Mar 2001 Volume 82 Number 3
"serving the protectors"
| Mar 2001 Volume 82 Number 3 "serving the protectors" |
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RIDING ON DANGEROUS GROUND |
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| by Brett Williams |
The road in front of Stephen Howard started to disappear as he cycled along King William St in 1996. An 11-tonne bus had begun to veer toward the kerb, leaving him with fast-diminishing space between the two. He had nowhere to turn, and faced the risk of a crushing death.
Luckily, he slammed on his brakes quickly enough to save his life – or at least to avoid serious injury. But, as a member of SAPOL’s then newly formed Bicycle Patrols, he was yet to take two tumbles over his handlebars and land on bitumen.
The risks to Howard, 36, and his colleagues are endless. But no one would expect city streets – with their drunk, aggressive drivers and tense peak-hour commuters – to be safe for uniformed cops on mountain bikes.
“They have to be on their mettle,” says Adelaide Bicycle Patrols overseer, Senior Sergeant Chris Richards. “We haven’t had a prang with a bus or other vehicle, (but) we’ve had blokes fall off their bikes a couple of times.”
Richards once saw an officer return from a patrol shaking. He (the officer) said he had been near run down by a bus, and swore “it will never happen to me again”.
And, of those who have fallen from their bikes, one ended up in hospital with concussion in 1998. He fell as he patrolled a sloping, lawned area beside Government House; his head hit the ground with such force that his bicycle helmet was left cracked.
Another officer broke his leg earlier this year. His bicycle had slid from beneath him as he rode into a “sandy patch” in parklands.
But personal risk does not faze or dissuade Adelaide’s high-profile cycling cops. Howard – in his second stint with the squad – shrugs off the job’s dangers, and insists that, like all forms of police work, bicycle patrols come with hazards.
“Riding around in peak-hour traffic,” he says, “you’re always close to buses and cars. People – when they’re not aware that you’re there – decide to change lanes on you, and you’ve got nowhere to go.
“Traffic does worry me, especially at night. But we try to keep a lookout for the dangers. You’ve just got to be aware.
“You notice the aggression in the traffic on a Friday and Saturday night, and you’ve got to be aware of it. People opening (car) doors without looking is a big one, too – you get no warning. They get the appropriate expiation notice if they really put us in danger.”
Even on a quiet Sunday evening in the city last month, Howard came perilously close to a collision. A girl stepped out onto the street in front of him from the “blind side” of a bus. Had he been only seconds earlier, he “would have cleaned her up”.
And officers are in no way spared from the elements. While they make some effort to avoid wet-weather riding, they pedal their way through extreme cold, rain and searing heat. A spray jacket is the only addition to their winter uniform of shorts and a shirt.
They also wear all the same police hardware – guns, radios and batons – with which their counterparts are equipped in patrol cars. The only exceptions are bulletproof and reflective vests.
The squad develops weekly objectives from information its members gather at LSA meetings. Recent information led them to keep watch on behaviour in Victoria Square, and seek out drunks harassing wedding parties in Veale Gardens. Detecting flashers along Linear Park was their objective during an earlier week.
Both wrongdoers and innocents whom officers approach in the field are often greatly shocked. Howard was recently amused after he called on a cyclist without a helmet to stop on Richmond St, Hackney. In response, the cyclist fell and explained that he had no brakes.
Howard says “funny things” are common on bicycle patrols, particularly in the parklands. “You come across people in amorous situations,” he says, “and they don’t expect to see us. You’re on top of them – so to speak – before they know you’re there.
“And we get a lot of drug users at the back of the zoo. They go down there for a quiet smoke, and don’t expect to see a police patrol.”
In a shift, officers can clock up as many as 40kms and spend more than six hours riding their $1,000 Giant bicycles. Rugby player and newcomer to the six-man squad, Constable Mark Heading, 28, has found his role physically taxing.
