Police chief savages 'above the law' drivers

Mark Lammas

Many "white-collar, middle New Zealanders" think they are above the law and should not be given speeding tickets, says a top police officer.

Central District Commander Mark Lammas made the comment when asked whether he supported calls to separate traffic enforcement from police.

The calls, from the Police Association and New Zealand First, followed renewed debate about whether police bosses gave staff speed ticket quotas.

A leaked memo from Mr Lammas' district suggested they did, contrary to official denials.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor believes the inclusion of traffic duties in police work has negatively affected the public's attitude to police.

Mr Lammas told the Herald he did not believe the merger should be reversed.

"What we do need to do is do a better job in educating some white-collar, middle New Zealanders who are not used to being on the end of police enforcement.

"The poor old blue-collar people are - they've accepted many years ago that police are there to enforce.

"But there is a proportion of middle New Zealand, white-collar, who believe police are there to enforce against someone else, but not them, and that's a big part of the issue."

"If you look at some of the things they have been saying, they are absolutely pathetic. Like 'it was a straight piece of road and I know it's safe to do 120km/h. Horrible police officer stops me and gives me a ticket."'

"Oh, how awful," Mr Lammas said.

"If we accept that why don't we just have a rule that as long as you're driving safely, police won't take any enforcement action? Simple.

"And then we wonder why so many people are dying on the road. And of course we all think that we're great drivers and we think that most other people out there are killers."

Police Commissioner Howard Broad went to ground on the quota issue yesterday, refusing to speak again on the issue until he had cleared up the policy confusion.

Mr Broad and Police Minister Annette King said on Monday that police had no ticket quotas.

But subsequent police comments have undermined their stance.

On Monday, Mr Broad said he intended to clarify with district commanders "that the language we use when we interpret the performance expectations of the police is not the language of expected targets of infringement tickets".

But he also accepted it was likely officers interpreting the directions "would be more likely to quantify it in terms of a specific number of infringements".

It appears part of the Government and the commissioner's office long-term strategy is to deny the imposition of "national quotas", while glossing over the ticket targets imposed in police districts.

Tasman District police roading manager Inspector Hugh Flower further undercut the claims yesterday.

Since 2003, officers in his region had been "directed to meet a target of one ticket per hour".

"I don't know if it's a quota because there's no maximum on the number of tickets they can issue," he said.

"From my point of view I don't mind what you call it."