I pinched this title from the editorial in the Courier Mail of 14 July.

The editor put it so well that I’ll just quote him directly:

<< Every K over, so the slogan tells us, is a killer. Unless of course you are a learner driver sitting a driving test for your licence.

Under new testing criteria, drivers being tested [in Queensland] were going to be allowed to travel at up to 5kmh over the limit on five occasions during the test and still pass.

After another hasty policy rejig following yesterday’s report in the Courier Mail, this will now be reduced to three strikes and you are out in terms of speeding. But if every K over is indeed a killer, what sort of message does even this lesser degree of leeway send young drivers? >>

<< …stipulating that even low level speeding is acceptable for novice drivers totally undermines the road safety message – particularly when set against the backdrop of the millions of dollars Queensland spends on road safety campaigns each year, and these with a particular emphasis on the dangers of speeding. >>

<< If a young driver is going to speed up to three times during a half hour period when their driving is being scrutinised more closely than it ever will be again, surely some questions are raised as to the suitability to take to the roads without supervision. >>

<< When it comes to road safety there is no scope for cutting corners. It is literally a matter of life and death, and tough rhetoric from the government should not be matched by a soft reality >>

Your thoughts?

absolutes do make a lot of sense.

Thanks Ludwig. Unusually, I agree with both C-M editor and you (I imagine) on this. Allowing a learner driver to exceed the speed limit at all during a 30 minute driving test sends exactly the wrong message, in my book. I think that driver's licences should be harder to get.

Having said that, my son finally got his provisional licence earlier this year (in Qld). I was quite impressed with both the new log book for learner drivers and the fact that they have to pass their theory test prior to being issued with a learner's permit.

However, any breach of the traffic rules at all during the practical test should result in failure, IMHO.

I nearly didn't get my licence years ago because I didn't look over my shoulder when pulling out from the kerb as WELL as use all the mirrors. Now you can speed?. Nuts.

Well, Rachel Nolan (Qld Tpt Minister) is a serial speedster, as is the deputy Lucas, and a few others too... Karen Struthers was it?

The new log book is a bit outrageous, with, I think, 100 hours of driving required with a fully licensed driver alongside.

One of my sons did the Q-Ride motorbike test, which was far more rigorous training and testing than the car test is, and should be adopted for cars.

It is, of course, quite silly to be condoning so many breaches...about 5 stalls too in the first draft of the new test.

Heavens... if you driving for over 100 hours and you still stall the car once, never mind a few times, should you really be on the road at all?

I think that this idea was because the testing authority recognised that it is a damn site more dangerous driving along watching the speedo all the time, than it is to exceed the arbitrarily set speed limits by a couple of Km or so, from time to time.

Anyone who actually believes that "any K over is a killer" is obviously a very poor driver, & should not be on the road.

I defy anyone to drive from the Gold Coast, up the expressway to Brisbane regularly, without either,

1/ Being a mobile chicane, holding up the traffic leading to road rage.

2/ Exceeding the speed limit a little occasionally, even with the best cruise control , & speed alert alarms helping.

Still, I would have thought a person, with 100 hours, or around 5,000 Km experience,should be able to avoid speeding for a short test

Hasbeen,

Cruise control is your friend. IF everyone sat on the speed limit there would be MUCH less drama on the roads. One thing that annoys me more than someone up my date while I'm doing the limit is someone doing 15 - 20 under where you can't overtake.

If road transport was invented now, it wouldn't get past OH&S let alone adopted for your average punter.

Agreed, StG, at least on the expressway, where everyone else is on them too, but out here in the sticks they seem to go up & down the speed range, to relieve the boredom.

I love the New England Highway. You can usually pick a well driven truck, cruising about the speed limit & just follow. If you sit back far enough to avoid stone chips, you can attach yourself, with an imaginary tow rope, & have relaxing drive, at about as fast as is legal, with out all the effort of watching in for the speedo, & out for cameras.

Does seem ludicrous Ludwig, but sadly nothing surprises anymore.

Good habits should be learned in the beginning and bad ones disencouraged. We have become the limp society.

