Great Article On Speed Enforcement

[ZAP]

Found this little gem in the SMH today. I would almost think it is an April fools joke as we do not see this type of honest journalisim in Australia, as most jurnos are brainwashed.

SOURCE SMH

Don't Melbourne police have worse people to arrest than the formula one driver Lewis Hamilton? His "crime" was to smoke his tyres while doing a bit of a fishtail as he left the grand prix circuit at Albert Park.

A stiff talking-to might have been in order, or perhaps an offer he couldn't refuse - to appear in a road safety ad. But detaining him? Impounding his Mercedes C63? Charging him with "improper use of a motor vehicle" by "deliberately losing traction"? What a joke.

Hamilton is one of the safest, most skilled drivers in the world.

If we had more motorists with a fraction of his ability our roads would be safer than they are with all the cameras and rules and signs and speed limits and penalties dreamed up by car-hating bureaucrats and money-hungry politicians.

But Victoria took Hamilton's harmless Friday night show so seriously, the Roads Minister even called him a "dickhead" on radio.

So now, instead of a handful of onlookers seeing Hamilton's antics, the whole world knows, vastly increasing the number of copycat admirers, if that's the concern. You may as well arrest the entire cast of Top Gear. No wonder the homegrown driver Mark Webber came to Hamilton's defence this week, blasting Australia as a "nanny state".

''I think we've got to read an instruction book when we get out of bed - what we can do and what we can't do,'' he said. ''It's certainly changed since I left here. It pisses me off coming back here to be honest. It's a great country but we've got to be responsible for our actions and it's certainly a bloody nanny state when it comes to what we can do.''

NSW is almost as bad as Victoria. Despite all the promises last year from the Roads Minister, Michael Daly, of a new age of commonsense for drivers, it seems the lunatics are back in control of policy.

The latest attempt to hammer NSW's beleaguered drivers into submission is the introduction in July of mobile speed cameras operated by the Roads and Traffic Authority with the usual ruthless efficiency government instrumentalities reserve solely for revenue raising.

The Premier, Kristina Keneally, doesn't want us to be the wowser state, when it comes to acting on the sensible concerns of a coalition of health and emergency workers about drunken violence outside all-night pubs. But she's quite happy for us to be the nanny state with speed cameras. As one newspaper letter-writer, Joan Moss, of Malabar, wrote: ''Rolling out more speed cameras will only raise revenue from ordinary safe-driving mums and dads travelling a few kilometres over the speed limit … The real culprits - car thieves, drunk drivers, sections of irresponsible testosterone charged youths - most of whom have little or nothing to lose, are let loose with a bit of a reprimand from our legal system to do the same thing again and again."

We are heading into another double-demerit Easter in which driving 11km/h over the speed limit or not wearing a seatbelt will lose you six points a piece. Do both at once and you've lost your licence.

Yet, despite this punitive regime, and the growing number of speed cameras, the road toll is getting worse, not better, with a 25 per cent increase in fatalities last year.

The response of authorities is to do more of the same that hasn't been working. It's time for new thinking.

Replacing flesh-and-blood police in highly visible patrol cars with cameras has been a flop. The more draconian the speed limits, fines, penalties and the more ubiquitous the cameras, the worse the road toll. The 5 per cent of really dangerous drivers speed with impunity, knowing where the cameras are and adjusting their behaviour accordingly.

As Michael Lane, spokesman for the lobby group the National Motorists Association of Australia, points out, despite the increasingly harsh restrictions on drivers, the road toll has increased, especially in Victoria, the state with the most vigorous camera regime. ''So much for the alleged benefit of speed cameras.''

In Germany, where autobahns have no speed limits, the road toll has dropped significantly over 20 years. In NSW, the RTA keeps pushing its mantra of "speed kills", and when the road toll is going the wrong way, it just redoubles its efforts, like any good ideologue incapable of change. Yet the people who are the most dangerous on the roads are good at avoiding speed cameras, or working the system to avoid losing demerit points.

In December, the RTA even dropped the speed limit on the Newell Highway from 110km/h in places to 100km/h, prompting the NRMA's regional director, Graham Blight, to claim it was part of a hidden agenda to drop the limit across NSW to 90km/h. Driving so slowly would mean you would spend more time driving to your destination, thus increasing the likelihood of crashes caused by fatigue, not to mention boredom and inattention when you are forced to travel at a speed below comfort level.

