Thanks Luddie, me ol’ alter-ego, you know… at the age of bloody nearly fifty, I reckon I am pretty spunky on me bike, if I do say so meself!

P plates are to be brought back in Queensland, after an absence of 30 years.

There are various other measures to be implemented along with it, such as doubling the learner period to 12 months, restrictions on how many passengers a young driver can have, no motorbike learners permits issued until a person has held a drivers licence for at least 12 months, a complete ban on the use of mobile phones while driving including hand-free kits, and it could include a ban on high-powered vehicles while holding a provisional licence.

GOOD!

But……

None of this is going to come into effect until next July.

Surely, now that these measures have been approved, they simply MUST come into effect as soon as possible. What is the government telling us here …. that these measures are very important…but they are not so important that they can’t wait for almost another year? Come-on!!

Secondly, some of these aspects are going to be hard to police, which will probably mean that the police won’t bother too much with them.

Thirdly, I wonder how significant the penalties will be?

Fourthly, given the probable terrible lack of adequate policing and lack of adequate penalties, I wonder how much of an effect it will have.

Fifthly, will the government will then sit on its hands, saying that it has done its bit to implement tougher measures, when it may well turn out to be no more than a token effort?

All in all, it sounds good at first impressions, but far too little upon greater consideration.

As I keep saying, it is the policing of this whole business that needs to be radically improved, so the chance of being sprung for infringements is high enough to make the vast majority pull their woolly heads in.

No matter what the restrictions, for many people it is a simple case of perceived probabilities; if they think that there is a 5% or a 1% or more realistically, a 0.1% of getting caught, then they are simply not going to take much notice of the letter of the law.

Bloody missing word syndrome. Eeeeeeerrrgh!!

In my last post, it should of course read; “ ….a 0.1% CHANCE of getting caught….”

And again….for goodness sake, it is the bloody policing regime that sits right at the heart of road safety… and which desperately needs reform

Oi Ludwig, guess wot…

You have now put 100 posts on this thread…..you bloomin drongo!

You've been prattling away to yourself since 22 November 2005.

And no one’s listening!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaahaaaa haaahahaaaaaaaaa

Oow you’re a wicked so ‘n’ so Luddles

Laugh all you want, but I intend to keep prattling away to myself… er, um, I mean…putting my thoughts together on this thread…. where they can be accessed by the whole wide world! (:>]

From today’s Sunday Mail…

Brisbane City has a fleet of 60 cars emblazoned with ‘Water Patrol’ insignia patrolling the streets constantly enforcing water restrictions.

These officers have far wider powers than just enforcing water restrictions – they can enforce all council bylaws….and apparently they have been spending a good deal of their time attending to parking infringements and the like.

So why on earth do they have specific Water Patrol signage on their cars??

Why even have council insignia on their cars?

Wouldn’t their presence be considerably more effective if they had unmarked cars?

Now, the same principle should apply with police. Why should their cars be marked as police vehicles? Wouldn’t they be much more effective in reducing road-safety law infringements if they drove unmarked cars….. so that as far as Joe Bloggs was concerned, just about any car could be a police vehicle?

Yeah I know I’ve made this point before on this thread. But sheez, it’s a very important point is it not?

I reckon we could so easily vastly improve the regulation of road rules, and indeed a wide scope of law enforcement if the police went about their business in an inconspicuous manner. Likewise with council bylaw enforcement officers.

Crikey, they don’t even need uniforms. Identification can be produced if anyone questions them…. end of story.