Further response to Quiggley (Guiggley?!) from Oct 24…

I appreciate your concerns about some TV advertising.

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Response to mjpb from Oct 24.

I am pleased that you also think poorly of this slogan. At least we are finding something to agree on here.

“I like how you just outright ignore the experience and input of someone who clearly has had THE most relevant experiences and information that anyone could possibly possess, just because reality doesn't support with your opinion.”

Please!! I am taking great heed of what Quiggley, you and Steve are saying….. and addressing it all in full.

“Neither she nor any other speakers defended its accuracy.”

Good. I have mentioned this slogan many times in letters to newspapers and in forums. No one has supported it. So how the hell does it remain in place then, with huge signs displaying it scattered around the countryside…. and with no apparent protest from the police??

It is another example of this schizo attitude we collectively have to the law.

“People think that because the slogan is nonsense entire road safety campaigns are nonsense. It undermines the credibility of law…”

YES, indeed!

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Back to Quiggley (25 Oct) (I’ll catch up to you lot yet!)

“(you appear to be a bit lonely at the moment).”

O woe is poor ol’ Luddie! Where are all the sensible people? (:>). But three against one is hardly a significant sample size on which to gauge the views of society or of experts in the field!

“…just simply wouldn't work. It would be more trouble than its worth…”

Improving speedometer accuracy and driver awareness of error factors becomes a SECONDARY thing, if we can change the law to make the speed limit equal to the leeway that you three respondents seem to so dearly want!

“so to introduce a 'fuzzy' factor would only cause more confusion/problems.”

ABSOLUTELY. But you seem to think that I am promoting a fuzzy factor! Completely the opposite!! Crikey, I don’t know how to write things more clearly. But you seem to have completely missed my message.

Still in response to Quiggley of 25 Oct…

“Did you give some serious thought to my question…about how many times 'you' would exceed the speed limit every day…”

I have found this to be one of the most frustrating things about driving – monitoring your speed and keeping it from going over the limit.

I conducted a long experiment a couple of years ago. For several months I pulled over and stopped each time my speed slipped over the limit, and waited for ten seconds. Then if it happened again, I waited for 20 seconds and so on through the day. I found that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop my speed from slipping over the confounded limit, unless I deliberately cruised at a speed well under.

While conducting this experiment I was mindful of doing a speed that was acceptable to most other drivers around me, which meant sitting right up there close to the limit (the policeable limit, not the official limit). Well, of course your speed is going to creep over now and then if you sit on or just under the limit!

Initially I tried it with the official speed limit. But of course this was about 10kmh slower than most other drivers, and led directly to increased tailgating and other displays of impatient behaviour.

So what’s the answer? I’ve already given it. Change the law so that the speed signs indicate speed zones rather than limits and increase speed limits by 10kmh. This would be promoted as a major concession to drivers in return for them being booked for going at all over the new limits. Part of the campaign would be to very strongly suggest that drivers cruise in the lower part of the zone, at least 5kmh under the limit. Of course some drivers will still find their speed creeping over. But they will be fair game for a fine.

I reckon that people will generally get used to it very quickly, and keep their cruising speed well away from the limit.

"Hell NO! If one thing is blatantly obvious, most people, or at least a large portion of the populace, will do what they can get away with. Hence the need for laws!

Unfortunately, we CANNOT have ‘willing’ adherence if we have minimal enforcement."

WTF? Willing adherence is REGARDLESS of the state of enforcement. I don't have people investigating me for murder every day "just to check", same goes for everyone else. Because people willingly adhere to the law, as it fits their own moral views. Ideally we wouldn't NEED enforcement, and that is the point I'm trying to make.

Your ridiculous obsession with clarifying everything to the point where it becomes black and white is simply ignorant of reality. There is no absolute. Risk doesn't just jump tenfold, out of nowhere, because you increased your speed by 1km/h (unless we're talking maybe 0km/h to 1km/h...). The reason there needs to be a tolerance on a STATED limit is because we don't KNOW how accurate the car's speedo is - if we did, we wouldn't need the tolerance at all. Therefore, simply bumping the stated limit to whatever the tolerance currently is, is not going to work because we still have the inaccuracy of not actually knowing EXACTLY how fast we're going. Then you're going to get people complaining that they have no way of being able to sit on or near the limit without potentially being over.

