Overnight we read of another horrendous smash, south of Childers on Queensland`s Bruce Highway, claiming another 5 lives.

This was ( according to eye-witnesses ) another case of a vehicle drifting across the road and colliding head-on with a B-Double Semi moving in the opposite direction.

It is imperative that immediate steps are taken to upgrade this No 1
Highway ( use of this terminology is somewhat farcical ), as this road is in disgraceful condition overall with changing cambers, many patched surfaces and of most importance, no division between traffic flow directions!

I found from my own experience, when driving on a similar type road with no division and I suddenly blew out a back tyre at 95 klm/hr, that the vehicle was virtually uncontrollable and I shot across the road and off the verge before managing to brake to a standstill,....thank God there was nothing coming the opposite way or I may have ended up as a national "statistic".

With these thoughts in mind, I have often wondered how many of these "swerving" head-on collisions may be attributable to a blown tyre or mechanical failure, besides or contrary to the often suggested nodding-off, or influence of liquor, drugs etc?

Invariably, when the vehicle is totalled, it is extremely difficult for the investigating officers to determine the EXACT cause of the accident and thus a "probable cause" is offered.

One sure-fire action CAN be taken to avoid this sort of a holocaust and that is to DIVIDE the highway intoto by making it a dual carriageway, with sufficient distance between to allow vehicle run-off
without the risk of collision from the opposite direction, ....if necessary the highway should be divided by a curved upright concrete median strip to achieve this.

Action now should be of top priority and undertaken immediately to help to prevent or minimize any further mass trauma on this our main highway to the north!

Our current Queensland road toll stands at 209 deaths, compared to 194 for the same period last year,........YOU or I could be next!

No doubt exist figures prove it the Bruce Highway must be upgraded soon.
My time on the NSW DMR/RTA was spent on its death strip.
So very many died needlessly and awfully.
Few who never had a highway as their factory floor,or who had to answer the early morning phone to attend another tragic event will ever know.
Pain trauma even break downs those from police rescue and road workers see.
I never witnessed one accident, saw plenty of smashes, some right in front of me.
But if we drive to the conditions we get there, a car drove on the wrong side of the road, a two lane two way road.
NSW is at war, trying to finish its now not so bad death strip.
We do not have the money, tough budget bad times right now.
Do we let private enterprise build a toll road they own?
It would get it done, if they want it.
Every one wants the best roads now, and I know they need them.
But if we drive to survive while waiting we may just live to see it.

What i found about QLD roads was the camber on the road can suddenly change and steer you into oncoming traffic.
The deteriorating roads and the speed limits were still at 100 kms
Probably 90% of the roads in QLD west of the divide are in bad shape, and some should be closed altogether.
Unguarded bridges are somewhat scary, along with no where to stop, even if you did have a flat tyre.

Yes the camber sometimes changes without warning. I have often thought that this is really dangerous and absolutely needs to be signed. You can reasonably expect the camber to change on a right-hand curve, but on a straight road where it happens, you just get no warning at all.

It is the simplest thing to do – to simply put up a sign wherever this happens in unexpected circumstances.

But noooo…. There seems to be something fundamental missing from the brains of those in charge of road construction, road safety and the policing thereof. It's called commmon sense!

Come on now fellers, you're getting a bit precious aren't you? I don't know about you other 2, but Belly & Ludwig you should have grown up with the same roads I did.

Those were the days when the bitumen extended a couple of hundred yards past the last houses of the town, then the next 40 miles was gravel if you were lucky, & clay/dirt if you weren't. Not only that we had cart front axles,that would shimmy you off the road, & no mobile phones to call for help.

Inter town trips were quite often an adventure. I remember one occasion in the 50s, in our 1930 Dodge, [cars were expensive for the ordinary people, & you still waited 2 years to get a new Holden, even if you could afford it], we had some fun between Bathurst & Young.

It was a very wet day, & the road was clay. We came over a rise at no more than 30 MPH, & 300 yards away, down a gentle slope were a mob of sheep being driven. The stock route was still the main road back then.

Fortunately the stock men got them off the road, as we were still doing about 10 MPH sideways, all 4 wheels locked, as we slid past them.

A few years later a mate took the front suspension, subframe & all, right out of his Vauxhall Velox, when in similar conditions near Armidale, he slid 300 yards into a 2Ft wide, 3Ft deep ditch dug right across the dirt main road. He reckoned the road works signs he crashed through did very little to slow him down.

So fellers, be thankful for these pretty good roads you've got to drive on, today. We didn't always have such good ones.

Perhaps if folks were driving at a suitable speed, looking where they're going, & stopping when they're sleepy, we'd have less accidents.

I guess we had one advantage back then. When you could not drive the roads at much over 30MPH, the accidents were at slower speeds.

Hasbeen I too grew up on those roads and still have not trouble adjusting to conditions.
Having driven trailers and rigid trucks cars, 4x4s I have to say seeing the needless death still hurts.
Often at holiday times folk try to do things they just should not.
Bruce is not west of the range, it is national route one, but 50 years behind.
I defie any one to say they have not seen bad drivers failing to adjust to rain snow or heavy traffic.

Hasbeen: We all probably at some time wish we could return to our halicon days of the 50`s, when yes, there were heaps of dirt roads, but unfortunately we are now living in the 21st century, and whether we like it or not we have to accept modernization and all that we may perceive as being unnacceptable.

