Senior Constable Deb Hann – On the Beat
We are halfway through the school holidays already. I hope that everyone manages some time off with family.
School holidays always see more traffic on the roads and children on the streets. I am giving another reminder to plan your travel, allow plenty of time and ensure you take regular breaks. Keeping speed down increases your chance of survival in a crash while also providing more time for you to avoid one, by taking evasive action in the case of bad driving by others.
If the weather is foggy be sure to have your lights on. Be safe and be seen, as they say. As prominent as the speed messaging has been from police, one of our team this week caught a driver travelling 185kmh on a 100km rural road. It is incredulous to me that people continue to travel at such speeds in complete disregard of their own and other’s safety. If you see dangerous driving, take down the registration and vehicle description and report it to 111 immediately. If you don’t, there is a risk such driving could lead to irreversible trauma or the death of the driver or others.
In the past week, Cambridge staff also prevented what would have surely been a shoplifting spree in town. Staff got an alert that a stolen vehicle had triggered an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) CCTV camera at a service station, so they began doing patrols in town to locate it. They found it in the CBD on Victoria street. They signalled it to stop but the vehicle failed to stop.
A female occupant from the car was believed to be behaving suspiciously inside a nearby shop at the same time. Despite our best efforts, the stolen car fled away from Cambridge, driving dangerously. We received information soon afterwards of a second theft, by the same people, that had not been reported to 111 earlier.
Enquiries are continuing to locate the thieves and hold them to account. It highlights the importance of ringing 111 at the time offending is happening (or immediately after) and how one group of offenders will steal from a string of shops in town unless they are disrupted.
It is a good idea for shopkeepers to have a loss prevention procedure in place which all staff are familiar with in. I am happy to provide assistance with this if required. Have a good week everyone and keep up the reporting.
