Are High Performance Cars Dead?

[SPIKO]

Didn't they try this trick in the 70's LOL

[d rangd]

...and the cage gets smaller...

[Craig.]

  On 13/02/2010 at 8:40 AM, Iconic Bionic said:

Why do the trees and power poles have to be removed? shoudlnt ppl just not speed and not drive if there going to fall asleep. The governemtns cant fix everything. ppl need to be accountable for there own actions and poor driving choices.

I.B.

I didn't realise you were a greeny worried about the poor trees! I suppose you believe that burning off to lessen the ferocity of bush fires is also not a good thing?

While I agree with you that the government isn't there to fix everything, I believe that this is an area that they do need to fix, rather than taking the easy ( and incorrect) solution, in this case banning anything that is classed as semi powerful.

I didn't actually mean we should remove trees or power poles either. Just install engineering solutions to prevent one from hitting these objects. Hitting a tree at 60kph will have an undesirable outcome because our bodies aren't designed to come to a sudden stop at that speed. So speeding isn't the evil menace that you have been brainwashed into thinking it is either. If it were, surely guys like Valentino Rossi or Mark Webber would all be dead.

What would be nice, would be for the government to make the roads safer by using some of the billions extorted from the Australian public from fuel excise, registations and over zealous speed enforcement by installing appropriately made roads with nice wide shoulders complete with barricading to prevent cars from leaving the road, rather than just banning powerful cars. At present in many parts of the country, a shoulder half the width of the car and then nothing but a 3 mtr drop into a ditch or an 80 year old gum tree is all there is to stop you.

Its easy to say that people shouldn't speed or fall asleep. What an easy, simple solution. Brilliant really! Unfortunately, we are dealing with humans and not robots, its a lot harder to prevent it. Most people who live in remote locations have had the 'micro sleep' experience at least once, but no one sets out to do that, just like you don't mean to fall asleep in front of the TV. All they want to do is get home safely to their families.

One minute you are feeling fine, the next you cant remember parts of your trip or you suddenly become conscious and realise you are drifting off the road. Perhaps living in a metro area ( I'm assuming you do), you have never had this experience, or if you do feel a bit tired there is plenty of places that you can pull off the road and rest up.

that's not the case over the majority of roads that cover the vat distances around our country though. The busy HWY that I travel every week out to work consists two narrow lanes cut through forest with almost no shoulder (around 1mtr along most of it) and probably 3 safe pull off places that includes the small towns that the road runs through) to pull up over a 150klm piece of road.

If I get tired on the way to or from work, it is usually at least 20 minutes to get to somewhere suitable to pull over. Not ideal, yet it is one of the most highly used country highways in QLD. It also has claimed its fair share of lives over the years. How do you suppose we stop the carnage on this road? Just not speed and if you think over the next 2 hours, on the way to work you may get tired, just don't go to work? Oh, and take a bit of responsibilty for myself rather than blaming the sub standard road networks once you get out of a 50klm radius of the capital cities. Its not the governments fault that they are in this condition, right!

Edited 15/02/10 09:37 AM by craiginmackay

[82CNT]

I would not be surprised in the slightest if this did happen. Im dead serious the cost of living the crap we all have to live by and for what nice beaches and some good scenery outside of the capital cities!!! Just really makes me want to move to a country that is maybe a democracy!

[ENVYOSXR]

I have been waiting for the day that someone try's to bring in a law like this one. Complete waist of time nothing will stop car accidents, people will continue to kill them selves in a Expensive Daewoo Barina or a Hyundai Excel makes no difference how much power it has. P plate drivers already have the "power limitation" but I don't see that stopping them breaking speed limits and killing them selves and others while they are at it. There is nothing the government can do to stop hooning or car related deaths, if the they bring in such a law there is nothing stopping people modifying there cars anyway like people do today.

[tab]

Will just copy and past this from the QLD Speed Camera thread. 2004 is the most recent published data for QLD, and I assume it's similar in other states.

The first eight of the top ten causes of deaths or hospitalisations from motor vehicle accidents have absolutely nothing to do with the performance of the vehicle...in fact I'd suggest it's quite the contrary - you're much better off in a modern high performance vehicle due to their braking ability and safety. Would rather get intimate with a tree in my FG falcon than some underpowered 20 year-old rustbucket.

  On 27/01/2010 at 12:37 PM, tab said:

Should be doing other things but got searching for stats. Check this sh*t...

2004 is the most recent data I could find, doubt it would have changed much though.

Just in case you missed speed-related on the graph, it's right over the far side (just ahead of 'hooning')

1. Inattention
   
2. Inexperience
   
3. Alcohol/drug Related
   
4. Illegal Manoeuvre
   
5. Fail to Give Way or Stop
   
6. Rain/wet road
   
7. Age (Lack of perception, power...)
   
8. Driver Fatigue
   
9. Speed Related - driver
   
10. Dangerous Driving
    

For fatalities only, speed as a contributory factor accounts for 18%, behind alcohol/drugs 34%, inattention 28%, and disobeyed traffic rules 27%. So going by that they should be setting up permanent toll-booth-type scenarios for alcohol and drug testing rather than fixed speed cameras/teaching people how to actually drive/ensuring drivers actually know the road rules. that's if these morons were serious about saving lives.