My issue is with the authorities who have been collecting millions of dollars ( and pounds ) over the years, but seem to have returned very little of it to the building of roads, at least in the regional areas!

For too many years now we have witnessed or heard about the many accidents and deaths resulting from vehicles deviating from their given direction, veering across the road and into oncoming traffic.

We can rattle on forever about the possible causes of vehicular deviation, but if the major highways were divided into dual carriageways, the risks would be reduced, and survival would be a chance.

I have personally taken up the issue of regional road conditions with the Qld Minister for Main Roads, but appear to have acheived very little, due to the ensconced economic policies, whereby roadworks construction, repair and maintenance are subject to the tender process, which itself is in need of severe modification to bring strict accountability to a process that appears to be drastically lacking.

For anyone who has spent much time driving on Northern Territory roads, the difference between there and here in Queensland is mind-boggling, with great distances of smooth, well-constructed bitumen, clearly marked and well-drained!....the question I ask is "if they can do it in the Territory, why can`t we do it the same here?"

One word guys, FUNDING, or rather, lack of it.

When we fight others wars, open our arms and wallets to all these illegals, and keep supporting those who refuse to work, along with multiple times single mums, what do we expect.

Somethings gotta give and we are only just seeing the beginning, so we had best get used to it.

Money can only be spent once.

Hazza you old bean, I’m nowhere near as ancient as you!! ( :>/

Hey I agree that we should be very thankful for the quality of roads that we’ve got.

I’ll have to disagree strongly with Crackcup that the answer is to greatly improve the roads.

<< Perhaps if folks were driving at a suitable speed, looking where they're going, & stopping when they're sleepy, we'd have less accidents. >>

YES!

And if they were pulled into line when driving improperly, ie tailgating, overtaking riskily, overtaking a vehicle that is sitting on the speed limit and things like that, then we’d see a whole lot less accidents I reckon.

The cause of this accident near Childers is not known as far as I am aware, but it would seem that veering into the path of a truck would probably have nothing to do with the quality of the road.

I’ve travelled the whole length of the Bruce Hwy recently and gone back forth numerous times on its northern parts. There are roadworks everywhere! Lots and lots of temporary red traffic lights!! An enormous amount of money is being spent on it. And when it’s all done, it will only be marginally better than before.

continued

I suggest that a good part of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on roadworks should be spent instead on developing a community policing program, in which people are encouraged to report bad drivers, in just the same way as we are encouraged to report litterers, smoky vehicles or suspicious people as part of the neighbourhood watch program.

We could be shown how to collect evidence of bad, risky, dangerous and downright stupid driving, which is really easy with the use of a camcorder or mobile phone, and which any passenger can do.

This expenditure should provide an increased number of police or authorised bureaucrats to analyse these complaints and any associated evidence and book people accordingly.

Then after a short time, the wank*rs on the road who think that they can get away with just about anything because the thin blue is indeed very very thin, and who have to push the envelope all the time and who have no patience or regard for other road users, will realise that the blue line isn’t so thin afterall.

We would then see a marked improvement the quality of driving really quite quickly…. and no doubt a concomitant drop in the accident rate.

THIS is what we need to improve road safety, NOT endless enormous expenditure on improving our roads.

the way many people drive its amazing their are not a lot more deaths. Better roads are only a small part of the answer.

Agree with most of that Crackcup. I have no desire to return to the 50s, when it took my folks a few weeks saving to buy a pair of shoes, although I wouldn't mind that body I had then back. However I see no reason to blame governments for what is simply bad driving.

Sure it would be nice to have better roads, but what do you want to give up for them. For decades governments have been ripping motorists of for the cash for education, health care, & all the other stuff.

They denigrated smokers so they could rip them off too, then drinkers, & lately gamblers. Sure it would be nice to get rid of 50% of public servant seat warmers, but even then, the services the public demand have to be paid for somehow.

We definitely should be providing the northern half of the state, the productive half, with all weather roads, but they don't need to be gold plated, just trafficable. They should be built before a single kilo more bitumen is laid in the south, however divided roads are a luxury we can't afford, particularly on northern roads which carry little traffic.

I get annoyed at hundred of kilometers of armco on our roads, where running off the road would be safe if we just ignored the greenies. Clear the trees, & we don't need safety fences, particularly those that just bounce a car back in front of following cars.

I have watched small saplings on our road verges grow into large trees, which now carry the crosses erected for those they have killed. Get rid of them & we will be much safer, & won't have kangaroos camouflaged just centimeters off the road.

Can't agree with you on this one Ludwig old mate. I think one of the danger factors is our ridiculously low speed limits. The hardest thing about a long run today, trundling along at at a mind numbing 100Km/H is staying awake.

That run between Marlborough & Sarina is almost designed to lull anyone to sleep.

Back in the old days, [where's my violin], I used to average around 65/70 MHP in a fifties yank tank towing a trailer, with my Brabham in it, on over night runs to Brisbane or Melbourne. This was on roads much worse that the so called "horror stretches" today.

I had only one safety rule. The moment my concentration even started to wander, I would stop, even in the middle of no where, & walk around the rig a few times in the cold. Why is our racing is mostly in winter?