If you think people are just going to do whatever they can get away with, yes some may well, but your implication of treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent is contradictory to Australian law and general social sentiment. Everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Besides that, it's entirely fair, because the same tolerance DOES apply to everyone. If people THINK they know how accurate their speedo is, and want to push their luck, then they'll run the risk of being fined. Big deal, once you're past a fair tolerance then you can't really complain. But if the stated limit was say 66 instead of 60, then you'd run into the issue again that the law is being enforced closer to its literal statement than people can accurately judge it.

"Well it is becoming clear what degree of policing you consider to be over-policing – a very moderate degree of regulation indeed, apparently."

Ideally we wouldn't need regulation AT ALL (obviously that's impractical however), and I am all for the absolute minimum of interference in my life from anyone else. That doesn't mean NO interference, I mean literally the minimum requirement. Having somebody else breathing down your neck ALL THE TIME is in direct contradiction to the personal freedoms democracy supposedly brings us. Rigid enforcement of any law, again, MUST be ignoring the purpose originally behind the laws, because you're simply treating obedience as the goal, rather than the purpose of the law (safety, honesty, whatever). Quiggley has alluded to this, and despite your claims, you HAVE ignored it.

Oh btw - people AREN'T getting killed sitting on 105 in 100 zones, just because of their speed. It's obvious by now that you don't actually know much at all about road and vehicle physics, or how roads are designed (believe it or not, they're designed to be safe at far higher speeds than the legal limit is set at - the Hume Hwy for example has minimal lateral accelerations or visual obstruction even at 160km/h).

Ludwig,

The slogan is obviously approved of by the government. Reality is that if any police officer publically objected to the slogan a minister would be straight onto the phone to their boss and they would not get a very friendly response from their boss. It shouldn’t be that way but I am aware of a similar incident so that is my expectation. I am glad to hear though that you are true to your convictions and have made the effort to oppose that slogan but don’t blame the police for inaction.

Can I clarify your attitude toward the laws. Are you saying that it is okay to punish someone if they neatly trim their trees to keep them 3m off the footpath and a gust of wind blows a few leaves so that they hang down breaching the law before the person notices and reacts? Given all the variables involved with speed and speedometers I want to clarify that.

“Hell NO! If one thing is blatantly obvious, most people, or at least a large portion of the populace, will do what they can get away with. Hence the need for laws!”

You are certainly cynical. I’m not denying that some deliberately flaunt laws but have you considered that those who do might think that it is safe to go faster rather than want to break the law? The murder example was used. I’ll try another one. Do you think if they raised the speed limit to 200kph all those people who currently could get booked at 3kph would break the new limit if they could get away with it?

If you have so much trouble sticking to the current speed limits what about raising it 10kph with an appropriate tolerance? Would that make it easier for you to comply? At the end of the day do you find the limits too low and you are using a roundabout approach to get them raised? The reason I ask is that your focus seems to be on speed limits not bushes near footpaths.

Quiggley

I assume that the rest of your questions of 25 Oct have been addressed by my last post.

So what do you think of my proposal, which as I say basically gives you what you want but also preserves the rule of law?

By the way, you might be interested in responding to some of the plethora of concerns I have expressed over the policing of road safety issues under ‘Putting the brakes on the road toll’ http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2877

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Mjpb,

“Isn't it good that we have a public forum where you can discuss these ideas of yours and get feedback?”

You bet. And it is all the better to discuss issues with people with whom you disagree in a polite and respectful manner. I am thankful to the other three correspondents for that, especially given some of the substandard people on this forum, who seem to have no tolerance at all for people with different views.

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Quiggley

“…I think 'speedcanerajustice's' comments you quote from the 23/10 were meant as a joke…”

Good. I’m pleased to hear it. But it certainly wasn’t apparent to me…and still isn’t, having just re-read it.

“You have turned misinterpretation into an art form.”

I would have said the same thing about you following some of your apparently diametrically opposite interpretations to my intended meanings, as I mentioned yesterday.

Alright, so we are having interpretation problems. Well, if we just stick at it, in the same polite manner, all will be sorted out.

Incidentally, I don’t know what I have misinterpreted here.

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