure the chances of just "happening" to see a cop in that time are pretty low, at least based on my experience in and around DC (where one MIGHT see a cop in 10-20 minutes of driving around the capital and RFK stadium).

5-10 minutes does me little good if I'm getting attacked now, and not everyone in the world has a phone on them 100% of the time. It doesn't matter whether the odds of happening to see a cop if you need them are low. The fact is that they are a lot lower if the cops are unmarked. And frankly a 5% chance of having a cop around to help is better than nothing at all.

Regardless, I am done with this discussion, since I have nothing more of value to add. There will always be differences of opinion, and that's fine, but this has all been irrelevant to my initial point that these are unmarked cars, not undercover cops, and I never intended to debate the merits of speed limits or unmarked cars.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

What, is your reaction time like 10 seconds? You cant see the hills coming? Your car does not just abruptly jump up 5 mph on a downhill unless it is a very severe grade, and even then if youre engine braking / riding the brake you should be able to hold one or two under the limit very easily. I do it all the time with and without cruise control, claiming its impossible is absurd.

The 5 mph window is allowing for reaction times, paying attention, and speedometer inaccuracies. If each can account for 1-2 mph, then to guarantee that you don't cross 60, you need to be at 53-55, which was what my point is. I'm not saying that it's not possible to drive 60 +/- 1; sure it is. I was saying that in order to guarantee that you were not "breaking the law" by "speeding" (i.e. going 1 mile over the limit), you'd have to drive impractically slow. And if it's a law that is going to be strictly enforced and that should be strictly enforced, it should not be difficult or impractical to abide by. I have no problem not stabbing someone with a knife while walking down the street; it's not exactly hard to avoid doing that. If you force people into a situation where they can't drive less than 60 ('cause it's dangerous) and they can't drive even a bit more than 60 ('cause it's illegal), it's very hard to not commit a crime.

Some states have laws allowing that. Some do not. Ultimately, being part of society means you agree that society makes the rules, rather than you deciding which rules feel right for you.

As per my other comment to you, the fact that something is the rule doesn't mean that it's right, nor does it means that it's moral. If no one ever spoke up and said "I don't agree with this rule," we'd still be living in some sort of feudal monarchy with no rights whatsoever. (Note: what sort of society it would be is irrelevant; please do not respond to this saying that you disagree that it would be feudal/a monarchy/etc.)

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[SiriusStarr]

Honestly, I think we need fleets of undercover cops, so that maybe we could curb some of the worst of the "road belongs to me" behavior. Ive even seen metro busses blocking intersections, I dont think youre aware of how bad it can be.

This all just goes back to the fact that if you wanted to curb that behavior, a fleet of very visible cop cars would be far more effective. Cops can only pull over 1 (ish) car at a time. The number of cars will always outnumber the number of cops, so if the behavior is really as rampant as you say, you will quickly saturate your number of undercover cop cars. If the unmarked cop car has pulled over one car, the other 99 cars that go by can do whatever they want. On the other hand, one marked cop car can force good behavior on all 100 of those cars. It's analogous to the case of a gunman and a crowd. If you have one guy with a gun and a 100 bystanders, no one will do anything, because even if the guy can only shoot one person (or 6 or whatever), no one wants to be that one person. Once the guy fires the shot (or 6 or whatever) though, one person's day is ruined but the other 99 can rush him without fear.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[fido_dogstoyevsky]

If you think an unmarked police car's primary purpose is catching people "driving 5 mph over the speed limit" then you've been listening to too much reactionary "why don't they go after real criminals?!" and "don't they have anything better to do?!" arguments, usually heavily promoted by people who have been caught breaking the law for 'trivial' reasons like speeding.

I haven't

Unmarked cars *are* used for "better things" than catching speeding motorists (even ones doing a mere 5 over - no cop stops you for 5 over, especially not an unmarked unit,

They do in Victoria (Oz)

you also get a 10% leeway to account for speedometer inaccuracy

You don't in Victoria

so the only time that "5 over" would be even close to something you could be pulled for would be in a 30 mph zone) - they're used primarily in the investigation and containment of stolen cars and for major crimes involving motor vehicles such as drugs, burglaries, etc.

They certainly do stop ordinary motorists if something flags you to them (impaired driving, excessive speed, tax/insurance issues etc) but they're not there to "catch you out" - you make it sound like it's some trick to make you break the law when you think they're not looking.

Some police behaviour I've witnessed suggests otherwise

I know for a fact that Cheshire Police in the UK doesn't care if you know what unmarked cars they use - I have seen them personally show large, unobscured photographs of them with number plates showing clearly in public settings - because they're not designed to trick you, they're designed to be less visible than a panda car so they can tail suspect vehicles more easily, and your "5 over" driver is not such a motorist.

Your "5 over" driver IS such a motorist over here.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[gagol]

I lived in an area where doing 100mph in a 60mph was being friendly to other drivers. Point is, it matters where you live! Thank god (or any other universe entity) for country living. As long as you give a damn of other drivers around, you will not get arrested around here (exact area not disclosed) the police will NOT come after you for doing 30KPH over the limit. Hell, I even did tata to the cops!

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[thegrassyknowl]

I've been in two not-at-fault bingles (rear-ended while stopped at lights both times), and each time all I needed to give my insurance company was the rego of the other car and the driver's name. Conceded it made it easier having their full details, but I have never been asked who insures the other party.

A little helpful hint - if your insurer is good, and you get choice of repairer then you should make the claim through your insurer even if not at fault. It shouldn't have any effect on your premiums because the insurance companies will sort that out between themselves. If the other party has a no-choice policy and you let them claim it then you may wind up stuck with whatever (possibly crappy) repairer their insurance sends you to, as happened to a friend of mine recently with very poor results.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[nedlohs]

Because people who "think its their turn" will magically think it isn't if an unmarked police car is in the vicinity?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

SAPOL use a load of various-coloured unmarked 5-10yo Camrys as speed trap cars: they have a speed camera fixed to the front bumper and are parked on the side of the road. Of course, the number plates aren't really a useful secret, since if you can read the plates you're either slow enough to be legal or have already been caught. They used to be a lot less subtle: they used to use cars exactly like the patrol cars except plain white. Since no-one but a cop would park a brand-new omega in the median step, it was completely obvious that it was a police car.

The actual unmarked police cars are mostly black Commodores, with lights behind the radiator grille and extra antennae - AIUI, those are mostly driven by plain-clothes officers, while the unmarked white ones are for community liaison and so on and don't tend to have the lights (although some are old panda cars with the lights taken off).

In any case, they all have SA government plates, which is a dead giveaway, because they're kept cleaner than the public service cars, and are newer than the "pool" cars. I assume there are also secret cars, but they're probably well-hidden.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[smash]

You clearly don't live in australia.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Here there is a difference between undercover cars, speed trap cars, and unmarked cars. Unmarked cars driven by ordinary detectives and so on still have lights behind the radiator, government plates, and the second aerial; senior officers (i.e. uniformed administrators) have government plates but not usually the second aerial, speed trap cars have government plates and a camera on the bumper, and undercover cars have ordinary plates, the second aerial is hidden, and no lights.

I'd never pull over for an undercover car, but if it has lights and a government plate, I'd be as happy pulling over for it as a panda car.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Jessified]

Amen brother. The police say that this facebook page is compromising police safety? How do you think people realized it was an unmarked police car? Because it identified itself when it pulled someone over for a bullshit traffic violation. If it's so urgent that the car's identity remain unknown, perhaps they shouldn't blow the cover over meaningless bullshit.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Jessified]

I've had two separate friends who were ticketed for going less than 5 km/h over the limit. I was in the car for one of them. In that case, it took about 10-20 seconds to pass the cop car, meaning there was a speed differential of maybe a couple km per hour. That's hardly leaving a margin for inaccuracies. His reasoning was essentially that it is illegal to pass a cop, as if police spedometers are international standard for velocity, free of inaccuracies.

These are the cops that give the rest of them a bad name.

