Old-school copper calls time
Impatient drivers are the biggest threat on New Zealand’s roads, a departing blue-line stalwart says.
Senior Constable Tony Young retires as the man understood to be New Zealand’s longest-serving police officer on Friday, but after 52 years he still struggles to describe the number of deaths on our roads.
The Rangitı¯kei officer, who has devoted his career to road policing, said although attitudes against drink-driving and speeding had hardened since he started as a 17-year-old cadet in 1966, social attitudes hadn’t.
There were more cars on the road than ever before and it appeared being second in a queue was no longer OK, Young said.
Drivers these days felt they needed to get to their destination as quick as they could.
‘‘It’s as if being on the road is wasted time,’’ he said.
But driving at the wrong speed in the wrong conditions meant physics would eventually catch up.
Not long before the Easterholiday period finished, a fatal crash in Northland took the official road toll to six.
A horror smash on Good Friday claimed the lives of two young children on the Desert Road. Their mother is in a critical condition at Waikato Hospital and their father suffered moderate injuries.
According to New Zealand Transport Agency statistics, 94 people have died on the country’s roads since January, compared with 84 for the same time last year.
Crashes weren’t just a number, they were real people losing family members, Young said.
As a watchdog for New Zealand’s highways and byways, Young recalled working in small, isolated communities like Gisborne, Ruato¯ ria and Eltham.
Residents would become family members and the hardest part of the job was attending crashes to find people he knew dead.
‘‘That got to me in Eltham. We went to this one crash and a mother and son were dead... and we had just been on a school camp with them. It hits you pretty hard.’’
But people were taking more responsibility when it came to drink-driving, he said.
In the 1980s, he caught about 30-40 drunk drivers one night during a sting in Whanganui.
‘‘They’re not getting those numbers any more.
‘‘What you’re getting now is a lot of impatient drivers and they’re taking risks to get where they want to go.
‘‘They want to overtake in silly places and do silly things.’’
Cellphones have created another distraction for drivers and a headache for traffic cops, he said.
It hasn’t been all flashing lights and infringement tickets. He helped people first and enforced second, he said, such as when he helped a boy who couldn’t read or write to sit his driver’s licence.
‘‘I went into his house and I read the questions out. We sat down for a couple of hours and did the test that way.
‘‘Those are the things you remember, the people you helped.’’
Since 2000, he has worked with the commercial vehicle safety team, based at the weigh station near Ohakea airbase.
Acting Senior Sergeant Aaron Bunker said the experience Young added to his team would be irreplaceable. ‘‘He was a mentor for our younger guys... and he found ways to change people’s lives.’’
As Young’s final day drew near he was most proud of never being assaulted. ‘‘Perhaps this could be put down to the respectful way I treated people, speaking to them as I would like them to speak to me.’’
Not bad for a Taranaki boy who never considered a career with the constabulary before his final school year.