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!

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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!

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