“I’ve noticed – in (my first) four days – how drained you feel at the end of the shift,” he says. “You wake up the next morning almost feeling hung over. I expected it, but probably not as much as it has affected me.”
Howard adds that, after new officers’ first days with Bicycle Patrols, they can barely sit down. As well, he speaks of how the work brings about increased appetites and sound sleep, but also leaves officers “hyped up” long after their shifts.
But the outdoor nature of Bicycle Patrols drew the former Adelaide patrol officer. Heading – who came from Holden Hill patrols – wanted to experience city policing. “It’s a good way to keep fit,” he says, “and get paid to do it.”
hen the squad formed in late 1995, its purpose, says Richards, was to “put police closer to the public”. Naturally, not all were convinced of the value of police officers cycling the city on mountain bikes.
And, in those early days, the squad members’ lack of an identifiable uniform caused them their first hazard. As they rode the streets in plain blue polo shirts and shorts, few recognized them as police.
Howard, who served his first stint with the squad from its inception, had reservations about the uniform issue. He remembers that time as “the most difficult” with Bicycle Patrols.
“Members of the public didn’t know who we were,” he says. “We’d pull them over and half the battle was trying to convince them we were police officers. Once we went into uniform, it was so much easier.”
But some members of the public remain uneasy with their appearance. Howard jokingly suggests many people just do not care for interaction with “guys in shorts”. And, even in the police uniform of today, he has been mistaken for a bicycle courier.
Since the squad began, its members have responded to everything from lost persons to armed hold-ups. Their means of travel in no way restricts them in the police emergencies they confront.
“This mob has detected everything,” Richards proudly declares. “They’ve caught breakers; they’ve caught all manner of things – even a breaker walking down the street carrying equipment at North Adelaide.
“Just riding around on their bikes, they can smell marijuana in the air. They just pedal up side lanes and through car parks, particularly at night. This (marijuana use) was happening around Rundle St East.
“All their senses are used to better advantage by being out on the bikes. They can see, hear and smell better.”
Richards also insists that, in some circumstances, officers on bicycles are far more mobile than their colleagues in cars. He describes two classic examples. One is the pursuit of a fleeing offender charging through parkland on foot. The other is that of an officer able simply to throw his bike over a fence to continue a chase.
Beyond the city, the squad operates in the suburbs just east of Adelaide. But Howard says densely populated CBDs are “really where we are effective”. Bicycle speed through the city, around slow-moving traffic, is what he believes gives officers the edge.
“We are good with some traffic offences,” he says. “If you’re in a patrol car and see someone disobey a traffic light, it can be very difficult to get out and talk to that person. On a pushbike, it’s easy to catch them, and you’re not getting out of a car; you’re not worried about parking.
“(And) along Hindley St – when it’s bumper-to-bumper – you can look at seatbelt offences quite easily.”
Ever a problem – other than wet weather – is the pursuit of offending motorists blessed with endless green traffic lights. Howard concedes the impossibility of keeping pace with cars, and says that, in such circumstances, “we’re stuffed”.
But officers confront more than just traffic problems in their daily grind. Surprising to some is that officers have to guard against the theft of, and interference with, their own bicycles.
“We ensure that we lock our bikes up,” says Howard. “I had a bicycle pump stolen the other day. I’d gone into one of the shops in Adelaide.
“If people are determined to take them (bicycles), they’ll take them, but we haven’t lost one yet. You can tell when someone’s been mucking around with one – they’ll switch the lights on and that sort of thing.”
oward and Heading insist the job presents no age barrier to prospective applicants. Neither, explains Richards, are applicants chosen on a gender basis. Women officers have been part of the squad in past years.
The only requirement, say Howard and Heading, is the ability to ride a bicycle. And Richards has “a lot of people” waiting in the wings.
Meanwhile, despite the dangers, neither Howard nor Heading intends to vacate his position. Says Howard: “I’m never going to get killed in a high-speed crash, am I?”
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