And yes they do "trick you" with speed traps in areas where the speed limit makes no sense and is out of date. It can be just as dangerous to go significantly below the flow of traffic as it can be to go faster, but who would want to make policy changes that make more sense at the expense of a nice revenue stream. If traffic violations were about safety only then the revenue could just as easily go to a charity with no input into traffic enforcement. Of course we all know that would never happen, and any argument against that suggestion only serves to prove the point that it's the money that really matters.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[_Shad0w_]

Because the original post said the person had drive 220 km, not that they had driven at 220 km/h. Even British police will pull you over for doing twice the national speed limit - 70mph - regardless of how well you're driving.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[drb_chimaera]

Respectfully, I suggest you try reading it a little more carefully:

"The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour"

If the journey took an hour and the distance was 220km then speed (well, mean speed over the distance) is 220km (which as you say is just under twice the speed limit on the M-roads he mentioned).

Personally I think that's a load of bollocks - you can get away with around 80mph on the motorway (limit is 70) without pissing off the police here in the UK but 137mph? no chance at all - that far in excess of the limit puts at risk of immediate ban and charges of dangerous driving are likely at that point.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

>Unmarked cars *are* used for "better things" than catching speeding motorists

Oh yeah, please elaborate. I have been pulled over for doing 95 in a 90 zone (in Australia) by a smart ass cop who warned me for getting "too close" - so your comments fall on deaf ears that they are there for more than catching speeders.

Next, you'll tell me that safety cameras are actually there for safety - which is just plain BS. The police are used by government for revenue raising. If you have any doubt, then why did the NSW audits show that quite a few speed cameras were ineffective. It's most probably because of the BS "engineers only put safety cameras in where it's been deemed there's a safety issue". How about you show me the BLACK SPOTS with safety cameras. They're as rare as rocking-horse shit. As I said, cops are there for revenue raising.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[_Shad0w_]

You are correct, I missed the "in an hour". And I agree: it's bollocks; no-one is going to let you do 140 mph on public roads in the UK.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[hairyfish]

If you think an unmarked police car's primary purpose is catching people "driving 5 mph over the speed limit" then you've been listening to too much...

TFA is about Australia. In Australia (especially Victoria and NSW - can;t speak for other states) there is zero tolerance for speeding. 1km/h over the limit and you get a ticket. Google it, there are tons of stories about it, I've seen the tickets personally myself. A lot of the time the Highway Patrol (the cops dedicated purely to traffic infringements) use unmarked cars. They are mostly jerks, even regular cops hate them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[hairyfish]

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Speeding isn't a crime, it's a misdemeanour.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[DarwinSurvivor]

I doubt any of these are even undercover cars, they're just unmarked. If you want to get some pictures of an unmarked police car, just sit on the sidewalk and watch them pull out of the station. If you want to get pictures of an undercover police car, good fucking luck. I know an undercover cop personally and there is no fucking way you would make out them OR their car.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Truthfully Id rather see this if they dont like it change the color of their cars to something we can spot comming down the road instead of all the multicolored cars they use. I was thinkin about this the other day Id rather be able to spot a cow before they spot me

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[drsmithy]

Then we fall back to the first point I made - people going "whaaaaaaa! I got a ticket for doing 5 over! How unfair! I couldn't see the police car! waaaaa!"

The point - and complaint - is that this sort of draconian speed enforcement has nothing to do with road safety.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. It's not suddenly "unfair" because you don't think a cop can see you. If you don't break the law you can't get a ticket.

Shouldn't be a "crime" in the first place. Your choice of tyres or maintenance of suspension, will have more of an impact on your stopping distance and maneuverability than 5km/h. Not to mention your speedometer can legally be up to 10% out.

Speeding fine brackets shouldn't even start until 10% over the posted limit

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[drsmithy]

Why not brake gradually before the sign?

Because you shouldn't have to micro-manage your speed. It achieves nothing except:

  a)training people to drive along spending 3/4 of their time looking out for speed limit changes and watching the dash, rather than watching the road; and

b) not to use their own judgement when choosing how fast to drive. This becomes important when the speed limit is, in fact, too fast ("I was under the limit, it must have been safe!").

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

"No matter how polite your driving is, a US cop WILL pull you over and WILL ticket you if you pass them doing 120+ mph on an Interstate..."

Since cop cars are limited at 120mph and their tires have a speed rating of W (168 mph) how would they do that if you're really >120 mph?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Dishevel]

Wow.
Even with the post fully explained you are still incapable of getting it.
Just wow.
If the OP stated that he went 220 km (Distance) in an hour (Time). Which by the way he did.
Then as the GP pointed out 220km / 1 hour = an average speed of 220kph.
Math. It works.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a test for you: take your car into a garage and say "I'd like the odometer to be perfectly accurate!" Let us know how that goes.

Look, your car odometer is never going to be fully accurate. It reads the speed from the wheel hub and attempts to reflect the actual speed from that reading. The size of your wheels and the amount of air in your tyres has a very real impact on the reading your odometer gives. Hell, the air temperature and tire temperature have a real impact on the reading, as the temperature affects the air pressure within the tire! Yes, on a long enough journey, your odometer reading will change as the tires warm up.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[PT_1]

Police reaction to speeding in the UK and US is often quite different. The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour and got no tickets despite passing several marked police cars. I presume it's because I always stayed left except to pass, was diligent about signaling and generally being polite in my driving behavior aside from the speed.

In contrast, a co-worker of mine received a ticket for 2 mph over the limit last year in the US.

Are you sure it was police you passed and not Highways Agency traffic officers? Their vehicles are marked similarly, but the traffic officers are there to attend to accidents on the motorways, maintain traffic flow etc., and not to arrest people. If you passed the police whilst travelling at 137 mph (almost double the maximum speed limit in the UK), it is very unlikely that you'd be spared a trip to court.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you're absolutely right. The police shoud ignore all the minor crimes, and only enforce the more important ones.
Like, instead of out solving murders and rapes, they should have stayed and comforted your friends when they were robbed.

But really, thank you for your insight into the mind of a criminal. It's amazing the excuses you'll come up with to justify your crimes.
Oh, the cops setup speed cameras on a downhill, boo hoo what a police state victim you are.
Oh, the road is zoned incorrectly.
All the other cars were speeding too.
You're a better driver than everyone else, you shouldn't have to follow speed limits designed for the lowest common denominator.
It's not really stealing, it's just copying, no one lost anything.
The government should be lined up and shot for how they opress you.
Look at what she's wearing, she deserved to be raped.
Etc

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[PT_1]

The original poster said that they had driven 220 km in one hour. This means they must have averaged 220 km/h...

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait...people SPEED UP when they get tailgated?
Maybe they should be fined if they're so easily intimidated.
I wonder how easy it would be to coax them into other crimes?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Let's abandon traffic fines and just start suspending licences or jailing the pricks.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Speeding isn't a crime, it's a misdemeanour.

Figure of speech is figure of speech.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

Why not brake gradually before the sign?

Because you shouldn't have to micro-manage your speed. It achieves nothing except:

  a)training people to drive along spending 3/4 of their time looking out for speed limit changes and watching the dash, rather than watching the road; and

b) not to use their own judgement when choosing how fast to drive. This becomes important when the speed limit is, in fact, too fast ("I was under the limit, it must have been safe!").

If you can't drive safely while observing the speed limit for the road then you shouldn't be driving a car in the first place. It's hardy "micro-managing" to drive at the speed limit - it's called "driving a car on a public road".

Posted limits also have nothing to do with your own judgement regarding the safe speed to drive. That's irrelevant - the road conditions and local traffic all need to be considered by the driver in question. The posted limit doesn't excuse you for having an at-fault accident when doing less than the sign says. Again, obeying the speed limit absolutely does not remove people's own judgement on what the safe speed it, except that it must be at or below the posted limit. You can drive more slowly as you wish.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[drsmithy]

If you can't drive safely while observing the speed limit for the road then you shouldn't be driving a car in the first place.

I can drive perfectly safely while observing the speed limit. "Observing the speed limit" will mean +/- 5-10km/h depending on road design, geography, other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, etc.

If you are going to try and argue that exceeding the posted limit by a single km/h has any meaningful impact on risk, then I'm just going to point out that makes you completely ineligible to have a discussion on the subject.

