Technology has come a long way since Milton Morris walked the hallways of the NSW Parliament.
The former parliamentarian, dubbed ‘Mr Maitland’ for his knowledge of and decades of service to the city, has marvelled at the technological advances made by police to ensure safety on the roads.
Mr Morris has long been an advocate for reducing the road toll.
During his time as transport minister, NSW became the first state in the world to introduce compulsory seatbelts (in 1971) as well as introducing breathalysers and radars.
“The most important initiative ever introduced in the state - and we were the first in the world - was to bring in the compulsory wearing of seatbelts,” Mr Morris told the Mercury.
On Thursday he took a tour with Senior Constable Matt Bernadine in a modern highway patrol car to see first hand initiatives designed to make our roads a safer place.
“It’s just amazing what developments there have been,” Mr Morris said.
“It’s incredibly efficient and it’ll just keep getting better.
“I’m just looking at how the radar works and it’s a bit of sophisticated equipment that I don’t fully understand.
“It’s just amazing what can clock up on that little machine in there.”
Sergeant Adam Paterson, a supervisor with Central Hunter highway patrol, showed the Mercury the equipment that the modern police car is kitted out with.
Long gone are the days of police just carrying a badge and a gun.
“We want to reduce the road toll as well as the cost to the community,” Sgt Paterson told the Mercury.
Among the gadgets in the highway patrol car are lidar (used to get a pin-point accurate reading of a car’s speed), radar, an in-car video and audio system and an automatic number plate recognition system.
“If the car is in the little red square, you know for certain it’s their speed you’re recording,” Sgt Paterson said.
The video and audio systems ensure an accurate record of everything said and done when police stop a car.
The number plate recognition system allows police to immediately check the registration of a vehicle as it cruises along the highway.
“It means we can detect stolen and unregistered cars in the time it takes to blink,” Sgt Paterson said.
Inspector Tony Joice from the Central Hunter command worked hard to ensure they kept up with the latest devices to help the highway patrol officers do their job.
He told the Mercury that in a recent drink driving blitz Central Hunter police were among some of the best performers in the region.
“It’s certainly one area that the police have kept up on,” he said.
“It’s making their job easier but more importantly the roads safer.
“We’ve got a lot of wireless technology, a lot of digital technology and it’s taking a lot of the estimation work out of it.
“When random breath testing came out in the early ’90s we didn’t have any technology to go with that.
“You had to assemble this little chemistry set and, car by car, get people blowing in bags.
“After that we blew into the tube and the latest technology is you count one to 10.”
Mr Morris told the Mercury that the emphasis on technology helped to continue to cut the road toll.
When he started as transport minister in 1965 the road toll was more than 1000 despite there only being 750,000 vehicles on the road.
Since then the road toll has continued to drop despite more drivers and more cars.
“All I know is that every car is doing much more mileage and it’s the people in blue who are playing a significant part, with the equipment that is now,” Mr Morris said.
“When we went into government in May 1965 there was no complaint about anything except the road toll.
“To get seatbelts through took a bit of doing. Civil libertarians and other people pushed against it.
“In my day there was always strong pressure from another section of the public service to say that we can do all the traffic work, you don’t need the police to do it. That is absolute rubbish.
“The police traffic branch solved 10 times more crime than just booking someone for speeding.
“The boys (police) do a terrific job.
“They’re the ones out on Christmas day, public holidays and school holidays doing the job and they deserve a pat on the back.”