I would then stop for coffee & food at the next roadhouse.

A lot of us did that, & speed was no problem. The only ones that got into trouble were those who would have a beer or two before starting. Even then it was falling asleep, not being drunk that got them them.

When I was commuting from Hervey Bay to the Gold Coast, the dangerous bit was arriving around Nambour about 5.00AM, & trying to stay awake that was dangerous. Further north I could slide around a few corners, usually on the range south of Tiaro, generating a dose of adrenaline, that would keep you awake for an hour or more.

When my daughter flies in from Darwin, arriving about 5.00AM, I always pick her up in a convertible, roof down, to help stay awake. That run from Beenleigh to the airport, up the expressway, in the comfortable cocoon of a saloon is another designed to lull one to sleep.

I reckon many of our head on smashes were someone going to sleep, or loosing concentration, as the task of rolling down a main road at 100Km/H is just not demanding enough to maintain concentration for long periods.

Ludwig - If someone notifies someone (in this case the government responsible for the road) that there is something dangerous and they do nothing about it they can be sued.
So if they put up a warning sign they admit there is a problem which should have been fixed anyone having an accident would get a lot of money. There are enough ambulance chasers that will do it for a percentage of the payout.
The above scenario relates to councils and businesses but I am sure a good lawyer would go for the traffic authority

Phillip, the legal system, or more so, the way it gets manipulated by blood thirsty lawyers is a huge part of the problem, as instead of the common sense approach, which many people should adhere to, these legal eagles go to any lengths all in the name of making a buck. The old no win no fee.

As for police, they, like all other resources are short on money, as it has been pissed away in many directions, both at state and fed levels.

Evidence being in the fact that most speed traps are in places that simply raise much needed revenue. You know, on a straight stretch of 100k road.

As I say, it's all about funding, or lack of it.

Now as for accidents, cars are too easy to drive today, so concentration levels have been allowed to slip as a result. I also think all these air bags give a false sense of security to many drivers.

<< Can't agree with you on this one Ludwig old mate. >>

Can’t agree with what exactly, Haz? The idea that we need a much better regulatory regime to make the very large number of rank drivers pull their stupid looking woolly heads in a bit?!

One of the most eternally frustrating things that I encounter on my travels is the bullsh!t antics (which is just the normal driving behaviour) of many drivers. If you are sitting on or a bit over the speed limit, you very often get vehicles coming up quite quickly behind you, then sitting far too close and overtaking where it is barely safe to do so.

If you stick to the rules, and I mean a liberal interpretation of the rules, not a hard and fast pedantic absolute adherence, you get ABUSED left, right and centre by many other drivers.

And the really ugly part about it is that if you report it to the cops, they mostly simply DON’T WANT TO KNOW!! They don't want to know about even the worst instances!

SURELY this is what we need to work on, first and foremost!

And it SHOULD be easy, as per my last post.

continued

Haz I agree that speed limits are too low a lot of the time. But it really is a non-issue in terms of road safety.

A higher speed limit would tend to make some drivers concentrate a bit better I guess. But then they’d need to be more alert and tuned in when travelling at a higher speed just to counter the increased risk of mishap. Better alertness plus higher risk equals about the same level of safety, at best. And probably means a lower level of safety overall, when considering how most people drive.

What we absolutely need is vastly more speed limit signs, so that we are not left wondering what the bloody speed limit is half the time!

This is my second biggest eternal frustration when driving – so very often not knowing what speed zone you are in, because you haven’t seen a sign for some distance and can no longer be sure that you are still in the same zone, or because you have turned into a new road and not encountered a speed sign.

In the interests of road safety let s have a ten cents a ltr tax on fuel, all of it, and first job?
4 lane divided Bruce highway.

Oh NO! I hear the shouting now!
Then if we do not want to pay for it, go without something, drive according to the roads condition.

The tax of fuel we buy is now VERY high but most of it does not go into the repair and upgrade of roads it goes to other Government projects.
If a small percentage more than is now allocated was to roads we would have better ones.
Too bad Government wants to waste it on, political appointments, foreign aid, refugees, and bribes to get the UN security council seat.

I think the thread is well worth talking about.
But thought much before re visiting it.
Some posts kill thread, Phillip S last post sent me away.
But I built or repaired roads.
Then became Union official for road construction blokes.
I know how bad our roads are.
And have an interest in why it is so.
Modern Australian road building follows American practice.
Roads such as the Bruce are built and looked after according to the code know as the California flexible road plan.
Roads flex, all of them, even concrete.
Bruce will have been built from local gravels, some times good some times not.
NSW Pacific, By its very location, in parts had to import gravels, that costs, you can not build a road from dirt, yet.
We must confront truth, Americas population, its wealth, is multiple times ours.
If we took the best contractors and the best men, to build a single 4 lane divided highway, around this country, we would need half our Gross National Product in cash, to get it done in 30 years.
What would we go without?
A problem, government road builders produced the best plant operators right down to traffic controllers.
But the worst most wasteful senior managers.
Planners started planning for road failures 30 years ago.
Instead of quality of road or repair, their plan is to make one dollar build ten dollars worth of poor road.
Remember, costs not laziness stop our small country having good roads.

Belly, I have to admit, I dont know too much about building roads, however you are spot on with funding, our dollars simply dont stretch far enough, esspecially give all the holes we are trying to plug.