It's hardy "micro-managing" to drive at the speed limit - it's called "driving a car on a public road".

Having to spend most of the time watching the speedometer so you don't drift a few km/h over the limit is absolutely micro-managing. The correct and safe way to determine speed is to match it with surrounding traffic.

Posted limits also have nothing to do with your own judgement regarding the safe speed to drive.

I never said they did. I said draconian enforcement of speed limits and a hyper-focus on speeding by police leads to a culture of "obeying the speed limit == safe" and roads full of people who spend most of their time with their eyes glued to the speedometer (since creeping a few km/h over could cost them a hundred and fifty bucks and a license point). I have observed this phenomenon infecting Australian drivers for twenty years as speed enforcement has become more and more strict. Unsurprisingly, the impact on the road toll has been minimal (to nonexistant) and wholly attributable to things like better roads and safer vehicles.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jittles]

Maybe that is the case there but here I see the most unmarked police cars in the FHP (Florida Highway Patrol), and they always get people for traffic violations. One thing that California does right, in my opinion, is case law considers it a speed trap to intentionally use unmarked cars for traffic enforcement. The ruling from the bench is that the purpose of law enforcement is to deter crime, and you cannot do that if no one knows you are there.

If you want to do a really good tail on someone, you can't use an unmarked police car, either. They always buy fleets of cars with specific configurations. You can almost always tell when a car behind you is a police model (whether or not its a civilian you cannot always tell right away). But a smart criminal will see that someone, who looks like a cop car, is following him. I can understand giving detectives and high ranking officers unmarked cars as well. They don't generally do traffic enforcement or handle emergency calls. If you're doing traffic enforcement in an unmarked car, you might as well call it a driving tax, and make everyone pay it. Especially since our legal system has basically said for a traffic infraction you are guilty until proven innocent because the officer is more "trustworthy" than the accused.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jittles]

If I were in the "fast lane" I would certainly speed up, and move out of the way. If that officer gave me a ticket, I would ask him for his car's unit number and would be at the courthouse that same day with my ticket in hand asking for a subpoena for his police car's video. In most states, a judge would frown upon an officer who endangered someone to issue a speeding ticket. California, and most other states, have a basic speed law providing you with some flexibility on speed limits for anything under 55mph. If you're going faster than that, you could still claim that you saw it was an unmarked officer, and that you thought he was responding to an emergency, and was therefore tailgating you, and you were trying to get out of his way as quickly and safely as possible in order to allow him to provide whatever emergency assistance he was going to offer.

An officer who has resorted to such tactics should have all of his previously issued citations dismissed and refunds granted, as necessary. I guarantee you an officer would not try such a stunt again, as he would likely become unemployed after that.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

I can drive perfectly safely while observing the speed limit. "Observing the speed limit" will mean +/- 5-10km/h depending on road design, geography, other vehicles, pedestrians, animals, etc.

If you are going to try and argue that exceeding the posted limit by a single km/h has any meaningful impact on risk, then I'm just going to point out that makes you completely ineligible to have a discussion on the subject.

I'm not making that argument. If the enforcement of speed is draconian, then driving under the limit is just sensible to avoid tickets. In that case, "observing the speed limit" does not mean "+/- 5 kmh". In that case you're simply courting trouble if the police are as draconian as you say. In that case, they are treating the limit as a hard limit, so even 1 over is outside the conditions set out for the road, whether "common sense" applies or not.

Personally I think that is overly draconian, and doesn't really contribute much to safety, other than being a deterrent for people speeding (I think the UK's system is far more sensible - 10% margin, with up to an extra 1,2 or 3 on top of that depending on the local force), but if you're going to argue that the line being exactly on there limit of the posted signs is any more "taxing" with "eyes glued to the speedometer" than having the limit be a few over that speed then you're just looking for an excuse.

If you can't keep your car safely under the limit without your eyes "glued to the speedo" then you're not fit to drive a car. Just pretend that the limit is 5 less than the posted limit and then resume your normal "+/- 5 kmh" as you say is your normal "observing the speed limit" and you'll be able to do it safely, right?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were in the "fast lane" I would certainly speed up, and move out of the way. If that officer gave me a ticket, I would ask him for his car's unit number and would be at the courthouse that same day with my ticket in hand asking for a subpoena for his police car's video. In most states, a judge would frown upon an officer who endangered someone to issue a speeding ticket. California, and most other states, have a basic speed law providing you with some flexibility on speed limits for anything under 55mph. If you're going faster than that, you could still claim that you saw it was an unmarked officer, and that you thought he was responding to an emergency, and was therefore tailgating you, and you were trying to get out of his way as quickly and safely as possible in order to allow him to provide whatever emergency assistance he was going to offer.

An officer who has resorted to such tactics should have all of his previously issued citations dismissed and refunds granted, as necessary. I guarantee you an officer would not try such a stunt again, as he would likely become unemployed after that.

If I were in the "fast lane" I would certainly speed up, and move out of the way. If that officer gave me a ticket, I would ask him for his car's unit number and would be at the courthouse that same day with my ticket in hand asking for a subpoena for his police car's video. In most states, a judge would frown upon an officer who endangered someone to issue a speeding ticket. California, and most other states, have a basic speed law providing you with some flexibility on speed limits for anything under 55mph. If you're going faster than that, you could still claim that you saw it was an unmarked officer, and that you thought he was responding to an emergency, and was therefore tailgating you, and you were trying to get out of his way as quickly and safely as possible in order to allow him to provide whatever emergency assistance he was going to offer.

An officer who has resorted to such tactics should have all of his previously issued citations dismissed and refunds granted, as necessary. I guarantee you an officer would not try such a stunt again, as he would likely become unemployed after that.

You didn't read the part about it being in Victoria, Australia?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[snakeplissken]

Are you sure it was police you passed and not Highways Agency traffic officers?

in my experience the traffic officers cars seem to have black and yellow checks whereas police have blue and yellow checks, as opposed to green and yellow checks for paramedic cars.

when coming up from behind the obilique angle makes it hard to tell the difference between the colours,

snake

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[reboot246]

no cop stops you for 5 over

Bullshit. I've been stopped for going 72 mph in a 70 zone. I didn't get a ticket, but I was pulled over and delayed. Of course, you most likely have not driven the two million miles I have driven. Amateur!!

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

IN Australia this is only corerct for older cars. Around 2000 they changed the ADRs so that your speed can read +10/-0. It's not roadworthy if it reads under your true speed. The end result is that most new speedos over read (show a higher speed than true) by around 10-15 km/h. Causes a lot of people to sit on highways doing much less than the speed limit, because they're not aware that the speedo can be out by so much.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Liability has nothing to do with right or wrong.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? Then you drive under the speed limit.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[pla]

Not getting their details on the scene changes it from "their problem" to "your problem".

It "impacts your rates" if someone magically crashes into your car inside your locked garage while you lounge on the beach in Tahiti 2000 miles away. ;)

As for an accident with you involved... You need their license plate number, and their name helps but doesn't strictly matter. Your own insurance company will do the rest, for the simple reason that they would much, much rather make the other guy pay than pay out themselves.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Razed By TV]

I live in New Jersey, so the traffic atmosphere might be a little different here. I have never seen someone get pulled over for going 10 miles over the limit. There's almost an unspoken rule that you can go 8-10 over without being pulled over. (This is talking about 45+ MPH areas, mind you.) As for keeping with traffic and going more than 10 over the limit to avoid being a road hazard, the only people I see get pulled over are trail blazing and not staying with the pack.

A traffic ticket here for 3 over the limit will get thrown out if you just show up to court. I assume 5 would as well, unless you were in some type of low speed school zone. They want their money, and they can't negotiate you from a high point ticket to a low/no point ticket with a more expensive fine if you aren't getting any points on your license to begin with.

