Driven by road safety

Senior Constable Stevie-Lee Jorgensen was just seven years old when she set her sights on a career in policing.

“You can ask my parents – they’ll tell you this has been a lifelong dream,” Sen Const Jorgensen said.

It was at that young age she witnessed a car accident in her hometown of Bendigo, and quickly formed the view that working as a police officer meant playing an important role on Victoria’s roads.

“My idea of policing was always road policing,” she said.

“That’s probably true of a lot of people in the community – they don’t see the investigations, search warrants or the processing of offenders, but they do see our flashing lights out on the road.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that less than five years after joining Victoria Police, Sen Const Jorgensen has “found my home” at Road Policing Command.

In August last year, Sen Const Jorgensen farewelled her general duties role and became the newest of Victoria Police’s 31 alcohol and drug bus operators at the Road Policing Drug and Alcohol Section (RPDAS).

These officers are tasked with driving Victoria Police’s alcohol and drug testing buses, overseeing operations at testing sites and liaising with local Highway Patrol units, who attend alcohol bus locations to assist with traffic management and driver compliance.

Ten purpose-built alcohol and drug testing buses have given police even more deployment options when it comes to road policing.

Each of Sen Const Jorgensen’s shifts begins at RPDAS’s Brunswick base, where she learns who she is working alongside and where her bus is headed.

“After that, everyone gets their equipment, we have a safety briefing with our sergeant and then we basically hit the road,” she said.

“As soon as you get to the location, it’s down to business – setting up our safety cones and our testing area, then another safety briefing with the Highway Patrol unit.”

When Police Life visited during a hot evening in December, Sen Const Jorgensen and her

five colleagues made their way to Keilor East, where they met up with police from Fawkner Highway Patrol and set up their testing site on a suburban road.

RPDAS Acting Inspector Jacob Paulka said Victoria Police’s brand new fleet of 10 purposebuilt alcohol and drug testing buses, introduced progressively since March last year, had given police even more deployment options.

“Victoria Police has long been recognised as a world leader in roadside alcohol and drug testing and we have now increased the size of our fleet by two buses, meaning we can cover more locations at any one time,” A/Insp Paulka said.

“As part of the new fleet we also have six smaller buses, which allow us to get into tighter areas and smaller streets than ever before.

“We’re confident this increased visibility on the roads will further deter drivers from getting behind the wheel when they shouldn’t and help reduce alcohol and drug-related road trauma.”

Since 1989, Victoria Police’s alcohol and drug testing buses – colloquially known as ‘booze buses’ – have been staffed by newly-graduated constables from the Victoria Police Academy.

Four of the five constables working with Sen Const Jorgensen when Police Life visited had never experienced taking a driver inside the bus for an evidentiary breath test following a failed roadside test.

Sen Const Jorgensen conducts a safety briefing with Sen Const Alan McFarlane and Sen Const Uwe Stolzenberg from Fawkner Highway Patrol.

Educating and mentoring these inexperienced newcomers would likely seem a daunting responsibility to many, but Sen Const Jorgensen said the opportunity to guide her eager charges was part of the appeal of a role at RPDAS.

“It feels like only yesterday that I spent my time working on the booze buses – in fact, I have a vivid memory of walking through the doors at RPDAS for the first time, getting on a bus and feeling like I had no idea what I was doing,” she said.

“So I make a point of helping the new constables as much as I can.

“At the start of each shift, I talk through the process of what to do if they detect an offence when they’re conducting their breath tests, and I always tell them ‘there’s no stupid questions – I probably asked the same thing a few years ago’.”

After an hour spent breath-testing drivers in the Keilor East side road, Sen Const Jorgensen instructs her colleagues to pack up the site.

They’ve detected no drink or drug-affected drivers – a pleasing result – and the most action the Highway Patrol unit has seen is posing for some happy snaps with a 9-year-old local boy who loves police cars.

Less than 30 minutes later, the new constables are breath-testing drivers once more, this time on busy Keilor Park Drive.

With a high traffic volume, warm weather and plenty of Victorians enjoying a break from work between Christmas and the New Year, nabbing at least a couple of impaired drivers feels inevitable.

From busy highways to narrow back streets, drivers on Victorian roads can encounter alcohol and drug testing operations at any time.

But on this evening, there aren’t any.

Regardless, Sen Const Jorgensen knows her mere presence on Victoria’s roads has an impact on driver behaviour.

“Seeing our buses and our police out on the roads makes people think twice before they jump into their car,” she said.

“And if we do catch them doing the wrong thing, I find it very satisfying to know I’ve taken the keys off them or taken their licence away, or whatever the case may be.

“I’m having some sort of effect on lowering road trauma and that’s very rewarding.”

Main image Living the dream Patrolling Victorian roads as a police officer is something Sen Const Stevie-Lee Jorgensen has always wanted to do.

Editorial: Roslyn Jaguar P

hotography: Yuri Kouzmin