Police commissioner Andrew Coster announces changes to police fleeing driver policy are coming
A “significant increase” in fleeing drivers along with a decrease in the number of offenders identified has led to the police’s fleeing driver policy being changed again.
Police commissioner Andrew Coster announced this morning that the police pursuit policy would be reviewed next year and a Fleeing Driver Framework would be introduced.
Police’s pursuit policy changed in 2020 following a series of high-profile deaths.
The changes have been forced by the media’s never ending love affair with ram raiding clickbait. The public have been whipped into a frenzy of youth crime fear (despite there being less than 100 youth ram raiders, 80% of whom are known to welfare agencies) and have demanded ‘something be done’.
So things are being done.
The Police chase policy was modified after they found their toll trained drivers see red mist and continue pursuit even when it is dangerous and causes crashes.
Social policy that continues to kill at the high rate the police chase policy did has to be challenged and modified.
67 people died during police pursuits between 2009 and 2018.
You can’t have almost 70 people dying in a decade due to police chases and call that policy successful!
People shouldn’t die from social policy.
Right now however the public are frightened by youth ram raiders, so Police have to say they have changed their chase policy.
And that position will hold, right up until they chase some kids to death or they smash into innocent people.
Then the policy will be immediately reviewed.
This is window dressing policy to look like something is being done, which is what you can also say about the new powers being hyped as a means to shut down youth criminals…
Police handed harsher enforcement tools to deal with fleeing drivers
Police Minister Chris Hipkins and Minister of Justice Kiri Allan said the laws are changing so police have more enforcement options when dealing with dangerous drivers.
The tools announced today are:
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- Increase the maximum driver licence disqualification period for a second offence of failing to stop or remain stopped, from 12 months to between 12 and 24 months
- Amend the Sentencing Act 2002 so a vehicle can be forfeited on conviction for failing to stop. Offenders could have their vehicle permanently removed, and would not get any proceeds from the sale back
- Allow police to impound a vehicle for 28 days if the owner fails, refuses, or provides false or misleading information about the identity of a driver from a fleeing driver event.
…this impacts fleeing drivers but being sold as a solution to the ram raids and being used to counter the ‘soft-on-crime’ narrative the Opposition have generated about predictable youth crime post a universal traumatic experience like Covid.
I will hazard a guess that most ram raiders aren’t driving their own car so threats of impounding or taking the vehicle they have stolen for their crime is not really much of a threat.
It’s less ‘soft-on-crime’ and more ‘modestly-helpful-against-crime’.
People are frightened, and angry most decisions made when people are frightened and angry don’t work well.
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This government has realized too late that they’re losing votes over the crime issue, so Ardern has phoned her mate Costa to at least pretend to be doing something.
And you pretend to be intelligent, stop it!
Just think. THose 67 deaths could have easily been avoided, if the drivers actually stopped on request!!!
Bomber, it takes two to tango and blaming police policy for deaths is stupid as blaming deaths from drug overdose on poor parenting.
Somewhere, sometime persons have to take responsibility for their own actions.
STOP blaming policy and governance decisions
Woke have taken personal responsibility out of the equation and now we have people from all walks of life taking the p*ss and even worse harming others financially and physically with more support from government than people doing the right thing!
I hope it’s not just any police that can do this. The public are supposed to follow speed limits because it’s supposedly unsafe to drive at 101ks down a straight motorway, whereas the average police officer will be ok to do 90 down a suburban street? Is the average officer really a much better driver than Joe Public or the wankers they are chasing?
Wheel. “ Is the average officer really a much better driver…?” Probably, in that chased vehicles are the ones which crash in greater numbers than the police do, driving including into stationary objects, and veering off course. Police officers are also less likely to have been drinking or taking drugs which can impair judgment and reflexes.
Very good intelligent response Hollyhock.
Really Hollyhock? Why do you need to chase someone who crashes into stationary objects? That doesn’t sound like they would get away does it? On the face it they makes no sense
Really Hollyhock? Why do you need to chase someone who crashes into stationary objects? That doesn’t sound like they would get away does it? On the face it they makes no sense
Wheel. Seems to me that some of these speeding flee’ers do crash into stationary objects like eg trees and fences and parked cars, but that the police officers coming up behind them don’t seem to crash into trees and fences and parked cars en route. That could be because the police are more adept at driving cars.
