I have decided to tell this story probably because I know that few people remain who can take it from start to finish. It commences in 1956 when I was a fifteen-year-old police cadet at Roma Street Police Station. My recollection is that there was parking inside the station’s grounds for about three police cars and a few bikes although the Traffic Branch was on the next floor up with pedestrian access being available from Turbot Street.

One day there appeared to my young and naive eyes about twenty-five brand new gleaming police motorbikes. They could have been BSAs or Triumphs and they really were a sight. They were everywhere in the parking area and near the entrance to the Roma Street Station.

I do not know how long this lasted but Inspector Cecil Edgar Risch (aka The Duke or The Count) was the District Superintendent of Traffic and he put up a case to the Commissioner that because there was inadequate covered parking for these bikes their riders should be allowed to take them home provided they cleaned the bikes in their own time. Obviously the request was granted and this practice existed all over Queensland until about 1994 when a close look at what vehicles were going home at night resulted in motor bikes being left at stations.

I am not sure if this edict flowed from a Senior Executive Conference or whether it was one decreed by former Deputy Commissioner Bill Aldrich.  But its effect was well-known and often spoken about by traffic personnel.

As the assistant commissioner in charge of Metropolitan North Region, I was at Sandgate Station one day in about 1995 when the traffic sergeant there raised the issue with me at a general meeting. He indicated that the bike he rode was exposed to the salt air; that it was parked near the footway of the road beside the police station and that the police radio was repeatedly out of action due probably to the salt air effect. I asked him to put his comments in writing which he did.

I put up, as a Senior Executive Conference item, the possible reinstatement of the previous privilege. At the conference there was lively debate. I had done a bit of lobbying before it came up and I soon found out that some of my colleagues were not going to support me. But the vote was close and the privilege was reinstated forthwith.

There was a limitation put on the distance that could be travelled—I think it was forty-two kilometres—but I know of one traffic sergeant who used to travel a few kilometers past the limit and book people when traveling from and to his home. He was still doing that until the day he retired at the age limit.

The main thrust of my argument for this to be done was that the example at Sandgate— of poor accommodation for the bikes there—was in vogue elsewhere in the state and that it was only a matter of time before someone would interfere with a bike and thereby threaten the life of one of our officers. While the fact remains that the QPS only gets ten shifts a fortnight out of a police bike, and a possible forty-two out of a police car, the accommodation aspect regained this privilege for traffic officers just as it did in 1956.

Also, on reflection, it was a case of a subordinate being able to raise something with a senior officer in the hope that it would be considered on its merits.