Queensland police are considering implementing tailgating cameras in a bid to slash the state's growing death toll on the roads.

More than 1600 crashes a year are caused by drivers not keeping a safe distance from the car in front.

Main Roads Department figures show there were 8000 tailgating-related crashes between 2003 and 2008.

More than 6500 hundred people were injured and at least five were killed as a result

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25966063-3102,00.html

Well it is about time. Given that this technology has been available and used successfully in America and Europe for some time, why the hell hasn’t it been brought in here, and nationally not just in one state??

There really is a scant lack of will from the police and federal and state governments when it comes to properly addressing the issue of road safety.

This is reinforced by the fact that the police just do bloody nothing about tailgating, unless perhaps really blatant aggressive tailgating occurs right in front of them. Then they might act one time in a hundred!

They don’t deal with complaints. I’ve made about ten complaints in as many years to the police, regarding the most serious incidents of aggressive and dangerous driving.

One was acted on. The rest went nowhere!! The one that was pursued happened after I submitted the complaint in writing, having initially been very strongly discouraged from lodging a complaint when I went into the Ingham police station straight after the event!

Tailgating cameras sound like a damn good idea to me. They can directly target a prolific dangerous driving practice, compared to speed cameras that target drivers who exceed the limit whether or not it is dangerous to do so in the given circumstances.

So what do others think about the widespread use of cameras in order to greatly reduce the tailgating menace? Or alternatively (or in addition) should there be more police on our roads, in unmarked cars rather than ‘dog’s ballsly’ obvious police cars, a better facilitation of complaints made to police and just an overall much better policing regime when it comes to road safety?

Good thread Ludwig and what a good idea.
You would be aware I share your concerns with road safety.
And specially at road work sites.
If you could spend just a few hours on such a site, observe the speed always averaging 50% over posted limits you would see why I am convinced you have got an answer, one at least that will work.
Consider a truck mounted camera, one that starts taking photos as the right hand indicator is turned on.
At such times you can bet, a last second overtaking maneuver will see cars cross the centerer line.
Cameras in reduced speed zones should not be sign posted, hide them, a life is worth far more than money, use hundreds of them.
Remember those blokes working on road repairs are on their factory floor.
foolish people say why are they always standing on the roadside.
well maybe if they jumped in front of moving cars their IQ would be even lower than those asking the question.
Freedom is one thing bad behavior on the roads can be murder.

You raise some interesting issues, not just driving-related, with this topic, Ludwig.

I have read the news article to which you linked, but it remains unclear to me exactly what you mean by a 'tailgating camera'. Is it intended to be road-side mounted similarly to a speed camera? Or is it something intended to be mounted on all vehicles, as is seemingly suggested in the comments panel to the Courier Mail article by David Plummer of Warwick?

If it is suggested that it be a camera mounted on all vehicles, then an enormous number of 'big brother' issues will be raised with respect to its administration, use and abuse, quite apart from the economic and IT industry implications. Could you be a bit more specific as to how you see such a system being used, Ludwig?

While awaiting a little clarification upon this proposal, I would observe that while I have seen many instances of tailgating by impatient drivers, I have also seen instances of drivers 'tailgating themselves', that is, driving seemingly obliviously to the obstruction they are causing while the obstructed traffic banks up behind them with a concomitant contraction in vehicle separation distances. The latter is particularly common on heavily trafficked multi-lane roads. How do you properly distinguish the real cause of the problem in any specific instance? I grant that some sort of photographic record might help in this respect, if only to get some sort of a handle on who the serial offenders may be with this behaviour, but more details or suggestions please.

Belly rightly mentions the issue of roadworks speed limits being widely ignored. Perhaps the reason for this is that they are seemingly so infrequently policed. Another could be that roadworks speed limit restrictions are left in place at times when absolutely no work is going on at the site in question. A bit like the boy who cried 'wolf', this cavalier use of the restrictions tends to encourage non-observance of the speed restrictions.

I feel removing serial offenders from driving may be the key to resolving this issue.

Blame the politicians, not the Police. If they had the funding they deserve you'd get all your little complaints over your word against another lacking any evidence other than perception handled appropriately. Probably, they already were.

it cant be that hard to make active signs
that record our distance to the lead car...in real time
in colour code...

green if fine

yellow if too close

red if danger...

saying warning
tyr-000...your number has been noticed
your ignition has been disabled
your vehicle moves not one inch till

you either
give me cash/cheque or money-order/securitised asset..or we waste your tuime with beurocratic process and law...under threat of force and or incarceration

1 go directly to distance school
2..do not pass go
or we auto debit as much as we need

because we states need to fundraise..to pay the govt special service govt pension..underwriting sceme..by a factor of 5...for our lord masters...sorry public servants

While tailgating is undoubtedly a dangerous practice, I suspect that it's often a stupid response to someone else's stupid driving. I drive far too many kilometers every year, mostly on secondary "highways" that traverse inland eastern Australia, and I never get tailgated (except at roadworks when I just ignore them) - nor do I taligate anybody else. I don't have accidents or get speeding tickets either.

I usually sit just above the official speed limit, which compensates for speedometer error and takes care of the trucks and B-Doubles. If anybody wants to overtake me, I make it easy for them by staying to the left and even slowing down temporarily when it's safe for them to do so. If I come up behind a slower vehicle, I stay well back and wait until a safe opportunity or overtaking lane arises.

When I'm towing my boat I tend to drive more slowly, and I take care to make it easy for faster drivers to get past me. If I notice that I'm causing traffic to bank up, I'll sometimes pull over and stop for 5 minutes to let them by.

Frequently I encounter some twat who wants to sit 5-10 km/h below the speed limit, but will speed up when an overtaking opportunity or lane presents itself. These seem to fall into two kinds - the grey nomad towing a caravan or the wannabe policeman who thinks it's their civic duty to slow everybody down. There's also the d!ckheads who want to potter along in the right hand lane on motorways, forcing others to overtake on their left. While I wouldn't tailgate such drivers, I bet they are the types who experience tailgating and other road rage behaviour.

Rather than introducing more 'big brother' surveillance and revenue-raising technology, I think that there needs to be greater emphasis on encouraging drivers to be courteous to each other and other road users. I disagree with those who advocate covert policing - I think that nothing is more effective in improving driving behaviour than having lots of brightly coloured police cars on the road.

StG,
"Blame the politicians...."
Sorry blame the curmudgeonly voter that makes such things so politically
suicidal...or those selfish blonks that would rather spend resource money on their self serving immediate interests.
To a point you're right with "not the police".

Forrest,
I would suggest that these cameras will be on the side of the road. Sadly there will be claims of 'revenue raising rort' etc.
If they are accessible to the public i.e. fixed/low down they will become the vandalized victims of the 'moron squad'...while good citizens will look the other way.
I would suggest over head on freeways for fixed and portable for the police. but as usual it'll be under funded/resourced.

I don't think we need a camera on all vehicles. I think really what we need is a gun turret.

People beep and nobody knows who is beeping at who. People tailgate because they want the guy in front to speed up.

What would be better is if you could actually shoot ping pong balls at people who annoy you.

I see an evolution in transport. 4WDs have evolved due to the obstacle course that the council has developed with speed bumps and chicanes, and 10 metre right turn lanes that a 4WD is needed to navigate. They're 'safer' which means you can roll over all these obstacles, and hit pedestrians higher up nearer the head, and you can hit cars at a height higher than their safety strong points are designed for.

With this whole random 40-110 speed limit changes at 100m metre intervals dodging cameras and speed humps etc, Monster trucks and gun turrets is where driving is headed. Mad Max is the natural progression as encouraged by the authorities.

Interesting Ludwig, but you should be looking for the reason for the increase in the problem.

Belly agree completely re road works, but also with Forrest. Drivers should be jumped on, but the same fines should apply to road workers, who display signs, when not working.

While we have damn fool planners using slow drivers as defacto road speed enforcers, we will get a growing increase in the problem.

Every time the road line marker machine comes out, we get dotted centre lines painted over with no overtaking double lines. Why this should occur, as our cars become better at overtaking quickly, & safely, is a mystery, with the answer only known to those gods, the planners.

One 12Km stretch between Canungra, & Nerang in 6 years went from 10 legal overtaking places to none. Now I'm an old bloke, & never in a hurry, but even I can get frustrated, following Mary the horse rider, towing her horse, or Johnny tourist, who do the whole stretch at 60Km, in a 100Km zone. For those who have work to get done, it nust be most annoying.

I have no problem with Mary, & her horse, driving at a speed at which they feel safe. I would not want it any other way, but with the planners who cause the line of frustrared drivers, to sit fuming behind her, I do have. How these damn fools can decide that this is better than letting us pass, where we have been passing safely, for 20 years, I can't imagine.

I'm normally a law abiding bloke, but I recently crossed double lines, to pass a truck load of STINKING pigs, out near Boonah, after following it, at some distance, for 15 Km of no passing. After a dozen places where I could have safely passed a fast B double semi, I could stand it no longer.

So Ludwig, if you want to reduce tailgating, join our movement to improve & fertilise Australia, & plant a planner today, 6 feet down.

CJ Morgan,

I agree with you again. Hopefully in this thread on this topic it won't offend you. I believe that I have done my share of driving and have had exactly the same experience. I don't tow a boat but if I were in that situation that is what I would do. The equivalent for me is driving on mountainous road where many other drivers prefer to go faster so I pull over to let them.

