TRAGEDY - Castlemaine

[stang]

Geee, I guess we really dont know yet what happend but automatically people bring speed into the equation.Fronm what I have read the vehicle veered into the wrong side of the road therefore most likely the driver either lost concentration or fell asleep at the wheel . A learner in my books had no place driving a full car around risking other lives at the most a passenger in the front and one in the back but a full car(stupid) especially on a long roadtrip, how long was she driving for nobody knows.Learners need lots of short trips to learn as they are easily distracted, hell even an experienced driver on long trips can be dangerous did they each take turns driving (we will never know) or did they think let the learner drive need the experience.MY heart goes out to the familes that are coming to grief at this time but my hope is once the truth is known that this can be avoided in the future at least by not leting learners do long trips.

my 2 cents

[mercturbo]

Sad so sad, these accidents have been happening for years, every now and then you get a big nasty one like this. When that Bozo in Tassie shot up a heap of people the media ran with it like starving cat after a mouse, made Howard spend 500 million getting rid of everyones guns. This kind of pressure is needed for action, otherwise I fear the next one is just around the corner. Just a few days after the event I see hardly anything in the media, just not popular enough an issue to for the media, this is the reality and it stinks

[tongueboy]

....I remember telling my young bloke when he got his "P" plates that he was probably at the closest point to death and would not realise it!

A deadly time the first few drives starting out.

[Guest clevofan]

The saddest thing is it takes a tragedy like this before the gov does anything about prevention. The amount of road modifications that have occured in Canberra after a fatal accident in recent times is incredible/depressing.

Best of luck to the families

[Buf-Phoon]

Whilst speed has not been listed as a contributing factor , it will not take long for some political boffin to start talking about limiting car power.

Just wait, 300kw std limits probably wont be far away

[Merlin]

I think there should be a restriction put on inexperienced drivers. L platers I dont think should be restricted as someone else said "as long as there is a responsible adult in the passengers seat". I agree. But P platers are a different story - I remember how crazy I was on my P's and am glad the only car I could afford then was a corolla otherwise I probably would have got into trouble. Im sure there is a lot of P platers on here that are good drivers, but they lack the experience necessary to control a hi-po car (or the will power to know when to back off).

Im restricted to 250cc bikes on my P's so I don't see why car drivers get off light and can drive anything they want. I know I wouldnt want to be riding an 1000cc R1 or someone on my P's and Im valuing the experinece Im getting on my ZZR 250. I had to attend 3 full days of rider training and pass a freaken hard riding test just to get my P's - car drivers pass a basic road test with no compulsary training. At least when Im on the bike I will only kill me if something goes wrong - in a car you can kill others as well.

PS - is the average age on here older than FF, because the responces to this topic on here seem to be a hell of a lot more mature than over there?

[Zeke]

  Merlin said:

PS - is the average age on here older than FF

Probably, and it's not all my fault. EG Vik's an oldie too.

[BA_Turbs]

  JB said:

It's just a shame that our Government is so 'Reactive' rather than 'Pro Active' towards these issues.

The Victorian government is recognised globally as being revolutionary in the area of road safety. Don't let the current (and unfortunate) focus on speed make you think otherwise. Victoria was the first place in the world to legislate that seatbelts must be worn, the booze bus was invented here, the new drug testing bus is a world first. And remember the TAC ads when they first came out? They have lost a great deal of their impact now, but I bet you still change the channel or look away, which is exactly what they are designed to do. Governments around the world adopted similar campaigns. These are only the high profile examples I can remember.

Victoria is a world leader in road safety. Believe that or not, but its a fact. Don't let the current misguided ramblings about speed fool you. (sorry to repeat myself, but trying to get my point across and rebut the probable wave of objections).

As far as learners go, there is no power limit. Limiting the number of passengers is a good suggestion, but that is about the only worthwhile solution I have seen posted so far (in my opinion!). Banning learners from driving in the wet? Well, I'll leave that alone. Writing all these terrific traffic laws into the legislation is next to useless if we are not given more police to enforce them, but this lights up a whole new arguement that I do not wish to flare up. Please no snappy responses about police in trees with radar guns. There are 800 more police in Victoria, but still fewer police per head of population than any time in the last 50 years.

As far as the cause of the accident, was there a fox on the road and the poor girl was simply too inexperienced to run it over instead of swerving into the truck? Not as dumb as it sounds, she sees it, swerves, too inexperienced to look up the road before swerving. Retraining instinctual behaviour requires massive amounts of practice and training. Some of the causes thrown out there so far are really not fair to the girl driving and frankly a bit disrespectful based on next to no facts Nothing in the Herald Sun is a FACT (sic).

Let's let the experts do their job and then judge shall we?

RIP to the deceased and thoughts go out to the family, especially the surviving daughter.

BA Turbs

I'll also add to the bottom, the bulk of this post is MY OPINION ONLY

[tongueboy]

Excellent response BA. A pleasure to read.

[Macktheknife]

  tongueboy said:

Excellent response BA. A pleasure to read.

What he said