Hasbeen: << I love the New England Highway. You can usually pick a well driven truck, cruising about the speed limit & just follow. If you sit back far enough to avoid stone chips, you can attach yourself, with an imaginary tow rope, & have relaxing drive, at about as fast as is legal, with out all the effort of watching in for the speedo, & out for cameras. >>

Ha! That's my trick, particularly at night - helps avoid the roos too, particularly on the New England, on which I drive frequently. Mind you, I know a bloke who leases a roadhouse on the New England Highway, and he tells me that in the past 6 months the number of trucks has decreased dramatically, since the completion of more motorway sections of the Pacific Highway. We don't get so much business from truckies either, now that I think of it.

I got my motorcycle licence in the early 60s at the Chullora motor registry in Sydney. The test consisted of riding up the Hume Hwy. for 100 yards, then riding back down again, then doing a figure 8 turn in the registry driveway. That was it! PASSED!

Ah the good ol' days, when it was 100 times easier to get a licence.

This makes perfect sense...

if you have a licence and speed you get fined ie the govt gets more of your money.

if you don't have a licence and speed you get the licence ie the govt gets more of your money and the chance to have another crack at your wallet later.

The jihad against doing a few extra clicks over the ludicrously low speed limits has nought to do with road safety and everything to do taxation.

Driving tests in Australia ? What do you have to know ? The car has four wheels, a brake, some gears & if you pay the instructor you'll get a license !
Seriously,
I remember in the old land that in order to get a driver's license you had to go 2 hours a week for six weeks. You had to be capable (yes women too) to change a flat tyre, jump-start the car, work out how far you'd travel in say 5 points of rain with 4 mm of thread on the tyres if you hit the brakes at 60 km/h.
Personally, having some inkling of the australian psyche, I'd like to see young people do the following to earn their licence.
Age 17, max cc car 1600, max cc motor bike 125, up it to double at 19 & open ended at 21.
Take them into artificial traffic jams at first i.e. have the driving school create their own peak hour in special driving test grounds, then take them onto very bad , slippery terrain where they learn to use the gears & accelerator properly, let them deliberately crash old cars into ditches & trees & create traffic accidents (with old cars at safe speed of course), make them back down a narrow lane etc. Then & only then take them into real traffic. In one simple sentence, teach them to drive & don't issue a license till they can drive. This present situation with parking a car & you get a license is what kills many young people & makes many killers on the road, courtesy of incompetent law reform bureaucrats.

The new log book system in Queensland is working rather well and praise is also due to driving schools for their excellent services too. Would that it were possible for all to have a minimum of 10X1.5 hour lessons by an accredited driving school.

From what I have seen, the Queensland Dept of Transport is making a lot of improvements, for example the new licences. It wouldn't surprise me at all if The Courier Mail hasn't grabbed the bull by the proverbial (and not its horns either) with its story about speeding during licence testing.

Cornflower,
If the recent past in Qld is anything to go by then you can be assured that revenue will come first & safety second. Let's just pray that the increased cost will be offset by safer behaviour on the roads. road safety is not about good or bad roads or good or bad cars, it's about a healthy mentality vs I'm alright Jack. Too many cops & not enough policemen/women is also jeopardizing road safety.

<< Allowing a learner driver to exceed the speed limit at all during a 30 minute driving test sends exactly the wrong message >>

Right on there CJ.

While there might be sense in having a bit of leeway with some things during a driving test, there should be NONE with the speed limit.

Drivers should be trained to travel a few Ks under the speed limit and to adequately monitor their speed so that they don’t inadvertently exceed the limit.

Yes it takes concentration to monitor your speed, which is concentration not being put into other aspects of driving. Some would argue that because you have to be looking at your speedo every few seconds, your awareness of other things around you and the quality of your driving suffers with the chances of mishap increasing.

I disagree entirely. If you can’t adequately monitor your speed and monitor your surroundings at the same time, then you shouldn’t be driving, and learners shouldn’t get a licence.

There can be NO excuse for the extraordinary duplicity in having sloppy driving tests while millions of dollars continues to get poured into managing road safety.

Ludwig... quite so.