As for roads, it is impossible to build a decent road in black soil, so the result is continuous road works, esspecially in western Qld. The B-doubles are killing these roads.

I am afraid this lack of funding is just the beginning, as our declining tax revenue system is simply caving in under the pressure of our local and external expenditure.

Something has to give, but I don't know what.

I can see exactly why we have a road toll as big as we do. It is because of the absolutely dismal policing regime, and the incredible apathy about this particular issue.

Numerous times I have encountered this on OLO – even those who are interested in discussing the broader subject of road safety are apparently not interested or for some reason very reluctant to support the notion of better policing.

I just don’t get, because this really is the key.

And the key point within it is not to have thousands more police out there on the roads, but to have a whole lot more of them behind desks and to encourage the community to do the on-ground work.

Neighbourhood watch has been a very successful program. It is so simple – we simply encouraged to report untoward or suspicious behaviour in our neighbourhoods and the police will check it out.

There doesn’t need to have been any wrongful actions undertaken by anyone, just the suspicion that someone might possibly be up to no good. The police act on this sort of notification very readily.

And then at the complete opposite end of the spectrum we have road safety!

Ludwig: How is more policing or more bureacracy going to prevent tyre blow-outs, mechanical failure, wrong cambering on bends, create more overtaking lanes and dual carriageways?

I believe that in fact driving on the roads today has its own inherent problems created by traffic congestion, continuous checking of speedo, scanning ahead for Radar and Speed traps as well as watching the traffic around you. A driver`s attention is continually being diverted by these and many other distractions, so when you add the poor surface conditions of pot-holes and poor standard patching the table is set for disaster!

We have to accept the fact that traffic flow has increased rapidly over the last few years, however the road inmprovement expenditure has not exponentially increased.

If we are to say that we simply cannot afford to build better roads, for whatever reason, we might as well start putting drivers off the road, an idea itself that is absolutely ludicrous, because we have very little public transport outside the metropolitan areas, due to Government short-sightedness and mis-spent revenue.

Of all the tax collected on the sale of petrol etc approx 25% goes to the roads approx 75% goes to general revenue.

<< How is more policing or more bureacracy going to prevent tyre blow-outs, mechanical failure, wrong cambering on bends, create more overtaking lanes and dual carriageways? >>

Crackcup, it is not going to achieve any of those things. We’ve got to work on those as well. But the No 1 most important thing as I see it is to rein in the rank drivers.

How can anyone possibly advocate addressing all of those things while completely missing the need to make bad drivers a whole lot less dangerous?

<< I believe that in fact driving on the roads today has its own inherent problems created by traffic congestion, continuous checking of speedo, scanning ahead for Radar and Speed traps as well as watching the traffic around you. >>

Hold on, isn’t the continuous checking of your speedo just a fundamental part of driving? If you have that bit under control, then you don’t need to worry about speed traps. And monitoring what’s happening all around you is similarly just a fundamental part of driving. You could hardly call it a distraction!

I really don’t think that the quality of the roads is a major issue. It is certainly nowhere near as important as driver behaviour and the policing thereof.

Even where the roads are quite bad, there is usually not much of a hazard. You simply drive to the prevailing conditions. The only time road quality is a significant factor as far as I can see is after big rain events when there are lots of potholes around and the degraded quality of the road is not immediately apparent. But again this doesn’t amount to much of a hazard really. Warning signs are generally put up pretty quickly and the damage is repaired as quickly as possible in places where it does present a real hazard.

Rechtub answers exist, for such as the Bruce NSW style concrete .
But take the ill informed experts out of it and the bean counters, first explain to the motorists the funding issue.
BUT BUILD IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME less road but for much longer life.
A day will come that sees additives that work, in that dirt country.
Already cement and lime other products too are added to harden roads.
Too much leads to crocodile cracking worse than before.
A road must have a base that flex,s no more or less than its surface.
Trowing a sheet of fibro over a mud swamp with look good until you step on it.
Despite the uninformed views to the contrary if we fund roads to every ones requirements we MUST CUT other things health?
Education?
If crossing a desert take water, if driving take care

Belly - Quote "Despite the uninformed views to the contrary if we fund roads to every ones requirements we MUST CUT other things health?
Education?"

Now you have admitted that some things take money away from other services, namely education and health.

So now can you justify in excess of $4.5 Billion dollars being spent on boatloads of the welfare for lifers at the expense of or education and health systems to name 2 only.

Phillip S I have little regard for your posting style.
Let us consider this carefully.
What would you have the government do with boat people to save that money?
Current plans are not working and will not.
Would you put Malaysia to work.
Is it not part of the announced plan, is it not truly more likely to stop the boats?
Or do you want to send the navy out to sink and drown them at sea.
Easy to contribute junk but in the real world some things are unchangeable.
Do you consider roads more important than defense, health, welfare, transport, education, are you aware we are 22 million America?
Do you think every road, at least every well used on can be built ? then in what time frame, how much will it cost.
The 75% of fuel tax in general revenue, in NSW includes an extra tax to build roads, it funded in part the Pacific,still 16 years maybe twice that, from completion.
What else is under fundd?
Then put GST UP TO 20% FUEL UP 10% MORE?
No uninformed best fits you.
Tell me, while we wait,and yes by all means demand better roads will slowing down help?
That is achievable now and costs nothing.

