Bonus: We Meet a Couple Who Are Both Cops In The Vic Police

Hey, favorite time of the.

Week, Lawrence, tell me what's you know?

In the event that we one day get pulled over.

We like to keep the Victorian police on side and we like to investigate different areas of the popos.

Well, this is a very interesting area of the Victoria place we've got this morning. We've got detectives Janell and meet Hardyman in here from the Collision Reconstruction and Mechanical Investigation unit.

That is a mouthful morning guys.

Morning, good morning. Sorry, what are their last names?

They're married Joe and me Hardiman who who's the boss?

Very quickly as well?

At work and.

The team that you work in responds to traffic accidents, road accidents. Do you guys work on the same cases together or do you get sent to different jobs?

Not really so each job we have a crew that goes out from the major Collision unit and usually we have one reconstruction as that goes out. But now and again more hit what we consider a big job and in the on days occasions sometimes we head out.

Is that hard because I imagine and we speak to the police a lot, and you have to somehow try and leave a little bit of your work at work and go home, and that's like a safe place away from all of the horrific, horrendous things that you see. When you guys don't get to do that, do you talk about work at home or do you try and clock off?

We do. We do talk about work at home because it's a big party of life, just like I suppose you guys as well. But we're pretty good at being able to separate our work from your home life. And obviously being the top of work that we do and the amount of tragedy and things that we see, it's really important to be able to do.

In my previous life working as a general news reporter, I was deployed to many car accidents, one of which was in car Dross in Mildua where sixteen's are walking home from a party and we're mowed down by a drunk driver who was jailed. The second one was Robert Farquerson, a father who drove his three kids into a damn on Father's Day. This is tough work and it's high pressure work. I know those cases stay with me to this day. I can remember exactly what that scene looked like.

Yeah, i'd like to say you don't, but you do. And the interesting I think with a lot of our jobs, the ones that are really tough emotionally sometimes aren't the ones that hit the media at all, Right, And I guess that's where we talk about you're going home and having that other one that knows what you're going through, because yeah, also go out on the weekend. Some of

So just for people who are listening to this, when there is a serious road accident, you guys are there and your job is to piece together what happened, who's who's at fault, how.

Fast they were going?

Was that there must be a science to that that that you've got to park the emotional side and just look at the facts sometimes, right, because you must get to jobs and be so angry about things that you've seen.

So can you tell, yeah, like what the speed the car was doing?

Yeah, yeah, we can. So there's our jobs to look at the physical evidence yep, so the skid mark, so you know, the crush damage on a car and hair they've they've crushed together. And also look at the electronic data that we can get out of our cars as well.

So will you then, for example, say if I was involved in a crash and I was driving a camera, you would investigate how much the camera is crashed.

And then have you.

Guys got a base where you will crush certain cars to see the damage and try and compare them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah we do, and yeah we do so, and there's a whole lot of testing done by you know, RACV and all those house Safe as your Car and overseas as well. But there's also you know, in Toyota vehicles, there's a whole lot of data that we can get out and different cars have different data and stuff and sometimes it makes their job easier and sometimes it makes it.

On a lighter note, just with the data, can you get data from my car for example, and see how many drive throughs I've gone through and.

Stuff like that. Possibly, Yeah, that's an issue.

I was just about to say, because inevitably a lot of these accidents will end up in court. Do you have to then testify in court, need to reconstruct the accident in front of a jury, in front of a judge.

Yeah, so we go to court most weeks, so we're with in the criminal court system. We're considered experts, so we're able to give opinion evidence that comes from as a result of our training, our experience, our expertise. We all also have tertiary qualifications, so we've all got science and engineering degrees that assists us in using that physical evidence to work out what's going on.

How long you go to be in the force until you can move into a unit like this.

There's not a specific time. Obviously you have to go through your first couple of years of training. But we're also detective, so there's that time taken to qualify as a detective. Then you also required the external qualification. So how long it takes to actually get there. I think our most junior is maybe seven years, but it's more about how long you stay yet. Yeah, that's where you really you can't learn this job before you arrived, So anyone who joins a unit, because we've grown quite a

Which I almost find surprising because I imagine it'd be a big burnout.

You'd think that there would be a shelf life on it.

Hey, yeah, we've got to take a quick break, but if you guys can stay with us, we are probing the Popo this morning. The Collision Reconstruction and Investigation Unit joining us. I know you guys have worked on some very high profile cases and we want to come back and talk about that next. And unfortunately we're going into what would be a busy season for you guys.

Yeah, I was about to ask you about that. I that's going to affect a lot of Melbourne ins that I want to ask you about. Next.

We'll go there after this play a cool The cops are here, Lawrence, tell.

Me what's you know?

Janella mek Or a husband and wife team.

They are also detectives in the Collision Reconstruction and Mechanical Investigation Unit. These guys are on scene at some very high profile accidents.

Here in Melbourne, who detectives the kids wouldn't get away with anything.

Three kids, not that we know of.

So hey, you guys, there have been some horrific road accidents in Victoria over the years, and in particular recently. I mean there was a terrible accident last night. We obviously saw the horrific incident at Auburn South Primary School, the Dalsford accident. These are the kind of things that you guys have to turn up to be on the scene, see these hurriydous things and try and peaks together what happened?