As an old truckie, who spent many hours in-the-saddle, in order to keep an eye on the road, road conditions, and what 'the rig' was doing, it was simply a requirement to constantly scan everything: wings mirros, for what was going on with the load as well as behind, all instruments, road ahead, shadows of hidden 'things' behind the vehicle, shadows ahead of the vehicle ahead, CB for road conditions/scalies and police/accidents ahead and behind.

Also, it is important not to have so much noise in the cab that you cannot hear when something has a changed note, tyres, engine, chains (on load) or just 'bits' falling off.

Driving the truck, or driving a car, is not, and cannot be, a passive activity requiring just a gaze out the windscreen and listening to the radio/CD.

I've noticed that the new fashion of personalised number plates seems to have fed into the cult-of-the-individual on our roads, as the 'up yours' attitude extends further afield.

The, rather pathetic, need to be shouting "look at moi" through the car-as-beautiful-possession is fed by these tax raising devices that are helping to make our roads ever more 'unsafe'.

Apart from that, it makes it harder to report bad drivers when having to gather up all the details of the huge variety of plates we see these days... and as a cycling road user, there are quite a few of the really bad drivers that have their numbers sent in to the local cop-shop.

TBC

>> there are quite a few of the really bad drivers that have their numbers sent in to the local cop-shop. <<

Yup, I don't get mad, just even. Have provided clear description of behaviour, vehicle and registration to police when behaviour has been particularly dangerous.

When I used to ride motorcycles I was actually pursued on two occasions by car drivers trying to knock me off the road - I had done nothing to provoke them. From speaking to other bikers, I know this is common and has nothing to do with appearance - as much as I wish I looked androgynous there is no mistaking me for a Hell's Angel (not that looking like a bikie is an excuse either).

I have driven extensively through South West USA and have to report that Australian drivers compare as very belligerent and aggressive to American drivers. Something which surprised me, I expected more aggression from American motorists, but that was not the case. Although, I was never caught in grid-lock in L.A., but may be that's the exception that proves the rule.

Severin... I suppose in the US there is always that lingering concern that every driver has a Colt .44 and a pump action parked under the seat.

I know that if I carried one there'd be a few exploding petrol tanks as the cars whizzed off.

I've reported a number of drivers over the last year for both dangerous behaviour and blasting their horn at me, also dangerous and quite illegal, as they come from behind, and for no reason at all other than to be bloody-minded about 'their' road.

The police here, fortunately, have 25% of them who ride bikes for a variety of reasons in their non-work life, so they also experience this too.

They are more than happy to check the rego, see if there are any 'outstandings', frequently there are, and go and deal with it.

No witnesses ensures only a sound 'talking to', but I did have them charge a woman for harrasing me in her car, and she was fined $750, but I had two fellow cyclists who made statements too.

There is now also a warrant out for her (ex)boyfriend's arrest for other activities as a result of the case.... the cops love it when these dimwits are reported.

TBC

I agree - the police have always responded to me positively. I know that a woman lost her licence after nearly running me over when I disembarked from a tram. Both I and the Tram Driver submitted reports.

In fact, I posit that disembarking from a tram in Melbourne is far more hazardous than riding a motorcycle.

With American drivers I found it easy to enter freeways, change lanes (people would let you in instead of speeding up), they stayed away from overtaking lanes when not overtaking, got out of the way AND came to a complete stop for any emergency vehicles, unlike many Australian drivers who mostly just slow down a bit. That's just off the top of my head. However, there were areas in cities you would never ever want to have a car break down, in fact safer just to take the long way round.

<< I defy anyone to drive from the Gold Coast, up the expressway [at or just under the speed limit] to Brisbane regularly, without... >>

<< 1/ Being a mobile chicane, holding up the traffic leading to road rage. >>

Good point Hasbeen.

Anyone who drives from the Gold Coast to Brisbane on the speed limit, let alone a little bit under it, is not well treated by other drivers …… especially in the roadworks zones!

There is an absurd discrepancy between the law and general practice here. The law dictates that we must not exceed the speed limit and would therefore be well advised to do a few Ks under to make sure that we don’t exceed it.

