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!

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