Will you deployed any of those situations or all of them?

So we went to both. We actually went to both of those together.

How does that affect you when you see these terrible accidents? Your parents, you've got three kids.

Yeah, we've got a job to do and it's important that a lot of responsibility. It's a massive responsibility to investigate someone's either death or life changing injury, and we obviously take that really seriously. So you have to put aside your own personal feelings forbidden. We can deal with that later, but at the time you've got to we've got a job to do.

We've got to get on with it because then you've got not just families, but you've got communities desperate for answers.

That that must be hard.

For sure. There are times that after a crash, a tend to race to you avoid listening to and watching the medium to avoid some of that pressure and just get on with the job. Plus just work with what we've got.

You've got teenage kids nineteen twenty. That must be a bloody scary job when you're going to a lot of accidents where you know it's kids the same age that you've got getting in these car crashes.

It is, And I think for sure that that's probably the jobs that are hardest is where there's something about the job that you relate to, so where it involves kids, where where you look, you know you're looking at the mother or father of a child and think that that could be me, and it's very hard. So the actual job is where it's very easy to focus on what you've got both hours now to get your license, Well.

It's one hundred and twenty hours, right.

And I was about to say road safety must be so important, of it's important to everyone, but you guys see it firsthand how important it is to be safe on the roads. One hundred and twenty hours is what we're sposed to do to pass our learners and to get our peace, and there would be a lot of families and a lot of kids who are finishing school.

Now.

I know I wasn't eighteen until year after I finished school, but a lot of my friends were eighteen in that year and they weren't allowed to get their driver's license until after they finished school, which is such a strange thing. Right, you finish school, you're allowed to party, you get your driver's license. What message would you have for people and kids out there who are about to get their driver's license and about to get this freedom which is amazing, but it's also scary.

It is.

It's so.

That learner's thing. It's so important that people actually do their one hundred and twenty hours and learn in all different types of conditions. It's so easy, and we've been there recently with our three kids, that we it's so easy to say, oh, it's raining or it's staff and it's hard to sit in the so and it's scary as a parent to sit in the passenger seat for your kids learned to drive.

Oh my gosh, my Mum used to get out and I would walk home. We had the biggest fight in all seriousness.

It's so important.

I struggle with a roundabout.

I struggled with the whole thing.

To be honest, based on what you see at work, I mean, what troubles you the most, or what mistakes are people making roads right now?

So when we talk about mistakes, there's big mistakes and there's small mistakes. There's people who just like concentration for a short time and just missed that pedestrian crossing and crossing. There are people who are intentionally, you know, driving at really high speeds, or we're still seeing drugs and alcohol

I'm guilty of it. I'll say I get in a car whenever I drive, I throw it on. But I'm guilty of jumping in the back of an uber and chatting to people and then going, oh my god, my seat belt's not on.

I'm not saying I'm guilty of it. Like I go, I'm not.

Putting my seat belt on, but I'll jump in with friends and we're chatting, and then I'm like, oh, got my seat belt's not on and I'm in a car with someone who I don't know driving me home.

Here's one for you.

I remember Scotty Camp from the block came in and he's got teenage kids and he was saying that he's biggest advice was he would buy his kids a single cab ute when they were allowed to drive, because that way there was no back seat to fill it with all your mates giving you peer pressure. Is out of all the investigations you guys have done and stuff, is there a brand of car or a certain type of vehicle that you think is safer?

Oh? I think the more modern cars are obviously much safer.

Yeah, right, there is a huge difference. Yeah, there is.

And then what about these little hatchbacks that a lot of kids everybody, no exactly, but you know, like kids will go on by a little you know, second amberina and stuff like that, so they just crumble.

Unfortunately, what we're saying on the roads these days is that there's a lot bigger cars now driving.

The big American cars and even.

You know you've got to school pick up and see all the SUVs. And unfortunately the physics doesn't lie that the bigger the car versus smaller car, the bigger cars always going to win.

Unfortunate, which sucks because not everyone can absolutely car.

But it's it's been careful and.

It's more about that if you know, no text message or no phone call is worth someone's life, and you know, does it really matter, Like just wait a minute till you have stopped.

I wish put your seat belt on.

I wish we had the guys here a few weeks ago when that pole just jumped out of nowhere in the Nova car park, Jason, we've God have reconstructed the scene and guys.

I was I was reversing here at the over car park out of nowhere, came out of nowhere.

I don't reckon. You need the.

Maths to work out what I'd love to know in your parking.

Professional opinion, do you think the pylons in an underground car park should be painted the same color as the black wall or do you think there should be some sort of high visit color visibility?

Thank you very much none of us have had a problem with.

One friend the misery out to the car park.

In all seriousness, you guys do an amazing job and you see some horrific things, but thank you for persisting and helping make our roadsake. We love the Victorian Police and you do an amazing job, so thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Good on you guys, Thank you, And they're coming from leave for this like.

Get a day in loop Lauren, Lauren wake up feeling Good.

Number one hundred Lauren on socials,