Do roads kill, no they don't. It's drivers & vehicle owners that kill.

Anyone can drive to the state of a road, & most do, & do it well. Quite often the old bumpy, narrow road claims less drivers, than the new wide & safe appearing one that replaces it. The fact that the road is wider & smoother makes it more comfortable, not safer.

It is a long time since I lost control of a vehicle, but it happened recently, due to bad management. I was returning from Noosa, down the same "stone mastic" expressway I had admired earlier as I drove up from Brisbane that morning, a lovely, smooth, quiet [little tyre noise] road.

I was driving a 35 year old classic sports car, beautifully restored & a joy to drive. I did remember stories about this road being slippery when a moderately heavy shower passed over us.

I was pacing other traffic, at about the speed limit, or a little less, on a straight stretch of elevated almost flat road, & about 60 metres from other cars, with very little throttle required.

To my great surprise, the tail started to come around. Nothing I did had much effect on this behaviour, but over about 150 metres, with the car rotating through 200 degrees, I had slowed it to about 40Km/H, before gently running off the road more or less backwards, down the elevation. This being wet & muddy, the car quickly stopped.

After checking the car thoroughly, & ascertaining the condition of the owner, who did look a little green of complexion, I drove back onto the expressway, & continued on my way, without further trouble.

Later at a fuel stop, out of the rain, I again checked the car more thoroughly, & discovered the rear tyres were 15 years old. That makes them about 8 or 9 years past their use by date.

Continued

Continued

They were polished, & black, with plenty of tread, due to the small mileage old classic cars do, & looked perfect, but they had no place on any road, let alone a smooth wet one, at 100Km per hour.

Had we caused a major accident, I have no doubt the road surface would have been blamed, it is gathering a bad reputation. However I must wonder if this is because, like me, many drivers are running around on dangerous tyres.

Like me they may have assumed the tyres were good. Many would not know how to read the age of a tyre off the markings they all carry. I for one will never again assume a car is sound, just because it looks it, & is owned by a member of my car club.

So folks, no it wasn't the road, they can't bite, even when you aren't looking. If you have a single vehicle accident it is all your own fault, & no one else's. Take responsibility & the necessary care to ensure the equiptment is sound, & you should be right. Don't become complacent as I was, it could kill someone.

o sung Wu nice to see you around.
I want to go on record, first the NSW RTA [hi to our not so well hidden HFR visitor] showed me a great deal, in its training.
Both as worker/ganger then as senior union delegate.
I know, no doubts, we are getting a good Pacific, well built, as fast as it can be.
BUT remember built at too high a price, by contractors who add great amounts to contracted price.
It can not take place over night.
IF we not me, I have lived the night mare, can put our selves at 2 am in the rain , at the site of multiple fatal.
Signs flashing lights, even police Ambos Fire and Rescue, West pack helicopter.
2 klm WARNING.
Nearly killed, more than once, by motorist speed who INSIST no pre warning is in place.
Or two lane divided by a traffic Island equal in width to two lanes, and finding multiple times motorists heading in the wrong direction.
Roads do not kill we drivers do, pot holes do not murder we do with steering wheel in hand.
Just we humans find it hard to blame our selves we find no fault it saying others, the road, kills.
Even freeways are built to price safe well made but not built for the next 50 years.
If we build what we can afford we will never catch up.
If we spend our cash on better roads we,still will have bad roads nearly the equal of bad drivers.

So there you are folks.

I have no idea what bonmot has invested in global warming, career, gravy train ride, or just ego, but he is fulfilling the prophecy, & fighting like hell against any semblance of rationality in the matter.

He can rationalise away totally unconscionable behaviour by any of the faithful. I'll bet he believes the UN, & the IPCC are staffed by selfless angles, all those Himalayan glaciers have long since melted, & pigs can fly of course.

In the same way, thousands of economists are earning their living off the euro, probably more with the crisis, & Germany is desperately trying to help the euro, rather than making sure it stays devalued, making their industry more competitive & profitable.

Oh, & I came down in the last shower, & am still wet behind the ears. If I weren't I would have added the Y2K bug in there, as using the same technique to build a gravy train.

My experience, and from all observations it is painfully obvious, is that many overweight drivers suffer from sleep apnea resulting in a greater tendency to fall asleep at the wheel.
When this is coupled with the need to keep almost impossible deadlines you have the perfect cocktail for disaster on our roads.
All transport drivers should be tested for sleep apnea before they are given a license to drive.
CG

Last two post are welcome.
And about the standard in talking about this road and any road.
Hasbeen posts in the wrong thread about the wrong subject, standard issue for the subject.
Our new poster welcome mate, puts it all down to fat buggers falling asleep, while driving trucks!
Lets be clear, any road worker who ever walked, will think of truck drivers as foul mouthed owners of low IQs.
But jumping to the conclusions every one does is ?
Three recent deaths happened after car drivers on the wrong side of the road.
FORCED TRUCKS to attempt to avoid them by steering off the road.
We bog down, ever time,as opinion gets smashed against fact.
Poor drivers need not be drunk, asleep, fat, short tall, we all, sometimes maybe all the time are poor drivers.
Young drive too fast while the music is full blast? SOME not all on the phone? SOME.
It is never our fault,our mates fault our family's fault,THOSE OTHERS are to blame.
Oxley highway crosses the Pacific on it way west near port, both roads are well in to upgrades.
Both are charged with murder,after deaths only drivers could have avoided this last few weeks.
Both bring screams fix our roads.
I think hundreds of thousands of kilometers of other roads are awful in this country.
FIX MINE NOW! rules blinds us to the fact our first action should be placing the blame on? drivers!
Rob Oakshot, its his fault, every inch of bad road.
See some one, politicians always have, always will use this road to bend and twist truth, to make commitments that can not be kept.
Headlines remind us Oakshots electorate gets Oxley funding while Pacific murders drivers and others.
Both road are to be upgraded , who do we blame for deaths in the few years that will take?