QLD Government Short of $$, Speeding Fines Going Up !!

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Shonky.

I honestly don't know how one would try and change things.

well, in my view, its pretty much impossible.

i'm no conspiracy theorist, but when you have the motor accident commission, and the police and the insurance companies all seemingly singing from the same hymn book, its all but a lost cause.

add to that the certain research departments are generally funded by the govt, who would probably want the results to find in favour of thier policy's and the research dept don't want their funds cut, so they find evidence to suit a predetermined outcome.

the old saying, 'there are 3 types of lies - lies, damn lies and statistics' is very true when it comes to collecting data for road trauma/accidents. statistically, speed is registered as a contributing factor in pretty much every accident. whether or not its the primary cause or not gets lost in translation. various police members have been interviewed over the years by journo's not on the payroll, and you only have to look at them squirm when the questions get tough to know they don't believe their own tripe.

one thing i find increasingly annoying is the failure of any of these departments to give any credit to car manufacturers. i believe any drop in fatalities could just as much be contributed 100% to an increase in car technology rather than any change in driver behaviour. when seatbelts were introduced, it saw a massive drop in fatalities. similarly with the introduction of airbags and abs/abd/dsc etc there has been a similar drop. i personally believe the number of accidents is rising, with an increase in serious injury in line with a reduction in fatalities. crashes that once were fatalities, people are now surviving due to car technology. i don't have any evidence to back that up mind you, but with more and more cars on the road every year, and with the population trending upward, and fatalities generally on a downward trend, only an absolute optimist would attribute that to driver behaviour. its just a shame that certain departments, with the govt at the top, can so easily pull the wool over people's eyes.

enough ranting from me. kind of on topic.

[Shonky.]

yep, agreed; love it

the type of discussion that could be on the table if revenue and road safety were disentangled

[b0son]

Originally Posted by superyob

What 'absurd regime' is that???

the one where >90% of effort is putting into policing something that contributes <10% of the problem

[b0son]

Originally Posted by prydey

well, in my view, its pretty much impossible.

the NSW state government, in the election campaign, made various promises about a review of speed camera usage in response to growing public disapproval. once in power, the review finds we needed more fines and more cameras....

in a two-party political system, you invariably end up with a choice between getting it rammed down your throat, or shoved up your 4rse.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Junkyard-Dog

If you are willing and able to change the laws I will follow them but I will not break the law at my own discretion. That is called "anarchy".

No, that's civil disobedience, and is a valid form of protest.

There are countless laws we choose to disobey every day of the week because they are perceived as victimless crimes.

How can you take a law seriously when even a HWP officer acknowledges '90%+ of the drivers I pull over for speeding aren't doing anything dangerous'? It becomes the equivalent of policing people for parking 1min too long on an empty street.

[superyob]

Originally Posted by b0son

No, that's civil disobedience, and is a valid form of protest.

There are countless laws we choose to disobey every day of the week because they are perceived as victimless crimes.

How can you take a law seriously when even a HWP officer acknowledges '90%+ of the drivers I pull over for speeding aren't doing anything dangerous'? It becomes the equivalent of policing people for parking 1min too long on an empty street.

I am not trying to have a go at you b0son as I can see the point you are trying to make but according to your own argument:

Speeding is a valid form of protest?

There are not too many laws that I disobey every day of the week that I know about.
Nobody has died from 'parking 1 min too long on an empty street'. Many have died from speeding.

Consider the possibility of more carnage if police back off?

There is much clamor about revenue raising but speeding fines are a drop in the bucket compared to other revenue streams that are immorally stolen off the taxpayer to feed a certain system of government...

What is your solution???

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by prydey

one thing i find increasingly annoying is the failure of any of these departments to give any credit to car manufacturers. i believe any drop in fatalities could just as much be contributed 100% to an increase in car technology rather than any change in driver behaviour. when seatbelts were introduced, it saw a massive drop in fatalities. similarly with the introduction of airbags and abs/abd/dsc etc there has been a similar drop. i personally believe the number of accidents is rising, with an increase in serious injury in line with a reduction in fatalities. crashes that once were fatalities, people are now surviving due to car technology. i don't have any evidence to back that up mind you, but with more and more cars on the road every year, and with the population trending upward, and fatalities generally on a downward trend, only an absolute optimist would attribute that to driver behaviour. its just a shame that certain departments, with the govt at the top, can so easily pull the wool over people's eyes.

enough ranting from me. kind of on topic.

I can back that up.
Many years ago I was cleaned up by a drunk driver pulling out in front of me.
Due to the parlous state of our healthcare system I was given a hospital acquired superbug and spent 10 years constantly in and out of hospital.
Over those years I unfortunately got to know the doctors, nurses and system very well. We would often have conversations about this and there was/is most definitely an upward trend of more injured people getting to hospital.
Helicopters and quick transportation are also helping.

