"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

Driving at night in the bush, when I come to a passing lane with it's huge
"KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING", highly reflective (read blinding) white sign, I ignore it and drive in the passing lane if there is no other traffic.

I break the law because by so doing I put a full lane between me and any of the lurking Government owned kangaroos, wallabies and the heavy weight walleroos; deer (either wild or strayed, and pigs. Goats are not much of a problem as, in my extensive experience, they are intelligent and don't run in front of motor vehicles (unless in a mob and then herd instinct can take over).
Now if I'm caught flouting this particular law I'll be fined but it would be wildly inappropriate to cancel my licence for driving in such a safe manner.

There is a sure fire way to cut speeding; more highly visible police cars driving along the busier roads, driven at the speed limit, where appropriate, but this has the highly undesirable effect of increasing safety, stopping speeding and thus reducing revenue.

I agree with Hasbeen, many speed limits are ridiculously low.

Nathan, I wasn't aware that speeding was a criminal offence.

I too drive on country roads and usually sit on about a dollar twenty or so. Ive been driving for the best part of forty years, have not had an accident other than cleaning up the odd roo and have had my share of fines (a by product of owning 911's) and unlike yourself, I learned to drive in an era why cars had to be driven, not guided like today. One thing I will not do though is drive over the limit.

As for better spending of our taxes, good luck with that because I recall you being a supporter of the illegal freeloaders who by the way are going to be the hardest issue for your generation to deal with especially if you wanting a lifestyle similar to the one my generation has enjoyed, of cause through sheer hard work.

So un til you can find a solution to our depleting tax revenues, I suggest you shelve your idea.

rehctub,

In terms of depleting tax revenue - do you simply want governments to keep spending irresponsibly - yes or no? Or do you just take it as acceptable - as your favourite (say major political party) may do so at some stage?

I have put forward raising the rate of the GST, but When I did this I shot down by many. No seems to be willing to have a proper discussion on the GST.

State governments shouldn't be relying on drivers who are breaking the law. Many state governments now have online payment services (for traffic fines) - disgusting.

Many people (in huge numbers) complain about getting speeding fines, because they get hit with one and simply make an excuse for it.

"Motorists in New South Wales paid $408,000 a day in fines from speed and red light cameras during the past financial year, Government data has revealed." totaling $150 million dollars in 2014.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-12/traffic-cameras-generate-150m-in-revenue-for-nsw/5592126

Queensland Transport highlights that driving 25 km/h faster than the surrounding traffic increases your risk of crashing by 10 times, no matter how good you are as a driver. Of the speed related crashes 70% are single vehicle accidents. Speed is a large cause of driver error, driving too fast for the road, too fast for the conditions, too fast for the car or too fast for the driver.

If people have a strong case for speeding or passing a red light camera - and can justify it, that's one thing. The majority of people in my view cannot. They are simply awful drivers, who see driving as a right.

Finally people may be interested to know, I don't live in a capital city.

NathanJ
The mistake you make is that driving irresponsibly and breaking the road rules are often not the same thing.

I will give some examples from my driving career, the first involved driving on the Hume freeway in heavy fog. It was only possible to see about three car lengths ahead, but yet I was been overtaken by the majority of traffic doing the legal limit of 100 Kph. Totally irresponsible but not actually illegal.

On another occasion many years ago I was driving on the same freeway in moderately heavy rain. The limit of 100 kph was acceptable in the car I was in, but anything much over that was definitely dangerous. The problem I had was that a number of semis overtook me doing at least 120 kph. At that time radar did not work in the rain so the chances of being caught were very low, but those drivers where being totally irresponsible.

Not far from me there is a permanent 40 kph zone due the proximity of various educational facilities. Outside school times there are periods, when you will not see anyone for 15 minutes or more on the road or pavement, yet if I were caught doing 61 kph on this section of road during one of the quite periods I would lose my licence despite the fact it would neither be irresponsible or dangerous.

The solution to the problem of moderating driving behaviour is to require any driver who is observed driving dangerously to fit a car data camera ( records speed location and picture) which would have to be downloaded to the to the authorities at regular intervals. This could be easily scanned for dangerous traffic violations. The time you would have to provide your data to the authorities would depend on the seriousness of the original driving issue, if the data showed any dangerous driving then fines or lost of licence would ensue and the time period for the mandatory use of the data logger would be increased.

.....Totally irresponsible but not actually illegal.

Actually Warmair, while it may not be illegal, when an accident happens, especially resulting in injury or death, a determination is made on all involved to determine their input in the cause, and driving at 100kph in heavy fog would see the perpetrator in stiff even if they were the innocent one.

Nathan, I don't want to see governments co tinue to spend irresponsibly at all, in fact, prior to Kevin 07 we had a very responsible government.

Smoking is another windfall for governments as while they may seem to be trying to encourage people to quit, the reality is they can't survive without the huge amount of taxes tabbacco raises,

As for raising the GST, the GST is a very ineffective tax as the only person who actually pays the tax is the end consumer, because anyone who is registered for GST claims theirs back. A finical transaction, or spending tax would be a much better option but big business won't have it although there is a bit of noise about it at present. We can only hope because I could sure use the extra $300 odd in my pay each week.

On driving responsibly:
There are many towns in NSW where the local councils have introduced parking in the centre of the road as well as at both kerbs; the speed limit is usually 40 kph but I always drive at 20 in these areas during the day.
I have twice had the experience of a small child running full tilt out from between two cars; in both instances I was able to stop in time.

The first time that it happened I had just started and was only doing about 15 and the second time was after I'd decided to travel in these areas at 20.

However in some places the 40 zone is 24/7 and the "40 High Density Pedestrian Traffic' signs look a bit ridiculous at 1:00 AM when there is not a pedestrian or vehicle in sight.

Here's another grouch; people who drive with their head lights on on bright sunny days.
This is touted by the powers-that-be as a safety measure.

What's safe about having headlights in your interior rear view mirror, especially if the fool behind you doesn't know/care that their lights are on high beam?

The simple solution to the nuisance is to put the mirror onto night view but that reduces your rearward view and is a hazard.

The practice in Europe is to drive with lights on if one wishes to travel at high speed and that led some clown in Australia to think that 'it would be a good thing', completely missing the point of the European practice.

Is Mise I always drive with my lights on when driving on country roads simply because they make for better visibility. BTW, you can get fined fir have your high beams on during the day, that's whatbthe problem is with flashingnoncoming traffic to alert them. You can alert oncoming drivers of a speed trap, you just can't use high beam.