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!