"One won't get a speeding fine if one remains under or at the speed limit.
it's not rocket science really..." How true.
Suse, I have been driving most days for over 40 years, must have clocked up 400 to 500,000km. I'm no great shakes when it comes to driving, no better than average. In that 40 odd years I have not received as much as a parking fine. Nor have I ever had an accident, of any kind, well I can put that down to good luck but not getting booked I put down to keeping within the law.
I "see" people paying fines and some have a fist full, a young girl got booked 3 days in a row for parking, the rub is she parked in the same spot each day. Amazingly she whinged about how unfair it was she got the tickets. Many people whinge when they have to pay these fines, they get no comment from me. If you hit your head with a hammer once it might be bad luck, but if you do it 3 times in a row, well what can you say about such a fool

Some years ago I thought that the police and their political masters had their hearts in the right place and were sincerely policing road rules and road safety as well as they reasonably could.

I thought that those who accused the police of being revenue-raisers above all else were just unlawful drivers who had been copped for speeding and were expressing sour grapes.

Well…how wrong I was!

The police really do seem to concentrate on a small number of things that generate revenue, and let various other significant road rules and safety issues just go unattended, to the point where accepted practice becomes very different to the actual law.

This business of fining thousands of people for infringing a lower leeway without having told the general public about it beforehand is just about as despicable and as blatantly revenue-raising as you can get.

This extra 8million$ apparently comes from drivers who were driving below the previous threshhold but above the new one. So that means that they were driving only a little bit above the official speed limit but below the REAL LIFE speed limit as they understood it to be at the time, which was previously acceptable to the police, and which the police had effectively told the public that it was ok to do!

So this enormous amount of extra revenue apparently doesn’t include any drivers who were exceeding the old threshhold!

The police have turned into absolute parasites on this occasion. The person who is responsible for this decision, the minister and the premier should all be absolutely hounded over this issue.

As for the individual police involved in this, I guess they were just doing what they were told to do by their superiors. But they are nonetheless complicit.

For any one that always observes the law, did you know that it was a fineable offence to cross the unbroken line on the left hand side of the road except to turn or stop?

Slow vehicles' drivers who pulled over the line where there was plenty of room to do so, so as to let other vehicles past, and then drew back onto the traffic lane without stopping were, on occasions, booked.

On of the last to be fined, before the idiotic law was repealed, was a farmer in New England who was pulling a horse float on the New England Highway. When a line of cars caught up to him on a steep hill he pulled over to let them pass and the last vehicle was a police car; the farmer pulled back into the traffic lane and it cost him (IIRC) $427.
This stupidity came about because the law, quite correctly, made it an offence to cross the unbroken centre lines but because the left hand delineating line was unbroken it got lumped in with the centre lines.

In France, at about the same time, they painted lines along the right hand side of their roads but they painted a standard broken line thus being not only more just but also saving half the paint.

Trouble is, Is Mise, most of us just don’t know what the law is, once we get away from the really obvious stuff.

We could go and study up on it…. but what is written in law and what is policed and hence practiced in the real world, are two quite different things.

Understanding what is written in law hardly helps at all! You’ve got to understand what the police will accept and not accept… and that is just bloody unknowable!!

As it concerns driving and road safety, the discrepancy really has blown right out!

Roadworks zones are amazing examples of this. Legally-binding temporary slower speed limit signs are used. But normal practice is to only observe them as a rough indication to slow down a little bit, at least until you get to the actual work area, if not right through the whole zone.

It constantly really riles me when I go through roadworks zones, to see traffic well back behind me which has been sticking close to the speed limit, suddenly come right up behind, when I am only just loosely slowing down towards the slower speed limit myself!

And then once you have passed the actual work sight, the temporary slow 40 or 60kmh zone continues for a long distance, in most cases, which is just blitheringly stupid and which NO ONE observes and which really is the most hopeless contradiction between the letter of the law and everyday practice!

Then there are overtaking lanes, which really are speed-limit-free and tailgating-rife bloody dangerous places on our highways!

There is SO much more that our police, bureaucrats and politicians should be doing about road safety. But it seems that there isn’t much revenue-raising potential in it, so it just doesn’t happen!

Whenever I have advocated speed governors on vehicles some mutts jump up & down against the idea. They want safety but they also want speed, go figure.
I think it also has a lot to do with driving schools. There are some pretty bad drivers on our roads with some pretty bad mentality.

Ludwig,
You might be pleased to know that in QLD now there is no allowance for speeding any more and yes revenue is up greatly.

But that is the intention.

It is a Surrogate tax in place because it can be collected from those who choose to disobey the law. Just like excise on tobacco just because people choose to ignore health warnings.

Personally, and I am lobbying for it, I believe that wherever there are street traffic lights there should also be traffic cameras.

I believe before the stupid drivers wake up and start complying with the law we can pay off all government debts.

You also have to understand that in QLD the police service in a collection of 28 private companies operating under the mantle of government legislation. As such there is a "bottom line" of budget constraints and profits needed to compliment the business.

This is why there are limited numbers of police on the streets and unmanned stations etc.

Paul1405 "a young girl got booked 3 days in a row for parking"

I believe she should be fined $5000 her car confiscated and crushed in her sight and banned from driving for ten years. Only when penalties fit the crimes will people start to respond.

I am afraid the road safety comes a long last in the road revenue game but then so does criminal sanctions when it comes to criminal acts.