Belly - Personally I do not care if you do not like my posting style, simple don't read them.

I asked you a simple question "So now can you justify in excess of $4.5 Billion dollars being spent on boatloads of the welfare for lifers at the expense of or education and health systems to name 2 only."

Your reply was to come back with 17 lines of text that still did not answer the question. I did not count your 1st line as it was just about your dislike for my posting style.

If you do not want to answer either just say so or don't reply but to reply like you usually do makes people want to ignore your comments.

I am still trying to decipher this one Quote "Do you consider roads more important than defense, health, welfare, transport, education, are you aware we are 22 million America?"

I need to retreat from this thread, and a few others.
NEVER in cowardice, but in the interests of our forum.
I answered CLEARLY those questions.
Fact is one cake exists just that, do we borrow another.
Do we borrow two or three.
The GFC SAW EFFORTS TO PUMP CASH INTO varied AREAS,to keep workers in work.
Not all of it worked well but workers kept jobs.
Unknown to some, cash went in to infrastructure, including roads.
Right now, at a time of low tax returns and some truly held concerns, we are spending more on the NATIONS ROADS than EVER BEFORE.
Achievable things are different that wanted things.
Writing slowly, WHAT DO WE DROP to build more roads?
If the road was made of broken glass, had holes 2 foot deep, would insisting on driving at 110 klm be wise.
Reduce the speed on the Bruce, but demand better.
PS I now leave the thread, throwing insults but ignoring truth is not fun.

Or Belly, K Rudd and C.o could have left well enough alone, but hey, that's simply not the labor way, is it.

No, they get into power and take an axe to almost everything, shooting blindly at everything with little to no idea of how the real world works.

What labor should have done, once they realized that they had tried to fix the unbroken illegals problem, was to step aside and accept the fact they they stuffed up.

Back to topic, perhaps we need to at least trial a rewards system, rather than just a penalty system as we currently have.

Say drivers with a two year clean slate were rewarded with a subsidized rego, say 50% discount, then, if they have an infringement (traffic related) then their rego gets a loading applied, much like insurances do.

Now if they were to have two infringements in a year, they receive a 120 or 150% loading on their rego, and so on, for a two year period.

Go two years with a clean slate, down comes your rego again.

Of cause Rego's and licienses would have to be linked.

Even schools reward good behavior as opposed to just punishing bad. Rewards work.

But, as I always say, cut the road toll, where do the jobs come from, as road incidents/trauma creates thousands of jobs, both directly and indirectly.

Sad, even calis, but very true.

Rehctub, that might be all right, if we could trust the cops to be reasonable.

My car club for years held an annual show & shine, for classic sports cars, down Beaudesert way. One year we were threatened with cancellation of our permit, when the new secretary notified the local cop shop, but not traffic branch, a month in advance. Traffic branch did not have time to arrange the normal 4 radar traps for the event.

A while back some of our local kids attended a burnout show at Kalbar. As they were leaving 6 consecutive cars leaving the venue were booked for excessive "noise & smoke". 6 were stopped as there was space to park 6. The cars were confiscated for 48 hours.

My son, a passenger in one called, & a number of us had to go pick the kids up.

Then I discovered they were leaving because the event was abandoned due to rain making it impossible for contestants to generate any smoke or noise.

In view of this we challenged the charges in court, but only after the kids involved had paid a large sum for towing & holding each car to get them back.

The kids had been coming out of a very muddy paddock entrance. Some may have been spinning wheels in the mud, they are not angles, but noise & smoke were impossible. We won the case, but it had cost the kids heaps.

I gather the officious young cop got a telling off by the organiser, the local sargent of police, who was trying to get the local kids to have fun, but drive sensibly on the roads, & generate some respect between cops & kids.

While this goes on, I'm sure not too many will trust the cops with traffic policing.

HB, the cops are more now than ever, revenue raisers. Why, because we have no money.

one such example is their opposition to a Facebook site, which alerts fellow contributors to the whereabouts to radars, speed traps etc.

Surely, if just ome driver is aware of the trap, and slows as a result, that is a good thing, but no, cause the cops can't raise revenue.

If they were concerned with speeding, they would encourage such sites, but they don't.

Similar to how they react to those who flash alert oncoming drivers, which by the way, carries a fine if caught.

After all, they claim speed cameras and the likes are there to make drivers slow down, pull the other one I say, as the above examples are aiding their so called quest, not hindering them.

Belly - Quote "I answered CLEARLY those questions." I only asked 1 question which you did not answer except with 17 lines of dribble.

In the next post I asked "I am still trying to decipher this one Quote "Do you consider roads more important than defense, health, welfare, transport, education, are you aware we are 22 million America?"
I Still can't decipher it.

Phillip S,
Not only has this government wasted the $4.5 billion on the illegals, there are heaps of other hairbrained schemes where they have thown our money away for no benefit to Aus. The latest revelation is that we have given grants to african and Carribeen countries in effort to gain a seat on the UNSC. Wasted nearly $3 billion and not one jot of benefit for us.

These two items alone would build a fair bit of dual carriage way.

Are you aware of the list of 50 Labor stuff ups circulating? I have added a few more as well.

