Examinator:"there are ways around your needs and maybe some of your wants need changing."

Oh, really? Do enlighten me, won't you? I'm always thrilled when a pompous busybody tries to tell me what's good for me.

Frankly, old chap, the whole "nobody need ever know your name" thing sounds like it'd suit you down to the ground. I bet you've got the crimestoppers 1300 number on speed dial on the mobile, just in case...

What's become obvious from this thread is that there is a great deal of speaking out of posteriors going on. Speed is an exacerbating factor in some accidents, it's not a causative factor in many at all. What causes accidents in the city is primarily poor driving and in the country it is both poor driving and poor fatigue management, as well as a high proportion of single-vehicle "accidents" being deliberate suicides.

In my life I have driven well over a million km and I have competed successfully as a rally driver at clubman level as well as being licensed to drive most classes of vehicle, up to and including heavy trucks and also motorcycles. I'm a pretty good driver, if I do say so myself. I've been involved in about 8 collisions, of which I was held to be responsible in 3. Each case was a simple misjudgement or a lack of attention, as were the ones I was not responsible for. None of them involved speeds over the posted limit.

I suspect that accident rates are stuck where they are for the foreseeable future, simply because there is an irreducuible minimum rate for any given traffic density which we are rapidly approaching. the only beneficiaries of a more draconian regime would be the State, through increased revenues and the fearful nanny-staters, like bombasticator.

Antiseptic.
You do me a disservice.

How am I a busybody that is really a matter of perspective.
I'm not interested in the details your life nor telling you what to do.
You made statements all I did was challenge the immutability of them saying some were needs based and others were because you WANT to do them that way.
I was being objective nothing more.
Any offense was in your mind and didn't occur to me.

People do things the way they do because they find it convenient for them. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be done any other way or for the sake of the whole community shouldn't.

You may well be a good driver I don't know.It's not germane to the topic.

The topic was on the whole of drivers basis not an individual.
I've said this 4 times now it is clear that the real issue is drivers' (in general) attitudes to driving. The crux of the issue is to find a way to change those attitudes. Given the criteria set by people in and out of the discussion I offered a strategy consisting of a series of actions.

I simply find thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of injured and affected, loss of production and health services tied up in this worrisome, worthy of discussion.

read all my posts see what my reasoning is/was then comment on that.
I don't insult you or your views. Personal attacks are pointless . What is your solution(s)? I am interested or else I wouldn't have posted the topic. I'm well passed the ego trip of my ideas are brilliant life has taught me that, if nothing else.

No matter what the speed limit people will continue to do five over.
The fines are only loose change, get realistic and have real fines.
If the limit is 100 that does not mean 101. People will continue to speed because the ratio of being caught and kilometers travelled is very large.
The only way to fix this is realistic fines. A minimun of $1000.00
The petty fines that exist now, makes no one think of the consequences.
Parking in no standing zones outside a school, doesn't mean a thing.
On the highways the chances of getting caught are remote, so people elect to go over the speed limit just a little bit.

Good ideas Examinator. Well worth exploring them. But you know what I'm gunna say... we could deal with the road safety issue much more easily if we could just get past this ridiculous blockage with community policing.

We wouldn't need to wait a decade, or perhaps fives years if we really push it, to get technological innovations implemented, we could deal with the guts of the road safety issue inside of twelve months.

Just empower the public to make complaints, along with evidence to corroborate the complaints, and we'd be on a winner.

If the necessary evidence is gained, which in most cases could be done with a cam recorder or still camera, then any issues of false or vexacious complaints or situations of entrapment could be eliminated.

If all citizens just had their basic right to act against illegal activity by way of reporting it to the cops and had their complaints fully acted upon, we'd have the issue solved.

We CAN make complaints about all manner of things, and without having to gather the evidence to support them, and the cops will deal with them. But when it comes to road safety, for some bizarre reason it is entirely different, unless an accident has happened. Well, that's my experience over many years at least.

Empowering the public so that in the eyes of fools every person is virtually a potential police officer, will do the trick. For as long as the thin blue line remains incredibly thin, and only they can effectively act against dangerous drivers (and they continue to turn a blind eye to it a lot of the time), we won't be able to deal with the problem, short of some pretty amazing, expensive and long-time-before-implementation technofixes.

The problems with reporting someone for 'doing wrong' can lead to ramifications for both yourself and your family, due to the fact that if these charges were defended in court, you would have to front to give evidence.

You then place everyone at risk.

The main problems is that fines are really a 'sourse of revenue' and this is evident by the placements of speed cameras and radars.

70 in a 50 zone is far more dangerous than 120 in a 100 zone, yet they attract the same fine/points.

I had a speed camera fine a few years back and oppted to pay the $750 as a company rather than nominate myself as driver for the lessor fine of about $140. The result being that I lost no points and had to eat in that night. Big deal!

Now simply offer free, or almost free public transport, along with huge parking fees and you will solve many traffic problems overnight.

Fewer cars means fewer crashes. But where will the money come from?

I say again, traffic violators pay a huge chunk of the roads revenue so where will it come from if not from them?

Another angle, somewhat twisted, is the fact that thousands of man hours for employees of the state are generated through traffic incidents and accidents. From police, ambo's , doctors and nurses.

Where are these hours going to be replaced if all of a sudden we have no traffic violators to control and or accidents to attend.

Health?, Education? Deffence?, Welfare?, where do we cut back to fund the gap?

Solve that problem first and you may have a chance.

Remember, to every 'action', there will be a 're-action', and it may not be to pretty!

As I said earlier, we're geting safer every year. Look at the graph on the top of this page, which flatly contradicts the sensationalist scare-mongering headline

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/road-carnage-approaches-12year-high-20090911-fku7.html

It shows that since about the mid-70s, the number of vehicles on Qld roads has gone from about 1million to well over 3 million yet the number of fatal accidents has declined from well over 600 per year to around 300. in other words, we're at least 6 times less likely to be killed on an "average" journey than we were 30 years ago.

What's the problem?

Well, there isn't one, really, even "hoons" are far less prevalent than they were then. As a young man at boarding school in East Brisbane I can recall listening to the hoons racing around Vulture Street and the back streets of East Brisbane and Norman Park at all hours, often followed by the sound of sirens.

I can't recall the last time I heard that.

The only problem is that there are a couple of groups with vested interests in maintaining the public fear.

The first, obviously, is the insurance industry. Their idealised model includes only premiums, no claims, so they do their best to get enforcement of what they see as the most common claim-producing behaviours.

The second group is the police, who try to create the perception that there is a problem in order to both increase their own political influence and to gain greater powers. The "anti-hooning" vehicle impoundment laws are one example of this process in action.

The third group is the politicians, who try to induce fear to bolster their own security of tenure. We all know how it works.

The fourth group is the media, who just want to sell advertising. Guess who spends lots of money on advertising, especially those big full-page ads about "The Road Toll", not to mention all those lovely 30 second prime-time spots and the airtime that ACA can fill for very little cost.

The fifth group is the geriatrics. "Things were so much better in my day".

Bollocks.