I don't participate in and don't condone tailgating but if police actually enforced the keep left unless overtaking rule they would get a lot less revenue but a lot more road safety impact. At a time when I must have had too much time on my hands I have followed road hogs from a safe distance and observed them. In my experience a single road hog on a fairly short journey eg. 100km tend to attract a whole bunch of angry tailgaters. If the road hog got targetted all those tailgaters would have no reason to tailgate. I note also that research in the US of A indicated that road hogs are the largest cause of road rage.

"Frequently I encounter some twat who wants to sit 5-10 km/h below the speed limit, but will speed up when an overtaking opportunity or lane presents itself...While I wouldn't tailgate such drivers, I bet they are the types who experience tailgating and other road rage behaviour."

The time I was most tempted to tailgate that I recall I was behind some driver doing 15k below the limit. I attempted to overtake them in the overtaking zone. After realising that we were 30k over the limit and they still wanted to drag race I bowed out and resigned myself to following them. Someone had recently made the comment that those types of drivers are the ones truckies hate the most and I was reminded of that comment. Naturally they slowed down again as soon as it became one lane.

Belly, yes roadworks sites are highly problematic. Temporary speed limit signs are just so poorly observed. They really don’t amount to anything more than a crude indication to slow down a bit, most of the time.

Of course one of the main problems is the abject lack of policing of speed in roadworks zones.

You are often put in the invidious situation of being stuck between your desire to observe the law and your desire to roll with the flow. If you strictly observe the law, you get tailgated a lot of the time. You even get overtaken within the roadworks zone, in the lead up and in the zone after the actual work site before the sign that allows a return to normal speed. If you are in traffic, it is definitely safer to roll with the flow than to do 10 or 20 (or 30 or more) kmh slower in order to stick to the lawful limit!!

Normally law-abiding citizens are strongly pressured to exceed the speed limit in order to just roll with the flow and not incur dangerous antics or intimidation from other drivers.

Then when the police do actually book people for speeding in these zones, these people get busted.

The speed is often too slow for the circumstances. Main Roads and council workers do often erect 40kmh signs where 60 would be appropriate with the express purpose of getting people to slow down to about 60!

Why on earth there has to be a long distance between the actual end of the work zone and the return to normal speed is beyond me. It is just stupidity! There is no reason why the end of the temporary slow zone has to align with the start of it on the other side of the road! There needs to be a reasonable slow lead-in to the actual work area, but there doesn’t have to be a long slow lead-out, or any lead-out, on the other side!

It is all very crappily managed....and yet it could so easily be fixed!

TCP,S traffic control plans at road work sites are complex.
And lets face it often wrong, the fault of those putting them in place.
Vehicle movement plans are an extension of TCPs.
And a requirement in semi permanent road works.
Sorry but it is more than likely you, almost every one, have got it wrong.
States RTAs can share the blame.
I am very much involved in TCPs and vehicle movements, worker safety and am used to review such plans by one of our biggest construction firms.
First some signs tell of changed traffic conditions 24 hours a day, including the advice road works[changed conditions] are under way.
NO TCP allows flagman, prepare to stop signs to be up without work in progress.
Black on yellow signs can, must be in place 24/7 to warn of changed conditions.
1000 times, yes I am fairdinkum, people stopped after passing a full TCP 18 signs, to say no signs are in place!
First thing in the morning or after a meal break a truck puts every sign back up.
unless work takes place during meal break.
But bet your last dollar, as crew gathers waiting for that truck to put signs up at far end of job a idiot will pull up and scream why did I drive past these signs and you are doing nothing.
Should some motorists dog leave home the family's average IQ could drop 50 points.

“… it remains unclear to me exactly what you mean by a 'tailgating camera' “

Forrest, I’m not sure either. I’ve been trying to net-surf an answer. I guess that it is restricted to cameras mounted on overpasses on freeways. Whatever the case, it is bound to only be a token effort.

While I agree with tailgating cameras in any form, I think that the solution lies in empowering the general public, by way of recording the necessary information and making complaints to the police.

Tailgating cameras mounted in the rear window of a car might be part of this.

For that matter, it is not hard for a passenger with a digital cam recorder or still camera to record the necessary info.

The police should be encouraging and facilitating this sort of thing, instead of rendering the public virtually powerless.

“How do you properly distinguish the real cause of the problem in any specific instance?”

Well, there is no excuse for tailgating. If the driver in front is a road-hog, a tailgater is still in the wrong.

For that matter, a passenger with a camera can gather the necessary evidence regarding a slow road-hog in just the same way as for a tailgater.

All they need to do is photograph the offending car, number plate and driver if possible, then the speedometer in the car that they are travelling in. You’d also need to record the time and place of course.

Now if just a small portion of the public did this sort of thing, with support from the police, then the tailgating phenomenon along with lots of other wankery on our roads could be greatly reduced. If bad drivers came to realise that any person could easily gather evidence and make a complaint, and that a significant portion of the travelling public were inclined to do so, then they’d pull their heads in.

The police could then concentrate more on non-road-safety-related matters. Jobs would be created administering the complaints. The police and government would get their revenue-raising fix. Almost everyone would be happy!

“I drive far too many kilometers every year, mostly on secondary "highways" that traverse inland eastern Australia, and I never get tailgated…”

Yes CJ, on inland roads where there is vastly less traffic and plenty of overtaking opportunities, tailgating isn’t much of a problem. But on the Bruce Highway for example, it is rife.

“…and I never get tailgated (except at roadworks when I just ignore them)”

Stuff that! I’m not one to just ignore being placed under a heightened risk scenario at any time. In roadworks zones, you’ve got hazards that you don’t have on the open road. You don’t need tailgaters as well, and you shouldn’t just put up with it.

“I think that there needs to be greater emphasis on encouraging drivers to be courteous to each other and other road users.”

Do you real think that this would have any effect at all in the absence of a greatly improved policing regime? There are far too many drivers who don’t know the meaning of the word ‘courtesy’ and who won’t decide to be nice on the road just because some advertising campaign implores them to do so.

“I disagree with those who advocate covert policing - I think that nothing is more effective in improving driving behaviour than having lots of brightly coloured police cars on the road.”

Got to disagree with that! ALL police cars should be unmarked. They can easily be identified as police vehicles by turning on the little blue flashing light. Brightly coloured police vehicles achieve two things; to show how sparse they are and how wafer thin the thin blue line is, and to give unscrupulous drivers adequate warning and opportunity to change their behaviour in the presence of the police….and then change it right back again as soon as they have gone. Covert policing on our roads is DEFINITELY the way to go.

Ludwig, mate, it'll never work. I am highly unlikely to tail gate you, or anyone, as the paint job on my 30 year old sports car, [sports by name at least] is too vulnerable to stone chip damage, for me to be too close to the car in front.

BUT, if I did decide to tail gate, you, or anyone else, I'll be too damn close, for anyone to get a photo of my numberplate, from inside the car I was following. If I'm not that close, it can't really be tail gating, can it? [Smile]

I would suggest it would be a very bad idea to start taking photos of any driver, who must be frustrated, to be behaving in a stupid manner. From what I have seen of road rage, you would be asking to be driven off the road.

Just keep to reporting what you don't like, vigilante activities will just get yuo something you don't want.

Hasbeen, I share your disgust with some planners and managers.

We’ve got a new bypass road in Townsville, which links the Bruce Hwy to the south with the Bruce Hwy to the north. It was built at great expense, with several overpass bridges and a new bridge over the Ross River. It links a long stretch of dual carriageway on the south side to the same on the north side.

But get this: for its entire length of many kilometres, it comprises a single lane in each direction, with absolutely no overtaking lanes!

What were the planners smoking?! What were those that approved this project sucking on??

It absolutely defies belief.

It seems that the managers of roadworks sites are all too often completely inept!

The police are the managers of road law and safety. But by crikey they leave an awful lot to be desired!

Alright, I note your negativity about the simple use of a camera to gather evidence of tailgaters and other unscrupulous road-users. Obviously I don’t agree with you on that point. I emphasise the importance for the public to feel empowered, as opposed to being essentially powerless, to do something about tailgating etc.

That sort of thing is not vigilante activity. Far from it – it really is just part of the commonsense responsibility of all citizens to do their bit. Of course all citizens are not going to do it, but if just 1% took it up, it could make a huge difference.

Sorry Ludwig, a bad choice of words there.

Still, don't forget the people you are going to be taking snaps of, are likely to be the aggressive type, or they probably wouldn't be tailgating, in thr first place. They will also be armed with over a ton of powerful weapon.

I have seen one road rage event, when someone passed a bloke, waffling along at 80, in a 100 zone, & eating a hamburger. The way that bloke went off, just because someone wanted to pass him, I reckon it would be more than a bit dangerous, taking his photo.

Probably better to fit a very heavy duty tow bar, & take the globes out of the brake lights, or fit a small rear view camera, that your quarry won't notice.