I do agree that there is too much focus on making revenue from traffic infractions, especially with traffic cameras. However, here at least, I haven't seen any cops bothering with minor speeding infractions.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely doubt that your friend was only going 2 mph over the speed limit. Most states give 10%, 7 mph, or 10 mph leeway to motorists to account for error in speedometers and radar guns. I'm from PA where the stated leeway is 7 mph. Some Midwest and southern states are more strict about the speed limit, but 2 mph is nonsense, and could trivially be tossed out by a judge if challenged.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[_Shad0w_]

If you had bothered to read further, you would have noticed I already posted noting that I had, in fact, misread the original post. Makes your post rather superfluous, doesn't it? Or does attempting to belittle people make you feel better about yourself?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

no cop stops you for 5 over

Bullshit. I've been stopped for going 72 mph in a 70 zone. I didn't get a ticket, but I was pulled over and delayed.

Of course, you most likely have not driven the two million miles I have driven. Amateur!!

Cool story bro.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LVSlushdat]

When I was stationed in Yuma Arizona back in the late70s, I got pulled over for doing ... get this.. 56mph in a 55mph zone.. Since I was in the military, I was able to keep my California license and plates. When the cop walked up to the car, all mirror shades and swagger, and asked me "Do you know how fast you were going?" and I said "Yes, under 55mph".. The guy says "I clocked you at 56..." .. I realized if I called him an idiot, things would not go well for me... So I simply said, "I'll see you in court, Officer".. THEN he looked at the address on my license, which said Yuma, Arizona, and saw my military ID, and realized he WOULD see me in court, since I was not a California tourist who would just pay the fine and skip driving all the way back to Arizona for court. And yes, the judge chewed this cop out quite nicely in open court... Was a joy to behold....

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[ganjadude]

The problem is it isnt very hard to lift a gov plate from a parking lot and lights can be installed behind the grill by anyone.

A Marked car on the other hand while possible for someone to steal or spend thousands of dollars to make their car look legit wont have it long enough to really worry about.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all australian unmarked cars have lights or any antenna.

I have a $350 fine for "failing to maintain control of a motor vehicle" that was issued by a completely stock SUV, with a couple of uniformed officers inside. When they pulled me over, they had to park next to me with their window down and shove the badge out the window so I could see it, while yelling at me to pull over.

(ps: I would say I had perfect control of my motor vehicle while doing a 400 m wheel stand)

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The rhetorical purpose is safety, but like any meme worth its salt, the real reason is to get you to think one thing but make you behave for a completely different reason.

  In this case, the meme allows them to behave as highway robbers. If they cared about safety they'd use marked cars in plain sight, which would save a lot more lives by slowing everyone down.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think an unmarked police car's primary purpose is catching people "driving 5 mph over the speed limit" then you've been listening to too much reactionary "why don't they go after real criminals?!" and "don't they have anything better to do?!" arguments, usually heavily promoted by people who have been caught breaking the law for 'trivial' reasons like speeding.

Dunno what part of the world you live in, but here in australia there are police and there are traffic police. Most officers are dedicated to one or the other. Only in tiny regional areas where they only have a single officer will you find someone who does both things. And cars designed for catching speeders are fitted out with specialised/expensive speed detection equipment that is not mounted on the cars used for catching non-traffic offences.

Unmarked cars *are* used for "better things" than catching speeding motorists (even ones doing a mere 5 over - no cop stops you for 5 over, especially not an unmarked unit, you also get a 10% leeway to account for speedometer inaccuracy so the only time that "5 over" would be even close to something you could be pulled for would be in a 30 mph zone) - they're used primarily in the investigation and containment of stolen cars and for major crimes involving motor vehicles such as drugs, burglaries, etc.

Again, depends where you are in the world, but in australia the driver is legally required to keep their car road worthy. And road worthy means that the "10% leeway" you are talking about *must* be in one direction. If your speedo says 50 and your actual speed is 45, then that is ok. If your speedo says 50 and your actual speed is 51, then they will give you a ticket for speeding and they will immediately cancel your vehicle registration until you provide a receipt from a qualified/insured speedo repair technician that it has been fixed and tested (most mechanics are not allowed to touch the speedometer in australia).

Some of the technology they use to measure your speed is not very accurate, and therefore they cannot always assume that the speed measured is exactly right. In this case, they will pull you over, ask you how fast you were going, and if the speed you said is within the margin for error that their equipment has then they'll probably accept the speed you told them. But they have ways of measuring speed which are accurate, and in that case they will ping your for doing even 1mph over, if they have nothing more important to do.

Also, I think you're getting unmarked cars and undercover cars mixed up (fair enough, TFA did the same). If you look at the actual police department quotes, they are talking about unmarked cars, not undercover cars. There are four police cars in Australia:

* marked traffic police cars - used for enforcing road rules and nothing else. these are pretty easy to spot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/special-fx/6515191517/
* marked police cars - never really used for traffic rules, unless it's something serious like street racing or a car driving with no number plate at all
* unmarked traffic police cars - these are unmarked, may have special equipment for measuring speed, and may have lights hidden somewhere. again, only ever used for enforcing road rules, nothing else.
* undercover cars - they are usually not even owned by the government, likely they've been rented just for the day from a tourism car hire company or similar. none of these are ever used for enforcing road rules

They certainly do stop ordinary motorists if something flags you to them (impaired driving, excessive speed, tax/insurance issues etc) but they're not there to "catch you out" - you make it sound like it's some trick to make you break the law when you think they're not looking.

There are definitely some idiots out there, but some of them work for the police too. And some of the road rules really are screwed up, at least in australia. You don't ha

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Uberbah]

If you find a single biped not abusing sweeping privileges, please check for a pulse...

Most bipeds do not have the power to detain you, arrest you, or search your person or property. Here's your sign.....

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Uberbah]

Drug dealers have the same desire. For different reasons.

Repeal Prohibition. Again. End a black market and the most oppressive police state in the world...multiple problems solved.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Uberbah]

Oh the horror, cops going after folks for revenue generation

FTFY

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Why are they fining people for going over the speed limit by an insignificant amount? Not all laws are moral.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Uberbah]

If you can't drive safely while observing the speed limit for the road then you shouldn't be driving a car in the first place. It's hardy "micro-managing" to drive at the speed limit - it's called "driving a car on a public road".

It's called cops pulling you over for driving 2 miles over the speed limit, and speed limits frequently being set far lower than conditions allow. But you knew that already.

Any more Concerns?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Uberbah]

You didn't realize that's a non sequitur to the point he was making, or did you just rush in to be a douche?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, for the love of god, use cruise control. It would make highway driving so much more pleasant.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

If you can't drive safely while observing the speed limit for the road then you shouldn't be driving a car in the first place. It's hardy "micro-managing" to drive at the speed limit - it's called "driving a car on a public road".

It's called cops pulling you over for driving 2 miles over the speed limit, and speed limits frequently being set far lower than conditions allow. But you knew that already.

Any more Concerns?

Lower than the conditions allow? Who are you to make that call? Are you an expert in traffic patterns, road surfaces, road layout and accident statistics? How very arrogant of you to assume that "you know best" purely because it inconveniences you to drive at the speed limit in the presence of a cop.

If you're 2 miles over and the cop is being anal then guess what, you were 2 miles over and he is within his rights to give you a ticket. If you live in a region where 10% leeway is the law then get it challenged in court, if not then tough luck - you know the rules and how strict they are, so if you're 2 over, suck it up like a grown up. The cops are not your parents who will give in to you whining that it's not fair that they are punishing you for breaking the rules.

Whatever the speed limit is set to, if you can't safely drive at or below it then you have no business holding a driving licence. Whining that it's too low is irrelevant.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[isorox]

Police reaction to speeding in the UK and US is often quite different. The last time I took the wheel in the UK I made a 220 km journey, over mostly M roads, in an hour and got no tickets despite passing several marked police cars.

What speed were you doing?

Anything over 85 will likely get you pulled over, based on your lack of observation of the marked car. Of course most people slow down to 70 when passing marked police cars, so you're forced to do so too.

Over the last 5 years I've felt the average speed on the motorway has dropped from about 80ish to 70ish, there's a lot of dangerous car drivers that are doing under 56mph (thus forcing lorries out into the middle lane), and you're getting dangerously high speed differences between people doing 70, and idiots doing 45.