The present government has no concept of doing anything that may benefit Australia.

Phillip, I like Belly, I recon deep down he's a great bloke, one that I too would share a beer with.

Unfortunately, he is a full blown unionist and they have this thing about them where labor and the unions can do no wrong.

He's convinced that labor's only problem is their leader, whereas we know labor leaders are simply puppets, as their strings are pulled by the faceless men.

I know this as my dad was exactly the same, whereby he would argue black and blue that the unions and labor could do no wrong.

He was appalled when I voted for John Howard, as even after two or three terms of the libs, whereby the books were balanced, he hatted the fact that labor were in not in government, regardless of the great job JH and PC did.

He also had this thing whereby, if he was cornered, or beaten, he takes his bat and ball and runs.

They would rather do this than be proven wrong. It's a shame, but I guess we all have faults.

Banjo
The worst part is that the libs appear to have slipped to now be on par with this (worst ever) government. Thanks in part to Campbell Newman and his quest to fix QLD.

Tony Abbott, or whoever leads the next (non labor) government will have the same, (only much larger) task on their hands, with no money, more unemployment and a slowing mining sector.

Boy this present government has a lot to answer for, as not only have they stuffed up most of what they touched, but they tried to fix something (illegals) that wasn't broken in the first place.

Now everyone must remember, they have achieved this disgraceful record of waste and miss management IN LESS THAN FIVE YEARS.

God knows where we will be if they get another term.

COMPLETELY BROKE I would suggest.

Banjo - You are right they waste money on many things BUT that generally is a one off thing - These welfare for lifers are exactly as I phrase it MOST are a burden on the taxpayer FOREVER.

WE now have over 3,500 boat people in 1.5 months, Stupid Juliar can't see it is not working.

I’ve got to admit that I’m very disappointed in the lack of interest on this thread with improving the policing regime and hence getting bad drivers to become a bit safer with their everyday driving behaviour.

Alright, so what about improved roads then? Do they really help?

Do more overtaking lanes on the highways make them a safer place or not?

Overtaking lanes are effectively road-rule-free zones!!

The speed limit no longer applies, tailgating is rampant and aggressiveness comes right to the fore. And quite often there is conflict and a real hazard at the end of the zone, with stupid drivers who have just got to pass slower vehicles at all costs pushing it to the limit or beyond.

I very often witness one vehicle travelling past me in the overtaking lane at 120 or more in a 100 zone with another vehicle absurdly close behind pushing him to go even faster and to get out of the way as soon as possible.

My conclusion is that no amount of road improvements will make our roads safer in the absence of a much-improved regulatory regime.

Ludwig: You seem to be exibiting a rabid desire for "more Policing" on our roads, and seem to display a very bigotted attitude towards other drivers, whom you seem to think are responsible for ALL the accidents occurring!

I notice you lambasting drivers who passed you on overtaking lanes, whilst doing around 120kmh. I would suggest that in that particular situation you should do what I do, ...slow down a bit to allow overtaking drivers to pass safely without having to exceed the given speed limit, ( most drivers speed up for that reason, not knowing whether the overtaken driver will allow them to pass before the overtaking lane ends!)

Once again I will point out that in many of the serious or fatal accidents, the victims vehicle ( being manufactured from Japanese Alloy of mild steel and plastic, LOL!) is usually reduced to a mangled mess, and in defence of the police investigators, this makes it very difficult to ascertain the exact cause of the accident,eg: blown tyre, mechanical failure or such. It was common knowledge that with most accidents accurring in the NT resulting in run-off and consequent impact with trees, power poles etc, a few years back, were resulting from a certain brand of tyre blow-out, commonly referred to as "Bangl..s"! Some of the other causes were simple cases of driver exhaustion,...sleepiness!

Lets build better roads regardless!

Crackcup, you seem to be interpreting my comments in a very polarised, end-of-the-spectrum, all-or-nothing manner. Life is not like that. If you read my other posts you on this thread, you will see the folly in some of your comments.

For example; I have said previously that better policing will not stop accidents due to blowouts or other mechanical failure or such-like. Crikey, I made these comments in response to you, and now you are accusing me of apparently saying that poor driving is responsible for all accidents.

Please! This is your thread, but you are clearly not concentrating here!

Regarding overtaking lanes, yes you should slow down a bit if you’ve got someone who is passing you without grossly exceeding the speed limit, to assist them in safely doing so. That is, if you are were travelling below the speed limit to start with. If you were sitting on the cruising speed, then there should be no reason for anyone to overtake you, and it becomes a bit rich to slow down and facilitate them in doing so.

If you slow down a bit, it doesn’t stop many drivers from treating overtaking lanes as a free-for-all. And you can hardly slow down a bit if you have traffic behind you that is content not to overtake but which will then be inclined to overtake you, because you could well end up with a slower vehicle in front of you off the end of the overtaking lane.

<< Lets build better roads regardless! >>

Yes, for sure. But we should be putting some of the enormous money allocated to never-ending roadworks into improving the regulatory regime as well!