I handed back our fleet Ute after 9 days.
It was a fill in until my car returned, bit surprised I had done 3400 kl ms in that period.
Its a bit above my average but not much.
We Ludwig have spoken about that long tail at work sites before, sorry bloke it is complex.
It is in part a traffic calming zone, slowing traffic down both leaving and coming on site.
And a traffic storage area that MUST be in place.
That is to allowed a long Que to form safely while waiting to go.
That line MUST be AFTER the signs, so motorists near the end of line see warnings, that leads to a separate issue.
Que control, vital! lines must not end just around a corner or over a hill.
There MUST be warning for ever car that traffic is stopped ahead.
Long tails are also because stopped traffic must be clear of moving traffic, people get out of cars and wander around.
Some spend half the day complaining about roadworks, and the other complaining about the condition of the road.
It is complex.
I have reported my dreadful sights of attending death scenes, 12 in one week dead.
Still wake in a sweat sometimes, can you imagine that? 73 deaths in 22 years, .
I drive 10 klm over the speed limit, a petrol head still, but let police drive anything, use any means, a life can never be replaced.
more on traffic control soon.

In NSW the RTA pays police for extra patrols in long weekends and Holiday periods.
Some maybe all radar is bought by the RTA.
I have no concerns with this.
Speeding trucks, have an edge CB radio,it takes seconds for every truck to know a cops position.
We do need a way to control bad driver behavior.
mine too.
I however pick the places and time to go over the seed limit and always get out of any one who wants to go past me.
Traffic control at work sites, 2 systems are in place in NSW the work cover one and RTA one.
We should have one, nation wide, the best is the NSW or QLD RTA one.
Contractors or local governments use unlicensed people to put them in place, your life could be at risk, the laws are good but not policed.
Joe blow traffic control once even forged controllers tickets on computers, yes question every time is that right?
Often it is not, government departments do not police TCPs and often their own standards are dreadful.
Rarely however on major road projects, unions, contractors and police demand such sites do not needlessly kill.
However usually during construction at least one needless death happens because some refuse to understand slow down says, conditions have changed it is not hard but watch them die,a dreadful but true side issue to rebuilding our roads.

“Still, don't forget the people you are going to be taking snaps of, are likely to be the aggressive type, or they probably wouldn't be tailgating, in the first place. They will also be armed with over a ton of powerful weapon.”

You make a good point Hasbeen. But I think that it would be a rare fool indeed that would start acting in a really stupid manner as the result of someone taking a photo of their vehicle out the back window of the car in front.

Even the dumbest of the dumb would realise that the person with the camera would record their increased stupidity and could take it straight to the police, whereas in the first instance they may not bother going to the police if the matter is simply one of tailgating. They might be preparing to do so, but then if the driver behind backs off, they may well not bother. Or they may just be bluffing all along.

If this sort of activity was supported by the police, RACQ, RACV, NRMA, transport departments and governments, with plenty of promotion in the media, then all drivers would quickly come to know what was happening if they saw a camera being pointed at them out the back of the car in front.

This simple empowerment of the public would go a long way towards dealing with many road-safety-related matters!

Ultimately, the police could put a whole lot less effort directly into booking people and a whole lot more into administering complaints.

Community policing! That’s what we need, rather than leaving all the policing of road safety to the wafer thin blue line….and leaving the public feeling powerless and very frustrated, and inclined to take matters into their own hands at times because they know they won’t get any satisfaction from making a complaint!

Ludwig,
In reality your idea simply wouldn't work. The factors you are ignoring are "the human factor" and "the requirement under the law" (justice).

If simply advising someone that they are being offensive/or is breaching the rules on OLO rapidly degenerates into name calling and abuse. What do you think would happen if someone "dobbed" (their word not mine) someone else in or threatened to do so.... reason has nothing to do with it. Anyone of us could name at least 10 on OLO who wouldn't simply accept a citizen infringement and move one.

Fundamental to our concept of justice a person has the right to face their accuser what do you think would happen once the complainant gives evidence in court. Would the full context of the incident be told. Say some yob was threatened with a photo by an older driver so they retaliate by overtaking then breaking heavily while their mate snaps...justice?

What would be the definition, different camera focuses, angles will tell a distorted story.

What about malicious complaints, after the event revenge. Did I mention a lawyer fest.

Even if it were to be considered, perhaps you should ponder on what the police have to do now and the subsequent massive increase in their and the bureaucracy's work load.
My usual concern with your ideas applies they're good in theory but you don't allow for "the devil in the detail".

CJ
I think your 'revenue raising' quip is simply wrong although representative of the average mentality. To me the issue is a bit more basic. "If you don't want the fine simply don't do the crime."

Ludwig says:

"Community policing! That’s what we need, rather than leaving all the policing of road safety to the wafer thin blue line….and leaving the public feeling powerless and very frustrated, and inclined to take matters into their own hands at times because they know they won’t get any satisfaction from making a complaint!"

Whilst I empathize with respect to largely law-abiding members of the public feeling powerless and frustrated, I would suggest that instead of 'community policing', what is needed is integrity and perception at the political level in the respective departmental ministries, and amongst the various State government Ministers, when deciding policing policy.

The integrity I imply is missing is that as to whether the primary objective of road rules enforcement is one as to maximising the safety of road users in general, or one as to maximising revenue collection not perceptibly primarily focussed upon making bad driving behaviour too expensive to sustain. What is easier to do: have a policeman pull a driver over and issue a relevant (and desirably recorded) caution with respect to some specific driving behaviour, or automatically issue a camera speeding fine where speed, although easily measurable, may have very little neccessarily to do with unsafe driving behaviour?

Any Treasurer worth his salt knows there will be a large clientele of 'repeat customers' for the relatively less spectacular speeding offence fines, if only because speed limits tend to be set to the driving skills of the least proficient of the driving population. Its the MONEY that's wanted in preference to increasingly genuine compliance. Thats why traffic police have operated under directives that effectively prevent or discourage them from issuing recorded cautions unless accompanied by an infringement notice for which a fine applies.

But this isn't a post arguing for the placing of less emphasis upon lower-range speeding offences, its one about integrity, sincerity of purpose, and governmental transparency with respect to the policing of road rules in general. I think the Qld police proposal may be using public dislike of tailgating to smokescreen another agenda.

TBC

It is not easy for police ever to act on your complaints.
For a start would you go to court?
Would your word be taken over another's?
Unlikely we will ever see a tail light camera.
And not likely we will see much change in driver behavior, unless.
We can use current technology to help police on our roads.
This is my first week use sat GPS gear in the work car.
It knows my position and speed, some firms right now monitor and record work cars/trucks writing internal fines for employees even sacking them.
what if we HAD to have them?
What if they recorded our speed and police had the right to see that?
What if every fatal event saw a black box type of investigation into speed ext took place?

Examinator, thanks for giving my proposals some pretty thorough thought. Appreciated.

“Fundamental to our concept of justice a person has the right to face their accuser what do you think would happen once the complainant gives evidence in court.”

Fundamental to our system of justice, a person has the right to make a complaint against someone who undertakes illegal or dangerous activities and to expect their complaint to be taken seriously by the authorities. A person has a right to corroborate their complaint.

A person has the right to confront their accuser in a court of law. But if evidence is gathered in the proper manner and the police present this evidence to the accused, then very few people would go to court, once they realised that they don’t have a leg to stand on. The vast majority of the time the complainee and complainant wouldn’t get to know each other.

It would be just the same as it is now in regard to citizen’s complaints about all sorts of things. The only difference would be that the number of complaints about road safety matters would be considerably increased….at least for a while, until everyone understood what was happening. Then they’d fall again, due to the idiot fraction actually behaving themselves a whole better on our roads.

“Say some yob was threatened with a photo by an older driver so they retaliate by overtaking then breaking heavily while their mate snaps...justice?”

I repeat from my last post - even the dumbest of the dumb would realise that the person with the camera would record their increased stupidity and could take it straight to the police.

“My usual concern with your ideas applies they're good in theory but you don't allow for ‘the devil in the detail’.

I don’t think that there is too much devil in the detail at all.

But please continue to raise your concerns.

“…I would suggest that instead of 'community policing', what is needed is integrity and perception at the political level…”

Forrest we need both!

There certainly is a glaring lack of will amongst our political leaders to properly address road safety and policing policy. I’ve always thought that revenue-raising came a distant second to genuine attempts to improve road safety. But I’m not so sure any more. In fact I’m pretty sure that it isn’t the case.

Check this out: http://www.caradvice.com.au/11828/police-agree-speed-cameras-are-for-revenue-raising/

The lack of will amongst politicians is reflected in the lack of interest in the general community. Despite the consequences of road trauma being huge for a considerable fraction of the population and despite road fatalities being in the news all the time, the community lets politicians get away with doing nothing of any significance to improve the situation.

While this thread has received a reasonable response, some of my past road-safety threads on this forum – and there have been quite a few – have flopped. I take this as a strong indication that even amongst the caring portion of our population, as represented by OLO posters, there is scant little interest….and much less interest in the wider community.

Of course it is not a one-way street, and if politicians were to promote the cause of road safety, they’d engender a lot of community support….and maybe some significant improvements could be implemented.

And as I said earlier in this thread, the police and government would get their revenue-raising fix if they facilitated community policing. The two could work together very nicely!

Continued

The proposal is for introduction of 'tailgating CAMERAS'. That is, the AUTOMATED issue of infringement notices that are intended to be largely dealt with by the payment of a fine, rather than an appearance in court with any associated possibility of dismissal of the charge.