Police cars are rare though, you probably saw highways agency vehicles, whose have limited powers to stop and direct traffic (During an RTA for example), but not pull you over for speeding or issue a ticket.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[isorox]

I know for a fact that Cheshire Police in the UK doesn't care if you know what unmarked cars they use - I have seen them personally show large, unobscured photographs of them with number plates showing clearly in public settings - because they're not designed to trick you, they're designed to be less visible than a panda car so they can tail suspect vehicles more easily, and your "5 over" driver is not such a motorist.

Cheshire police are the only force to have pulled me over for speeding, back in 1999. I'd joined the M56 heading towards wales, and pulled into a gap in the outside lane. BMW ahead went speding off at 100+, and the estate behind me was right up my tail. Sped up to get to past the middle lane lot, then pulled in. The estate went speeding off.

A few miles later it had dropped back and then pulled me over, with video of me at 87mph. They were very grumpy about losing the bmw, but let me off with a warning.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[drsmithy]

I'm not making that argument. If the enforcement of speed is draconian, then driving under the limit is just sensible to avoid tickets. In that case, "observing the speed limit" does not mean "+/- 5 kmh". In that case you're simply courting trouble if the police are as draconian as you say. In that case, they are treating the limit as a hard limit, so even 1 over is outside the conditions set out for the road, whether "common sense" applies or not.

And the point being made, which you are ignoring, is that this sort of enforcement is not only pointless, it is actually counter-productive.

Personally I think that is overly draconian, and doesn't really contribute much to safety, other than being a deterrent for people speeding (I think the UK's system is far more sensible - 10% margin, with up to an extra 1,2 or 3 on top of that depending on the local force), but if you're going to argue that the line being exactly on there limit of the posted signs is any more "taxing" with "eyes glued to the speedometer" than having the limit be a few over that speed then you're just looking for an excuse.

No, I am not trying to make excuses, or whinge about tickets - I haven't been fined for speeding for at least ten years, and even that was the first time for a few (then again I don't - and wouldn't - live in Victoria). My interest is in road safety, and I am criticising a system that is failing to aim for that objective, in the face of people like you who are insisting that my criticism is invalid because "that's the law".

If you can't keep your car safely under the limit without your eyes "glued to the speedo" then you're not fit to drive a car. Just pretend that the limit is 5 less than the posted limit and then resume your normal "+/- 5 kmh" as you say is your normal "observing the speed limit" and you'll be able to do it safely, right?

Bullshit. I'd lay down a hundred bucks in an instant betting you couldn't keep your speed under an arbitrary limit over any meaningful period of time, in traffic, without frequent references to the speedometer.

The issue, which you are studiously ignoring, is that drivers should not have to frequently monitor their speed. Drivers should feel confident that they can match their speed to surrounding traffic without fear of punishment so they can concentrate on the far more important jobs of monitoring their vehicle, other vehicles, the road, pedestrians, and the like.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[king neckbeard]

There are legitimate reasons to enforce speed limits, namely public safety and environmental protection, but that differs quite a bit from predatory speed traps. Those are just money rackets, and they often encourage behavior that makes the public less safe and results in worse fuel economy.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[king neckbeard]

Some places have 'zero tolerance' for speeding, and the cops in those places will pull you over for 2 MPH. Now, you are correct in the fact that it's legally shaky, but you'd have to go to court, which would cost more than paying the ticket. Also, in many cases, the victims of this are people passing by, so fighting it would include the additional burden of traveling a decent distance.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jo_ham]

Bullshit. I'd lay down a hundred bucks in an instant betting you couldn't keep your speed under an arbitrary limit over any meaningful period of time, in traffic, without frequent references to the speedometer.

That's not what I said. You're grasping at straws. Maybe your definition of "glued to the speedometer" is different to mine, but under normal road driving conditions I can maintain a steady speed with occasional glances at the speedo *and* manage to stay under any limit I have arbitrary set (often I pick the speed limit or a few under, for no particular reason). Your assertion that hard limits being enforced caused drivers to "glue their eyes" to the speedo (ie, check it obsessively). My assertion is that if you can't stay under the limit (whatever limit that may be, 30, 35, 38, 70, 85 etc) without doing that then you're unfit to drive a car.

You're looking for an excuse to say "the cops should not ticket me for being over the speed limit if it's only by a small amount, even though I know it's within their remit to ticket me for breaking the limit."

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[KingBenny]

i'm sure that kind of information circulated in euh 'relevant circles' long before it got mainstream there

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[KingBenny]

i was too fast again with the submit, who checks the fact that they're all actual undercover cars or people ?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[isorox]

They would have no such desire if sane drug laws (legalize them and treat side effects as a health issue, which they are) were the rule of the day.

Fine, replace "drug dealers" with "bank robbers"

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[king neckbeard]

Actually, it does have something to do with the ticket. This is how things are by design in order to make sure the revenue stream isn't interrupted. If invalid tickets were reasonable to challenge, then they couldn't hand out nearly as many invalid tickets.

Also, it strikes me as quite peculiar how much you are defending a clearly predatory system just because it's the law. No public good is served by this.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

THe 10% leeway is for speedo accuracy.
However the laws have changed so the 10% leeway for speeding was revoked about 3yrs ago. You can be booked for going 1km/h over.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[TapeCutter]

What is it they govern? Cops enforce the law they don't create it, sure they are instituted and funded by government, but that doesn't make them the government. Do people really believe every cop agrees with every law they are asked to enforce?

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[drsmithy]

That's not what I said.

Yes it is. Where you decide to place your arbitrary line is irrelevant.

Your assertion that hard limits being enforced caused drivers to "glue their eyes" to the speedo (ie, check it obsessively). My assertion is that if you can't stay under the limit (whatever limit that may be, 30, 35, 38, 70, 85 etc) without doing that then you're unfit to drive a car.

And your assertion is rubbish. Primarily because, as I've stated numerous times, drivers shouldn't _need_ to spend any meaningful amount of their concentration budget monitoring speed. If there really is any danger to creeping a few km/h over the limit, then the speed limit on the road should be lower to start with.

You're looking for an excuse to say "the cops should not ticket me for being over the speed limit if it's only by a small amount, even though I know it's within their remit to ticket me for breaking the limit."

I'm not looking for an excuse, that's _exactly_ what I'm saying because it's a perfectly sound argument. Speeding infringements shouldn't even be punishable until they hit more than 10% over and they most certainly should not be hyper-focused on low-scale, low-risk [high-payback] infringement like they are in Australia (and particularly Victoria). It's a waste of resources and a counter-productive safety strategy.

Your choice of car and tyres, or your vehicle's maintenance, have more of an impact on safety than whether you're doing 100 or 105km/h. This is before even getting to driver attributes like reaction time, concentration and experience.

Your assertion is that the law is the law and tough titties (an incredibly weak argument to start with). My assertion is that road safety should be the focus and that draconian speed enforcement undermines that principle.

I've spent enough time in the UK to probably have covered 40,000-odd km there, all over the country. I know what the roads and the policing attitudes are like, so I know where you're coming from. Australia - particularly Victoria - is a very different culture. Mobile speed traps are rife, deliberately placed to be obscured and frequently located in areas where unintentional (and low-risk) speeding is easy (bottom of hills, roads where limits should be higher, inactive construction zones, etc). Speeding fines are routinely given out for exceeding the limit by single-digit amounts in 100-110km/h zones (which is absurd on its face). As I have said, this has bred an environment where drivers are constantly monitoring their speed and neglecting the far greater responsibility of monitoring everything happening around them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[TapeCutter]

Your entitled to your opinion, I myself have lived in Melbourne for 50yrs. In 1969 our road toll was over 1000/yr, now with well over 10X the number of cars the toll hovers around 300-400/yr. The state government and the cops have put in a 30yr effort to keep the roads safe; speed cameras, booze buses, seat belts, unmarked cars, we invented the "shock" road saftey ads. The state is recognized internationally for its experiences and our methods have been widely copied by others. I think the occasional fine for a trivial infraction every now and then is a small price to pay for such a spectacular improvement, think of it as "insurance".

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Meski]

I blame it on blueshift...