Ludwig is not rabid or bigoted, never has been never will be.
He takes the stick to my legs now and again but remains one of our best.
However Ludwig, in the short term only can extra police work.
I have spoken of the hell my road was, some did not want to be woken for call backs so failed to see it in its full impact.
Horrible things you could just tell was to take place, right now school holidays was a sure thing.
TWO lanes not divided replaced with 4 lanes divided and middle ground or barriers worked.
Oh some die still, and like in the past it is speed and inattention, not the road that kills.
Crackup is right about the Bruce,and about 100 klm still, of my highway, 100.000 klm of secondary roads,and? a million in this country.
Not being a smarty,just as you Ludwig know trees I know roads, want roads, but understand the costs.
We need to truly consider, how we can cut the costs per klm and build more and better roads.
And what we can go without to do it, a nation building plan, that will pay us back many times.
More freight rail? less trucks on some roads? a start.

Thanks Belly.

<< However Ludwig, in the short term only can extra police work. >>

I don’t understand. Why do you say this?

Just to clarify: I want to see more police NOT out there on the roads but behind desks and doing the follow-up work on complaints from the public. I want us all to be empowered to help with the road-safety effort by being able to make complaints and know that they will be acted on.

I want the police to encourage us to make complaints if we think they are warranted, in just the same way that we are encouraged to support neighbourhood watch by reporting suspicious behaviour, etc.

I want the police to tell the public how to best gather evidence and make the most effective report.

For this to work, I envisage a big increase in staff – some increase in police but largely temporary administrative staff, for a while until the thickheads get it through their thick heads that every one of us can do something very real about rank drivers and that the current very thin blue line will no longer be considered to be wafer thin.

Then after we have ‘traffic-calmed’ all the unruly ratbags, the number of staff can be steadily reduced, as the number of complaints will fall right way.

This is just so obvious to me. How on earth the police can encourage the public to report litterers, smoky vehicles, noise, hoons, etc, etc, but effectively completely disempower us from doing anything about speeders, tailgaters and other dangerous drivers is just beyond me.

I’ve contemplated this point now for some years, and it just makes utterly no sense to me.

Ludwig I will try to explain.
You have seen my view driver behavior kills not roads.
Until your every day factory floor is the highway, shared by drivers traveling at speed , you will not know how badly some drive.
During the days the media knew my workplace as *THE HIGHWAY OF DEATH*
Our road was falling to pieces.
Rain saw us running all day, on one mountain road using by hand,up to two semi trailers of col mix to fill holes ten inches deep.
Full signs in place, speed restrictions, flagmen out.
Still cars and trucks DID NOT SEE THE SIGNS!
Claimed they did not exist, even rolled over and slid past the holes on the roof.
Only police on the spot slowed them down.
I as Union delegate put together a safety conference, it turned in to a few, statewide, funded by our country,s biggest construction firms.
We turned it around, by constantly demanding more than lip service from the RTA they remain, UNINTERESTED IN THE WELFARE OF THOSE WHO WORK FOR THEM,
Blinded by the white wash they use to the real world.
Ludwig, new roads forgive idiots, kill and injure far far less.
And at 110 klm an hour.
Some parts of the Pacific and Bruce are unsafe at 60.
Police if it saves life should be in the open or in hidden family cars life matters.

Belly, better quality roads are certainly a factor.

But to turn the Bruce Highway into the safest possible road, with dual carriageway and concrete barrier down the centre for much of its length and abundant overtaking lanes elsewhere, would be prohibitively expensive. And then you’ve got all the inland highways in Queensland, and the other connecting roads, etc, etc.

To make a real significant improvement to the quality of roads all over the state, let alone the country, would be beyond us in financial terms.

But to improve the quality of driving would not. It would be eminently achievable, if we could just put our minds to it.

Now, roadworks are another place that the rule of law has broken down badly. Not as badly as in overtaking lanes, but close.

You see temporary slow speed limits on the approach to most roadworks zones, out there on the highways and in urban areas. But you will have noticed how poorly these signs are observed by practically all drivers. These legally-binding speed sigs get treated as nothing more than a rough indication to slow down a bit.

I see it all the time – people who are happy to observe the speed limit on the open road and stay behind or in front of me as we cruise along, suddenly behave completely differently when we come to road works.

And then no doubt some irresponsible roadworks site managers compound the situation by putting up signs that are patently to slow for the circumstances in the hope that the traffic will slow down to within 20 or 30kmh of what the signs say!

The driver who desires to observe the signs really does set themselves strongly apart from the majority by going much slower, which engenders tailgating and an increased risk of mishap.

It’s a dog’s breakfast!

The policing regime needs to be very much smartened up in roadworks zones.

continued

<< Police if it saves life should be in the open or in hidden family cars life matters. >>

Absolutely!

The idea of highly conspicuous police cars is just daft! They should ALL be unmarked so that they blend in with the rest, and so that in the eyes of the wrong-doers practically any vehicle could potentially be the police.

Ludwig all true.
Hope the roads person from my old head office [Newcastle] is still dropping in for a read!
Main roads Bord/DMR/RTA/FRS/Known by yet another silly name today as it plans to destroy the whole thing.
Yes knows your point is good, but intent on contracting out, at higher costs , it never took true action to protect its workers.
Hidden Radar, NSW RTA pays police for holiday radar traps, but not to protect its workers at work sites, works.
A hand gun, on every site, would cost less than one life.
But do not hold your breath.
I am remembering the ;last mate killed at work on the road this morning, proud we [the union] got his name on a bridge but he never went gold mining this long weekend, never forgotten.