It would seem almost inevitable that such proposed 'tailgating cameras' would be statically, but not exactly roadside, mounted, as most existing 'speed cameras' are. More likely they will need to be mounted more directly ABOVE the traffic, so as to more unequivocally record the distance between vehicles simultaneously with the speeds thereof. Somewhat like the gantry mounted 'checking speed and fatigue' cameras used to police heavy vehicle mandatory driver rest breaks and overall point-to-point speed. Needless to say, they would also function as 'speed cameras' recording the infringement of any driver exceeding the limit in that particular place, whether or not tailgating is involved.

(Note I said 'driver', not just vehicle. It is a potentially important distinction to which I may return, in what may require to be a series of posts, in order to properly make a potentially very relevant point.)

What's the betting two things will concurrently occur if (when?) these cameras are introduced: the 'tailgating cameras' will not be accompanied by roadside signage as to their presence as presently occurs with 'speed cameras'; and the loss of points that presently accompanies the uncontested settlement of a speeding infringement by way of payment of a fine will be reduced!

Double whammy for the Treasury! Unwary drivers slightly exceeding the speed limit will incur more fines via 'tailgating cameras' without accumulating a disqualification 'too quickly'. Wary drivers who had been slightly exceeding the speed limit will apply the brakes for no reason that is apparent to other traffic following at stream speed. The vehicles behind the wary driver will close up where they had not otherwise been doing so. Bingo! One or many of them immediately get done for 'tailgating' because their spacing, relative to their speed, is suddenly 'too close'. Some justice that would be!

Getting the picture.

TBC

Continued

Getting the picture is what its all about.

With the gantry or overpass mounted devices, the camera is looking straight in through the windscreen of the approaching vehicle. The by-law-untinted windscreen, through which a photograph of the DRIVER's face may be recorded in most circumstances. Remember that.

As Belly has said in this post ( http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3026#71068 )to the 'Privacy, Security on the web' topic with respect to government instrumentalities, "......, white wash is the only tool they use.
truth reason add up to nothing, self protection rules." So too I think it is with respect to the existing speed cameras that a major defect related to the legalities of issuing fines to the relevant DRIVER committing each infringement has come to be recognised, but the politico-bureaucracy does not want to openly acknowledge it to the community they are supposed to represent and serve.

When the existing roadSIDE speed cameras record an infringement, they seldom get a good enough picture with which the offending driver could be unequivocally identified. The infringement notice is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle in question, who is required to admit to or contest the infringement as if it were their own act, or to nominate who the other person was that may have been driving their vehicle at the time.

Problem!

A very large proportion of vehicles are driven regularly by persons who are in a spousal relationship with the registered owner. A long established principle of our British legal and constitutional heritage has it that a spouse may not be compelled under the law to testify against their partner. Should this privilege become widely understood within the community, and be exploited when appropriately 'lawyered up', the existing speed cameras would become useless in raising revenue from all vehicle owners in spousal relationships.

Without a clear picture of the driver at the time of the infringement, the so-called 'law enforcement' authorities are stymied by this over-ruling safeguard within our constitutional monarchical system, the right to claim spousal privilege.

TBC

Ludwig,

It is the evidence gathering is the the real Mutaburrasaurus in the room. Photo evidence like you describe is considered by the courts to be potentially suspect. Timing and context are often unprovable.
In the yob example given how are you going to prove in court the sequence? time stamps can be set. Also if you're forced of the road a photo may not save you from a kicking. There are other problems too.
In the example I gave in another post my car was between the culprits (on foot) and me.
Perhaps you should consider this tale as an idea of what's out there.
My two boys were beaten up at the beach,defending their younger sister and a girl friend who was being monstered in front of many witnesses. The police were called and they failed to take investigate thoroughly.
Three perps two were under 18 (well know to the police) and a 26 yo ish name unknown but a known drug dealer all three were over 1.9 and played footy considerably larger than my two the eldest was 16.

The three just disappeared. 18 mths later one was charged as a minor no offense recorded he had hassled my youngest at the station (caught on camera) but his brief threw up the smoke screen and was given police caution. 3 years after that the second was arrested for Domestic Violence. Because he too was a minor at the time by 3 days it wasn't worth the effort. Both boys had histories of violence and drugs and had been expelled from 2 high schools.
Would you be prepared to risk that from maybe (multiple) car loads of yobs? I'd have to think about it CAREFULLY. The car being stolen etc

I think Ludwig's idea of 'community policing' is fraught - for Forrest's inimitably expressed reasons and also for those that examinator's brought up. Indeed, I think that Ludwig would probably find that incidents where he is tailgated would decrease markedly in frequency if he stopped pissing other drivers off by acting like a wannabe cop and trying to force others to conform to his interpretation of the road rules.

I've driven up and down the Bruce 'highway' between Brisbane and Cairns more times than I can remember, and while I've seen some really stupid driving I've never been tailgated. That's because I make it easy for vehicles that are travelling at an average faster speed than me to get past. In the case of tailgating, I really think it's that simple.

Examinator, what do you think can be done to improve road safety? Or should we just learn to live it as it is?

Your points while worth considering are entirely negative. I put it to you that we really do have to work towards improving the situation, and that the advantages in what I propose far outweigh the potential disadvantages.

“Photo evidence like you describe is considered by the courts to be potentially suspect.”

Not if it is gathered properly, and provided to the police straight off the memory card very soon after an event, before there has been any chance of manipulation.

“Timing and context are often unprovable.”

The vast majority of the time these parameters wouldn’t be a problem, with something as straightforward as tailgating. It is not hard for those inclined to gather this sort of data to quickly know how to take photos in the most effective manner. And I can’t imagine that there would be much opportunity for unscrupulous people to doctor them.

I’d suggest that it would be very easy for the police to detect a fraud and very difficult for a perpetrator to have confidence that they could get away with any such fraud.

Of course the police and courts have to be aware of the possibility of the fraudulent use of such equipment and in what ways it could be done.

But quite frankly, I can’t see any significant problems in line with the things that you are worried about. Ok so there is bound to be some sort of complications, but we’ve got to compare this with the advantages.

The simple idea of using a cam recorder, still camera, mobile phone camera, etc has surely got to be a good one, not least because just about everybody already has this sort of equipment.

This means that there is the potential for a massive improvement in road safety very quickly and with little expense incurred by the police, government or taxpayer other than publicity and promotion and a few extra staff.

“I think that Ludwig would probably find that incidents where he is tailgated would decrease markedly in frequency if he stopped pissing other drivers off by acting like a wannabe cop…”

Jeez Ceej, you are a naughty child: asserting something that you completely don’t know the veracity of.

If you stick to the letter of the law in terms of speeding, you’ll get tailgated a LOT. Even if you roll with the flow on the open highway, at a few kmh over the limit, you still get a whole lot of d!ckheads coming up behind and following way too close.

It makes me wonder what sort of a driver you are CJ if you don’t get tailgated regularly on the Bruce Hwy and other main highways…. Or do you only regard tailgating as having a vehicle right up your coight at a distance of one metre or less at 100 kmh??

Anyway, you are at stark odds with the general views on tailgating and the significance thereof in terms of accidents and trauma, as I presented in the opening post.

You might also like to note that tailgating has come out as the top concern of drivers in repeated RACQ polls and is considered to be the major cause of nose to tail accidents and motor vehicle insurance claims.

It is just silly to play it down.

Continued

The sincerity of politico-bureaucratic interest in road safety, as contrasted with revenue raising, can be assessed by asking what the effect would be if moveable roadside speed cameras were routinely used at roadworks sites in conjunction with existing point-to-point average speed recording technology. All accompanied by signs warning motorists of the operation of BOTH types of cameras as they approach these sites.

Its a no-brainer. The vast majority of drivers would scrupulously observe the roadwork speed limits at all times at which they applied. Few fines would be incurred. Road and workplace safety would be greatly enhanced.

Any speed camera infringements of roadworks limits accompanied by a point-to-point camera infringement at the same site would put paid to any claim that might be made in a contested matter that the limit was only 'momentarily' exceeded, or that the driver was 'slowing down' to observe the limit and was unfairly booked. For those foolish enough to earn a speed camera fine, the point-to-point record showing the driver's face would negate the spousal privilege defence that could otherwise stymie collection of a fine: the police or traffic authority could in all likelihood identify the real offender with the aid of the photograph in a visit to the premises of the registered owner.

All this talk of clamping down on tailgating with 'tailgating cameras' is hogwash and whitewash. The politico-bureaucrat covey do not wish to own up to the legislative ineptitude with which they introduced speed cameras. They wish to correct their mistake without acknowledging it, and protect, and maybe increase, the revenue they are deriving in fines. Most of all, they do not want the community to become more aware of their heritage of the right to spousal privilege and from where it derived.

The trite catch-all that "If you don't want the fine simply don't do the crime" will become irrelevant. You will be relatively unable to plan to avoid the offence of tailgating because you will be precipitated into it by what amounts to entrapment.

TBC

Ludwig,
I guess it's the naughty corner for me being negative.
That wasn't my intention. As I said the idea in principal is sound but in practice it is fraught with all manner hidden pit falls.

I don't think that the status quo is acceptable by a long way try driving on the Gateway in Brisbane or the city highways in Melb tailgating etc are as common as toads in Nth Qld.