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Driving 5km under the limit can have the opposite effect - build up too many cars behind and you can be pinged for obstructing traffic. There is also a tendency in Australia to sit at the bottom of long, gradual hills where people are highly likely to creep, forcing people to ride their brakes.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[psiclops]

if doing that cost me zero time, effort, and money then i wouldn't have a problem.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[thedarknite]

Your speedometer can legally overstate your speed by 10%, so if your speedometer says 110km/h then your actual speed can be between 99 and 110 legally. However, if your actual speed is higher than what the speedometer says then your car (in Australia) is not roadworthy, so car manufacturer's always set the speedometers to say you're going faster than you actually are. (The Australian Design Regulations also specify that the speedometer must be accurate up to 40km/h)

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

I think by about the 15th time people get a ticket for running the same light at 15th and constitution, the behavior will be curbed. All you accomplish by using visible cop cars is causing people to desist while the cop is around.

We have tons of cop cars running around, its just not effective at permenantly stopping the behavior. A serious crackdown would either A) solve the problem or B) simultaneously fund the police and take the bad drivers off the road. Honestly? I really dont care which way it goes.

For the record Id also be cool with it if the second time a metrobus was caught blocking an intersection if the driver were immediately canned and had their private and commercial license revoked, but thats probably dreaming.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

I imagine by the 5th ticket that month they would get the message. At some point, they will either get the message or run out of money.

I really dont get the problem people have with this. The deterrent effect is supposed to come from the law and its threatened penalty. The cops job is to actually CATCH people violating the law, not to be a deterrent, and undercover cops are simply more effective at catching people.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

Now you can claim that we should have all cops be undercover, wiretap everyone in the country, and put hidden video cameras everywhere, let every crime happen that's going to happen, and then throw all the criminals in jail.

Thats a strawman, and you know it. Undercover cops violate NO constitutional nor statutory protections that I am aware of, since they are in a public space as you are. Wiretaps, video, etc are all entirely different animals. It may suprise you to know that my worldview is not black and white, but Im certainly not going to handcuff the ability of the cops to actually catch people simply because I might happen to get caught breaking the law.

See, I dont MIND getting ticketed for going 5 over the limit if it meant that that behavior were actually curbed, because then we could actually do something about bad speed limits knowing that when it says "70mph", people will actually have to follow that. What we have now is utter chaos; you can be arbitrarily ticketed depending on flow of traffic and how pissed off a cop is, which is generally a terrible system for everyone-- and its all because the laws are fuzzy because noone actually follows them. My level of sympathy someone who gets ticketed for speeding? Pretty low.

Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it should be. I apologize in advance for the following Godwin, but were we supposed to applaud when the SS arrested people for being Jewish?

I have yet to hear any reason why speed limits are in need of non-violent protest. Is there some human right to speed that Im unaware of here? Or some other moral issue at stake?

Or is this just a case of "I dont like the particular limits society has set, so Im going to ignore them"?

The fact is that they are a lot lower if the cops are unmarked.

Perhaps cop helicopters should be marked with hot pink, so you can see them too in an emergency. Never mind how remote the odds of that happening are, right?

Thats ridiculous, and you know it is. The cop will likely see you before you see them, assuming one nearby hasnt already been radio'd from 911. If you are neglecting to dial 911 because you assume you can just flag a cop down, youre doing everyone in the emergency a huge injustice and theres a good chance you could get hit with negligence. We have a 911 system for a reason, and if its a true emergency the response time will be like 2-4 minutes.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[LordLimecat]

Level of caring is minimal. Im conservative, so I dont want the government doing a lot, but I would prefer those things that it DOES do (law enforcement) are actually effective.

If they can fund themselves catching people breaking the law, honestly more power to them.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[nedlohs]

Given they "think its their turn" they are going to get a ticket and hence "the message" from a marked police car as well.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Dishevel]

Sorry.
Did not know that you were fully aware of how big of an idiot you were.
Carry on.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

In most states in Australia you can and will be be fined for going 1km/hr over the speed limit. They legislated against reasonable discretion a number of years ago.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

An odometer measures the distance a vehicle has travelled and has nothing to do with the speed the car is travelling at.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting...I usually give people a sudden 'brake check' when they do this.
Also interesting is the driving 'rule of thumb' whereby you leave sufficient between you and the car in front.
Even more interesting is the fact that insurance claims, where you have rear-ended someone, is ALWAYS the fault of the rear car.

Trolling cops? Fucken straya hey

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jaymemaurice]

Since they have lights, cameras, radios, and friends with tools that can turn $1000 Z rated tires into litter... possibly more effectively then you'd wan't to risk...

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[F'Nok]

I will often give people behind me a brake check too.

However if the car behind you is a police car, they can decide that your sudden braking without cause was in fact reckless driving.

You might win that insurance claim, but you can still lose your licence in the process.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[jittles]

You didn't read the part about it being in Victoria, Australia?

I did. That is why I said "fast lane" instead of "left lane." I realize that some people forget to drive on the right side of the road. I do not live in Victoria, Australia. Most Slashdotters do not. I was giving an example of what I would do in the situation stated by the GP, and how the laws I am familiar with would support and, in theory, exonerate me. The second paragraph was me stating that, in the civilized world, a decent judge would punish a police officer for causing dangerous situations, regardless of law.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[alexo]

If you find a single biped not abusing sweeping privileges, please check for a pulse...

My wife gave me Sweeping Privileges, but I declined.

As he clearly said "a single biped", you do not qualify.

Re:Don't complain about crime then

[Anonymous Coward]

In Victoria (which is where one of these pages is about) the cops certainly will book you for 5KM/H over, and there is no 10% leeway. It's less than such here, about 3KM/H

The main purpose of these cars (here) is to catch speeding and other at times minor driving offenses.

At least it's not in the US...

[michael_rendier]

Here, you would be labeled an enemy of the state right off...Now if DARPA didn't have such a big hand in the facebook database...

Re:At least it's not in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you would be labeled a nigger if your mom was black, but she isn't. She just loves the big black cock...

Re:At least it's not in the US...

[AHuxley]

Yes you have to be careful using web 2.0 in the USA
They might get you under a "retaliation" law
http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-felony-police-facebook-508/

Not quite the surveillance state....

[Anonymous Coward]

....they were looking for.

Erm...

[Anonymous Coward]

saying saying??

Does anyone even read what they post on here anymore?

Re:Erm...

[gomiam]

No no, they don't don't ;)

can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Joe_Dragon]

can facebook face a accessory to murder change if a undercover cop gets killed from a post on it?

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Anonymous Coward]

These aren't fucking undercover. They're unmarked. And there's a huge fucking difference. And you're a fucking idiot.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Anonymous Coward]

can facebook face a accessory to murder change if a undercover cop gets killed from a post on it?

Yeah right. They hold about as much culpability here as the guy running the lead smelting machine at the plant used to make the bullet that killed the cop.

That being said, I'm sure someone will try. After all, that's what lawyers and courts are for, right? Bringing forth pointless cases will little or no merit for the express purpose of putting money into the courts or lawyers pockets.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not, you're a fucking retard. Who is going to use that Info to commit murder?

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[davester666]

corporations have no public responsibility. they are only responsible to their shareholders.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly I hope not. Every cop who isn't solving violent crimes should be shot directly in the face. No drug crimes, no crime period that isn't violent. If it isn't violent then it is not a crime IMHO. Bitch.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[1u3hr]

It's not "undercover cops" its "unmarked police cars". Basically its for traffic offences, not moles in international terrorist conspiracies.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey douchebag, can defense contractors face accessory to murder charges for killing millions of people in the middle east?

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[Anonymous Coward]

can facebook face a accessory to murder change if a undercover cop gets killed from a post on it?

Even were this a likely result of giving out details of unmarked vehicles used to spy on road users, no. To quote wikipedia (which is actually remarkably reliable on legal articles):

To be convicted of an accessory charge, the accused must generally be proved to have had actual knowledge that a crime was going to be, or had been, committed.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[sg_oneill]

Its Australia dude. Nobody is going to go about shooting at unmarked cop cars here.