So what about randomly placed cameras on civilians vehicles, wheby these devices are installed by the transport dept, at no cost to the owner, then, the owner reports to their local TD where they download the info.

It is totally tamper proof and the recipient gets say a $100 discount on thier rego for thier troubles.

Once the word gets out, all of a sudden anyone can be recording what's goimg on.

Gotta be worth a try don't you think.

Well yes I do.
I think hasbeen and I are both petrol heads from his comments.
Not likely to speed in my current 4x4 unless it falls out of a plane.
But far too many who speed, can not drive.
I have stopped folk driving south in the north bound lane, of 4 lane divided road.
Seen the terrified look on the face of a driver out of control on wet road.
While, for legal reasons, it may be better to hide cameras in roadside trees, if your plan is legal use it.
PS driving a susuki Jimny fun car but slow.

<< So what about randomly placed cameras on civilians vehicles… >>

Interesting thought rehctub.

<< Once the word gets out, all of a sudden anyone can be recording what's goimg on >>

YES! I like the way you are thinking.

THIS is the key to the very significant improvement in road safety!

Once everyone realises that everyone else around them can take action and have it fully followed up by the police, then we’ll all be much safer out there on the roads.

It is extremely easy to implement this sort of thing. I’m not sure about speed cameras mounted on private vehicles, but anyone can capture evidence of rank driving pretty easily with a camcorder, mobile phone or still camera.

For example, if you’ve got someone chronically tailgating you when you are sitting on the speed limit, it is a simple matter for the passenger to record it out the back of the vehicle, flash over to the speedometer, pan around to show that the vehicle that they are in is doing a reasonable speed compared to other vehicles, capture a speed limit sign if possible, capture the driver of the tailgating vehicle through the windscreen and capture the number plate of that vehicle, then take it to the cops.

Now, only a very small portion of the population would need to do this in order for it to become a very effective tool in the fight to improve road safety.

This should be advertised widely. Moving footage of this sort should be shown on the evening news and current affairs programs now and then, and a series of still shots from it should appear in our newspapers, in order to get the message across that the public has been EMPOWERED to do their bit to assist in improving road safety!

Why this hasn’t happened, and why we appear to have moved strongly in the opposite direction, with the effective disempowerment of the general public to assist in reducing the road toll, is just completely beyond me to understand.

Ludwig, the cam Cordero idea will never work as these devices can be argued against in a court of law.

Remember, any traffic infringement notice is simply an alleged offense, open to being challenged.

It is for this reason (I suspect) that police are reluctant to use such material.

That's why I suggest any such device must be tamper proof.

You could have several on your vehicle, front, rear, side, all linked to a central computer, however, if you wish to monitor the recipients speed, you all of a sudden place them at risk of self incrimination, something that would chase many donors away.

Rechtub, I strongly disagree. Something does not have to be tamper-proof in order to be a valuable tool.

There was an article in the paper in Cairns this week about a couple of girls photographing a man on the beach who was acting suspiciously. I am sure the police were only too happy to have that bit of hard data to help them with their inquiries.

The same sort of thing definitely applies with neighbourhood watch and with all manner of other types of complaints.

Yes, these days any sort of digital date could possibly be tampered with. So the police need to mention this in their publicity of the facilitation of community policing and let us all know that spurious, vexacious or otherwise falsified complaints are very serious offences.

I understand what you say Ludwig, but there is a huge difference between a man acting suspiciously on the beach, and a motorist eledgedly speeding.

Burnouts etc, I have no problem with these being recorded and would expect the recording to be sufficient evidence, but burnouts don't usually cause accidents on our highways.

But then again, who do the police charge for the BO.

Of cause they could charge the owner, but then, that may not effect the right person, therefore negating the charge in the first place.

You see speed cameras, radar guns and mobile detectors all have to be calibrated and logged prior to the days work, this simply can't be done with civi cameras.

It is for this reason that personal recordings of speeding drivers can't be used as secure evidence in a court of law, as any good lawyer would have the case thrown out, citing unreliable evidence and any judge would have little choice other than to agree.

I am not suggesting I agree with the law, but it's simply the facts.

<< It is for this reason that personal recordings of speeding drivers can't be used as secure evidence in a court of law >>

But rehctub, they CAN be submitted as evidence in a court of law.

Anyway, the police would view the recordings and talk to the alleged perpetrator about it and almost always secure an admission. It would seldom go to court. Or at least, the recorded evidence would seldom be challenged in court.

When a perpetrator sees the recording, which he/she would view with the police present, he/she would know straight away if it is accurate or doctored, and whether they have a legitimate claim of innocence.

If there is a falsehood within such a recording, the perpetrator will presumably know what it is, and the police can then concentrate on sorting it out specifically.

But hey, the vast majority of the time there would be no problem with the evidence as provided, and as I say; if this sort of thing was encouraged across the country, it could have a huge effect on reducing the accident rate and improving road safety.

The possible corruption of recorded evidence can exist in any area of law.

I keep making the comparison between road safety and neighbourhood watch. Well, bodgy recordings could be made in order to incriminate people under the guise of neighbourhood watch just as easily as for rank driving. But the community and the police accept neighbourhood watch as a very good thing.

So why not use the same concept when it comes to road safety?