It seems to me that the difference between the police and say me, is authority and training.
Current police training is to train police to deal with everything, time consuming, costly and not value for money when dealing with “trivial”/more mundane issues.
I wonder if we couldn't have a sub force of officers (like the Transport Regulation Board Officers [TRBO] who police trucks).
These people could have the authority to set up cameras and issue fines related to vehicular violations. In say a team at a blow station there may be one regular policeman a few TRBO and citizen police assistants(CPA) to do the paperwork. A speed or tailgating site there could be a TRBO officer and two (CPA) for the paperwork.
More bodies on enforcement, both the serious stuff and more on traffic enforcement, less cost more public involvement with the law and process..... may help bring down the us and them mentality. All these bodies exist now in most states. Even Qld has community PO with limited powers.
This is just a top of the head idea
What could go wrong? Wait, I'll put on my bump hat. There, now it's your turn. (I'm out of posts)But I'll read your response with interest.

Continued

Let's consider these proposed 'tailgating cameras' against the statistical background that is being claimed justifies their introduction. Ludwig reports in his opening post, with respect to Queensland, that:

"More than 1600 crashes a year are caused by drivers not keeping a safe distance from the car in front."

Such a statistic is not necessarily reflective of tailgating. More likely a significant proportion of such crashes which occur with these insufficient separations between vehicles involved do so because there is a sudden and unexpected change at the front of a traffic stream. Traffic in which, although perhaps heavy, no driver could be claimed to be 'tailgating', that is, deliberately closing up on a vehicle ahead in an intimidatory manner.

Let's imagine a situation in which a driver driving in the kerbside lane of a two-lane road sees parked vehicles ahead, and indicates a lane change. A packet of three vehicles traveling relatively close together having just driven off after a light change is in the centremost lane a little distance behind the driver attempting the lane change. The lead driver of the packet eases off and lets the lane-changer in. The other two drivers in the packet anticipate this courtesy and also ease off at the same time as closing up a bit. OK so far.

A short distance after being let in, with the three courteous drivers now passing a line of parked vehicles in the kerbside lane, the recent lane-changer props and hangs an unindicated left turn into a car dealership driveway. The lead vehicle of the three-car packet slams on the anchors and narrowly avoids colliding with the protruding rear of the left-turner, but within seconds is involved in a three-car pile-up. No tailgating involved, just three courteous drivers.

The driver that precipitated the one incident,but THREE crashes that now form part of the statistics, is unable to answer the attending policeman's first question. Or the second: "Where did you get your license, Canton or Shanghai?" He doesn't have one word of English.

Lying statistics!

“I wonder if we couldn't have a sub force of officers…”

Examinator, you’re onto something. I agree that the administration of something like tailgating and similar road-safety matters could be carried out by people with far less skills than fully trained police officers.

I can’t see that the people who administer these complaints would need anything more than fairly narrowly focussed skills, which are probably not much more complex than administrative qualifications plus basic photo-interpretation and anti-fraud skills.

Afterall, it would be the public that is doing the frontline stuff.

There is no way in the world that we are going to get a significant increase in police numbers on our roads, as much as those of us who care about road safety desire it. So we need to concentrate on technological advances and empowerment of the community.

As you suggest, the same principle could apply with the administration of a greatly increased number of covert speed cameras, tailgating cameras and the like.

And it should also apply for non police officers to be able to book people for speeding through roadworks sites.

“More bodies on enforcement, both the serious stuff and more on traffic enforcement, less cost more public involvement with the law and process..... may help bring down the us and them mentality…”

Yes yes YES!! And a much better standard of road safety….and a reduction in all manner of illegal activities as well!!

“It is in part a traffic calming zone, slowing traffic down both leaving and coming on site.”

Belly, the long distance between the actual end of roadworks and the return to normal speed, that is emplaced at just about every roadworks site, could hardly be called a traffic calming zone if drivers either completely ignore it which happens 99.9% of the time or feel compelled to adhere to it and angered as a result of its stupidity, at the car behind them tailgating and/or overtaking and at the schism between the law and commonsense!

Sometimes there might be a justification for continuing with a long slow zone. But most of the time there is NONE!

Each site should be signposted according to its specific requirements, rather than having to conform to this utterly stupid rule of always having to have the outward bound slow zone matching the inward bound slow zone on the other side of that particular stretch of road!

Forrest, you wrote;

“The integrity I imply is missing is that as to whether the primary objective of road rules enforcement is one as to maximising the safety of road users in general, or one as to maximising revenue collection not perceptibly primarily focussed upon making bad driving behaviour too expensive to sustain.”

Agreed. It has taken me a long time to reach that sordid conclusion. For years I thought that those who were adamant that road-safety policing was revenue-raising-oriented as the first priority were just expressing sour grapes. But those days are gone.

It makes it damn hard to know what to espouse when you’ve basically got what should be a highly respected part of our society turning into a mob of parasites…who are destructive to goodwill and respect for the law, law-enforcers and politicians, and just all round engenders very bad karma!

To say that I’m disgusted would be the understatement of the century!

However, I would still advocate the widespread use of technology such as speed and tailgating cameras, while at the same pushing as hard as possible for integrity in government and law enforcement.

Now for the disagreements…

I can’t agree with your expression of issues involving a spouse. If there were only two people who could have been driving at the time of an offence (or three or more in a family with teenage drivers), then the driver would be very easily determined. There wouldn’t be any need for spouse to testify against spouse, surely!

At any rate, what sort of relationship would you have if a couple couldn’t agree on who was driving or who should take the rap?

“Such a statistic is not necessarily reflective of tailgating. More likely a significant proportion of such crashes which occur with these insufficient separations between vehicles involved do so because there is a sudden and unexpected change at the front of a traffic stream. Traffic in which, although perhaps heavy, no driver could be claimed to be 'tailgating', that is, deliberately closing up on a vehicle ahead in an intimidatory manner.”

continued

Just how tailgating is defined I’m not sure. But it should include any unsafe following distance. If a following vehicle is so close that it cannot stop in time if the car in front hits the skids, then I’d call that tailgating, well and truly.

It is not just the full-on intimidatory up-your-exhaust-pipe type driving that I’m concerned about, it is any driving by the driver behind that places you under an increased risk.

So if there is a line of traffic and the lead car has to stop quickly, resulting in cars behind ploughing into each other, then there has been tailgating involved. If the lead car just slows down slightly and the effect is magnified back through a line of traffic, with each car breaking a bit more strongly, resulting a prang, then those vehicles have been following each other too closely..a la tailgating.

And in each case, it is NOT the fault of the driver in front!

Following distance is totally up to the following vehicle. The car in front has NO ability to control it…apart perhaps from indicating discontent by way flashing their brake-lights or throwing their hand out the window with a wave-back motion.

One complication is that those who follow at a safe distance in thick traffic get cut in on all the time by lane-changers. But they just have to smoothly pull back and re-establish a safe following distance.

In just about every instance, if a car hits the car in front, then it is that driver’s fault...unless perhaps he/she has just been severely cut in on, with the offender then immediately braking suddenly.

Crikey, people who drive regularly in thick traffic should know this and drive accordingly. They should know that they have to be prepared for the vehicle in front to stop very suddenly at any time!

“Lying statistics!”

No, I don’t think so.

Ludwig, yesterday I had to travel 100km along the New England Highway. On the way back, I encountered one of the prats I was talking about before. This guy's sitting on about 95 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, so I've gradually caught up to him. Knowing the road as I do, I hang back until we reach one of the overtaking lanes, which extends for about 3 km up a long, fairly steep hill.

We reach the overtaking lane, so I move into it. This idiot accelerates until we're both travelling at 120 km/h, and I'm in a 4-cylinder diesel that won't go any faster up that kind of hill, so by the time we reach the top he's still in front of me. As soon as we're over the crest and it's back to two lanes, this prick slows back to 95 km/h.

It took about another 5 km until we reached a point where it was safe to overtake him, during which I pondered what my reaction would have been if I'd been of less calm a disposition, as I read his redneck bumper stickers, one of which proudly announced 'I love beer' (I kid you not). As it was, I just gave him the finger when I eventually passed, resisting the strong temptation to run the dildo off the road.

I have no idead why that driver behaved as he did, but it's exactly the sort of thing that might lead to tailgating (or worse) from a less mature driver. You asked how I drive - safely, positively, defensively and courteously is the answer. However, I do let idiots who put my life in danger by their manner of driving know what I think of them, either by a flash of the lights or my index finger.

That clown yesterday needlessly put my life, his and other road users at risk, and no tailgating camera would pick his behaviour up.

CJ, I empathise. Of course there are going to be driving behaviours which are not detectable by tailgating cameras or any technology….or even a greatly increased police presence on our roads, and for which the public could not easily gather hard evidence even if facilitated in doing so within a community-policing regime.

Having said that, with a cam recorder or still camera, your passenger (if you had one) could have recorded the necessary evidence in your situation to have had this fool convicted. Think about it. It could easily have been achieved.

There is no excuse for stupid driving in response to stupid driving. The antics that you experienced would be no excuse for tailgating. If a driver was busted for tailgating under those circumstances, he/she’d be in the wrong, clear-cut.

A very significant part of driver-training and behaviour has got be one’s ability to handle adverse situations and to certainly not add to the risk factors.

But we will never be able to engender perfect law-abidance or road safety. However as I keep saying, we could SO EASILY make very significant improvements.