But the accepted cruising speed on our highways is generally actually OVER the limit by 5kmh or thereabouts, and if you drive 5kmh under, or even right on the speed limit, you often get tailgated or dangerously overtaken and you do act as a mobile chicane if traffic can’t get past you! Obviously this is much worse on single lane highways than on the Pacific Motorway.

I am absolutely furious about this blatant discrepancy between the law and accepted practice and have been for many years.

We all MUST know where we stand with speed limits. The cops should tell us just what the REAL speed limit, whether it be 110 in a 100kmh zone, 10% over the stated limit in every speed zone, or 10kmh over or 5kmh over or WHAT!

continued

As it is now, there is one speed limit for the principled law-abiding citizen or the citizen that doesn’t trust the police not to book you if you are exceeding the limit by 1kmh and a quite different limit on the same road for people who don’t respect the law at face value, or who just roll with the flow and understand that there is a significant but unelucidated leeway on the speed limit as stated on the signs, or who realise that it is actually safer to not observe the speed limit signs but to instead just do the speed that everyone else is doing, and who treat their safety as being more important than their strict observance of the law.

Our law-enforcers tell us that every K over is a killer…. and then proceed to let everyone drive on our highways, and urban streets, at quite a few Ks over before they’ll book em!!

There is NO EXCUSE from our law enforcers for upholding vagueness and outright duplicity with something like speed limits.

You can keep asking and get nowhere, I have found I can drive through a revenue camera trap at slightly better than 10% over the limit. Depending on traffic though, as often the traffic flow is greater than 10% over and it would be politically unpopular to give everybody a speeding ticket. 10% over is perfectly safe and you wont get a ticket, which is why we have school zone blitzes (10% being 4k's, very difficult to maintain accurately, most cruise controls wont work below 50kph).
You can see why school traffic areas are so critically important to be patrolled by revenue cameras, as opposed to putting a fence along the road the same way farmers are able to stop their cows from being run over.
The test limit might be simply a response to the paralax error of the tester seeing the speedo from the passenger side, though they may be skillful and diligent it simply wouldnt be possible to discern 40 from 44kph from the passenger side...

Blue Cross wrote;

>> there are quite a few of the really bad drivers that have their numbers sent in to the local cop-shop. <<

Severin replied;

<< Yup, I don't get mad, just even. Have provided clear description of behaviour, vehicle and registration to police when behaviour has been particularly dangerous. >>

Agreed. This is definitely what we should be doing. In fact, all conscientious citizens should bear the responsibility of doing this…..except for on thing…..the police!!

I’ve reported drivers to the cops about twenty times over the space of a decade, being the worst of tailgaters or performers of dangerous and stupid antics on the road. The attitude of the police has ranged from enthusiastic to completely disinterested, with most being closer to the latter end of the spectrum!

Or worse – on one occasion I encountered police officer who was so annoyed by being expected to do something about a ‘trivial’ case of dangerous driving that he became quite offensive, and on another occasion I struck one that went right out of his way to protect the person that I had reported, because he was a local in a small town if not a close friend as well!

continued

Only on two occasions did the police actually follow my complaints through and let me know of the outcome. On one of those occasions, the initial reaction from the police officer when I went into the Ingham police station was to totally discourage me. Only after I put my complaint in writing a few days later did they act.

I’ll bet a million bucks that none of my other complaints were acted on at all!

When confronted with idiots on the road, we are expected to show no discontent. We are legally obliged to not blast the horn or flash the headlights or do anything else whatsoever, except report the matter if we think it warrants it. Well, that would be fine if we could rely on the cops to do their bit.

So what happens? We either show no discontent when we get tailgated or whatever, which just indicates to d!ckhead drivers that they can get away with their dangerous and offensive driving…. or….we show discontent by way of the horn or headlights or flashing of tail-lights at a tailgater or verbally if we get the chance, and risk inflaming the situation and possibly being caught by the cops while the main offender gets away.

By Christ, I wish our policing regime was a WHOLE lot better when it comes to road safety and the empowerment of ordinary citizens to do their bit!!