However, nowhere in the report is 'speed-related' defined, so given the inclusion of 'related' you can only assume that this includes those incidents where the driver was speeding in relation to the conditions - which could well be actually under the sign-posted limit. Speed cameras aren't going to do sweet f*ck all to stop those accidents.

Taken from here if you want some data to open your eyes.

[SPIKO]

  On 15/02/2010 at 10:29 AM, 82CNT said:

I would not be surprised in the slightest if this did happen. Im dead serious the cost of living the crap we all have to live by and for what nice beaches and some good scenery outside of the capital cities!!! Just really makes me want to move to a country that is maybe a democracy!

My friend I have been around the world 5 times, if you believe that you are going to find a better Country, and more democracy else where you are kidding yourself... Just because a country doesn't book you for speeding, or you can drive a top fueler on the street, this alone does not make them democratic LOL... Believe me when I tell you that you are blessed to be living in Australia in these difficult times, that however doesn't meen that it cannot be improved upon..

[Guest XR09]

This ruling was only ever meant for beginner drivers. L & P platers. And will only ever affect beginner drivers.

I know it sucks but it has lowered the statistics on bikes, Finlay. It took a few years but now at least you stand a chance of living. 1 in 13 bike riders under the age of twenty five were dying. Well over 3 times that figure were in life altering accidents.

We can jump up and down and scream about the roads all we like. but in the end WE have to take responsibility of our actions. Blaming the road wont bring you back from the dead. Nothing will so don't go there in the first place.

I also would like to put some truth into roads overseas. Yes they have great autobahns to get from city to city. And sorry but that's about where it ends. Try driving the back blocks in the south of the US. or in the north east. Ever tried driving in Italy off the motorways. Austria??? Has anyone who has winged about our roads spent any time living and working overseas?

You all seem to hate gov regulations but you all blame them with every problem you seem to have. Or want them to take responsibility for it.

If you give any govenment an inch they will take a mile. Your giving your freedom up on a platter.

Fifteen billion has been spent on Sydney to the Gold Coast in the last seven years. Where is the rest of the money coming from?

[Craig.]

XR09 I agree that limiting powerful vehicles for P plate drivers/riders is a good thing. So is the now compulsory rider training that we must all do to get a motorcycle licence. I velieve that this has played an even bigger part than restricing bike power to weight ratios for new riders.

This topic was started though under the possibility that the government is going to try to limit what everyone can drive.

As for back roads in Europe, I don't see what this has to do with anything, when you consider that our major highways are B class roads by European standards. Highways that are used to travel between major centres in this country by and large don't cut it. Not in every instance (Victoria and parts of NSW and the SE corner of QLD have some wonderfully designed roads like the newer parts of the Pacific HWY that you mentioned) but in many instances the roads are terrible compared to the same roads in other developed countries that link major cities.

Surely you have driven north of Noosa on the Bruce HWY, the major route north and the lifeline depended on for food and supplies. The Bruce either side of Gympie is a joke for the volume of traffic that uses it. So is the rest of it once you get North of Maryborough.

Have you ever driven to Cairns? It is an embarrassment to call this piece of bitumen HWY 1 when it amounts to little more than a pot hole scared goat track in parts.

Hell, when down on the sunshine coast on my bike over the christmas period, I reckon I found backroads that are better maintained and designed than the major HWYs in the north of the state, which by the way is where the money that your semi decent roads in the SE corner comes from!

I am all for people being responsible for their own actions but if these poorly designed and maintained roads aren't the governments responsibilty, then whos responsibility are they?

[tab]

  On 16/02/2010 at 9:14 AM, craiginmackay said:

Hell, when down on the sunshine coast on my bike over the christmas period, I reckon I found backroads that are better maintained and designed than the major HWYs in the north of the state, which by the way is where the money that your semi decent roads in the SE corner comes from!

Absolutely. The minor ‘back roads’ around the sunshine coast hinterland are quite superb in comparison to the national highway north of Cooroy.

They are in the process of building a bypass around Gympie that will mean divided highway all the way from Brisbane to north of Gympie...but that’ll probably be about 15 years before they get that finished.

But still the point remains the further north you get the worse the roads are. Govt solution is to drop the speed limit in the ‘danger spots’ so that you get so friggin bored you’re bound to fall asleep, or line the sides of the road with revenue raising devices that somehow translates to road safety initiatives.

If they scrapped the state government and gave all the taxes to the local government localities where the taxes were actually raised (including mining royalties), central queensland would have the safest roads in the world!