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.