Generally, those complaining about "tailgating" are the ones who refuse to use the left lane and speed up for overtaking sections.
I say generally, as sometimes its a spotty kid flogging mums magna in peak hour traffic...

I am probably one of those annoying people that drives faster than you would like me to, I dont sit behind trucks and landcruisers patiently breathing in all their filthy fumes and doing 70k's up hills. I give people space in front as I dont rely on others reactions, but certainly get closer in preparation of an overtaking move.

If the police came to my door and said "we have had a report you were driving too fast or doing something silly", my reply would be "it may be a vexatious report, who reported it and what evidence have they provided?"...

Think about it, at that point the case collapses or they give me your details... Best not to play sheriff on the road, because road rage is another thing to watch out for these days.

Pat, I think that one of the main causes of road rage is the powerlessness that people feel when confronted with offensive, dangerous or careless behaviour.

If we all felt that we could easily make a complaint and have it acted on by the police then we’d be far less inclined to react directly to the person that has offended us.

And if the police did act, and publicised it, and encouraged people to do the right thing by making complaints, then crappy driving would be steadily reduced.

As it is now, complaints are effectively strongly discouraged, unless there has actually been an accident. It is NO WONDER that people who are inclined to drive in an impatient, aggressive and risky manner do so pretty much with impunity and that road rage is as significant as it is.

It comes down to the need for a much better policing regime, of which a very big part is the contribution of the general public by way of making complaints. The police should be spending much more effort on teaching the public how to make effective complaints and then acting on them than actually being out there on the front line themselves.

We could never expect the policing regime to be adequate if the only people ever booked were via direct observation from the police (or speed cameras). The public has GOT to be involved to a high degree.

I very strongly feel that this sort of community policing is vital in the struggled to improve road safety, and in all manner of other areas of law.

Afterall, it is everyone's right, if not their responsibility, to do something about unlawful activity and to expect the authorities to follow it up. I thought that it was supposed to be a fundamental principle of the police to act on all complaints.

I'm not sure what you have in mind, the police following up each and every report of trivial traffic matters... I would hope they have better things to do.

Maybe it is outsourcing the service to private operators, who will certainly turn a dollar on it.

It seems a little poorly thought out, that we should be reporting trivial traffic matters en masse. The police will naturally be fairly dismissive when you ring up to report somebody, because there is nothing they can do with your information. To change this, would mean putting too much power in police hands- that they can prosecute on the basis of "someone said". While thats probably OK for a few hoons to get the rough end of the pineapple, police will never surrender the extra power and tend to use discretionary powers inappropriately.
Which is all fine and good, right up until it is one of your own younger relatives being hassled.

My opinion, keep the police for rape and murder etc.
I doubt you'd be happy if you had a serious need for police help, but they were all off investigating a "tailgater" or similar.

<< I'm not sure what you have in mind… >>

Pat, it is simply a matter of the police doing their basic duty and following up on complaints. Let’s face it, there aren’t a whole lot of complaints of the sort that I or Severin have mentioned. It is not as if it would become a huge part of a police officer’s job and detract significantly from more serious matters.

And besides, dangerous driving IS serious! Bad drivers that are an accident looking for a place to happen NEED to be dealt with BEFORE they come to grief and take innocent people with them.

The police should be encouraging us all to make complaints about bad and dangerous driving with a concerted publicity campaign.

If they did this, there would certainly be a spike in complaints and a concomitant increased burden on the police. But this would be short-lived. Bad drivers would soon realise that every person on the road is effectively a police officer inasmuch as they can get the police to act on stupid driving behaviour.

<< Maybe it is outsourcing the service to private operators, who will certainly turn a dollar on it. >>

This is worth considering.

<< To change this, would mean putting too much power in police hands- that they can prosecute on the basis of "someone said". >>

No, no. Prosecution is unlikely without evidence. However, if the police were to contact a driver and say that they had been reported, that driver in most instances would be likely to be more careful in future.

And if the police find that the same driver has been reported multiple times, then they can and should lay charges. This would necessitate some sort of database being kept for complaints. But I understand that this happen in New Zealand. So it shouldn’t be a big deal.

<< … keep the police for rape and murder etc. >>

Sorry Pat, but I’ve to very strongly disagree with that.

