"The tragic death of a two-year-old girl in a ute rollover on Yorke Peninsula has dashed hopes for a fatality-free Easter weekend on South Australian roads."

She won't be enjoying any Easter eggs or hot cross buns this Easter.

Too many Australian drivers are irresponsible - getting speeding and red light camera fines. These people simply get a fine and can keep driving. They can go out to regional areas for holidays, like over Easter and kill themselves or others.

No one in Australia should pay a traffic fine. They should simply lose their license - for a long period of time - say 6 months.

State governments are simply using red light and speed cameras as "tax cameras" for revenue raising. Government and drivers with a fine should hang their heads in shame.

Very sad. Condolences to the family and friends and we would all hope for a quick and full recovery of the injured.

"A TWO-year-old girl has died in a ute rollover on Yorke Peninsula in a tragic start to the Easter weekend.

At least three people were in the vehicle when it crashed on North Coast Rd, a graded gravel road 4km west of Point Turton, shortly before 4pm.

A five-year-old boy and the 35-year-old female driver suffered minor injuries and were taken to Yorketown Hospital."
http://tinyurl.com/mvvk6p7

......No one in Australia should pay a traffic fine. They should simply lose their license - for a long period of time - say 6 months.

Ar, small problem there Nathan, which secord do we cut the funding from to maintain the roads?

The last I heard most budgets are being slashed due to finical constraints, so do we just stop repairing and improving the roads?

A better system in my opinion, although hard to implement, would be to have a demerits scale for buying fuel with all drivers being issued a number from say 1-5 with 1 seeing a discount on their fuel, while say a 5 pays three times the price. Then we can do away with registrations and collect the additional taxes from the fuel.

The other problem we have is how do you define dangerous driving. I mean, what's more dangerous to drivers and other road users, a modern day vehicle traveling at 120 in a 100k zone, or an old rust bucket doing 100 in a 90 zone.

rehctub,

People who are driving irresponsibly (including speeding or going through a red light camera) are breaking the law. You then only have to then see these people, out driving in country areas - like for a holiday (with many of these roads having higher speed limits) and these people are often awful drivers on these roads.

This of course leads to a higher impact if there is a road accident, as these people can keep driving - irresponsibly. I've seen some of it on major country highways. It's shocking. Governments simply put in "slow down" signs - because there are no traffic lights.

Bad drivers should have the book thrown at them by police and their license taken off them, for a long time period. Simple. People will then slow down and drive more responsibly. A better way to save lives.

In terms of road funding - State and Federal Governments need to review how they spend taxpayer funds and not rely on criminals to pay for the essentials of life.

NathanJ,

The new requirements and log books for car licences are a big step forward, concentrating on risk recognition and defensive driving.

Regrettably some will regard the learning process as an imposition. However for hopefully the great majority of learner drivers (and their instructors!) who are smart enough to recognise the obvious - that it is all about developing appropriate attitude, skills and reactions.

With any new skill, what is developed first up, done well, is the important foundation for the future. It is about laying down the right neural pathways in the brain. The new licence requirements and guides are a boon.

While I was kind and encouraging to my children as learner drivers, they completed ALL of the logbook work and had risk recognition drummed into them. Then at my insistence they went through professional instruction and had to pay for that themselves before going for their licence tests. The benefits are evidenced through lack of traffic violations and no accidents, touch wood.

For them, after several years on the road independent, next up is a defensive driving course on a circuit with their cars. Less than $300 and a bargain.

Driver points and penalties are for irresponsible, selfish fools who never learned and probably may never have the maturity to do so. Authorities endeavor to steer them towards responsible behaviour. Where that fails there is loss of vehicle and licence. Perhaps it could be tighter and what about errant cyclists and pedestrians?

Humans have limitations, examples being sight and reaction time that should advise responsible makers to hold to a ceiling on the power to weight ratio of passenger vehicles. Legislators can only react.

That is about as silly an idea as I have read here NathanJ. Here is exactly the type of thing your suggestion would lead to.

A bloke down the road, young 30s, married, 2 kids, wife a part time worker, is a tradesman, plumber or electrician, I can't remember now. He was self employed doing local maintenance, with a moderately mortgaged acreage with a cheap house.

He was booked one Sunday afternoon, driving 2.4 kilometres to the local service station for some milk, for very low range drink driving. It was 0.052 or 3. He had a couple of bears with lunch, & had no idea he could be over 0.05 at 4.30 PM.

Some fool magistrate, the type we could do without threw the book at him, & suspended his licence for 3 months. In the same session a couple of much higher range drink drivers, represented by barristers were allowed 6.00AM to 6.00PM business licences, but our boy didn't know magistrates don't like you not paying a barrister, & expected fair treatment. HA!

He went broke, lost his home, the family broke up, & 4 years later he has never worked again. He & his ex are both now living on the public purse. Suspending licenses for minor breaches is totally counterproductive.

You must be a city boy, or you would realise one of the most dangerous things on our country roads, is our ridiculously low speed limits. People driving longer distances need to be driving fast enough to maintain their concentration. Waffling along for hours at 80 or 100 Km/H is almost designed to put people to sleep. Raise our speed limits to something more suitable, & the road toll will come down