So why do the Main Road Dept and local councils, both of whom are in charge of roadworks sites, allow this situation to exist? Well, they will say that it is the role of the police to enforce speed limits, not them. To that I say, bollocks! If they are going to put up signs and those signs are not going to be observed, then it is up to them to deal with it. How dare they just accept that traffic will travel through roadworks sites, close to their workers, at 20 or more kmh over the stated signage?

One way that both of these bodies attempt to deal with the situation is to put up temporary speed signs that are far too slow for the situation, because they know most drivers will do at least 20kmh faster. Well, that is just plain irresponsible, and of course it just promulgates the situation.

A couple of years ago I made a whole series of official complaints to the Qld Main Roads Dept over this and other issues at roadworks sites. Well I got a better response than I received from the police over previous attempts to report dangerous drivers (discussed in earlier posts). Some debate ensued. My points were taken on board. But, you guessed it; NOTHING has changed. I was referred to the manual by which all Main Roads Dept roadworks supervisors are supposed to operate. Well, in many instances they just don’t. And as for council workers, oh just forget it completely! It’s just seems like free-for-all, based on what some person with no training and little concept of safety thinks is a fair thing. Yeah ok, sometimes they do reasonably well…. but rarely. One local council seemed to be on top of it, but I just can’t remember which one now, dammit

Well, the national road toll this Christmas – New Year period was just horrific. It was up 58% from last year to 76. The national toll for 2005 was 1600, not to mention injuries and trauma for thousands more. This is the most intolerable situation.

So we are getting a special road safety summit in Queensland in February. Good. Let’s makes sure it counts for something.

Over next several posts, I will present my ideas (yes that means a fair bit of repetition of what I have already put on this thread).

1. Make it a national summit.

2. Instead of blaming the condition of our roads, we need to point the finger fairly and squarely at drivers and the policing regime.

Rather than pouring the many hundreds of millions of dollars into road upgrades, let’s use this enormous amount of money to improve driver skills and keep them accountable. It really riles me when certain authorities do nothing other than call for more road funding in response to this carnage, which is a common response.

Beyond basic maintenance, and improvements at some so-called black spots, just about the only thing that we really need in terms of road improvements are vastly more speed limit signs, so that drivers know what the speed limit is at any point….instead of the current absurd situation where there are far too many examples of very long distances between signs, long distances from the point at which you enter a road before you see a sign, and in short, far too much room for error in interpreting the speed limit.

Further to 2:

I would have thought that the Australian Automobile Association was one of the main organisations concerned with road safety.

But their website is very disappointing with respect to road safety, in that it concentrates on roads. On the front page, we have three main links; to an article on 1600 deaths in 2005, to the Australian Road Assessment Program and to the SaferRoads website. The article, on the road toll, is completely oriented towards road improvements, which I think is just terrible. By the author’s own admission, even the most effective road improvements would probably only cut the toll by less than 20%. The ‘What’s new at AAA’ page lists articles, speeches, reports, etc for the last couple of years. Again, there is nothing on driver-training or policing! At least under ‘press releases’ there is a bit more depth. But it is all very disappointing.

This indicates to me that we really don't have the issue anywhere near strongly enough impressed in our collective psyche.

3. A massive effort is needed to improve driver skills. A much more rigorous training regime MUST be implemented before people can earn the right to hold a drivers licence. Practical and theory elements need to be exhaustive. This should include full defensive driving, the consequences of causing an accident by way of unlawful driving or lack of due care, first aid, basic mechanical stuff… the works. This could be conducted as part of the school curriculum for most new drivers.

Every current driver should be required to demonstrate their knowledge of the road rules and their driving skills, or be compelled to do a similar course, or else forfeit their licence.

Every driver should be required to do a refresher course every ?five years, in just the same way as first aid refresher courses are required if you want to keep your qualifications.

4. The police need to be much less conspicuous and meld into the traffic. Instead of the Qld Government’s recent silly concept of bright red highly conspicuous police cars, ALL police cars should be unmarked, but identifiable immediately and unambiguously when required. Every reasonably new vehicle would then potentially be a police vehicle, in the minds of all drivers.

We could add a couple more aspects to reinforce it;

Every police officer should have the power (and the inclination) to deal with unlawful drivers at any time, including when they are off-duty and not in a police vehicle (do they have this power now?). If this was the case (and they were encouraged to do it), then in the minds of all drivers practically every vehicle on the road could potentially hold a police officer.

The police presence on our roads is currently so conspicuously small that most dangerous and offensive drivers have little chance of being sprung. Cop cars stand out like dogs balls, to the extent that most drivers have ample opportunity to ‘adjust’ their driving behaviour as soon as they see a police vehicle, and then adjust it back again as soon as the ‘law’ disappears.

This could be augmented with a form of community policing, whereby people can become accredited community police officers, after doing a rigorous course, and be empowered to deal with reckless drivers in the same manner as formal police officers (just as some non-police council officers are empowered to issue parking tickets and the like).

We have also got to greatly improve the way in which complaints are dealt with, so that any member of the public can report dangerous drivers and expect their efforts to count for something.

The whole idea is to make it impossible to tell who is a police officer or a conscientious citizen who is able and willing to take action, so that practically every adult in the community could potentially cause trouble for those who play up. This would surely reduce the extent of stupid antics on our roads right down to a bare minimum.