Hrrrgh !! There’s that confounded missing word syndrome again.

That last line should of course have read –

< Sorry Pat, but I’ve GOT to very strongly disagree with that. >

Hello Pat, are you out there? Would you like to continue with this discussion? Or anyone else?

I'm right with you there, Ludwig. Speed limits are there for a reason. There was a time (when I was a spotty teenager) when I assumed that speed limits meant "go this speed + 10%", but they do not.

One thing that does annoy me, at the other end of the spectrum, is the vigilante brigade that decides to travel well under the speed limit. You would be familiar with the ones - those who travel at 80 on the Ring Road (here in Townsville) because they think that's plenty fast enough (except, of course, the speed limit is back down to 80 while the road works are happening). Just as we once failed driving tests if we drove too fast, when I did my test it was made clear that travelling 10% or more BELOW the speed limit without reason would be a critical driving error - a "one strike and you fail" offence. Those who do 110 in 100 zones and those who do 80 in 100 zones are both dangerous as they interrupt the flow of traffic.

At the end of the day, maintaining order on our roads is police business. Yes, they should be catching rapists and murderers, because those people are lawbreakers. If we want to have any regard for the laws, though, we need to enforce them all. If we don't want to enforce speed limits, we need to remove them altogether. And with Queensland drivers, that would be an absolute disaster.

PatTheBogan says:

"Maybe it is outsourcing the service to private operators,
who will certainly turn a dollar on it."

That is exactly what is happening in NSW.

The word is that the 'handful' of cars equipped with the latest 'random' speed cameras are not police cars at all, but 'private' contractor's cars. They lie in wait beside roadwork speed limit signs (signs erected, and neglected, by private contractors, to be covered up when roadwork is not actually occurring), where all too obviously there is no 'roadwork' going on, on roads that are saturated by road-wise commuter-traffic road users.

"Private' contractors my *rse! Cars run by the NSW Office of State Revenue, or I'm as much a Dutchman as Eric Roozendaal!

Just like the 'handful' of (OSR/fake police) cars equipped with number-plate recognition equipment are seemingly specifically targetting owner/drivers with pensioner concessional registrations that don't actually have to pay anything for their vehicle registrations as 'drivers of unregistered vehicles'. The NSW Labor Party trick is "If'n they don't have to legitimately pay, don't pass their rego slip under the cash register at the RTA when they front for rego renewal. That'll teach those computer-illiterate freeloading geriatrics who've probably never needed to have been spoken to by a policeman in their entire lives to pay up on the spot!" Average $1,500 aggregate fines. Per booking. The vast majority just pay up, and also cop the inconvenience, which frequently can mean loss of licence, loss of job.

Well done NSW ALP government!

Well done Premier Kenneally, you and your husband together in receipt of pay from the public purse measured in the hundreds of thousands EACH!

Jolly good job!

Yeah, roadwork speed limits are important. Police them in a FAIR DINKUM way!

But of course that wouldn't be good for State revenue, would it?

And no, I haven't been booked in such circumstances. Thankfully I'm out of it - the need to face the road every day to get to work. But your system stinks, Kristina.

Oto

I’m just back from an extended weekend in Mackay and Bowen. Drove along the Ring Road, through that very long and bloody ridiculous 80k zone. Jeez I wish they’d change the temporary speed limit to match the conditions! 80 might be appropriate during the day when they are actually working on the road, but at night when there is no work and no increased hazard compared to normal conditions, they should bloomin well cover up the 80k signs…. effing dimwits!

<< Those who do 110 in 100 zones and those who do 80 in 100 zones are both dangerous as they interrupt the flow of traffic. >>

People who do 80 in 100 zones are dangerous if they persist in driving in such a manner when they have one or more vehicles behind that can’t easily pass and they don’t pull off to the side when they have the chance. They lead to frayed tempers, tailgating, dangerous overtaking, etc. There is no shortage of this sort of abject road-hog around.

However, other drivers need to have a reasonable degree of patience when they come up behind a slower driver and not just assume the worst straight away.