It is not just a matter of safety out there on our roads, it’s a matter of anger, stress and peace of mind…and respect for the law, blah blah. You were obviously very much bothered by this event. So I hope you can now fully appreciate my passion for this subject.

CJ, you were unlucky, I think. I can not recall ever finding one of those twits on the New England. However, when I was silly enough to take a friends advice recently, & used highway 1 from Sydney to the Gold Coast, I found one or more of them at every overtaking lane, the whole way. Never again.

[I find the truckers, on the new england really grate. As they usually drive a constant speed, about 5/7Km over the limit, I hook a mental tow rope, about 50 metres long, onto one, & drive by semi remote control behind them, & avoid getting pinged for speeding by accident.]

To be kind, I don't even think these twits are being antisocial, & trying to stay ahead of you, they are just lousy city drivers.

Our city drivers rarely get to drive at much over 60Km in a single lane. The only time they drive faster is on expressways, with the space of multilanes [or at least duel lanes] around them. I like to think they are just driving to their skill level, 90Km in a single lane, & 120Km in a multilane.

By thinking this way, it makes it easier to avoid allowing these twits to spoil my day. This way, I can feel sorry for them, rather than get annoyed.

It does get even worse, out here, just 30Km from the outer city suburbs. The tarmac on our roads is only one car wide. To pass an oncoming car, you both put your outside wheels off the tarmac, into the dirt.

I drive a small, 30 year old sports car. I used to find it amusing that our city visiters, in their bo@@dy great 4WDs would refuse to put any wheels off the tarmac, & would expect me to leave the tarmac completely, to allow their progress.

As a now cranky old bugger, I often just stop, on the tarmac, requiring them to drive around me. The look on their faces, as they have to take all 4 wheels of their off roader into the dirt is priceless.

I am all for bigger penalties, much bigger. A lousy couple of hundred bucks does nothing to pull speedsters in to line. As for a few km's over the limit. Thats just as bad as 10 or more over. If the speed limit is 100, you do not exceed that at all. How can you justify overtaking a car doing 100 km's/hr. That is hoon driving.
I say anyone caught doing over the limit is off the road straight away.
In the Northern Territory the limit is 130 km's/hr and that is still not enough for some.

Desmond,
In theory you're right but in practice all it will do is encourage driving without a valid license. More likely a change in Government.
People are if nothing else selfish.
I think there has to be something in between. Like the Mikado says "let the punishment fit the crime".

CJ.
Ooow ah rude finger, that's road rage. There goes your political career..... ;-)

All
I wonder outside of marketing and infantile egos why do governments allow cars to have such zippy over the top acceleration that encourages dangerous maneuvers. Consider we use most petrol in these speedy bursts of speed and therefore most CO2 is sent to the environment. I see nothing wrong with tarted up cars but cars that can go from 0-120 in 4/6 seconds...why? or cars that go faster than the law allows again why?
To me marketing is encouraging impatience etc....the root cause of much of this idiocy we're complaining about.
Ludwig I guess I'm going back to my stock approach to everything....there is no such thing as a one shot magic bullet. IF AN ANSWER SEEMS SIMPLE IT PROBABLY IS.

I suggest the answer(s) lie in a mix of partial solutions. both attitudinal changing, reward and enforcement.

Desmond

I disagree that the answer lies with bigger penalties. I think the answer lies fairly and squarely with more effective policing - with there being a greater chance of bad drivers being caught.

Currently. there is very little chance indeed, in any given situation, of being busted because the police presence is extroardinarily sparse....and because the public is effectively disempowered to do what should be their basic duty - to report bad driving and expect their compaints to count for something!

Even if the number of police on the roads was doubled or quadrupled, it would a still be pathetically small. Even if the number of speed cameras and other devices was increased tenfold, it would not be sufficient to pull wanky drivers into line.

The answer lies fairly and squarely with the facilitation of community policing.

I agree that the speed limit should be the speed LIMIT! It is quite absurd to have speed limits written in law in unequivocal terms and signposted in an unambiguous manner, only to be treated in a completely different manner by the vast majority of drivers, which is condoned by the police, politicians and public!!

Talk about holistic duplicity!

How is it possible for the cruising speed to actually be about 5 to 9kmh over the signed speed limit, on ALL our highways?

How can there possibly be no will amongst politicians, police and even the RACQ and other motoring & safety groups, to bring general practice into line with the law??

How utterly sloppy !! !! !! !!

It could so easily be fixed. We just need to redefine speed limits as speed zones. So a 100kmh speed limit would become a 100kmh zone where the absolute limit is 110kmh with a cruising speed should be about 105, in ideal conditions.

This would be a whole lot more tenable than to strictly enforce current speed limits.

Ludwig is quite right, in relation to my use of the phrase 'Lying statistics!' at the conclusion of my last post, to observe: "No, I don't think so".

Of course, any lying is done by such as wilfully misuse the statistics in question, not the statistics themselves. Such statistics as we have in this thread are really somewhat bald and unqualified, as is also now becoming apparent the fact that the definition of 'tailgating' is varying between posters.

Ludwig, expressing disagreement with one of my earlier posts, says:

"I can’t agree with your expression of issues involving a spouse. ......., what sort of relationship would you have if a couple couldn’t agree on who was driving or who should take the rap?"

Ludwig misses the point entirely.

The point is that, appropriately legally represented, it would appear NEITHER party of a couple has to admit to who was, or may have been, driving. In the absence of the Crown possessing any independent evidence as to who was driving, and provided competent legal representation handles the whole matter of dealing with the infringement notice from the outset, the whole matter as to the pursuit of a fine and the award of infringement points to a licence holder in all probability has to be dropped. Such can be the practical value of spousal PRIVILEGE to many ordinary 'mum and dad' motorists who have fallen victim to the cash-cow 'speed cameras'. Its not a matter of whether one agrees with spousal privilege, it is a feature of the law!

Consider the quiet death in recent times of a NSW proposal to ban ALL window tinting on vehicles. Possessing no publicly credible reason for the tinting ban, the politico-bureaucracy did not want to admit the real reason it was sought was so that better images of the driver could be sometimes obtained by 'speed cameras' as evidence INDEPENDENT of the admissions (that it was known to a select few (like former Justice Einfeld ?) could be lawfully avoided under spousal privilege) upon which the collection of the fines prospectively theretofore depended.

Victoria is currently trialing number plate recognition, to make sure the person driving the car is licensed.
Last year 40% of fatalaties involved drivers with no license.
If the speed limit is 100 shouldn't your cruising speed be 95. You have to be dead sure your speedo is not telling lies.
Most people are convinced that their speedo is 5 km/hr slow, even at 60 or 40. As soon as a police car comes into view everyones speed matches.

I guess that Desmond's introduction of the trialling of number plate recognition technology in Victoria is a legitimate deviation from Ludwig's 'On the tail of tailgaters' topic, as it appears it might at some point involve the use of cameras. But does it really? Or does it rely on the input of number plate details, be it photographically or manually, from the vantage point of a police vehicle in traffic? A specific reference, with a link if possible, would be good.

However, accepting Desmond's account is correct as it stands, how does determining that a number plate is indeed that of a currently registered vehicle (or not, as the case may be) tell anything directly as to the licensing status of its driver? Many people other than the registered owners legitimately commonly drive vehicles. The true status of the license such other drivers may claim to have is not something legitimately checkable by the registered owner.

Far more interesting is Desmond's claim that "Last year 40% of fatalaties involved drivers with no license." Again a reference would be highly desirable, for, if true, this is a potentially most revealing correlation, if your primary interest as a legislator or law enforcement authority is enhancing road safety, as distinct from revenue raising.

The claimed fact that of road accident fatalities, 40% involved drivers with no license, surely points to a need to focus upon the prevention of unlicensed driving as a major tactic in reducing the road toll. In so focussing, perhaps the first thing to resolve is, of fatal accidents involving unlicensed drivers, how many of such have previously held, but later lost via court process, an appropriate license?

It would be interesting to know, in all non-fatal road accidents, what proportion involved unlicensed drivers.

Attempting more directly to return to the topic of this thread, it would also be interesting to know, in both fatal and non-fatal categories separately, what proportion of all accidents were attributable to insufficient vehicle separation, let alone intimidatory 'tailgating', all the while bearing the unlicensed driving statistics in mind.

Forrest, just a quick response from Ellis Beach. I'm travelling around for the next several weeks and posting from all sorts of odd portals.

At this particular one I can't write and view the post to which I am responding at the same time, buggrit!! How archaeic! /:>\

I think I did get your point about spousal relations and the law. You are very good at explaining things. I just have trouble believing it.

The cops would know that the owner of the car would know who was driving at the time of an infringement, if not themself...or that the owner damn well should know and could surely find out if they hadn't initially known.

So if the name of the driver is not forthcoiming, then the cops could surely book the driver for withholding information, failing to cooperate with the police or whatever the infringement might be called.....surely!

Ludwig
IMO the problem with discussions like this is that they're trying to solve a situation without addressing the root cause and impediments.

My posts tend to try and address issue at that level.

Good luck with your travels remember I want good wildlife pickies for my jigsaws on my computer. please I have to do some thing between saving the world and pontificating ;-)

I tailgate, but wish that I saw no need to. Many drivers just go too slow. Police should start booking these drivers and handing out large fines to anyone towing a large caravan with anything less than a V8. Governments should raise speed limits, as it would allow the Desmonds of this world to drive at the same speed as the rest of us and would be the best way to reduce the number of speeding drivers. There should be advertising campains on the need to catch the car in front of you (to be considerate to people on side streets). If all this happened, then I could put my hand on my heart and promise not to tailgate again. Off you go Ludwig.

