What to do When a Policeman loses touch with Humanity?
Today some friends are burying their father who died last week after his health took a sudden downturn. One of them, Penny got the urgent call to get to hospital. Penny is a conservative driver at the best of times and on this occasion was aiming to get through traffic as best as she could to try to be with her father before he died. Her driving (she admits she was speeding but certainly not at ‘hoon’ level or even the upper end of a fine level) attracted the attention of a Policeman who pulled her over. Getting a ticket was the far from the most significant issue on her mind, and Penny admitted she was speeding, explained what was happening and hoped the Policeman in question would allow her to proceed on her way. Time was of the essence. He didn’t – instead he held Penny up for what seemed like an inordinately long period of time (over 12 minutes), in what, I can only assume was some form of ‘lesson’ whilst he wrote out the ticket. Penny didn’t make it to hospital before her father had died arriving about four minutes after he had passed away. One of our group duly described the policeman in question as in pretty unfrienly terms. Maybe, but that would assume…
the actions of the policeman were deliberate. As an ex Policeofficer I suspect that in this instance, he has lost touch with the humanity aspect of policing. After all, here was an opportunity to assist someone in need. Perhaps a guided escort was possible? Perhaps some understanding was possible? Perhaps a chance to give a quick lecture and a suggestion to be careful. But no. Penny was not speeding excessively – even the ticket shows what the Policeman thought given the fine. Given it is the International year of Solutions, I need to offer one:
This person needs to be given a chance to be re-educated in the roles of policing. Where speed cameras have minimal understanding and offer no discretion or acceptance of context, humans do and the Force ought to give this person an opportunity to re-connect.
He ought to be prevented from issuing any tickets for the next three months – instead, any issues worth pursuing should be done so only by summons. The extra workload and paperwork will allow him to take pause to consider the story of the person and if their story is of minimal relevence, issue a summons. Otherwise he’ll have to listen to the person he is talking with;
And Penny should not have to pay the fine – her loss of not being able to make it to hospital on time to be with her father is a penalty of such significance that the speeding ticket is an insult that merely highlights this officer’s disconnect. So I’ll be offering to pay it on her behalf
I’ll be talking with Vicki Kerrigan again this afternoon, this time discussing robotics as in-home carers. I’m due on at about 4.45pm Darwin time which is around 5.15pm on the eastern seaboard. You can listen to the audio stream via the link below http://www.abc.net.au/darwin/programs/webcam_radio.htm?ref=listenlive If all things go well, I’ll record the session and…
Read More >I recently attended a session with South East Business Networks where the CEO of Siemens Australasia provided some great ideas as to where Australian Manufacturing was headed and could go, and indeed perhaps needed to go. What I found most useful from Allan Goller’s perspective was the encouragement for businesses to just get on with…
Read More >In this very brief chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin, we kick off the discussion of the future of clothing – not the ‘style’ elements but the functional elements like capturing perspiration to convert for water. You can listen to the audio via the link available here – cue it up about a…
Read More >Marcus Barber will present the case study of his work with Central Highlands Water and their use of Scenarios for Strategy setting at World Water Week in Stockholm this Thursday. You can follow the twitter feed via #watermanagement, #rightfuture or #wwweek This case study looks at the flaws in a reliance on forecasting as the…
Read More >A quick note for the history buffs among us – in this month of August fifty years ago, the first components of the Berlin Wall were constructed with rings of barbed wire severing Berlin into visually distinct west and east Berlin. Russia’s main challenge at that time was the 10,000 or so East Germans each…
Read More >Let me start by saying that my Masters of Science qualification is NOT held in economics and with that said I’m holding an interested person’s perspective toward wanting to know ‘why’ and ‘how’. I have some questions and thoughts about the theory of Supply and Demand and would be happy to have some feedback from…
Read More >Below you’ll find this afternoon’s discussion with ABC Darwin radio in which host Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber about the emerging research into lab grown meat as a potential addition to or replacement of, existing livestock farming methods. The program streamed live on 105.7 ABC Darwin this afternoon, discussing the University of…
Read More >Continuing the futures discussions on ABC Darwin Radio, this time with Paul Dale who is filling in for Vicki Kerrigan whilst Vicki is handling the breakfast time slot, we discuss some of the conference sessions at the World Futures Conference here in Vancouver You can listen to the audio stream here and cue this…
Read More >My slides from today’s presentation on ‘Getting You Future Right’ can be found at the link below To those at the session, my apologies for the technical challenges and hope these slides can provide more context for you – contact me if you have any questions. Access the Slides Here
Read More >Here’s the upload of my conversation with Vicki Kerrigan at ABC Radio Darwin. In it I offer the first three of ten steps designed to help you get your future right. In last week’s session I left Vicki with a question to ponder: Is my life headed where I want it to go, and if…
Read More >