Road warrior takes exit to retirement
A SENIOR road policing cop has seen some tough situations during almost 40 years on the job.
But now Senior Sergeant Brendan White is drawing a close on his career after 37 years.
Sen-sgt White spent 15 years in the Accident Investigation Squad – now the Forensic Crash Unit – where he attended up to 50 serious and fatal crashes.
“I think that sort of thing stays with you, even probably when I retire,” he said. “It’s not something that you worry about but you always will remember it and I think that just goes with the job.”
Sen-sgt White, who heads the Townsville Road Policing Unit, said he was looking forward to taking a back seat in home life when he retires at the end of next week.
Originally from Mackay, Sen-sgt White began his career in Gympie in 1980, where he spent nine months before being posted to Townsville.
“I was handed a handheld radar the first day I turned up and given the keys to a car,” he said. “(I got) a quick instruction on how to operate the radar and got told to go out and do some patrolling.
“And so I did. And thought, ‘well this is great’.”
Sen-sgt White said the biggest change in his time I had been technology. Despite dealing with some tough situations on the road, there were good times for the veteran police officer too.
“Well funnily enough with road policing you wouldn’t think that people would thank you for getting a ticket,” Sen-sgt White said.
“But we’ve had people come up (as) they’re now parents and they’ve recognised me and thanked me for giving them a ticket … locking them up for drink-driving, something like that, and said it has changed their life.
“They decided to pull their head in. So it is a good feeling, you know, even if you only change one person’s life.”
Sen-sgt White said he already had plans for retirement and would head overseas just four days after walking out of the station for the final time.
Townsville Police Inspector Sean Dugger praised SenSgt White on his career and said retirement was well deserved.
“We’re glad that he has actually dedicated his efforts into improving the safety, preventing accidents,” he said.
“It’s not only about enforcing traffic laws it’s actually preventing serious fatalities.
“The work that Brendan and his team do – it can’t be measured.”