Kerre Woodham: Police put the brake on those above speed limits

The story last week showing a memo that seemed to suggest coppers were out there looking for speeding motorists to fill their quotas was heavenly mana for talkback hosts.

There is a constituency among middle-aged male talkback callers that seems to think that they should be entitled to drive as fast as they like, where they like, and no bloody cop should be getting in their way.

Cops should be chasing real criminals, not innocent law-abiding men in their expensive late-model cars that were built to be driven fast by skilled drivers like themselves.

The cops deny they have a quota - they concede they have performance standards, as they do in every other field of policing but, by crikey, you can't call them quotas.

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, and a speeding ticket issued under a quota or a performance standard would still have the same sting. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to thwart the cops and their quotas, don't speed. You know what the limit is, and if you go over it and you get caught, you'll get pinged.

It's all very well, banging on about kids needing to understand the consequences of their actions - a little maturity on the part of these invincible men would be helpful.

Speed, if you must, but don't come whining to me when you get caught.