StG, I didn't say I blame them for being there at all. I said revenue-raking is not part of their job description. I have no problem with police patrolling the roads. But there's something distasteful about the only overtime available being that of revenue-raking.

And, duh! To slow down. But to which of the 50 changing speed limits in every 10 kilometres do you mean, occupied by people doing 70kph in 40kph zones and 40kph in 70 kph zones, and the like? The roads are virtually self-designed speed traps. With some picking an average speed and sticking to it in all speed zones, as it's too much for them to keep track of.

Our cars are more powerful, faster and yet safer, but we are driving slower, at varied speeds of increments not much faster than walking speed. We have motorways that we pay tolls for, that are car-parks when you need to use them most frequently...to and from work, just so that we can halve our fuel economy, and pay for the privilege.

Let me put it this way...if your fuel economy is halved, and 60% of the price of it is a tax, then by definition, the government has a 60% stake in the fuel business, but doesn't pay tax on it like the oil companies have to. It's a good business. But then consider how much that business is worth each year.

Then why would they...
A) want you to use less fuel? The more we use the more they make;
and,
B) why invest in alternate technologies that don't utilise a consumable fuel and therefore a taxable form of energy like solar, etc? You can't tax the sun and the wind, if you see my drift. You can tax the product that converts the energy, but not the energy consumed.

Do you see the conflict of interests there? How do you tax solar power, wind generation, etc? You can't tax it like petroleum oil or gas. An investment into these technologies is literally an investment into the loss of billions upon billions of dollars of revenues.

In NSW I would be pleased if civys got to man radar.
It took years of hard fighting to get the RTA to respect its own workers.
Victoria and south Aussie long ago enforced speed zones at roadworks.
NSW fought hard to try to avoid such laws, stating the RTA mantra *we must keep the traffic flowing*
Well average speed yes average in road construction sites is 70% over legal speed limit.
Letting road construction firms police a mobile radar and give the evidence to police for fines is the future.
After deaths at such sites double the penalty and points in them, every day is another request.

Belly attitudes towards road works might be improved if the limit's were applied when people were on the worksite and raised at other times. I've got quite a long stretch of road between me an my workplace which has been the subject of road works for almost 12 months now. I rarely travel it when workers are onsite yet the speed limit put in place to protect them applies all the time.

Perhaps it might confuse some to have limit's when workers were onsite and when they were not but we cope with short term changes to limit's so that does not seem to be the issue.

If those applying reduced speed limit's to protect workers did so with greater diligence others might be less cynical about those limits. I'd like to know that if I'm being asked to drive at a crawl to protect the safety of workers that there was actually a likelyhood that workers were actually being protected.

R0bert

examinator, I don't know where you came up with that lot from my post, but boy, you sure have an imagination.

At no stage have I said that speed cameras are a waste of time, however, what I do say is that the ploice have stepped on thier own dicks by saying that manning the cameras with civilians will result in revenue raising, but manning them with police wont.

Now, as for speeding, along with other forms of traffic infringments, look out if they all cease, as the void left from 'nil fines' will have to be stolen from some other budget to fix the roads.

A mate of mine just got caught doing 10K's over the limmit and was finned $660 as his car is a company vehicle. I have done this myself and paid $700. But, the government says that is not revenue raising, yet I, along with my mate have lost no points. Figure that one out!

The irony is, we need traffic offenders.

And robert, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Road work sites are a classic 'the boy who cried wolf' senario.

In fact, every one that has workers actually working at the time should be enforcing the law. But when idle, as many are, few care a less and who can blame them.

After all, if you do the limmit at roadworks you are likely to be 'tail gated' by some 19Yr old P-plater and nothing is ever done about that.

It's like an alarm at a shopping centre these days. They go off so often nobody cares a hoot, unless of cause there is smoke.

Now back to the toppic. What is the difference between an officer or a civilian manning a camera?

MindlessCruelty,

Been driving for nearly 20 years. Maybe had one ticket for speeding ... not that I can remember for sure. Been through plenty of varying zones in that time.

Speed cameras are largely a revenue-raising tool rather than a road-safety tool.

For as long as we have a ridiculous regime where…

the actual speed limit is not defined (the police will tell us that there is some leniency with the speed limit as signed),

you can very often find yourself not knowing or not being sure of what the friggin speed limit is on a road that you have just turned into or not seen a sign on for some distance

and we have so few speed cameras (mobile and fixed) as to allow a large portion of the populace to feel that the chances of being caught are minimal,

the regime is more revenue-raising than road-safety-effective.

So what we need is vastly more cameras to the extent that everyone feels that they must abide by the law or else they will very likely get busted.

These cameras should be operated by an organisation that is separate from the police.

Come on, let’s create a few hundred jobs by getting this speed camera program rolling, which will fund these new employees, provide money to massively improve speed limit signage, reduce speeding and increase road safety, and free up the cops so that they can more effectively deal with other aspects of road safety, especially the facilitation of a community policing system, whereby the average citizen is encouraged and facilitated to make complaints about illegal and dangerous driving.