When the chased do crash, and they live to tell the tale, they complain that it wouldn’t have happened if the cops hadn’t chased them. In fact a Wellington real estate agent whose son crashed, wrote a letter to the paper saying that her son wouldn’t have crashed had it not been for the police pursuing him.
Guess I’ve been stopped by cops five or six times over the years, and not chased by them, because I stop, even when it’s been inconvenient to do so. Seems quite a good way to avoid being chased.
I would question whether the police are more adept at driving cars at high speeds. I also hardly think the change is anything to do with chasing impaired drivers at all. Look at the rate of police shootings here compared to other countries. It’s not highly trained armed offenders squad members shooting people in the back that are running in the opposite direction. It’s average police patrols. If they are going conduct chases I think they need a lot of training on exercising better judgment.
The tinkering with the law for drivers who fail to stop is just ridiculous. It is a tickle up of Judith’s last pointless effort with the same problem. There’s no other way of describing it! I want to give Labour a bone at least now and then just to be fair but for Gods sake, what is that supposed to achieve Chippy?
The cars that don’t stop are just about always stolen!
The losers not stopping don’t have licences to lose.
They don’t give a flying fuck!
Unless some miracle occurs if they don’t stop and when the police don’t pursue, the chances of police carrying out the intent of the law is about as pointless as it is now. Wait for the aforementioned car to be reported “stolen”!
Labour are on empty aren’t they?
Still, apart from substantial ideological constitutional law changes, done in secret, an earnest choreographed pointless announcement is about all they can manage.
Yes XRAY, I too was amazed to hear about the plan to destroy cars. Hey, the actual owners of those cars are gonna love that idea.
Yes. There you have it
Woke advising and brainwashing Labour who come out with the more media driven reactive stupidity, that the majority of public can work out is pathetic and often makes it worse.
The problem is for every problem there are now 5 task forces full of their woke buddies – no experts allowed into the fold of woke segregation to advise on practical matters based on science not woke cult science.
Well it’s a great policy if wankfest Xray is still complaining everything Labour and I mean everything!
Some Police officers are taking their jobs too seriously these days. This year I have seen the most patrol cars on the roads. But most Police officers are still well trained, look smart, and do their jobs efficiently.
There is this rogue element though which appear to be trying to take control and they have the government working in their favour to pass through legislation which gives them an increase in the scope of their authority.
However, there is also a progressive element within the New Zealand Police force which advocates decriminalization of cannabis and more liberal social laws.
It is a very interesting period of time.
Every adult involved in this decision – Hipkins, Allen, Coster, knows that lack of a license or car isn’t an obstacle to these drivers, and yet again they assume that we’re gullible enough to believe their hogwash.
Nothing politicians do surprises me any more, but I’m surprised at Andrew Coster who it would behove to be seen to be independent, but I suppose that if he were he’d run the risk of being dumped, just the way the independent Commissioner for Vulnerable Children is being kicked out.
Police chases don’t kill people – fleeing drivers do.
Yes Daft (an apt name for a daft comment) fleeing drivers who are fleeing from the Police kill because they are so desperate to get away.
Surely you’re not serious?
Satire or sarcasm surely?
Covid is pa. Then explain why young unarmed Constable Matthew Hunt was shot dead when approaching a crashed car to see if he could help the gang member who’d crashed it ?
And if the crashed driver, who murdered a single mother’s only son was so desperate to get away, then why did he shoot the other police officer four times, in the back when the police officer was running away to avoid getting shot himself ? Did he think that the fleeing cop would change his mind, and turn around and come back so he shot him first, in the back ? Some man.
Fleeing drivers are fleeing from something, and you seem to think that it doesn’t matter if they put other people’s lives at risk when doing so or if actually kill other people in the process. Well, let me tell you something, it does matter, and it always matters.
I would have thought that the MSM are responsible for most of the carnage in society as they constantly imply that the police are powerless & will not take any preventative action which of course encourages the simple-minded to embark on a crime spree.
The problem in NZ, is that the wrong things for society are now easier and have less enforcement than people doing the right things. This is increasingly why lawful people are unhappy living in NZ.
