'The irony is, we need traffic offenders.'

As we need poker machines.

I enjoy this carnival atmosphere used to generate money for our schools and hospitals and police. Trying your luck on the lotto and pokies, trying your luck on the streets.

Nobody likes taxes, but everyone loves gambling, moaning about speed cameras and gossiping about where they are and broadcasting on radio, flashing lights to warn each other. It creates much community spirit and us vs them camaraderie within the populace.

If people were really upset, they'd just not speed and stop gambling. That'd really put it up those governments. Then they'd have to raise taxes to fund our hospitals and schools. That'd be no fun.

Houellebecq

Could not have put it better myself.
High 5 me mate.

This topic is for moaning minnies.

The issues and the answers that I can clearly distil from this thread are:

Anna Bligh wants to use civilian operators on speed cameras.

1. Issue: Would civilian operators put police on the beat where they are needed?
No it cameras are babysat on overtime. Police are missing out on money with no more police on the beat.

2. Issue: Does the fact that police have rejected this simply make the case for 'revenue raising' stronger.

3. Issue: Is that the fact that a trained police officer, that can't be clearly seen, is not revenue raising simply because he/she is in uniform?

4. Issue: Should the police miss out on overtime because they are getting extra money just for making extra money for the government. The Tax Officers should do that.

5. Issue: Should people slow down to some limit at roadworks and does civilian operators of speed cameras relate to this? 70% of people go above roadworks limits.
Are the stats based on situations where there are no road workers at the roadworks?

6. Issue: What is the difference between an officer or a civilian manning a speed camera?

2, 3, 4, 6 seem unanswered

2. Perhaps. But perhaps also part of the reason they reject it is that more revenue raising will happen if the cameras are outsourced to profit making companies (as is the norm I believe with civilian operation of speed cameras) rather than someone on a salary albeit on overtime. The main reason police oppose it though is of course that they don’t want to lose money.

3. It can be revenue raising but it is likely to be the lesser of two evils. They at least think they are promoting safety and act accordingly. A civilian operator working for profit will act accordingly.

4. True that tax officers fulfil that role when taxation is overt but see 2 and 3 above.

6. See 2 and 3 above.

StG

You spot all the signs unlike two other contributors in here and countless others and you stick to the speed limits unlike 89% of people who speed “some of the time”. But have you considered that that having a high tolerance for being told to roll over on command for no reason might not be something everyone admires? Yep we all know that exceeding the speed limits results in the fines but is that the point?

Perhaps if the government made wearing red underwear mandatory you might wear it all the time quite proudly. But can you consider that many people might think it a tad silly and the law a joke and flout the law by wearing other types of underwear and complain about the law and the enforcement? If someone says that the more police crack down on red underwear the more they will get fined do you think they are blaming the police for their underwear choice?

Examinator,

You seem to be conflating exceeding the speed limit with driving too fast for the conditions and dangerous operation of a vehicle. Rehctub was only talking about speed camera fines for going above the speed limit.

” it can't be established that speed cameras don't work ...”

Take Queensland, where this all started (the thread), with the exception of the year after speed cameras were introduced and the current year (probably) speed related fatalities have shown a clear trend to increase for 13 years. Indeed 2009 had 50% more speed related fatalities than 1997 the year they were introduced. Are you sure? What have they brought down? Alcohol related fatalities?

I challenge you to counsel the survivors or family of victims. That will put you in a position where you get at least a small sample (better than nothing) of fatal crashes. You would find it quite enlightening to see just what speed related fatalities entail. I would be willing to wager that you won’t encounter any in the up to 15k above current limits in good weather conditions range that generate almost all speed camera tickets.

Position, position... a camera placed at a school crossing is a safety matter, the same camera in a 100 zone at the bottom of a hill is a revenue raising matter.
It would be easy to accurately measure the efficacy of road safety measures, in a way that takes into account geographical and population characteristics and uses a per-capita measurement rather than meaningless raw data. But they dont. And they wont.
I saw Victoria has about 400 or something cameras and Queensland has only about 50 or so. I doubt Victoria is 8 times as safe to drive in, and similarly I doubt its only 1/8 as safe to drive here.
There are plenty about here at the moment, but probably not taking any pictures unless it is a really radical speed, because we have a labor state Government run by the party leader who wants to help her mate in federal labor get in.
But yeah, put it in private hands so I can belt the bugger and smash his machine to pieces...

I have a good idea on how to deal with this problem

My manifesto:
https://sites.google.com/site/futureofaustralia/home

Click on link 'roads and transport'