One morning in recent years near where I live in Brisbane, I noticed a helicopter circling for some time. I presumed its occupants were looking for something on the ground. I immediately thought that police vehicles may be involved and if they were the occupants of the helicopter would not be able to give accurate directions to the police officers in those vehicles. Why is this so?

Soon after being transferred to Gympie in February 1988 as the Regional Superintendent of the North Coast Region, I became aware of the sterling service given to the community by the Sunshine Coast Helicopter Rescue Service which was based at Maroochy Airport.  Major Jim Campbell was then the chief pilot of its one helicopter. (Mr Des Scanlan, a long-time supporter of the police service, was the part-owner of the helicopter service and Jim later became the chief executive officer. He retired in recent years and at that time I believe they had three helicopters.)

When police officers wanted to use this service, the activation of the helicopter had to be authorised by a commissioned officer. Inspectors Des Melksham and Tony Olsen were the officers attached to the Sunshine Coast District. They used to make the authorisations but on a few occasions I gave them via the radio in my police vehicle.

Sterling service to the community is really an understatement. While many of their callouts were for medivacs, a lot of them were to assist police in searches, in gaining access to rugged country, during floods in Gympie and district, and so on. Great liaison existed with the Nambour General Hospital and all police officers in the region. I believe that situation still exists today and I recently saw on television, a helicopter—probably one from the service mentioned—putting down on the Bruce Highway north of Caboolture, to convey an injured motorist to hospital.

In 1988 or 1989, Jim suggested to me that the 'Police Force' as it was then called, should consider placing numbers on the hoods of operational vehicles. His reasoning—which I can recall distinctly—was that often they had located a wanted person say in bush and if there were more than one police vehicle nearby they could not indicate to the police vehicles where the wanted person was located in relation to the police vehicles.

As a result of a submission I made to a Regional Superintendents Conference, numbers were placed on the hoods of Metropolitan North Region’s traffic vehicles. I can recall at a subsequent conference the result of the trial being discussed. Some leeching and/or damage of the paintwork was indicated and as a result of few, if any, other regional superintendents having access to helicopters at that time little support was given to a continuance of my suggestion.

To my knowledge nothing more was done about the idea until an incident came to my notice in December 1998 on probably the first or second day I had been in charge of the South Eastern Region. I was in my police vehicle going towards Coolangatta when I heard on the police radio about a chase of a wanted vehicle by two or three police vehicles. They were on the Gold Coast-Springbrook Road and the radio operator was having difficulty in advising the occupants of the police vehicles where the wanted vehicle was in relation to their cars.

Again, at the first opportunity, I raised the matter of the numbering of operational police vehicles at an appropriate conference. I distinctly recall that a further trial was to be conducted in the North Coast Region. I presume that the trial did not result in a decision being taken to number police vehicles because to this day – 26 December 2016 – there is no general numbering on the hoods of operational police vehicle.

I have used the word ‘general’ because I have seen a few police vehicles with numbers on the hoods on television and I understand that these have been associated with the operation of the police helicopter based on the Gold Coast. 

My recollection of my travels in all other states and territories is that most, if not all, operational vehicles I have seen have borne numbers on the hoods; also with letters associated with the numbers the region/district to which they belong is identifiable. 

With a second police helicopter operating in Brisbane these days, I believe their efficiency would be improved if all operational uniformed police vehicles bore numbers on the hood.

I also believe that advances have been made with stick on numbers and signs so much so that they can be removed without the paintwork being damaged in any way.

ADDENDUM:

The following information was received by me on 20 October 2018 from Assistant Commissioner Brian Wilkins, South Eastern Region, the Region based on Surfers Paradise and from which I retired on 23 January 1999:

Thought I would give you an  update on numbers on the top of police vehicles.  With the advances in technology and the roll out of the new GWN radio network, each vehicle is identified by number via the police radio within the vehicle. This radio number identifies what station the vehicle is from and the officers who are in the vehicle.  These particulars are viewed via an iPad which is carried by the majority of our first responders and also by our tactical flight officers within PolAir.  Therefore the officers in our helicopters are able to identify the vehicle ground crews via their iPads without the need for any numbers on the top of police vehicles.  So all seems good and no longer a need for numbers on the top of our police vehicles.