Airbags and crumple zones are taking enough off the g-forces to be able to survive.

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by superyob

I am not trying to have a go at you b0son as I can see the point you are trying to make but according to your own argument:

Speeding is a valid form of protest?

There are not too many laws that I disobey every day of the week that I know about.
Nobody has died from 'parking 1 min too long on an empty street'. Many have died from speeding.

Consider the possibility of more carnage if police back off?

There is much clamor about revenue raising but speeding fines are a drop in the bucket compared to other revenue streams that are immorally stolen off the taxpayer to feed a certain system of government...

What is your solution???

I might agree with you that speeding in cities where there is lots of traffic might not be such a great idea.

However I believe in country areas that is not the case and speed limits being too low might in fact be killing people.
The accidents I see are from people falling asleep to plain old inattention/boredom to the outright stupidity of overtaking on double lines.. Take the NT for example, on the open zone deaths have gone down. In the 130 zones it's not that often you will see someone sitting on 130. People should be able to drive at a speed they feel comfortable with.

People are being brainwashed with all the "speed kills" signage we see everywhere.
I've got a novel idea, lets raise the open highway speed limit and see what happens.
Does Victoria have a lower road toll because their limit is 100?
Is there carnage on NT highways because of more relaxed limits?

[b0son]

Originally Posted by superyob

Speeding is a valid form of protest?

If enough people do it, it becomes clear a law is unnecessary.

There are not too many laws that I disobey every day of the week that I know about.

Copyright infringement? I download TV every day of the week.

OHS laws? Lost count of the amount of untagged devices I use.

Nobody has died from 'parking 1 min too long on an empty street'. Many have died from speeding.

Back in the day, ATSB used to publish statistics on crash versus speed, specifically, crashes versus disobeying limits. <10% of crashes involved breaking the speed limit.

If the stats on crash risk versus speed over limit are to be believed (eg. every 5kph over doubles risk), the amount of drivers involved in a crash exceeding the limit by less than 5-10kph would be tiny, and the most-policed drivers are contributing negligibly to road trauma, so why so much focus?

Consider the possibility of more carnage if police back off?

And yet when the police are embroiled in a pay dispute and aren't handing out fines for speeding, we don't see any such carnage.

What is your solution???

Fines should be proportionate to crash/death risk, NOT Scruby's perceived outrage. This would mean negligible $$$ for 5-10kph, but massive fines for 40kph.

Similarly, all crashes, no matter how minor to be reported, and drivers if at fault, fined and prosecuted. Way too many drivers have lot of minor fender benders yet never attract any attention. Drivers with habitual inattention are a serious crash waiting to happen.

Serious injury/fatality crashes to be treated more in line with they would be as a workplace fatality... ie. a big fricken deal. If I were held personally financially liable for anothers injuries, I might take my driving a bit more seriously. Instead, the CTP system spreads this cost to everyone to bear.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Mercury Bullet

I might agree with you that speeding in cities where there is lots of traffic might not be such a great idea.

http://acrs.org.au/files/arsrpe/RS020113.PDF

The majority of crashes occur at intersections, NOT on the arterial roads where most enforcement activity occurs (intersection crashes are 17 times higher than mid-block). The majority of crashes are due to driver inattention and failure to give way (from the study the one above is critiquing). The 'speeding' drivers may indeed by contributing to the severity, but they are seldom the cause.

Trying to make significant inroads into road trauma by attacking the symptom rather than the cause is doomed to fail... if indeed, they're even trying to make significant inroads....

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by b0son

http://acrs.org.au/files/arsrpe/RS020113.PDF

The majority of crashes occur at intersections, NOT on the arterial roads where most enforcement activity occurs (intersection crashes are 17 times higher than mid-block). The majority of crashes are due to driver inattention and failure to give way (from the study the one above is critiquing). The 'speeding' drivers may indeed by contributing to the severity, but they are seldom the cause.

Trying to make significant inroads into road trauma by attacking the symptom rather than the cause is doomed to fail... if indeed, they're even trying to make significant inroads....

For sure.
And this is why so many are against the current regime. If it was about safety I doubt anyone would have a problem. But we all (most of us) know it's not.

We know they aren't making any inroads at all, nor do they care.
It's the same as pokie machines. Govt know they are harmful, do they care?
They're addicted to the revenue.

I'm not sure civil disobedience would work though. Govco here would just boast about how many thousand fines they can issue per h our.
EDIT: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-2...t-week/3744260

This thread has given me a kick up the bum...I'm going to write to my local member this afternoon. there's some good info/ideas here for extra ammo. We all need to do it.