Re:can facebook face a accessory to murder change

[mcgrew]

"Undercover cop?" I fucking HATE euphemisms. Call a spade a spade: It's secret police. If we had no victimless crimes we'd have no need for secret police.

But you can't have a police state without them, can you?

Wait, the police always said...

[FatLittleMonkey]

...if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Are they now saying that information can be misused by wrong-doers, and that privacy actually has a value?

Re:Wait, the police always said...

[girlintraining]

Are they now saying that information can be misused by wrong-doers, and that privacy actually has a value?

Almost. They're saying their privacy has value and your privacy doesn't. Although this is hardly the first time authority has claimed exemption from its own laws. While I'm sure there are earlier examples, it was Syrus who first said "Ad calamitatem quilibet rumor valet", which translated means "Every rumor is believed when directed against the unfortunate." That's how authority keeps people supporting it no matter how bad the justification is. I could be a police officer and right now get up, walk outside, and shoot the first person I see in the head. No reason whatsoever. But here's the thing: The human mind can't handle reasonless action. All actions require justification, and so we fill in what we don't know with what we expect. What we want.

In the end, the guy I just shot in the head, well... he deserved it. He must have done something. Why else would me, the nice police officer, have shot him?

And that's how they get you -- every time. Authority is always right because authority is always right because...

Re:Wait, the police always said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats Evil Doers... "Bush"

Re:Wait, the police always said...

[bingoUV]

Authority is always right because authority is always right because

In many times and places, one because is "because it is illegal to say otherwise".

Blasphemy, contempt of court for opining that the court judgement is wrong, etc. are examples.

Re:Wait, the police always said...

[hkmwbz]

They're saying their privacy has value and your privacy doesn't.

It is understandable that they would want privacy for people who are working undercover. Whether it's right or not is a different matter, but it's definitely an understandable wish due to the nature of the work being done.

Saying saying

[Anonymous Coward]

saying saying it cannot stop people...etc.. typo?

Undercover?

[radiumsoup]

Unmarked != undercover... or is that what Aussies call their unmarked cars?

Re:Undercover?

[Kinky Bass Junk]

You're absolutely correct - most of the vehicles on the page are unmarked highway patrol, a few detective vehicles but nothing I would consider 'undercover'. If they were undercover they wouldn't be in a vehicle that has radios and lights installed, they'd be using portables.

Re:Undercover?

[deniable]

Given the drivers are usually in uniform, I wouldn't call them undercover.

Re:Undercover?

[PPH]

Right. These are generally used for traffic enforcement. The real undercover cars are generally picked up short term from Rent-A-Wreck or whatever cheap local rental outfit you have there.

For unmarked traffic enforcement purposes, something that is popular and blends in is what they use. Speeders can't be bothered to check a list of plate numbers and knowing that the cops use a silver Honda Accord will just make them jump every time one of a few thousand identical cars goes by.

The real criminals are screwed because the cops generally don't stake them out using the same rental car twice. And new plates wouldn't be a show-stopper for the cops anyway.

Re:Undercover?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the record, no, we Aussies definitely do not use the term "undercover" to refer to "unmarked" police cars. We make the same distinction between those terms as others here have been making in their comments. Admittedly though, the Facebook pages referred to here actually do say "undercover", but after a quick perusal of the comments posted to those pages it comes as no surprise as those frequenting the pages do seem to be a bunch of illiterate twits.

Re:Undercover?

[Inda]

All the unmarked police cars in my town are actually marked. They're marked by the same colour and the licence plates all start with the same two letters.

All the car-modding forums have a thread detailing these observations but this is a Facepalm story, I mean Facebook story, so it must be a special story.

They should be thankful

[Hentes]

The list of people following the page is a good list of possible suspects. The police should be thankful of Facebook for doing their job for them.

Re:They should be thankful

[Yaotzin]

34,000 suspects is hardly an ideal situation.

Re:They should be thankful

[Jessified]

Suspects for what, traffic violations?

Re:They should be thankful

[Anonymous Coward]

It is when you're a police state

UC-Car vs UC-Cop

[Penurious Penguin]

Seems it aint so easy to do the same in the YouEssay -- at least not with an actual officer: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/melissa-walthall-texas-undercover-cop-facebook-arrest_n_1970479.html
So far, two people have been caged for that.

Re:UC-Car vs UC-Cop

[Revotron]

If the article is to be believed, she and a few other people posted a picture of the officer in retaliation for the officer testifying in a drug case against one of her friends. So, you've got a charge of retaliation for that offense, but since she actively identified the person as being an undercover cop, she also blew open any current cases the officer was working on, which would also open her up to obstruction of justice.

The article questions whether retaliation is a legitimate charge because it can only be pressed in the case of "intentional harm or threat to harm" through an unlawful act. Obstruction of justice is an unlawful act, and exposing an undercover police officer can open them up to violent assault by criminals they may have been working with. That they knowingly posted his picture and identified him as an undercover cop satisfies the "intentional" part - the threat to harm could come from the potential for harm in such an event, so the charges are certainly fair.

Just my two cents.

Re:UC-Car vs UC-Cop

[Baloroth]

Seems it aint so easy to do the same in the YouEssay -- at least not with an actual officer: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/melissa-walthall-texas-undercover-cop-facebook-arrest_n_1970479.html

The difference being those are actually undercover cops, not just unmarked cars (which the story is actually about), which usually contain uniformed police and are not terribly hard to identify (except in the dark).

Re:UC-Car vs UC-Cop

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no obligation for the populace to keep the government's secrets. That's why they make everyone sign a scary-looking nondisclosure agreement before granting access to them.

This is certainly retaliation, but it is the government retaliating against a citizen that is making their work more difficult. And if there is anything that a government worker hates, it is anything that requires them to demonstrate competence and diligence in their job.

Re:UC-Car vs UC-Cop

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about other countries but certainly in the UK everyone is bound by the Official Secrets Act to keep national secrets. People working with such information do sign the act but this is just a formality as it doesn't change what a person can and can't do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_Act#United_Kingdom_2

Re:UC-Car vs UC-Cop

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's retaliation from one citizen against another citizen for testifying in a court case. The fact that the target of the retaliation is also an undercover police officer whose safety relies on remaining undercover is just icing on the legal cake. Retaliating against someone for testifying against you in a court of law is not only immoral, but also illegal.

lern2law

Shoe on the other foot

[Gothmolly]

Sucks when the law works against you, doesn't it?

Good for facebook - teach these little hitlers that society works both ways. Being a part of the executive doesn't provide you with special privilege.

Re:Shoe on the other foot

[Xenkar]

Why call them little hitlers when you can more accurately describe them as authoritative sociopaths?

When you call them Hitler, you are defining them as something not everyone agrees on. Some people think Hitler is a hero. Some think he is the greatest mass murderer ever. But assuming Hitler is guilty of every piece of war propaganda slapped on him, you are lessening his crimes by equating them to people who don't want unmarked police car photos plastered all over the Internet.

Eventually "Hitler" will lose its impact as a shaming label if it is applied to everything. I believe that it would be good for it to lose effectiveness but then people will just move on a new shaming label. Perhaps it'll be Bush or Obama.

Re:Shoe on the other foot

[girlintraining]

Good for facebook - teach these little hitlers that society works both ways. Being a part of the executive doesn't provide you with special privilege.

You're complimenting Facebook... on protecting people's privacy? It's fitting that they're supporting others' loss of privacy... since they're the worst thing ever to happen to it.

Re:Shoe on the other foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Annnnnd cue Godwin's Law.

Re:Shoe on the other foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop being such a hitler-use nazi.

Re:Shoe on the other foot

[houghi]

Sucks when the law works against you, doesn't it?

It is good to see that we have an international lawyer who know what is and is not allowed in Australia vs. what is and is not allowed in e.g. the USofA.

Re:Shoe on the other foot

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been addressed in a pretty decent Law & Order episode 8 years ago.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0629285/

Don't break out the champagne.

[Anonymous Coward]

They may just add it to the Great Firewall of Australia instead.

Re:Don't break out the champagne.

[Anonymous Coward]

What in god's name did the poster above get voted down for? the rate we're going down here, that will become reality, dumb users with mod points strike again! /facepalm.