There are valid reasons for going slow, such as bad weather, roos or cattle on the road, having just turned into a road and not encountered a speed limit sign, driving a vehicle that is not up to doing 100kmh, being an old or inexperienced driver with highway or night driving, etc.

Those who do 110 in 100 zones get away with it! The police let them. The cops don’t book people until they are doing 111 in 100k zone. Or at least that’s how it was for a long time and still is in some areas, certainly in our part of the world on the highways as far as I know.

So this means that the speed limit is actually 110 on a 100 zone! And this means that if you dare to sit on 100 …..

…..or 90 to 95 as you should if you want to make sure that you don’t exceed the speed limit, then YOU are the hazard!!

And don’t I hate that! The PROPER speed is actually a really annoying speed to most drivers and hence a dangerous speed because it is 10 to 20 kmh slower than the normal cruising speed!

A driver should be perfectly entitled to sit on 90kmh in a 100 zone without being thought of as a road-hog. Except that the police, and also the government and general community, are happy for us to do 110 in a 100 zone….which creates a huge schism with the cruising speed.

Crikey, I find it annoying enough sitting on 105 on the Bruce Highway and getting vehicles constantly coming up behind, following too closely and demonstrating impatience and contempt for me for driving too slowly!

The policing of speed limits is dismal. There is no reason for it. It could be so easily fixed.

The police in Queensland have recently started putting speed cameras in unmarked vehicles on the side of the road and publicised the point that any vehicle of any make or model on the roadside could be used for this purpose. They’ve also apparently broadened their range of unmarked police vehicles on our roads.

Such obvious things to do. So why didn’t they do this 20 or 30 years earlier!

This is one of the key points that I have made on OLO – that it is STUPID for the police to only or predominantly have highly conspicuous vehicles that stand our like dogs balls, because they are effectively showing just how thin the thin blue line is by the sparseness of such vehicles, especially in the north. They need to do just the opposite – blend in – be inconspicuous – so that just about any vehicle could potentially be a police vehicle.

It is good that they are finally starting to get the message. Maybe they have just graduated from kindergarten level road-safety policing … to grade 1!

Hmm, the other day I was very annoyed at all the people speeding through the school zone. 40 seems painfully slow, especially in a car thats good for 200+... But no, the revenue camera was parked in the bushes at Kuranda where they will make more money out of it. I reckon the lollypop lady should have a revenue camera, and they ought to focus on genuine safety issues rather than collecting a de facto tax.

Sorry to be slow in replying, but I think you might misunderstand me. You would be OK with needing a police officer to investigate a rape/murder etc, and then finding all the officers were out investigating a trivial traffic matter?

What I am getting from all this, is that you need a faster car.

<< You would be OK with needing a police officer to investigate a rape/murder etc, and then finding all the officers were out investigating a trivial traffic matter? >>

Pat, the police are always instantly contactable by their superiors and colleagues. If they are urgently required to address a more serious matter, then off they should go. They should not concentrate entirely on what are considered to be urgent matters if it means that no attention gets paid to more menial duties.

Besides, there really is nothing trivial about road safety.

What we need is a half-intelligent approach to road rule regulation from the police and government!!

If speed is such a problem, then we need to….

1. Have a vastly better standard of speed limit signage. There are very many situations where you just don’t what the speed limit is, FFS!

2. Have speed limits that are appropriate. All too often, they are just NOT, especially the long lead-in zone to small towns on the highways or into roadworks zones, and the absolutely STUPID long slow zones AFTER roadworks zones, and often after small towns, before you can return to ‘normal’ speed!

3. Get RID of slow school zones. They are an unnecessary complication. I find that I still just cannot always be conscious of the need to slow down when entering a school zone, despite the obvious big signs with orange borders or whatever. The trouble is that they only apply for a few hours a day, five days a week and then not for quite a few weeks of the year. Different school zones have different starting and finishing times. So you’ve got be able to read the fine print as you pass the signs if you are not sure about whether you are in the time zone that they apply. And you’ve got to be conscious of whether it is a school day or not, despite the presence or absence of kids in the vicinity. It was a dog’s breakfast of an idea!

continued

4. The police should be more covert. ALL police cars on our roads should be unmarked, and immediately identifiable when they need to be. More speed cameras should be placed in unmarked non-police-type vehicles. If speed is really such a big issue, then why aren’t there vastly more stationary cameras? They should be everywhere, to the extent that potential speeders feel that any vehicle on the side of the road (or various other receptacles/objects/roadsigns that could hold or hide a camera) could very likely have one.