Police have been largely cut out of traffic enforcement by technology and have lost any discretion to apply the sort of commonsense which makes our roads safe - the sort of discretion which would have given Lewis Hamilton a slap on the wrist rather than create an international incident.

In Queensland, the Police Union has openly scoffed at the latest rollout of speed cameras, saying: ''There has been a big increase in the money collected by speed cameras in recent years, but there has been little discernible positive impact on the road toll. It's time the focus moved more towards increasing traffic enforcement by officers … who are capable of detecting drink-driving, unlicensed or dangerous driving and unroadworthy vehicles.''

Amen to that.

Of course, as we get into our cars this Easter we need to take road safety seriously, especially on slippery roads. But driving safely means being competent behind the wheel, and paying attention to the road conditions, not making the speedometer your priority.

devinemiranda@hotmail.com

[tab]

This chick is up there with Andrew Bolt for ignoring political correctness/groupthink and actually telling it how it is. She upset a few precious people on Q&A a few weeks back too.

[_Spin_]

Look, today I saw 3 radar devices and in excess of 6 police cars involved in fleecing the general public in a probably 5 klms.

every holiday period you`ll get some stuffed shirt commisioner claiming that its no good, too many people dieing, idiots wrecking everyones lives doing 3 klm over blah blah what if! No one sped. I`d LOVE to see it, for this easter period if there was not one dollar of revenue raised for the government.

it`d cripple the states. Now I don`t blame the cops, I personally don`t want to drag dead kids out of wrecked cars but on the same count I don`t want some fat bastard preaching to me that 5 kph over is causing all the carnage.

its inattention, that's the number 1 cause but its hard to legislate against eh? Not to the point where the states and territories could extract a profit from it anyway.

[NB4C]

This article is spot on, I would even go as far as to say that speed cameras in 40km/h school zones are hazardous to children. The constant need to look at the speedo means less eye time on the road and children.

[_Spin_]

PERMANENT SPEED CAMERA`s in school zones. Why can`t this happen? They put them permanently elsewhere.

[Iconic Bionic]

She really says nothing different to most of you on here over the years. And the luis hamilton thing, if they didnt act then they would have been criticised of favouritisim or does his fame excuse him. His high level driving skills from track racing dont necessarily allow for the general public and there stupidity.

I.B.

[Benny]

Great article and well written but I also agree with I.B.

Mr Hamilton should have shown more restraint and maturity considering his profile.

Benny

[MICKAJ]

Nice one Hamilton, providing behavioural evidence showing even with the cars and track access he has it doesn't stop him doing it on a public road. Any chances of hoon tracks now being made available are as probable as winning division 1.

Lol all the professional driver training and experience in the world doesn't give you mental powers to see the location of every car on the road and what their about to do.

[Slymeat]

Do the crime do the time If he broke the law he should be shown no favouritism. He is a good driver that does not make him infallible just like everyone else he needs to keep his antics at the track and off the road, (he has obviously never had any sought of collision in F1 because of his vastly superior driving skills) I think not should we perhaps let him drive with high range alcohol in his blood at any speed he wants not register his car etc etc etc, he is only a racing car driver not a god the police in this instance acted in an exemplary manner and should be applauded for not bowing down to this crap celebrity bullsh*t.

Edited 04/04/10 02:24 AM by Slymeat

[ZAP]

\Rant

I think the article was more about police using discression as opposed to strict enforcement without any common sence. The story about what Hamilton was doing seems to be exaggerated. Apparently he smoked it up turning through a green light, for about 10m. He did not chuck a donut in the middle of an intersection or exceed the speed limit.

What the police have done is show what a pack of morons they are by enforcing stupid laws designed to appease the minority who have no idea on the true problems on our roads.

Police have gone from being humans, able to judge the situation to armed tax collectors.

There seems to be a thinning line between a speed camera and a cop as the lack of human intervention appears to be the same due to their desire to make a buck from the fines.

It is amazing when you are pulled over, the police seem to already have the ticket 1/2 filled out. While the pollies and cops deny it, we all know their KRA's & KPI's are all based on how many tickets they can write. I pity the day that they get the same handheld devices as parking cops and just barcode your license and print out the offences.

If the police and pollies were serious about road safety, they would actually do something towards making the road safer, rather than ignore the true data and makeup the causes of crashes.

Driver Education, Enforcement of serious offences (DUI, unrego/unlicensed & dangerous drivers) are what should be enforced.

All speed cameras should be changed to ANPR cams with police down the road busting the offenders who are known DUI or other serious offences.

/Rant