I am chasing a good radio on Ebay at the moment. I won't ID it yet because I don't want to encourage others into the run chase but if I manage to win it, it could get some coverage here.

More has come out about the truck that smashed into the police cars. The driver's cabin of the truck has been searched and it turns out that an ice pipe and a quantity of drugs were found.

They say that major incidents that turn to tragedy are often caused by a series of events that go wrong and it is looking like this one is no exception. The driver of the Porsche will face trial in July. It looks certain that the truck driver may well be in the dock soon after.

There's some very telling audio which was recorded by the body mounted recorders which kept recording after the officers were hit.
It is very damning of the truck driver as well as the Porsche driver and some comments they made at the scene before other police attended.
If there is any justice (and there probably won't be) they should both rot in gaol for the rest of their lives.
No parole!!
My son is at the final stages of being trained at the VicPol academy so this does rather hit a nerve with me.

It was said of the truck driver that he wasn't into drugs or even drinking. It may well be true, given that the truck wasn't his and the drugs and paraphernalia may have been left there by another driver. A blood test will determine whether he did have a toke at the wheel or not. In NSW, drivers can be forced to provide blood samples after a serious accident. I hope a similar law exists in VIC. Blood tests are amazing things. I know from my own medical history (I have blood tests at least twice a year) that blood tests can tell very interesting stories about the donor and the test need not always be carried out at the time an incident has occurred to get the required results.

One interesting thing about urban motorways in Australia. It's not always the case but most often there is a fairly wide shoulder to the left of the carriageway to cater for breakdowns and police intercepts. Over in Great Britain, they are in the middle of widening many of their motorways from three to four lanes in each direction. Instead of widening the whole road to allow for the extra lanes, they are just deleting the shoulder and painting the added lane on it. If this collision had happened over there, the casualty list would have been far higher.

Even though we still have shoulders on wider roads, our roads could do with better features to permit police to safely stop those who ultimately should not have a licence. (YES - make the shoulders wider or increase the number of emergency phone stops and make it law that intercepted motorists stop for the police in those areas.) The other thing is that infringement notices for camera-detected offences should be mailed out a lot faster. Melbourne's motorways are littered with speed cameras. If this bloke was snapped and then issued with his fine straight away, he may have changed his behaviour. The Eastern Freeway has a speed limit of 100. If he was doing around the 140 mark when he was filmed overtaking everyone on the left, it's a serious issue and should have been nipped in the bud at the time.

Few people like speed cameras but unless their use protects those of us that try to obey the law they will continue to be seen as tax collecting machines rather than road safety devices.

Around two years ago, I think it was, I was in Melbourne to go to one of the auctions and my regular motel in Faulkner was full so I stayed at one in Frankston where I'd stayed once before. (From memory, the lack of beds was due to the WWF wrestling being in town.) It seemed eerily quiet and couldn't work out why until I watched the news that night. The police had the road blocked off for most of the day. (I came in the back way, not even knowing what had happened.) Someone had driven a 3 Series BMW at such a high speed along the main drag there that his car cut down every street lamp post it passed after he lost control and he finally crashed into another car and his car was ripped into four equal quarters. The driver died instantly. A minute before the crash a speed camera snapped him but he pretty much sealed his own fate.

I have no sympathy for dangerous drivers, even if they end up killing themselves. One less idiot, I say.

The driver of the porsche can't be held responsible for the deaths of the police, but he still has a lot to answer for. Given that, and his generally disgraceful actions in his past, should ensure a large fine and/or gaol sentence.

As for the truck driver, he cannot excuse himself from the deaths of the cops. I hope he gets put away for a long time. He seems to be playing games in the hospital, hoping to delay his long-overdue questioning. Perhaps he hopes a lawyer can come up with an excuse to get him off. It will be a sad day if that happens.

In many places it can be a ticket to use the adjacent lane when passing a police stop (what is law in Vic?)
Heard a story where Cop abandoned his Hwy stop for one motorist and tore after/ticketed car using outside lane!

Here, you are supposed to slow down. This law differs from state to state. NSW was one of the last to bring it in and people were supposed to slow down to 40 when passing any car with a blue or red light or a combination of both colours. This caused accidents on motorways though so it was changed to slow down to 40 when the speed limit is 80 or less and slow down to a cautious speed and provide as much distance as possible between stopped cars and yourself when passing on a road where the speed limit is greater than 80.

To me, the latter makes much more sense. Then again, on the Warringah Freeway in Sydney (a fairly short freeway but has 17 lanes at its widest point - 9 northbound and 8 southbound) and you are in one of the middle lanes, it makes little sense to slow to 40 since you will have about 300,000 cars behind you and you'll be 30 or 40 metres away from the incident.

The truck driver in this instance veered across two lanes into the emergency lane prior to hitting the Police cars.
It was noted that there were no skid marks so he made no attempt to slow or stop.
His recorded comments at the scene will hopefully be his undoing.

His recorded comments at the scene will hopefully be his undoing.

Was he still conscious at that point?

There are always the "take takes". There was one classic in our Car Club. He got a big payout when they got rid of SEC Vic. So when they ran a free train to Melbourne he was the first to have his face in the paper whinging as he missed out. Then he was so poor that he had to line up at the Salvo's for a Christmas package. However, after all of those savings he had plenty of money to take the wife on a second honeymoon to Canada.

On cars, I loved it when in Melbourne some eagle eye, noticed that a certain car with Historic Permit plates seemed to be a daily driver. And as a Car Club secretary I had several up front, no interest in historic cars, asking how you got onto this cheap rego: Ar.. holes. Anyway Vic Roads got onto him & sure enough falsification of the log book, plenty of evidence & $750 for one false log book entry etc.

Marc