Tailgating cameras? What a clever way to raise more tax revenue. Doubtless other 'essential' (and profitable) purposes can be found for the new cameras when installed.

Heard about the risk of cyclists speeding on bike paths? Let's introduce speed cameras and tailgating cameras for them too. After all, if just one life is saved and so on - not to mention the prospect of raising a few extra dollars for government.

The pressure is on to come up with new little earners for government to help claw back the stimulus billions. Of course we could save a lot of money by getting rid of state governments, but hell will freeze over before any pollies' jobs are lost.

Yes, the most dangerous thing about our roads today is our ridiculously low speed limits, coupled with excessive use of double, no overtaking, centre lines. Add in a few Desmonds, who want to stop anyone driving faster than 95Km/hour, & you have all the ingredients for road rage.

About the hardest thing to do, on a long drive in the country, in Oz, today, is to stay awake. You can drive for hours, without really steering your car, moving your foot on the throttle, or changing gear, if you ever have to do that.

Perhaps we should be glad we have a Desmond or two, as mobile chicanes, to wake us up.

In the 60s, on 60s roads, in 50s, & 60s cars large numbers of us drove regularly at 80 to 90 MPH, legally. Whats more, we must have done it safely, as the road toll was lower.

BUT. Most of us could drive. We had cars, with drum brakes, which would fade very qiuckly, so we learned to use them sparingly. That meant we had to drive much further ahead, & slow down naturally, & gently.

We often drove on gravel roads, & had to be able to handle mud, or loose gravel, hell, even corners.

We ever had curves, in main roads, which required us to adjust our speed to be able to get around them.

Then there were the trucks. Remember them. 15 MPH up the hills, & 85 MPH down the other side, or on those long straights in Victoria. An interstate drive was an interesting adventure, even for those who did it regularly.

I had better stop now, I'm starting to daydream, of the good old days, of 9 hour overnight trips, from Sydney to Melbourne, when all good Desmonds stayed home at night.

Examinator, yes we need to look at the root causes.

BTW, upon reflection, I retract my comment about you being wholly negative. The sort of ideas that I am putting forward need to be critically examined, which means that any possible downsides need to be brought to light.

Keep up the healthy critique.

I'll certainly try to get some good photos. Managed to get some reasonable shots of a Pacific baza yesterday.

Cheers

"If the speed limit is 100 shouldn't your cruising speed be 95"

Yes indeed it should Desmond. So if the speed limit was 110 in a 100kmh zone, the cruising speed should be about 105, WHICH IS WHAT IS IT IS NOW IN A 100KMH ZONE!!

My idea of speed zones, where the speed limit is 10kmh higher than the signs say, would in fact just be formalising the current situation. It would be bringing the law into line with accepted behaviour, rather than the other way around.

"You have to be dead sure your speedo is not telling lies"

YES!!

For good drivers, there is such a narrow speed range that you can travel in, in any given speed zone. You ideally want to roll with the flow but to not do a speed that will get you booked. That's a pretty tight little margin. So you really do need to know the accuracy of your speedo.

This is very easy to do with a GPS. A GPS reads your speed pretty dam accurately, if you just sit on a constant speed for a short distance.
For some years now I've been using my GPS to determine that accuracy of speedometers in the various different vehicle that I have driven. You need to recalibrate every so often as your tyres wears, and especially after getting new tyres, as the error margin in your speedo changes as the circumference of your tyres change.

It has become obvious to me that a lot of the time people who are just trying to be law-abiding drivers are sitting on a speed 5 or 10kmh below the limit when they think they are sitting right on just over the speed limit, because they are reading their speedo without realising that it is giving them a reading considerably higher than their true speed.

This is one thing that should be strongly promoted by the police and all other relevant authorities - the regular calibration of speedometers.

But nooooo....I've never even heard a mention of it from the cops, pollies, Dept of Transport, etc.

Ludwig,
I agree that there should be a law demanding speedometers be calibrated at the time of fitting new tyres and changes to the gear box. Both can effect the speedometer.

BTW there is a lag on GPS speeds showing. In reality the delay can allow the car at high speed travel further than necessary at an incorrect speed to be booked.
I find it bemusing that truckies are mandated to have tachometer (speed recorders etc.) but cars don't.

Consider this I think that Tachometer recorder readings are considered as evidence in court. In this way miscreant drivers would not be able to hide the fact that the car was speeding at a specific time and with GPS tech, where.

Most recalcitrants object to having them mandated on vehicles claiming rights but their lack of interest in truckies' "rights" is inconsistent.

From wonderful sunny Port Douglas....

"Off you go Ludwig".

Ok benk, here's the response that you would expect.....

"I tailgate, but wish that I saw no need to."

There is no need to. As I said in an earlier post; there is no excuse for bad driving from others leading you to practice bad driving. There can be no excuse for a driver in front of you, who is creating a hazard or more of a risk factor than they should be, leading you to add further to that risk factor. And if you are tailgating, that is exactly what you are doing.

I understand your frustration all too well. I wish that road-hogs would be dealt with by the police just as much as tailgaters, speeders and the rest of the rabble of road-rule retrogrades.

.
Cornflower, yes we've got to be aware of this disgusting revenue-raising motive. But we've also GOT to do something substantial about road safety. So how would you do this, if not by the much-increased use of speed cameras, tailgating cameras and technologies that lead to the fining of infringers?

What do you think of my assertion that community policing should be a very large part of the answer?

Hasbeen, I know what you mean about slotting in at a safe distance behind trucks on the New England - and you're also right that such occurrences as I described are rare when compared to the coastal highways. With the truck thing, it's also a good way of avoiding hitting roos when driving at night.

Nice to agree with Cornflower about something too :)

Ludwig, while your idea of "community policing" is obviously well-intended, I think it sucks. Imagine the legal minefield and possibilities for entrapment from the petty busybodies who have axes to grind. Besides which, "dobbing" is such anathema to Australian culture that it would never work.

Desmond, were you driving on the New England Highway between Warwick and Stanthorpe last Friday?

CJ
Did you read my application of the community policing. including vetting, training and under a trained TRB officer.

I'm somewhat dismayed by your bias, are you saying that the police don't do all of the above?

It seems to me breaches of the law are binary issues especially in the circumstances I posted . Therefore the pejorative term busy body is unwarranted.
In reality the busybody that is pedantic about reporting others rapidly looses interest from councils, police etc.

Ludwig

There is no doubt that drivers slow down in the vicinity of radar units. How many 'tailgate' cameras will you need?

If following too closely is a serious offence why aren't traffic police making arrests? There are many unmarked police cars on the road and police can see tailgaters just as easily as you can. How often do you hear of anyone being charged with following too closely or lane changing infringements?

Quite probably it is the police vehicles that should be fitted with video cameras as in the US, so that police have the evidence they need to enforce the traffic laws.

What about people that enter and go around roundabouts at road speed.
There needs to be a limit on all roundabouts of around 20 kph.
In rain or dry nothing changes. People have got to be protected against them selves. What we need is blak box recorders in every car, so the police can read it at any time without notice. like reading a power metre . Your fines could be printed out on the spot. On that particular friday i was driving south of goondawindy on the newell.

Right, now maybe this time I'll be allowed to post on this thread, after the most bizarre set of circumstances has prevented me from doing so after the last few days, including having written a post and then not being able to send it...or save it in any manner.

This internet access from all sorts of different portals as one is touring around has got knobs on it. Very frustrating indeed!

From Kuranda....

.
"Ludwig, while your idea of "community policing" is obviously well-intended, I think it sucks."

It is nothing more than an extension of our basic rights; to be able to do something meaningful about illegal activities rather than to be powerless.

It is about being able to make complaints, with a bit of corroborating evidence if we can get it, and then expect those complaints to be acted on.

Hey, regarding all manner of illegal activies, the public CAN make complaints, without any real evidence, and the police will act on them. But when it comes to road safety, it is a totally different story.

There are signs on the Kennedy and Cook Highways imploring drivers to report hazards, with a phone number supplied. Oh, but of course, they don't mean dangerous driving in the form of tailgating or risky overtaking, they only mean other sorts of hazards. Yeah right!

CJ I'd like to explore with you some of the possible means of entrapment or other downsides of an enhanced community policing regime.

What are your main concerns?

"There is no doubt that drivers slow down in the vicinity of radar units. How many 'tailgate' cameras will you need?"

Corny, they only slow down if they know they are there. Cameras should be covert, not with bloody warning signs a couple of hundred metres ahead of them for f>cks sake!

These sorts of devices should be everywhere. The boxes that they are mounted in should be absolutely all over the place. The actual number of cameras would only need to be perhaps one tenth of the number of boxes, with them being moved around between boxes frequently.

The trick is to get a paradigm shift in the way we all drive, to one of virtual blanket observance of the law, instead of a virtual blanket malobservance of the law except when we think there is a reasonable chance of being busted. The principle is very simple.

"If following too closely is a serious offence why aren't traffic police making arrests?"

Good question. I'd love to know.

What on earth the police are really doing out there on our roads is befuddling. It is obvious to me that significant improvements in road safety could just so easily be made. And yes video cameras in all police cars would surely be a big step forward.

