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.