A message from Rockingham’s top cop

Hello again, I hope everyone is well.

This week was a special week for lots of children starting their first year of school and many others heading back.

It is timely to remind everyone to take care on the roads. From the week just past there will be a lot more children on bikes and walking to school so it is important that we remember to look out for bikes and pedestrians, especially around schools, bus stops and crosswalks.

Remember the school speed limit zones are in force again now school is back, so observe the 40km/h speed limit within school zones between 7.30am and 9.00am and 2.30pm and 4.00pm.

I’d also like to remind everyone of the speed limits on WA roads, sometimes it can be confusing knowing what the speed limit is in an area, especially where no speed signs are posted.

In these cases you should always remember that the default speed limit is 50km/h.

These zones are usually enforced where there are high levels of pedestrian activity like shopping or entertainment precincts and around housing estates. Higher speed limits between 60km/h and 90km/h are usually reserved for arterial roads and are usually identified by posted speed signs.

Speeds up to 100km/h may also be used for major roads like Mandurah Rd and Ennis Ave.

These roads will always reduce down to 80km/h approaching an intersection controlled by traffic lights and will only increase back to a higher speed limit if there is another posted speed sign. The maximum speed limit in WA is 110km/h, but this speed is only reserved for roads outside built-up or metropolitan areas, like country roads.

Hopefully this makes it a little clearer and will prevent you from receiving one of those dreaded infringement notices in the mail.

While on the subject of speeding, I’d like to talk about hoon driving, which is something that really does bother many people.

A hoon driver is someone who drives at high speed or in a manner that is dangerous or antisocial.

Examples include intentionally causing the tyres to lose traction or spinning your wheels, causing a vehicle to make excessive noise or smoke, doing a burnout, exceeding the speed limit by 45km/h or more in any posted or default speed zone or engaging in a race or speed trial on a public road or in a public space.

Vehicles being driven in a reckless or a dangerous manner can be impounded by police and the responsibility for paying for towing and storage of the vehicle is the responsibility of the driver.

A person may also have their vehicle impounded if they drive while disqualified or while under suspension.

If a person continually drives in a reckless or dangerous manner, a court may also confiscate the vehicle permanently.

For more information about hoon driving, reporting hoon behaviour and vehicle seizures please see the WA Police website at www.police.wa.gov.au.

I have recently been looking at our grades of service over November to January, these are usually our busiest periods for reports to police for offences and calls for assistance.

Comparing our response times to November 2019 we have made a 43 per cent improvement in responding to priority three tasks and a 19 per cent improvement in responding to the more urgent priority one and two tasks.

This is significant because over the last couple of months we have been working hard to improve our output and work harder to meet the needs of the community and I’m happy to say some of our strategies are clearly working.

Over the next few articles I will provide some more information for you about our crime statistics and try to explain how we measure our performance.

Thanks once again for listening to me, if there is anything more specific you would like me to write about, please contact me at the Rockingham Police Station.

I look forward to seeing you next time.