Diversity appeal for entering force

While often seen as simply a means for living, a job or life-long career presents many rewards.

For some people, this comes in the way of money, personal satisfaction or accomplishment.

For the men and women who police the region’s roads and ensure the safety of drivers, it’s the chance to save someone from ruining their own, and others’, lives.

Road policing and community safety manager Brendan Broadbent is critically aware of the importance his role in Victoria Police plays, particularly in the Wimmera region where fatigue and driver distraction is a prevalent cause of collisions and road accidents.

Senior Sergeant Broadbent has been with the organisation for 31 years, and only recently started in the newly introduced managing role, which encompasses aspects of road policing, as well as emergency management and proactive policing.

He said the more he understood about road policing and its necessity in ensuring community safety, the more he ‘sunk his teeth’ into the role.

“Given our location, road policing is a crucially important part of what we do,” he said.

“We’re halfway between Melbourne and Adelaide, and particularly on those long weekends, the driver fatigue that starts to hit about three hours into a journey is something we see quite frequently. And because we get a lot of fatigue-related incidents, it’s something we try to focus on and put measures in place to combat.

“We also know the value of having a high police-presence on our roads.

“When drivers see a police vehicle, particularly a highway patrol vehicle, we know their behaviour changes and this helps minimise risk.

“The reward at the end of the day is that we that we don’t see carnage.

“We don’t have to tell someone’s friends and family that their loved one has passed away, and we don’t see people absolutely ruining their lives because of a small wrong action or accident while on the road.”

Sen Sgt Broadbent said police capabilities when it came to road policing had markedly changed over the years because of new and improving technology, allowing members to more efficiently and effectively combat poor driver behaviour and potential community risks.

He said much of this technology would be on show for people to view and ask about as part of Horsham’s Police Expo on March 28, an event he will be attending.

“When it comes to road policing, the greatest area of advancement has been in intelligence-led policing, where we’re now looking deep into why collisions occur to give us a better understanding of areas to focus on to prevent risks,” he said.

“For instance, we know the factors that come into play in pretty much every collision we see are speeding, drugs and alcohol, and fatigue and driver distraction.

“Technological advances have allowed us to look at trends and use this information to deal with risks before they occur.”

Sen Sgt Broadbent said because of the nature of his job and policing in general, things were always changing.

He said that, as a result, he had learnt to expect the unexpected each day he was on the job.

“We can’t really rest on our laurels, because the world is always changing and we have to change with it,” he said.

“Policing, in general, is something where you just never know when something is going to happen.

“You can wake up one morning with an idea of what you might do, and by the end of the day you’ve ticked off half a dozen things you didn’t even consider would be part of that.

“There’s also a variety of roles, jobs and opportunities, so if you get sick of a particular job there is a million different ones you can take on to invigorate your career.”

For Leading Senior Constable Kendall Seater, a desire to fill each day with the ‘unexpected’ was exactly what led him to start his current role with Victoria Police.

Snr Const Seater joined the organisation in 2006, and after spending time as a general duty police officer and also working as part of the sexual offences and child abuse investigation team, he is now part of the crime investigation unit with a role in forensic collection.

Snr Const Seater said he works with one other police officer in Horsham and four in Stawell to cover crimes occurring from Ararat to the border.

“Each day we check the crimes that have happened in the area and process and document evidence for a later date, or perhaps for use in court,” he said.

“That might include looking for finger prints and lifting DNA, analysing the scene of the crime or looking at blood splatter – it’s all things we have been trained to do.

“We pass that evidence and findings on to the detective or investigator to give them the biggest chance of catching the offender.

“It’s definitely not a mundane job. You get to meet a lot of people and every day is interesting and different.

“That’s what I like about it the most, there’s always something unexpected each day.”

The Police Expo in Horsham, in conjunction with an inaugural Cops and Robbers Wimmera River Parkrun, will be at Sawyer Park from 8am to 10am and include a free barbecue breakfast.