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Katie Woolf spoke with NT Traffic Police Sergeant Tony Bennett · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Northern Territory Traffic Police, Sergeant Tiny Bennett get a tiny.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Good mine and Katie La.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Really, well, now, it's been quite a terrible week,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd have to say on the Northern Territories roads,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: hasn't it.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: It's been absolutely disgusting out there, two simple matters which
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: have caused people to lose their loved ones. It's beyond comprehensive.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It really is. And I know that there is detail
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that obviously we can't go into. But we have seen
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: a fatality obviously at Nucki Lagoon. We've also seen a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: person hit at the Narrows some you know, in a
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  Speaker 1: lot of cases, some of these things seem like they
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: could be really avoidable.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Oh definitely. The anti police are always pushing the same message.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Watch where you're going, drive to the conditions, minimalize your
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: distractions while driving, no drugs, no alcohol behind the wheel,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: and then hopefully everyone will get home safe and well.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Tony, I know myself, I mentioned this earlier
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in the week. I've had a couple of situations over
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the last sort of last week or so where there's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: been people on the road. In one situation on Friday
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: morning last week, there was a lady sitting on the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: road on the Stuart Highway who was having an argument
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: with a family member or with her partner. We'd ended
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: up calling the police. I know that. You know, these
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: aren't sort of isolated. You can have situations where people
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: are on the road when they shouldn't be, and I
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: guess the advice for drivers always is to just be
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: as cautious as possible.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Almost definitely. The population in the territory is varied from
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: athleticity right through the social whatever. There's a lot of
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: different people out there and for different reasons they some
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: do go stand on the road. We know that as locals,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: we know to take care aund certain areas, but also
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the anti police are working with DIPPLE and other groups
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: to try and minimalize the effect of people being able
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: to get onto the road.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's a good idea. Look, there's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: also you mentioned that we have to drive to conditions,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and we know that as the rain sort of arrives,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and we have had a couple of dry days, but
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: as the rain arrives or actually out in the rural
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: area yesterday, I think there's quite a bit of wet
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: weather around. But it's just that reminder as well to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: make sure you've got your lights or make sure you
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: get leave distance between you and the car in front
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of you.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Definitely the best thing about being on the road is
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: that you can turn your lights on. I prefer people
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to be seen. Vehicles with lights on, doesn't matter what
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: time of day it is are seen so much clearer
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: than people without their lights on. So motorbikes all have
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: their lights hard wide. Why can't we turn our car
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: lights onto? It's not going to blow your bulb too quickly.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I've got a message from one of our listeners.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: This one's from Allen that says, can you ask if
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: people using fog lights just driving around town is illegal?
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Is not the thing to be done as far as
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: legislation goes. However, as I said before, I would prefer
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: people to be seen, and if that means putting their
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: lights on, so be it. But there's nothing wrong with
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: having your lights on dip during the day.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess it all depends on the conditions
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of the time as well, doesn't it. Oh definitely, yeah, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: I know that there's also there is always some issues
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: around road worthiness for vehicles. How are people going at
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the moment and most people doing the right thing when
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: it comes to keeping their cars roadworthy? Or is it
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: always a bit of a timely reminder to make sure
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: your vehicle.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Is The wet season is always a good time to
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: check your vehicles. Make sure the tires are worthy of
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: being on the road, that they are going to help
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: you to stop. Check your brakes as well, you're steering,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: and most importantly you're winscreen wipers, because if you can't
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: see where you're going, there's no point getting on that road.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's always a good point I reckon as the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: wet season begins. Sometimes you go, there's the first rain,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: or you know, or you head out for the first
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: time when it is raining and you think, oh no,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I can hardly see outside of my bloody windscreen. You've
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: got to make sure your winscreen wipers are up to scratch.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lets get where we need to go safely.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: You absolutely no. Well at the intersections as well. I
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: think you've got a bit of advice for people at
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  Speaker 1: intersections too.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I've been looking at intersections over the last few weeks,
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  Speaker 2: like all anti police are doing, but I've been noticing
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of people are pushing the boundaries when it
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: comes to the orange light red light. I observe vehicles
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: speeding up into an intersection, which is a big no no,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: just to try and get into the intersection on an
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: orange Funny enough, the lay actually states if you can
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: safely do so, you must stop on an orange light.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: It's not try and beat it. It is actually to stop.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And that's from when it turns orange, not from when
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: you see it as orange.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good advice, I think, And you know, at the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: end of the day, we all need to try and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: keep each other as safe as possible on the roads.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I understand as well. The police are really going to
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: be you did mention it earlier, but really going to
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: be cracking down on people who are drink driving, who
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: are driving with drugs in their system. There's going to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: be extra sort of extra patrols and things around, isn't there.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: It's ramping up to that time of the year where
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: the anti police will be focusing on rape safety is
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: particularly drugs and alcohol. We've got the drug cats all
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: sitting at my station at the moment. They will be
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: in the booze bust and in the vehicles and we
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: will be testing more and more.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: You've been warned well. Tiny Bennett Mt. Traffic Police sergeant
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: always good to catch up with you. Thanks for your
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: time this morning.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Cheers Gatie, thank you