5. Community policing, by way of encouraging people to report bad driving and not just accidents. In short, the development of a regulatory regime in which everyone realises that if they muck up, they face a very high risk of being busted, rather than the very low risk they currently face, whereby they’ll probably get away with rank driving unless it is seen directly by the police (and if the cops don’t choose to turn a blind eye!)

We should be striving for a regime where all citizens feel as though there is a very high chance of being strung if they play up. If we can get to this point, then the number of offences and the workload of the police will be greatly reduced.

Yes, in an ideal world things would work like that, but it isnt so they dont...

It would seem to me, that we differ in so much as I see school zones as a safety issue, and revenue cameras as a revenue issue. It would be playing semantics to say going 60k in a school zone is very much more serious than going 120k in a 100 zone, because you'd say speeding is speeding and its all bad. I'd suggest hitting a roo isnt as bad as hitting a kid. But in the same breath, school zones and roadworks are an inconvenience. Obviously there are no schoolkids or road workers in your family, or you dont value their safety all that much.

We also have a different perspective on police work, living in a town where there is only the one cop is different to the city. It is frustrating that people dont always do what you'd like them to do, which I believe is the main cause of grief on the roads. But certainly it all starts with being taught bad manners during the L plate stage, being a pariah during the P plate stage, and like a sherriff with a shiny badge for the next 40 years or so, and then finally admitting its all too difficult and handing in your license when you're about 75. No wonder people make the most of it.

Thanks for continuing with this discussion Pat. But this is a bit of an unfortunate comment:

<< Obviously there are no schoolkids or road workers in your family, or you dont value their safety all that much. >>

I wouldn’t have thought it necessary to say this but;

Safety is of paramount importance to me within the subject of road safety, which I have commented on extensively on this forum. My criticisms of and suggestions for improvement of the policing regime are done directly with that primary motive in mind.

Of course school zones are there in the interests of safety for school children. But do they actually work? Was the situation really significantly more dangerous before they were introduced? What are downsides?

<< It would seem to me, that we differ in so much as I see school zones as a safety issue, and revenue cameras as a revenue issue. >>

Not so! WE concur on the safety intent of school zones…and on the revenue intent of speed cameras.

But I’d strongly suggest that school zones, as they are currently set up, have got real problems to the extent of often not working very well and sometimes working against their very purpose and that if speed cameras were used much more extensively, to the extent of actually being a major speed-deterrence mechanism then they’d be seen as a genuine safety tool instead of a revenue-raising tool.

Perhaps I should start a new thread on this, given that you and I are likely to be the only two people discussing it here.

I think the matter of clear signage is an important one. I have been caught speeding twice. The first was on a day when, thanks to new land releases, the speed limit changed and a camera was dropped in that same day. I drove up a quiet country 80km/h road on my way to work in the morning, and missed the brand new 60km/h sign on the way home late that night. My mistake, and I paid the price for it.

The other, though, was in an absurd spot on the road out of town towards Oonoonba (Townsville). The limit goes up to 80km/h for about a kilometre, then drops back down. I was never quite sure where it dropped down, though, until I got booked. After receiving the ticket, I took a slow cruise down that road and found the 60km/h sign buried in a clump of 6 signs, close together. Yes it was signed, and yes I was speeding, but to know that would require me to stop concentrating on the road for quite some time as I sorted through the information provided in all 6 of those signs. Great for revenue, not great for road safety.

In most cases, though, I have no problems with the "revenue cameras". Most that I have encountered are placed in areas with clear (and sometimes even reasonable) speed limits. If I choose to speed, I am making a conscious decision that I am willing to pay a fine if I get caught. Most of the time, I'm unwilling to pay the fine so I don't speed. I grumble about the speed limits - not about their enforcement.