The ram raiders and criminals get to drive off and break the law without the police being visible in pursuit while every day working class people are being stopped for fines to do with parking and traffic infringements.
There seems to be more law enforcement interest in revenue raising from the middle class than stopping criminals because the middle class are an easy targets – enough money to pay fines but not enough money to draw out the legal challenges in court. (aka no real effort to prevent professional crims lower class, professional crims billionaire class from offending). Whether you are a billionaire who doesn’t pay their bills and destroys assets in NZ https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117047209/waiwera-group-run-by-russian-businessman-placed-in-liquidation to getting off drink driving here https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/russian-let-off-drink-drive-count/6MX7QV5OLTX3PVDRKTFPATTBTU/ NZ is wonderful for those people who are above the law and increasingly more and more people identify as being in that category.
It’s not just the ram raiders that get very little consequences and enforcement in NZ!! Most people are financially a lot better off victimising others here while woke and our legal system let them off!
Another big issue here – you are often better off being out of work on benefits than having a job. That is because the benefits of being a woke idol (unemployed or on benefits, under employed) rather than working the new 50 hour week starting at 6am for minimum wages in Auckland – which surprisingly (GASP) are not attractive and require immigration scams to get workers to take it up are not creating the voluntary slave work ethic that the slavers require.
Why bother you can get a weeks worth of cash by stealing a car and ram raiding through a business while also being on the dole or some other benefit for your daily needs. If you go to prison you are also first in line for emergency accomodation and state housing.
NZ is out of control and the woke are enabling it so that the right wingers will get back into power and quite frankly maybe they need to, as everyone is sick of wokies coddling terrorists and criminals here. Even the corrections adds are suggesting that people in prison are lovely people who are just misunderstood. Maybe some, but not all!!!!!! All messages, subtle and direct seem to suggest crime is ok here.
Lefties have allowed the left to become a joke – for example only working out recently that Kiwibuild policy is a rebranded failed Thatcher policy of privatisation.
Where was the outrage when they announced Kiwibuild!!
Lefties stop protecting stupid people and policy, as it is very harmful to society having the lefties team up with the righties for stupid policy that destroys the welfare system from the inside out and now enabling harmful, selfish, sick people to expand in NZ in the name of their woke agenda which is strangely similar to the right wing policies!
you speed offand end up dead that’s on you…
and the nats and LINO will go with whatever their hand picked focus groups tell them is popular in any given week.
Just had a brain wave or brain fart..not sure. Wonder if we can send the troubled teens on volunteer tourism in villages of Cambodia, Vietnam etc, for 6 months or so. They could use whatever skills they have to assist the people, e.g. building classrooms, wells etc. Learn to look after themselves, cooking, cleaning, washing. It will take them away from current environment, and get different perspective on life.
Too right Benny. Get a different perspective the key. Plenty of distractions there too however but all good. The making of them!
Benny. Good idea. I used to think that if every public servant in Wellington had to spend one year working abroad in another country, it could change their whole myopic incestuous outlook on life. Any country would do really. Your suggestion goes further, and it’s a beauty.
Not sure why Mike Hosking has his photo up. Maybe he’s representative of the red-neck “chase ’em ’til you get ’em” mob.
Until his flash car is smashed up as the innocent by-product of a chase. Or one of his kids is wiped out in the mayhem of a chase. Then the policy will be the worst in the world, the Commissioner and the Minister should resign
They don’t mind the carnage, it’s just that they can’t imagine themselves and family being involved.
Pleased to see Mike’s photo up there he deserves publicity because he’s sensible.
He doesn’t need publicity, mind you, given he’s the most popular broadcaster in New Zealand.
Lolz!
We have had ‘ punch a Pom’ days. Let’s now have ‘Cuddle a Crim day’ that way they will feel loved and valued by society.
While there may well be good reasons not to chase, I think the worst one is the one the media always uses… ‘muh poor back seat passengers’.
While a teenager, I once put a friendly chokehold on the guy driving as a joke. Anyone in the backseat of a car fleeing police could do the same, starting as a joke and ratcheting up from there.
Fleeing Driver Framework. Another slogoan for my t-shirts. I am going to make a lot of money with them.
– Fleeing Driver Framework
– Well Being Budget
– Shovel Ready
– 3 now 5 waters
– I reject the premise
etc….order now – $20 each
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