Last week, on the Gwydir Highway, as I was proceeding towards Grafton I started to get warning headlight flashes to let me know that there was, as it turned out, a stationary camera car ahead.

The car was positioned in a sharp dip so that one was on it very quickly. The mandatory small signs announcing its presence were facing the wrong way, but that was probably just carelessness.

Twice today, approaching different locations on the New England H'way, I was warned of the presence of a stationary police car ahead.

Should motorists tip off other drivers about these traps?

Should motorists tip off other drivers about these traps?

Sure, as a scout that counts towards your daily good deed!

While the police may be doing their duty - you should do yours.

The police are targeting cars doing anything over the limit even by one km/h The only safe speed limit is one under, so do the right thing. You will never catch me warning other drivers, they deserve to be caught.

You will never catch me warning other drivers, they deserve to be caught, says 579. Why am I not surprised. Authority must be obeyed, typical of those who wish to be our masters.

These traps are simply revenue raising, & quite disgusting. The only one we have had recently in our district was similarly in a deep dip, with no side roads, or driveways.

After a bit of roadwork, making the road safer, the speed limit was suddenly reduced from 100 to 900 was suddenly, for absolutely no reason.

A neighbor, a lady who would never knowingly speed, was booked both going to town, & returning. She had not seen the new speed sign. Another was caught because his old auto had built up a little speed on the down hill run to the camera. This is obviously why the sight is chosen.

The same police car, well marked, driving up & down the road would do more to slow speeding drivers, than any number of fines received, in the mail, days later.

I have not had occasion to flash a warning of police tax collectors, but on our country roads, use it regularly to warn of danger ahead.

This is usually cattle or horses out on the road, but increasingly it is for tree branches on the road. The ridiculous increase in trees allowed to grow on the side of main roads is a disgrace. The growing number of crosses on the roadside attest the danger of this.

It is yet another stupidity fostered by our greenie "mates". Every time the council does the right thing, getting rid of trees large enough to kill, we get a rash of the same dozen or so fools writing to the papers complaining.

After a large dead branch from such a tree caused a serious accident, when it went through a car windscreen, it still took a major effort by the district association to get the council to remove the thing.

<< Should motorists tip off other drivers about these traps? >>

Yes Is Mise, even though it is illegal to do so.

Two reasons:

It slows people down, even if just for a short stretch.

And it reduces the revenue extorted off of us by downright unscrupulous and despicable authorities, which won’t tell us exactly what speed (leeway on the speed limit) they are actually policing!!

Given the cruising speed and the real-world speed limit are practically the same out there on the open road, we absolutely need to know what the actual speed limit is.

As far as I’m concerned, if the authorities won’t tell us exactly what they are policing, then they are acting very unscrupulously indeed. I mean, how on earth can they police a law without defining exactly what that law is!?!

What an extraordinary concept!

The trouble is that if a driver wished to observe the law in the strict sense and keep his speed to that shown on the speed signs, or heaven forbid, 5kmh slower so that he doesn’t inadvertently exceed the speed limit, then he is driving differently to just about everyone else on the road, and indeed becomes a hazard, as there are many drivers out there who are just completely intolerant of anyone going even slightly slower in front of them than what they want to go!

By not telling us the real-world speed limit (official speed limit plus leeway), the cops are promulgating this schism between the strict law-abiding driver and the normal driver, and making it much harder for those who want to strictly observe the law.

<< The police are targeting cars doing anything over the limit even by one km/h >>

Eh? No they’re not 579.

<< The only safe speed limit is one under, so do the right thing. >>

Er… no. The safest speed is to roll with the flow.

<< You will never catch me warning other drivers, they deserve to be caught. >>

If they are flagrantly ignoring the speed limit, then yes they deserve to be caught. If they are doing a few ks over, then NO, they don’t deserve to be caught.

If the police were to tell us just exactly what they are policing, then if you do 1kmh over that speed, you deserve to be caught. But within the FUZZY leeway, you really should not be busted unless you are doing 11ks over…. which is the way it was for many years in Queensland.