Ludwig, oh Luuuuudwiiig…. are you out there?

Don’t tell me you’ve given up.

Or or or reached the end of your crappy claptrap!

Ow ullow Luddie. Nize ov you to pop up.

Wotz zis about clappy crabtrap?

Yair mate I give up.

Wot’z the boint? In a vew years zere wont be enny carz on th raod ennyway.

So I may azwel zust get drunk zzz a szgunk inzdead

By crikey, no I DON’T give up!!

Well I have just missed being wiped out by hair’s breadth. A vehicle turned into the road in front of me and headed straight towards me, on my side of the road, and stayed on the wrong side until the very last minute. I initially stuck my hand out the window and waved vigorously, then flashed my headlights and blasted the horn. I got right off the road. Another oncoming vehicle, which this turd cut off, also got right off the road, and would have served as a perfect witness.

But I just kept going.

A couple of years ago I would have gone straight to the police. But now I know that that is futile. That’s a hell of state of affairs, when someone as concerned about road safety and good policing as myself, considers an action as blatantly dangerous as this as not being worth my while taking to the cops.

Only a few days ago I followed another vehicle on the same stretch of road for about 4km. This driver was very erratically dipping and weaving well across the other side of the road, in front of oncoming traffic and sporadically changing speed.

Again, this is exactly the sort of thing that EVERY citizen should feel compelled to report to the police. But I just let it go.

The state of policing in my town has reached a critical point, with the police stopping work and holding an emergency meeting, followed a by great deal of publicity in the local media. But this situation has existed for years, and it is not only in this town but right across the state.

This is particularly relevant to a current thread on OLO: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4191. (see my comments)

continued

Last week there was a public road-safety meeting held in my town. There was also a state road safety forum held recently.

I can’t for the life of me believe that in neither of these events, the state of the policing of road safety didn’t register as one of the most significant factors. This is crazy! What is the point of implementing greater penalties or restrictions if the policing regime is going to remain so dismal that the chances of being caught are tiny…or that you can’t get a complaint attended to unless an accident has occurred?

Come on Mt Beatty, how about using some of the profits from Queensland’s enormous economic growth that you so loudly espouse as being of your making, to actually improve the quality of life for Queenslanders, or at least stop it from going backwards. The very least you can do is maintain a half-respectable police force.

I have just travelled that ugly Bruce Highway between Mackay and Townsville.

Complaining to police is useless, so I’ll do it here –

Semi-trailer. All-white cab and trailer. No company markings. Trailer number – 311 QFG. Cab – 072 HOL. Date 28/02/06.

This truckdriver indicated scant respect for the law and a willingness to use his vehicle as a tool to bully all other vehicles.

Firstly, he cut in front of me very sharply as he turned into the highway. He could see me coming well before he moved, and he simply knew that I had no choice at all but to cop it sweet and slow down from 100 to about 20kmh. I couldn’t overtake, so I just had to wear it.

Then I followed him through town and overtook on the other side. I came up behind a slower vehicle, doing about 90. He just blasted on past both of us, on a curve, without being able to see sufficiently far ahead.

I followed this truck from Home Hill to Proserpine. He was pushing 110 in the 100 zone constantly, creeping over a little here and there. He came up behind several vehicles, followed too closely, although not full-on tailgating like some truckdrivers do. He overtook many times.

It seems that trucks can sit right 10ks over the limit with total impunity. I have witnessed this quite few times. When these things overtake, there is considerable risk – they need a lot of road, especially when they are overtaking vehicles that are themselves sitting just under 110kmh.

So whatever happened to speed-limited trucks? You used to see them all the time – limited to 100kmh, with notices on the back saying as much.

Did the authorities realise that there was a real risk generated by cars overtaking these trucks at great frequency? Maybe

So then, why don’t trucks get speed-limited at 105 or 107? Currently, travelling at 110, and for the greater part being tailgaters and abject bullies, we have a real safety concern that just simply shouldn’t be there and could so easily be dealt with.

Travelling between Mackay and Eungella you go though numerous changes of speed limit. It is hard to keep track of which speed zone you are in all the time, especially when there is a poor correlation between conditions (eg side roads and built-up areas) and speed zones, and a grossly insufficient number of speed signs.

I travelled this road a couple of days ago. A number of times I had vehicles close behind, travelling too close and thus making it patently clear that they wanted me to go faster. But I was sitting close to 10kmh hour over the limit and I stretched the slow-down into lower speed zones and the speed-up into faster zones as much as I dared. This was still nowhere near sufficient to stave off these aggressive wank.rs.

It seems that there are actually three sets of rules applying –

1. the face-level speed limit as displayed on speed signs, which we could call the old granny rule, as they are just about the only ones who observe it,

2. the 10k-over-is-just-fine rule, which is accepted by practically everyone including the police and

3. the who gives a pink sh.t rule, observed by those who know that there is no police presence on certain roads or that they will get off if they are pulled over by the local copper, or that they are just going to take the risk and drive as they see fit regardless of any laws.

Again, one of the biggest aspects to road safety is the piss poor policing regime. And one aspect of this is the powerlessness that people who are subjected to illegal, aggressive and dangerous antics on the roads feel – powerlessness due to the futility of them taking complaints to the police. Is it any wonder that sometimes people take matters into their own hands. Yes, the pathetic policing regime has got a great deal to do with road rage.

No matter how well trained people are, it won’t count for much if there is stuff-all enforcement.