Unfortunately controlling the accelerator and brakes is impossible until technology improves, by which time cars will drive themselves, and put an end to all road laws forever.

Also limiting a vehicles maximum speed to the legal limit would make it unsafe because at times one must exceed the limit to prevent an accident.

The government will pay for the device and the citizen will pay for any replacement devices. compulsory like the rego sticker. Its a great investment when considering the cost of speed cameras for example, cost of policing, parking meters, and many other things that could be made extinct by this one device.

In regards to political will; the states are the ones who reap the benefits of traffic fines, but under this proposed system, the whole matter would be federalized. Regardless, they must do whats in the benefit of the people.

In regards to whether it would make people bored and complacent, we would have to look at a different issue altogether; is the current speed limit acceptable/beneficial. perhaps it will reduce accidents by removing distractions caused by the infinite number of road signs warning of cameras ahead and varying speed limits.

Future of Australia, all the necessary technology might now be possible, but that doesn’t mean that it can all be put together into a device that is always 100% reliable.

It would also need to be tamper-proof, not just from the average Joe but from alteration by devious technoheads who might be inclined to change settings so that they can do 10kmh faster than everyone else or park or travel on toll roads free of charge.

Unfortunately this type of idea is not something that can be easily improved once it has been initiated. It has to be complete right from the start. Once you’ve rolled out this Acme super-duper all-purpose accident-prevention driver’s-little-helper box-of-tricks doover, you wouldn’t be able to add new features or improve existing features or alter it at all apart from very minor improvements in componentry, for many years….because all the rules that it ‘polices’ have to apply equally to everyone. So we couldn’t have model A with certain features and then model B released two years later that changes the level of policing for certain rules or adds new items to the list of policed rules.

But as you say, the privacy issue would be the biggest hurdle. There would just be far too many people who would complain vigorously about this being another blow to our privacy for the idea to gain sufficient support to be developed.

I like your idea about developing a website for reporting criminal activity. This should be expanded to include road-safety complaints and should include facilities for uploading photos, video and audio recordings that constitute evidence. Along with it, there should be plenty of publicity imploring people to be responsible citizens and make complaints where illegal activities have been witnessed. There should be a section demonstrating how to gather the right sort of hard evidence and how to most effectively make a complaint.

But of course, there needs to be adequate police man-power behind the scenes to get complaints quickly and properly dealt with.

Hello Ludwig,

In regards to making it completely reliable and tamper-proof my thoughts were that it would simply be a matter for the right experts. Severe penalties, such as loss of license, could exist to deter from tampering with the device.

In regards to upgrading the device, It will basically be a matter of an automatic software update. It would have a mobile phone SIM card for the purpose of connecting to the internet wirelessly. A new device would not be necessary for between 3 and 5 years. In this regard it's just a computer amalgamated with a SAT-NAV device.

In regards to your suggestion of uploading photos, videos and audio recordings to the website for reporting criminal activity; I think its a great idea. My only concern is the following, many might be tempted to use this for their own benefit/in an attempt at vengeance; or place themselves at risk by deputizing themselves.

In regards to increasing police numbers I had the following idea
(which I think you will like)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All infantry will be re-assigned to join the ranks of the police force on rotation. Every month they will alternate between police and military duties. When they are on police duty, they will be assigned to their hometown so they can spend time with friends and family. They remain at the ready if called upon by the army and the government does not spend on wages for the hire of new police.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Quoted from website:
https://sites.google.com/site/futureofaustralia/home

Future of Australia, you might be right about being able to circumvent the problems I envisage with this sort of technology.

Did you see ‘Visions of the Future’ with Professor Michio Kaku on ABC1 last night?

He was demonstrating a driverless car. Very interesting.

I’m all for developing technologies that make driving safer and that help uphold our rule of law. But in the meantime, I think that the empowerment of the general public to do their bit is of the utmost importance, rather than the public basically being treated as blind Freddies who are not supposed to do anything about rank and dangerous driving antics that they are subjected to or otherwise witness.

Regarding the uploading of photos, video and audio files as evidence of unlawful activities; it specifically couldn’t be used for purposes of vengeance (unless the person you wanted to be vengeful towards was an abject law-breaker) because the evidence would have to speak for itself. This sort of evidence would only be meaningful if it demonstrated illegal or dangerous driving.

As for people ’deputising’ themselves, I think that this could be a very good thing! If just a very small number of people really got into the spirit of gathering evidence and making complaints, as committed community police officers, it could make a huge difference. In fact, only a very small portion of the general populace would need to be involved in such a website in order for it to become a major deterrence factor and really cut down on aberrant driving behaviour.

I think that there is certainly some potential in involving the armed forces in everyday policing activities. It is something that should be explored.

Cheers

Gawd, Ludwig. What you're proposing sounds like a combination of I, Robot and 1984, with an unhealthy measure of the former East Germany thrown in. It won't work because Australians are culturally averse to dobbing each other in, and because we're thankfully a long way yet from perfecting the kinds of technology that future of australia envisages to the extent where it would be remotely workable.

Australia is already too much of a surveillance society. I can't believe the ease with which some people countenance further erosion of such personal freedoms that we still retain.

<< …with an unhealthy measure of the former East Germany thrown in. >>

Wow CJ, a tad overstated methinks. But yes there is a Big-Brotheristic aspect to all of this.

However, it is simply a matter of a small increase in restrictions upon us all in order to reduce the devastating restrictions experienced by relatively few people, via road trauma. So you could say that rather than increasing restrictions upon the average person, it would result in a fairer redistribution of restrictions.

Besides, it would just be making people stick to the rules. So it wouldn’t be increasing restrictions at all on law-abiding citizens, only on those who behave irresponsibly.

Australians don’t like to be seen as dobbers. This was driven home to me just recently on Graham Young’s thread when he was calling for help to moderate this forum.

I stated that if posters were just willing to hit the little red cross, that is present at the bottom of every post, whenever they think the rules have been infringed, there would soon be very few infringements indeed, because posters would come to realise that it is not just Graham and Susan and perhaps a couple of ‘dobbers’ regulating this site, but a large enough portion of the users to cover all threads and pick up practically infringements.

However, support from fellow posters on that thread for this simple premise was almost entirely absent!

But…. I think that this was largely due to people not wanting to be seen to be dobbers, but actually being happy to do it anonymously, if they encounter an offensive or otherwise illegal post.

As far as road safety is concerned, it would only take a very small portion of the general populace to be involved in order to effectively increase the policing effort five or ten or perhaps a hundred-fold!

So CJ, how would you go about improving road safety and the rule of law, or are you happy with it all as it is?