Desmond, on the north side of Cairns on the Cook Highway there is a whole series of big double-lane rounabouts. They are confusing to navigate at the best of times, but with this being complicated by the prevalence of drivers who take them too fast and who have no tolerance for those who take them cautiously, it is a bloody awful stretch of road to drive on.

The cops have realised that something needs to be done. So they've erected 60kmh signs well back from each roundabout, where the previous 80kmh zone has continued right through the roundabouts with yellow 40kmh suggested speed signs just before the roundabouts.

So do you think that this has helped? Not in the slightest. In fact it has significantly increased the hazard.

The vast majority of drivers just completely ignore these 60kmh signs. If you observe them when you've got traffic behind you, then you universally get tailgated. If you observe them when there is a whole line of traffic behind you, then your action of slowing down to 60 is likely to be exaggerated back through the line of traffic in which each car is travelling too close to the one in front, resulting in a nose to tail accident somewhere in that line of traffic.

So, the law-observing driver becomes the hazard in this situation!

Most would-be law-observers would quickly realise this and say under their breath; 'f>ck the law, I'm going to roll with the flow and preserve my safety margin'.

Quite frankly, if you observe the law in that situation, you feel like a bloody idiot, because you are just driving completely differently to everyone else around you, and don't other drivers let you know it!

For that matter, the same applies in just about every situation where you change speed zones, up or down. If you want to stick to the letter of the law and you've got someone behind you, then more often than not, they'll indicate that they think your driving stinks!

Paint the yellow signs black and put a speed camera there , then see what the difference is.

Me not understand that Des.

Can you elaborate.

Thanks

Because drivers who tailgate will do the same regardless of the lane involved, the speed limit or the speed of the other vehicle it indicates to me that it is more about discourtesy and bullying than anything else. From observation, they are also frequent lane changers and do so without adequate warning.

I don't doubt that their road rule breaking behaviour generalises and they also attract speeding and other fines.

That being so, maybe they are best removed from the road. I would like to see count back of demerit points over extended periods used to disqualify drivers for long periods of time and in some cases, permanently.

I would also like to see insurance companies offering large discounts (better than 30%) to drivers who volunteer to have speed tracking devices (there is an allowance for some excesses that are corrected after an automatic warning). Through reward, this encourages and rewards better drivers and young drivers can avoid high insurance premiums.

If there is someone driving too close to me i slow down. Some people are professional tailgaiters, it's just their driving attitude. These people are amongst the worst in the country. There's another sort of driver that can not stand being behind some one , even though they are doing the speed limit. These people pass and slow down for a short distance, and soon as there is a bend or some other camouflage on the road they are gone never to be seen again.

"If there is someone driving too close to me i slow down."

But of course Desmond. What else can you do? The only other possibilities are to just ignore the mongrel behind you and put up with the increased hazard that the turd is subjecting you to or signal your discontent. As far as I'm concerned just copping it is untenable, irresponsible and just completely not on!

So if a three-point flash of my brakelights fails to convey the message of discontent, then I slow down, slowly and carefully, and remain slow until they either pull back or one of us turns off.

If there are other vehicles behind the tailgater that are forced to go slow as a result, well that's just too bad. I mean, that can't be helped, can it.

Now if the tailgating gets really bad, as it sometimes does, with an absolutely fuming mongrel behind you who just cannot tolerate your presence in front of him and who rides half a metre off of your back bumper, then what are you to do?

In the interests of your safety, you want to pull off and get out of that situation. But in order to do that, you've got to slow down considerably from the cruising speed, be it 100 on the highway or 50 on a suburban street.

But it is this sort of mongrel that just utterly will not tolerate you slowing down in front of him.

You really can find yourself in a hopeless situation sometimes.

And if you report it to the cops, they DON'T DO ANYTHING!

Not worth contributing to the problem. Just move left and let the offending vehicle pass. Next problem being that the fool has suddenly moved into the left lane where you intended to go.

Corny, you can't just move over to the left if you are roaring up a single-lane highway at 100kmh. You often can't easily do it on a dual carriageway either.

Hey Ludwig - I'm away from home base too, but yesterday I was driving on the highway they call Bruce between Eumundi and Bris Vegas, and I thought of you.

I noticed various signs warning against tailgating (and also others admonishing the prats to keep left unless overtaking), but I also encountered something I hadn't seen before. They've painted 'chevrons' at regular intervals on the road surface, and placed signs advising drivers to keep at least two chevrons between them and the car in front. This was in the 110 km/h zone, but I imagine the same idea would work with different spacing at lower speeds. At any rate, most drivers seemed to observe the direction.

I thought to myself, 'what a simple, cost-effective idea' - and then later realised that it's probably some kind of trial tied in with the possible implementation of anti-tailgating cameras. However, it still seems a simple measure that on its own apparently had the desired effect.

On a related issue, I've finally bitten the bullet and bought a GPS - which is quite a brilliant bit of technology for an old yokel like me trying to navigate the motoring nightmare that is Brisbane. I was interested to notice that it has a display that indicates vehicle speed and the speed limit - that turns red at 107 km/h in a 100 zone.

'Clever little Tom-Tom', I thought - and then I thought of my old mate Ludwig again!

Very good. Thanks for that CJ.

I haven't encountered those chevrons. I haven't encountered any signage warning of tailgating either, ever. So I am most pleased to hear that something is being done down your way.

By the way, at the end of my eleven week trip around the country last year, I drove along that stretch of the Bruce Highway....actually it was a little further north, around Gympie....and the tailgating was just utterly chronic. I'd sit my speed on about 105 in the 100k zone, on a windy hilly stretch, and there'd just always be car right up m' bumhole!

I had just about escaped the stressload engendered by tailgaters right around the country, by staying off the busy highways. But it got me in the end.

You've got a GPs. Excellent. Now you can immediately determine that accuracy of your speedo!

Hey, let's explore community policing a bit more thoroughly, as per my request for discusion with you about this earlier in this thread,

Can you elucidate your main concerns. Thanks.
[from sunny Port Douglas]

Hellooooo..... CJ, where art thou??

Yesterday, travelling from Mossman to Cairns along the Cook Hwy -

PINCERED!

Caught between a mongrel roadhog and a mongrel tailgater, for many kilometres.

The roadhog was taking it easy on the windy road with many tight blind curves. Fair enough. But she just bloody insisted on travelling well below the speed limit on the straight stretches. Lots of opportunities to pull over and let the traffic clear from behind along with lots of signs imploring drivers to consider following traffic.

But nooooo...she owned the road and couldn't give a hoot about anyone else.

Stupid young female driver in the car behind me, grossly tailgated on every tight curve. Right at the most dangerous points on the road, on the bends, where you can't see the road ahead for more than a few metres, she was up my arse...and I mean RIGHT up my arse.

I initially signalled her with four quick flashes of my brakelights. No effect. Then a bit further on I applied my brakes very gently, to just make the lights come on while hardly slowing down at all. He car jolted. She'd obviously hit her brakes quite hard. She was obviously completely unprepared for me to even slow down in the slightest, let alone prepared for any sort of hazard that would have caused me to brake more sharply. I would have worn her if I'd had to do that.

continued

Do you think she got the message. Of course not.

Then a while later I did the same thing. Then I applied my brakelights and put my hand out the window with an open palm facing backwards as if to say; why are you driving like this - I'm not setting the speed, I've got a slower driver in front of me. Then I vigorously waved her back, four times.

Do you think she got the message? Of course not.

She just continued to drive in the same absurd manner until we finally got to an overtaking lane.

So this young female was driving like this presumably because she just didn't have the faintest clue that there was anything wrong with her driving. She just didn't have any idea at all about the risks of tailgating. I presume it had never even been mentioned to her, not when she was learning to drive, not by her parents, not by anyone who has travelled with her as a passenger!

She is absolutely an accident looking for a place to happen!

Now this is exactly the sort of inept dangerous driving that has got be reported to the cops. And the cops have surely GOT to act on it.

But, you can expect the cops to do PRECISELY NOTHING about something like this.

Now if this woman was to report me to the cops for flashing my brakelights and giving hand signals, and for putting my headlights on her after she'd passed me, I wonder if the cops would act?

I bet they would!!

Do you think I'm frustrated?

Yes, Ludwig - I think you're frustrated. However, I think your dream of an uber-surveillance society in which the police are covert and your neighbour is encouraged to report any of your minor transgressions to the authorities is very much not the sort of society in which I'd like to live. Do you remember a place called East Germany?

Rather, I'd like to see a much greater emphasis in educating people to be more civil towards each other in general, and their behaviour on the roads is really just an extension of that. Instead of creating a legal and moral minefield that would encourage people to try and get their own back against anyone who offends their sensibilities on the road (or elsewhere), why not create a system where they could forward the details of good drivers to the authorities so they can be rewarded?

Oh that's right - such a system would be too easily rorted - unlike of course one that punished people on the say-so of their peers...

Also, if you do just the slightest bit of research on the notion of "community policing", I think you'll find that it's been around for quite a while now - and it's something that police do, rather than the general public.

In the situation you were in on the Cook Highway, did it occur to you at all that you could just pull over for 5 minutes and let the idiots carry on their stupid way? I do that sometimes - I find it much better for my head than getting frustrated and angry.