Hyperbole?? Come on Anomie, you were expressing yourself in a very straightforward take-it-at-face-value manner. Or at least that was the unambiguous impression you gave.

For a couple of years, five nights a week, you used to drive an hour and a half to work, at 120kmh in a 100k zone. And how much of that time did you have a truck up your bazooka, forcing you to go at 120? About 0.01% of that time at best.

You are a really good contributor to OLO, on all manner of subjects. I have not found disagreement with you before. But this time we seem to have critical disagreement. I really do take the greatest of exception to people who just speed, innately, completely regardless of the law, especially when they are prone to distraction!!

“Every bloody night” you were distracted by roadside memorials. By the same memorials, on the same route! What?

“I actually agree about speeding drivers, particularly overtaking speeding drivers…”

Thank goodness you do have some concern about speeding, although dare I say it, it seems like a case of ‘the law only applies to other people’. I wouldn’t worry about speeding while overtaking. I think that it is perfectly fair and reasonable to considerably exceed the speed limit while overtaking, in order to make the manoeuvre as quick and as safe as possible.

Perhaps you might want to look up ‘po-faced’. You seemed to have used it in a totally inappropriate manner here.

Please, Ludwig, please. My speed alarm's set to 110, and it doesn't go off very often, and most of the time when it does, it's because some idiot is tailgating me. As was the case on all those night drives. You're wrong about the trucks, by the way. At that time of night, on that road, it was basically milk tankers, log trucks, and me. Lots of log trucks. Lots. And I was starting off about 20km from where Peter Spencer can't clear his land. Odd. The memorials did irritate me every night – you know how when you're on a long, boring, lonely drive, you mark off landmarks on the way …

We're going to have to disagree on speeding while overtaking, though, possibly because of a location-specific problem. The Monaro Highway has annual serial kamikazes (a.k.a. skiers), tired after a day's work followed by a long drive, in a hurry to get to their accommodation, largely unused to country driving, largely in overpowered 4WDs, and very, very annoyed by a 60km stretch with no overtaking lanes. Every Thursday and Friday night, they'd be going in the opposite direction from me, staying on the wrong side of the road while they overtook three, four, five cars at a time. Cars which were travelling at what looked to be pretty close to the speed limit. They used to scare the bejasus out of me. Winter Thursday and Friday nights, I drove well under the speed limit.

I breed dogs, and these drivers' behaviour struck me as being just like that of several stud males I've had – they couldn't bear it if another dog was walking slightly in front of them, and simply HAD to get in front. We don't expect dogs to understand how pointless this is, and I fear some people won't understand either.

22 years working for the NSW RTA all of them on the Nabiac death stip I have seen more death and roadside trauma than you would beleave.
And fathers and mothers brothers and sisters even in old age return to refresh flowers, even from hundreds of klms away.
Some self asured posters make light of others loss, and no real harm is in these sites unless it is in reminding us constantly that we have a duty to drive safely.
No halo in my glove box I drive fast but with respect for others always.
The road kills no one people do that.

Anomie, this business of speeding up when you get a truck or tailgater behind you is a bit of a concern. I don’t think many people do that, at least not to the point of exceeding the speed limit by more than 10kmh and hence placing themselves at risk of getting booked.

I consider that to be a terrible practice. It just serves to encourage tailgaters. While it may alleviate the risk sometimes, many of the mongrels will continue tailgating even when you are sitting on or above the maximum speed that you can get away with.

You could argue that you have the right to act in a way that will alleviate or lessen a risk that you have been placed under. But if you get booked for speeding under these circumstances, you won’t get off, or at least not before going to a great deal of trouble to fight your case I court.

I have received totally conflicting advice from police over this matter. I was told that it is ok to speed up beyond the speed limit in these circumstances. A second officer confirmed this. But I was later told by different police officers that this is complete rubbish.

Belly, as an ex RTA person, can you tell me your thoughts on how well the RTA officers and police in general know the road rules that they are supposed to police. My experience, based on a number of instances in different states, is that it is very poor indeed. Can you also give me some idea as to why such a small number of infringements are actually policed, while the majority go effectively unpoliced…. especially tailgating! Thankyou.

NT has the oft referred to as "deadly" unrestricted speed zones. Once you get clear of Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and major centres of population. The main reason speeding kills is that people drive:

1) Vehicles at a speed without consideration of its limitations i.e unroadworthy condition or 4wd's driven at the speed of a sports car, etc.

2)In a manner that disregards the conditions of the road/weather, sun in their eyes, fatigue, etc.

3)Thinking they are on a European Autobahn and forgetting about the local wildlife.

Predominantly in the Top End, single vehicle roll-over accidents with fatalities are a combination of these factors. Multi-vehicle accidents are the previous but with some other poor bugger in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As an ex Sydney taxi owner/operator in 2.5 years driving 6 days a week, and 10 - 12 & up to 16 hour shifts, I saw and experienced some horrendous sights on the roads of the Sydney metro area. On longer shifts I always had somewhere I could go to get a half hour break and 'freshen up'.

Alcohol, drugs, bad attitudes, fatigue, plain bad driving and lack of common courtesy (let alone road-craft) all contribute to the growing crop of white crosses around the nation. The respective governments have not even begun to get the message yet.

It is up to driver education in the first instance and ridding our collective psyches that driving is a privelege and not some "God given right upon attaining the relevant age..."

I have a child who will shortly be of that age. He will be given the best driving school training and follow up advanced driver courses at my expense before he drives on public roads.

The national road system is a disgrace in itself.

As one poster wrote ; the chances of losing a child to vehicle accident/road trauma are significantly higher than any other cause of death for the age demographic.

If the continuing carnage were caused by another agent, then there would be people taking to the streets. Why is this any different?

Lorrainetag

In Queanbeyan, some time in the last week, someone has erected a roadside memorial to their dog. I nearly choked when I saw it. Did you expect your prediction to come true so soon?