In 3, 2, 1....with apologies to Poe & Pink

[rmdingler]

"We're going to have shut down that Godforsaken internet before it cripples our ability to enforce the law and protect the citizens." Safety? How can you get any safety when you didn't eat your rights?

Trapster

[GeoBain]

How is this any different than an app like Trapster which just allows motorists to warn each other of speed traps?

Police didn't seem to care the last time

[MichaelSmith]

Crims hung out on Flinders street outside the WTC police offices and wrote down the rego plates of cars going in and out. It created a bit of a stir but they are entitled to hang out in public places and write things down.

Are they using them to fight crime?

[zippthorne]

If they're anything like the US, they're not really using the cars for fighting crime, they're using them to capriciously enforce traffic laws to generate revenue. It's quite a clever scam over here. They keep the enforcement just low enough that people get comfortable driving at a speed that is safe, but exceeds the posted limit. As long as they don't get too greedy, they can pick off a driver here and there and soak them with fines.

If they enforced better, either people would wise up and stick to the limit, or they would clamor for more just limits - the speed limit is a tax on your time that ought to be weighed against the presumed benefits. They use a mix of marked and unmarked vehicles (though the unmarked vehicles are still pretty identifiable by their dark color, illegal (but who's going to enforce it....) window tint levels, and utility equipment mounted to the front.) to make sure that people don't notice where the enforcement is taking place.

Re:Are they using them to fight crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have absolutely no empathy for traffic cops, especially when I see them doing things like turning on their lights just to make people get out of there way so they can pass traffic. An unmarked did this to me yesterday, turns the lights on and once I started to pull over he zoomed past me and turned his lights off. Second time such a thing has happened to me and it's an aggravating abuse of power.

Re:Are they using them to fight crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have absolutely no empathy for traffic cops, especially when I see them doing things like turning on their lights just to make people get out of there way so they can pass traffic. An unmarked did this to me yesterday, turns the lights on and once I started to pull over he zoomed past me and turned his lights off. Second time such a thing has happened to me and it's an aggravating abuse of power.

I had that happen to me one time. So I matched speed, and took down his plates, then dropped back. Two miles down the road I got pulled over. When the cop came to my window, I said "Hi, I'd like to report a crime. Either you have a cop illegally using his lights, or a cop illegally speeding by not using them, or you've got somebody impersonating a police officer. Here's the plate number, I'd like to file an official report." The cop blinked a couple times, said "Actually I just wanted to let you know one of your tail lights is out" and walked back to his car, got in, and left. I checked the next day, no report had been filed. So I filed a report about both incidents, and the end of a long story is two officers received reprimands and some unpaid vacation time. And no, neither of my tail lights were out.

Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook operates under a presumption, i.e. a vague understanding and in many cases a misunderstanding of USA legalities, laws and rules.

G of Australia operates under THEIR rules, which evolve by the minute to cover the illegal activities of the Australian Government Bureaucrats.

A possible solution to the crisis is for Australia to hire a killer, give him financing, send him to San Jose California, stalk the Starbucks Cafe's
near Facebook, and when the opportune moment arises, murder Mark Zuckerberg.

What is the matter people of Australia? You got an ITCH, SCRATCH the FUCKING ITCH. Get Some Balls! Use Some Money! Hire SomeONE
to do what you could never do!

I vote for the evaporation of Australia and all peoples of Australia from the face of the Earth in Celebration of Earth Week, just for the fun of it. .!.

These Aussie non stories are a crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

The idiotic undercover Aussie Slashdot "editors" are the criminals.

People interested in "News for Nerds. Things that Matter" are the victims.

Tie me fucking kangaroo down, mate.

Re:These Aussie non stories are a crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

The idiotic undercover Aussie Slashdot "editors" are the criminals.

People interested in "News for Nerds. Things that Matter" are the victims.

Tie me fucking kangaroo down, mate.

yep getting pretty sick of them myself.

Kim Dotcom reversal time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pardon the schadenfreude, but I for one, would love to see Zuckerberg's compound get raided and Facebook shut down.

Not outing the police? Wait....

[Anonymous Coward]

They say they're not outing the police (the people) just the cars. Yet there is one photo there with the officer pretty clearly visible, and making a joke that he didn't even see the photo being taken.
If they were really about not outing the police they would have blurred the photo.

Outing undercover cops might not be bad, either

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be a left wing activist and participated in quite a few completely non-violent demonstrations. I originally thought that the concept of cops being in the pocket of the right wing ("class police" is the old lefty term for them here) was outdated but that changed after they forced one of our non-violent demonstrations to disband. We were marching as usual and suddenly found ourselves surrounded by hundred of cops with riot shields: They didn't shout us any instructions or take any action, just prevented us from leaving. When people started climbing fences to get out of the area, a couple at a time, they did't stop anyone but that effectively forced people to leave slowly and in small groups and ended the demonstration. It was a horrifying experience for someone who not only had always thought of cops as friends but also was effectively in charge of a sixteen years old kid who had wanted to tag along.

After that moment I began to perceive the cops as enemy when on rallies, so I participated in spotting and distributing information on undercover cops that marched among us. It's relatively easy in a community where most left-wing rallies number in the hundreds, not in the thousands (Maybe two of the latter kind a year) as most regulars have some connection to some political party, youth organization or the like... So if you see someone suspicious often and can't find anyone who knows them and can't find plausible explanation when initiating a chat with them, you can be effectively certain they don't have good intentions.

I don't know whether increasing awareness of the cops among us ever had actual effect on anything but I certainly don't have a bad conscience for doing that.

A pig is a pig is a pig...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't cry when the police die cause they probably deserved it,
Run around with a badge and a gun
And they god damn fuck with everyone.
Enforce rules made by fools,
Violence and fear there tools
They dress to oppress with there laws they arrest
And they leave us powerless

The obvious thing to do

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious thing to do would be for police to flood the pages with pictures of cars that are not unmarked police cars, thereby rendering them useless.

They ARE preventing crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Overspeeding is a crime. A minor one compared murder yea, but it is still a crime : breaking the road rules & law.

Source is paywalled?

[Anonymous Coward]

So fucking find one that isn't:

Cars with big 'POLICE' logos are undercover?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, these FB contributors are a load of fsckin' morons

People driving the speed limit in the right lane,

[Anonymous Coward]

are in NO WAY the cause of any problem, nor do they bear any of the responsibility for the dangerous conditions. And the speed limit generally allows for 10-15 miles BELOW the limit, based on conditions and individual preference.

The dangerous conditions are entirely the responsiblity of the speeders and crazy lorry drivers, especially the arrogant self-absorbed pricks who think they have a personally-granted-god-given right to do whatever the fuck they want and break laws with impunity.

When you speed, especially when you are an arrogant prick about it, you endager me and everyone else on the road. So FUCK you.

Simple solution, really...

[Anonymous Coward]

Car just got burned off by a photo? No problem. Sell it, buy another car and charge it back to the Taxpayer. Problem solved.

Poison

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be easier for the police to quietly poison the page with a whole lot of false positives than making a media stink that just draws more attention to the issue??

Re:People driving the speed limit in the right lan

[jaymemaurice]

When one is an arrogant self-absorbed prick who thinks impeeding traffic is their personally-granted-god-given right, they cause other arrogant self-absorbed pricks to follow too close, pass improperly or try and "make up time" - so collectively all such pricks create the situation for all motorists...

Unlike the 60's (when the speed limits were set) - your car won't just explode when you cross 70mph.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Speeders don't have time to check every licence plate as they're whzzing past. However, a car-mounted ANPR [Automatic Number Plate Recognition] system could do this task quite adequately. Such a system may be illegal in your jurisdiction but it would be perfectly acceptable if it was part of a homebrew accident recording/theft prevention system.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm one of the multitude who watches Facebook's share drop every week in the anticipation that it folds as soon as possible.

However, in Facebook's quest for free speech^W^W clicks, eyeballs and the almighty dollar, they are being fairly even-handed in undermining everyone's privacy, whether you're a gay Texan teenager or an Australian cop.