8. The law has to be upheld at face value. So where you see a 60kmh sign, you cannot do 61 without risking getting nabbed. Where you see a stop sign, you stop. The onus must be put back on drivers to at least obey those laws that are crystal clear. The onus is just as much on the police to stop turning a blind eye and start upholding this standard. But again, not without a comprehensive publicity campaign beforehand.

Car-owners and drivers should be required to know the accuracy of their speedometers, something that can be easily determined with a GPS, and to be aware that it changes as tyres wear and especially when they get new tyres. If there is to be any leniency, it should be due entirely to the error margin in police speed-measuring devices, which these days is very small. Even with this error margin, the onus should be put on drivers to stay that particular amount under the limit, or risk getting nabbed.

The current situation is absurd; where a 60k sign effectively means 70, a 100k sign 110, etc, and a stop sign means give way. As previously mentioned, there seems to be a pretty uniform 10kmh buffer in Qld, except in some 40k school zones, and there seems to be widespread acceptance by police that drivers don’t stop at stop signs if they don’t have to. But then occasionally they will set up a trap and nab every driver that doesn’t stop completely, no matter how careful they are, which is a stinker of thing to do, given that they effectively train people to treat stop signs as giveway signs. (No I haven’t been caught in one of these, thank goodness, because my self-control would really be tested if I was).

(Don’t you just hate mongrel typos, re: 6. The police have to police ALL road rules…)

Further to 8:

An alternative to speed limit signs being treated at face value: – call them speed zones rather than limits. For example, change the meaning of 60kmh speed limit signs to 60kmh speed zones, indicating a 60 to 70kmh zone, where the absolute speed limit is 70. This would maintain the current 10kmh buffer and prevent the inevitable backlash that the community would launch if speed limits were to be strictly observed.

It would also be useful in dealing with the ever-present problem of drivers travelling too slow and not showing due courtesy to people behind them. There should be the requirement to travel within that speed zone, under ideal conditions. If you can’t travel within that speed range, you are required to facilitate traffic behind in overtaking you, if they can’t do it easily of their own accord. This requirement exists in law now for slow vehicles, but of course it is very rarely observed or policed.

9. Reform of the relationship between police and courts, and onus placed on them to perform their duties properly.

The police can charge people based on very little evidence when it comes to minor matters, thinking that the person is very unlikely to challenge, due to the amount of effort that it would take to go to court compared to the penalty, or because they feel that if the person wishes to challenge, it is then up to a magistrate to sort if out with no skin of the cop’s nose if the person gets off.

But magistrates take the view that if the police charge someone in the first place, they must have a very good reason. They figure that the cop was in a much better position than the magistrate to make a decision on the matter. This basically means that magistrates put the onus of rightful action on police officers, while the police put the onus of rightful action on the courts...some of the time. This is a significant issue with small infringements and alleged infringements, which includes most road safety matters.

This means one awful thing – the charged person has to prove or very strongly (beyond a reasonable doubt) indicate their innocence, because a magistrate is very likely to hold solidarity with the police. But it is supposed to be a basic tenet of our legal system that the onus be on the prosecution to show that the person is guilty. The legal system is perverted when it comes to minor charges. I can vouch for this from personal experience. (To what extent this occurs is very hard to say, but from my experience, it seemed entrenched).

It says a lot about the brainpower of politicians, when they gave young people the right to to drive on the same day as they could legally get on the booze -their 18th birthday. Who was it said - "We are in the hands of idiots" ?

10. Truth in sentencing. (Yeah I agree totally with your sentiments of 14/1 Big Al).

A stated jail sentence must be the real time served.

Magistrates should not be able to fine people then not record a conviction. This is dumb hypocrisy, which serves only to devalue the legal system. The size of the fine can vary depending on circumstances, but not the recording of a conviction.

The general public need to be able to make their case in court in such a manner that is not ridiculously expensive compared to the charge or the likely penalty. The cost of legal representation is usually vastly beyond the cost of just copping the fine (and demerit points and recorded misdemeanour). So private citizens need to be able to meaningfully represent themselves, in a balanced manner.

The system effectively strongly discourages people from challenging fines or charges that they feel are unjust. It needs to very strongly do just the opposite. This is of fundamental importance to the very purpose of the legal system. How dare the system be out of reach or exorbitantly unbalanced when it comes to minor charges, especially with the tendency for police to charge people without sufficient evidence, as explained under point 9!

I will go as far saying that the legal system should actively advertise its services; ‘if you feel the police have wrongly charged you with a traffic offence, then go to court. You WILL get a fair hearing’ (and you will get expenses refunded if you are found innocent).

Magistrates need to have a much better appreciation of the significance of dangerous antics on our roads and deal with offenders accordingly. In keeping with the blasé nature that society in general has over road carnage, magistrates don’t deal toughly enough with obvious offenders.

Those who lose their licence due to accrual of too many demerit points or otherwise repeat offences should not only be put off the road, but behind bars. Those who make it clear that they cannot control their law-breaking and hence risky driving must be very solidly dealt with.

11. Make sure the policing of road safety matches the significance of the issue.

While I really don’t want to see any other areas of policing reduced, I think that a considerably larger portion of police effort should go towards road safety.

The traffic branch, or section that deals with road safety issues, or the road-safety portion of a police officer’s duties, in any Australian police department are generally rather poorly regarded. But why?? Road safety is all about preventing death and destruction, injury and other serious consequences. These consequences affect thousands of people every year. Surely there are few sectors of policing that are more significant. The traffic branch needs to regain its rightful pride-of-place both within the police service, and in the community by way of a concerted promotional campaign, which should go in conjunction with a much increased community-awareness campaign about road safety and the policing of it.

Lets make sure that the example that I outlined in my post of 24/12/05 (where police were putting in an appearance but not doing anything meaningful), becomes a thing of the past.

A lot of the points that I have mentioned here deal with police performance. This really is one of the critical factors, because most people innately do not respect the law, they respect what they can get away with. So even with the best driver-training regime, a strong enforcement regime would still be needed.

[O bugger, I found a really wanky typo – in my first posting of 14/1; “and not 17 and 18 year olds”, should read “and not JUST 17 and 18 year olds”.]