Traffic Offenders Intervention Program
In a previous week I had actually schedulled a different post for today. However, I was at work today when it suddenly crossed my mind that it probably had already been posted. I panicked, it was some post about boogers and I realised I wasn't ready to post about boogers and I changed my mind.
Anyways, I got plenty of relief when I realised it was actually Tuesday (yuh this post is also scheduled ahead) and I felt like dancing (badly) to celebrate the fact that it was not posted. Seeing that I'm also not ready to dance badly at work, I did the next best thing. I took the scheduled post down and I am replacing it with this one. Boogers will have to wait.
By the time you are reading this I would have finally finished my last session of TOIP. I had considered not revealing why I had to go but I don't trust your imagination one bit. I'm just going to say it. As it turns out, I'm a real bad ass and I'm a repeat offender. I had an accumulation of P Plate fines (the non-display type). Y'see, I pay my fines and I accept the points but I often dispute whether I should be suspended or not for it... because P Platers only have 4-6 points and non display demerits are 1 point per plate (You do the math). As a result, this time, I was sent to the place where all the bad asses go when they decide you aren't bad enough for jail but you also aren't good enough to be let loose on the street. I ended up in the Traffic Offenders Intervention Program (TOIP).
My last session probably went something like this:
It begins with arriving early just to stand in line to sign in. There's a few of us and they don't trust us to do the right thing so we have to stop in face to face and sign (and pay if you havent already). There's been a few times I had stood in line a good 5 or 10 minutes. It was a longer wait at the start because of stuff being explained to us, paying and colelcting books. All of these make things take longer. Check ins is also a good way to make sure we havent shown up completely off our face because we agreed not to when we registered. It also helps them know we didn't get somebody to sign in on our behalf or stand in our place. I spend most of line time off in my own world just to kill the time. Without fail, every week, I note that one of the staff doing intakes has a voice that sounds familiar and I spend at least half of the time I spend waiting to sign in wondering if it reminds me of that robot called Darren from Spawn Point or if it's just my imagination reminding me that I don't like lines.
Next, being our final week we have a double module and our manuals are due this week. We were told last week to expect a long night. My book lives in my car because I don't trust myself to remember to bring it every week and it is absolutley critical to not having to do it again. Previous modules we have covered included content about legal limits, victims of trauma, road safety and law, injuries and road crashes. Within that, we talked about drugs, alcohol, using mobile phones, speeding, crash scenes and even the court processes. Now that they've got our books they'll be writing a report and sending it off. There really is a pass and fail. I'm not sure if they were kidding or not but apparently they are also reporting on our personal conduct and behaviour. All's fair I guess.
On a more serious note, the TOIP gets you to think about some pretty intense things we need to consider about driving. Seeing that the TOIP's referred offenders typically include people who take drugs and drive, drink and drive or speed excessively or drive dangerously, it covers a lot of content relevant to encouraging a curbing of those behaviours. I thought some of the fines and the threat of a loss of my licence was enough for me but last week we had a family member of a crash fatality speak to us. That was heavy and pretty sad actually. Over the entire duration of the TOIP we saw quite a few vids, some featuring two main 'perpetrators' who had killed people and were brave enough to talk about it for the TOIP. Here's a short one below which was just one of them.
We listened to talks, watched clips and went through powerepoint presentations. Here's a clip I didn't feel cosy with. I wondered if it would end that way and it did. It's for a campaign to get people to stop taking drugs and driving. We saw heaps of those. Some were pretty brilliant but I couldn't find them uploaded online anywhere. This one oughta get that brain ticking tho'.
Seeing that the TOIP seemed to go on almost forever, which was 6 weeks of our lives, it was nice to see that the presenters also had a sense of humour and they added this next vid in for us too.
Translation is 1.Heroin 2.Hash (cannabis) 3. LSD 4. Cocaine 5.Alcohol 6.Valium 7.Ecstacy 8.Sticky Glue 9.Absinthe 10.All together
So it looks like I'll be getting home earlier at least one night of the week from now on. It feels good knowing that. I did agree to go and I admit I did feel pretty ashamed and embarressed at first but I will also admit that it was a pretty good program. I learnt some facts and figures and some of the stuff about crashing scared the hell out of me. I can't say what the impact might of been on everyone else but I can imagine there'd be plenty of us who walked out as a different person.
So thats the TOIP, well only a sneak peak. If you get the option and you have to choose, it is definitely worthwhile as an alternative sentence, no matter who you are or what you have done.
-Mez