mjpb, I’m having real problems in understanding the rest of your post. I hope I have addressed your concerns….

‘You are certainly cynical. I’m not denying that….”

You call me cynical but then you basically agree! There’s nothing cynical about it. It’s just a straightforward observation – people by and large respect what they can get away with rather than respecting the law, even when the law is patently obvious.

“….safe to go faster rather than want to break the law?”

How many people do you think feel it is safe to go faster than the law allows? Many, if not most. And how many of these people do you think have a good appreciation of risk factors and safety margins? Very few. So is their feeling of safety at speeds above the limit really justified?

Speed limit law has to err on the side of caution. What’s wrong with having to drive under the speed that we think is safe? Why shouldn’t speed limits take into account less than ideal conditions, drivers with lesser experience and skills and hazards of all sorts? Why shouldn’t they well and truly err on the side of caution? Is it possible to have a system whereby good experienced drivers are allowed to drive faster or whereby we can travel faster during a bright sunny day than at night or in the rain? Isn’t it important that we keep the whole business as simple as possible… and just have one speed limit on any particular stretch of road…. that is a bit under the preferred speed of most drivers in optimum conditions?

“At the end of the day do you find the limits too low and you are using a roundabout approach to get them raised?”

I presume I have answered that question here

Quiggley (27 Oct), I don’t know why you are getting angry. As far as I am concerned you and I are having a good debate here.

Mjpb

“Considering what I just asked you about whether you wanted the speed limits raised and that you did not answer…”

I obviously hadn’t reached your previous post when you wrote this. You might have noticed that I am responding to everything in sequence.

I have previously made my position perfectly clear on this very question anyway. So here we go again; Raising ALL speed limits by 10kmh would

1. effectively give you and Steve your beloved leeway,
2. keep the rule of law intact, which all three of you amazingly just don’t seem to see any importance in and
3. effectively not (or barely) raise speed limits anyway (outside of Victoria) because of the current leeway.

So, I could live with a 10kmh overall increase, IF it is policed at face value and drivers are implored to travel at the same speed most of them are travelling at now, which is a few ks under the policeable limit (the official speed limit +10kmh in most states) and the onus is placed fairly and squarely on drivers/owners to know the error margin in their speedos, and drive accordingly.

Where there are now 110kmh zones, they would be raised to 120. I reckon a lot of 100kmh zone could go to 120 too. But I also see lots of examples where I think the speed limit is too high, or would be too high with 10kmh added to it. So these would need to be changed to lower speed zones, with new signs.

“If we had 120kph limits on freeways would you be less concerned with nitpicking on policing issues?”

Nitpicking! Holy moses. Desiring the policing regime to match the law as best as we can manage is nitpicking is it?

continued

“In that situation would you turn to advocating driver training full time and stop insulting police?”

You seem to be missing a fair bit of what I am writing on this thread mjpb. I do absolutely advocate full-on driver-training and I absolutely advocate a good police force along with it. Insulting police? Show me where I have done this in this discussion please.

Is it really possible that after all this communication you grossly misunderstand my position? It seems like it might be.

"Would you be ok with leaving them 120 cf. raising further?"

I presume that has been answered.

You quote me;

”Pericles makes a very good point…….”

This impresses you. Great! So, as previously expressed, one of the biggest problems with leeways is that you get people travelling at different speeds, much moreso than if the speed limit was clear-cut. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=165#3140

“People going excessively slowly always complain to newspapers when they are booked yet they are almost as much of a hazard as those going excessively fast.”

Absolutely.

“People should try to keep speed differences down.”

ABSOLUTELY! And that means having one speed limit that everyone understands, instead of a leeway or fuzzy interpretation, which many truckies and other drivers will push to the limit, while many other drivers exercise a bit of caution, and others will observe the strict sense of the law and keep their speed to ~5 ks under the official limit…. which is about 15kmh slower than those who push the limit of the leeway!!

I feel as though we have found significant common ground here! I am now strongly inclined to think that our differences are pretty minimal, and due largely to misinterpretation of each other’s writings.

Now all need to understand is what you mean by this “nitpicking” business.

Thanks for the link.

Quiggley, I think I brushed over a couple of your posts. So I’ll go back and address them next.

Ludwig: Quiggley (27 Oct), I don’t know why you are getting angry. As far as I am concerned you and I are having a good debate here.'

Don't worry, I'm not getting angry or even agitated. It must the way I write - blunt and to the point? I can see why you might take it that way, but don't. I guess it's from all those years of cutting through the crap to get to the facts.

On your idea of Police speaking out more; a lot easier said than done. For one we are not allowed by legislation to voice an opinion on government of Police policies, not officially anyway. Whilst I don't always agree with it, we can't have the situation where if every Police Officer felt so inclined they could go to the media and voice their disapproval of government of Police policies. It would send a very disturbing message to the public if it was seen that even the Police themselves can't agree on Policing. If we feel that strongly we could always resign and then speak out I suppose - not very practicable though.

On your issue of raising the speed limits (generally) and throwing more responsibility onto the driver if they exceed the new speed limit (I think I'm getting this right) - I don't see how it is going to help or improve anything. As you say there will always be those who push the limit no matter what it is or how it is Policed - just as happens now.

There will always be a speed differentiation between those that do push the limit and those who do not or even chose to travel at below the limit. I don't see how this will change under you idea, it will all just happen at 10 (or so) Km/H higher.

I suppose at the end of the day is this really that big an issue to be spending so much time on it. Most people know that if the speed limit is 100 Km/H that they can be booked for anything over that. They may be confident that they can travel at up to lets say 110 Km/H in the 100 zone without the risk of getting booked - most of the time. What is wrong with this? I don't and haven't yet seen a problem with it.

There is sometimes a side benefit to people who chose to exceed the speed limit and it comes from the fact that they know they are speeding. Some of these people are probably paying more attention to the road ahead - keeping an eye out for Police etc - than the person who has put their cruise control on and is sitting back relaxing to some degree. Now don't take it that I'm saying everyone because I'm not.

Whilst doing radar duties I've often seen people who are well over the speed limit hit the brakes along way from us because they have seen us. Yet at the same time I've seen Mr and Mrs Kettle drive past and nearly have a heart attack when they finally noticed us. So in this example who possess the most danger to other road users? The guy speeding but very vigilant of the road ahead or the person doing the speed limit but whose mind is miles away from what they're doing?

I know from experience that when I've had to do high speed runs my attention is totally focused on what I'm doing at the time, not what I have to do when I get back to work, or pick up for dinner on the way home, or what I'm going to do tomorrow etc. I know this is an extreme, but it serves the point.

So I think more time should be spent on the issues that I know cause death and injury and not on the ones that are basically an annoyance. Again, it's all about prioritizing. I know that alcohol caused deaths, I know that drugs cause deaths, I know that stupid behaviour causes deaths and I know that excessive speed caused deaths. So why not put your efforts into these problem areas and not worry about the small things that very rarely, if every, cause deaths on our roads.

We don't live in an Utopian society where all is well with the world and there is enough for every-one's needs. We live is a world were there are more and more demands placed on fewer and fewer resources. So we must try to get the best bang for the buck, and that's what it comes down to, money.

We can't afford to do the level of driver education that would be ideal, we can't afford to upgrade every road at once to ideal, and we will never stop people acting like idiots behind the wheel. So lets do something what will have an effect on lives and not things that might just be an inconvenience.

Basically what I'm saying is take all that good intention you have and all that energy you have and redirect it into something that will make a difference to some-one's life, like save it.