Police call for more road cameras

[parawolf]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/nation...958947249.html

Originally Posted by www.theage.com.au

VICTORIAN drivers could be hit with more speed cameras under tougher measures being considered by the State Government, after a plea by the state's top traffic policeman to end the carnage on the roads.

Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby said stricter measures were needed to prevent "a jumbo jet full" of people losing their lives each year.

Mr Ashby said it was a dismal fact that people aged 16 to 25 were not heeding the road safety message, with many believing they were "invincible". "Drivers might hate the cameras but the fact is it's one of the initiatives which have seen the annual road toll drop to the mid-300s from more than 700 a year in the early 1990s," Mr Ashby said.

Now, my take on this, is that Police are getting lazy and have no innovative ways of curbing crime, "accidents" and other law breaking activities.

Now there is no comment about additional driver training, no tri-bananas
, but comments about technology life savers like ABS. The problem with ABS is that it can scare a user that has never experienced it, also ABS effectiveness varies greatly with quality of tyre compound.

To me, it just shows that no-one, not even Victoria Police want to try and tackle the idea of improved education, because of the potential cost black hole, and the supposed "unknown" status of improvement it will supply.

[clontarf_x]

It's stupid.

Imagine a state with a camera on every road. Got moneys? lots of it? yes please government!

Stupid idea..... same as all the others. Just another money grab.

[parawolf]

It is this sort of judgement call that makes be glad I don't own a car and therefore don't pay registration into "consolodated revenue" at the moment. the Bracks government will NOT be getting any form of vote for me next time.

[Casper]

"Drivers might hate the cameras but the fact is it's one of the initiatives which have seen the annual road toll drop to the mid-300s from more than 700 a year in the early 1990s," Mr Ashby said.

This is an OUTRIGHT LIE!!
ИИИИing lieing BULLИИИИ theiving mutherИИИИing ИИИИs.

For those that havent read it, some info written about 18 months ago by myself and JAJH!



Well, after listening and commenting on all the "speed kills" garbage put out from the TAC in the many threads here I thought to myself that really all I'm doing is agreeing to others who had my point of view. I did not really know the facts apart from blindly accepting what others told me. This, to me, is just as bad as blindly accepting the TAC's 'facts'. I'm just a sheep of a different colour.
The truth is I didn't even know what the Victorian road statistics really were. This being the case I decided to do my own research and reasoning, so I looked them up:
1997 - 377
1998 - 390
1999 - 384
2000 - 407
2001 - 444
2002 - 397
These numbers are straight of the TAC website.

Now, not being a Rhodes Scholar I may be off base and missing something here but the numbers are not changing much. On average about 400 are killed per year. So we are looking at a fluctuation of around than 10% from the average over a 6 year period. Considering that fixed speed cameras were only introduced (in force) in 1999, this average shows both pre and post speed camera figures. Yet after 1999 the average increased!

Ok, so I have to assume that there are more people on the roads now as the average age and population continues to increase (slightly) so as a percentage the road toll may have dropped per person on the road. However the percentage increase in population could not be very significant considering that the Average Australian population has grown by only about 5% or so in the last 20 years.

Then I look at some pretty basic facts.

The age of the average motor car is now less than 10 years old. Assuming that the Falcon, Commodore, Magna and Camry make up the largest % of passenger vehicles on the road (as total sales over the last 10 years seem to suggest) then we can assume that close to (if not well over) 50% of the cars currently on the road have innovations such as ABS, IRS, SRS and a multitude of other safety devices and improvements as standard. In addition nearly all cars on the road would now have crumple zones and side intrusions bars.
In addition the obviously safer cars on the road are the actual roads themselves.

There is no doubt in my mind that the major highways (the ones with the vast majority of the speed cameras) have been steadily improving over the last few years. So much so that they have had few fatalities in comparison to the suburbs and other roadways. It seems to me that it is extremely ironic that the safest traveled roads are also the most heavily policed. At first it would appear that the heavy policing must be what are making them safer however it is not the case. A classic example is the Melbourne - Geelong highway. This has been the target of heavy policing for over 10 years, yet the fatalities kept coming. It wasn't until they actually fixed the road that the fatalities stopped. Did the policing solve this? No. Did everyone suddenly decide to slow down? No. What fixed it was paying attention to the root cause, in this case the actual road itself.

So any percentage drop in the road toll is probably more than covered but the improvements in cars and major roads.


This then lead me to look at some root causes. Speeding? No, it is a factor in some crashes, but not a primary factor. There had to be other factors (and of course there are). Why? It is well documented that the majority of accidents occur under the posted speed limit. Something like 96% of all accidents are caused by other factors apart from speed. In fact the police themselves have even publicly admitted that that speed cameras have been indirectly* responsible for the saving of 26 lives last year. This reinforces the fact that the majority of road deaths have occurred under the posted limit.

* I have to ask here, what do they mean by indirectly? Because the cameras are there these 26 motorists maybe, might have, kinda thought about, in some instances, when it was convenient, not to speed at that moment because they might die? What the hell sort of logic do the TAC use?

So how many of those who died were really speed related? I can find no figures that actually state this but, based on the evidence I can guess 4% of the 400 average road fatalities is a good place to start. That's a total of 16 people on average killed by speed each year! Oh no, horror of horrors! But how many really died from speed alone?
The police have already stated that more than 1/3 of all fatalities are caused by drug affected drivers. So there speed is really irrelevant as they were already compromised.
What about the person killed when the car is at fault. A blown tire at 100kph or 150kph is really not that different. There is a good chance you will spear off and hit that tree 1 meter off the side of the road. So once again, speed it there but irrelevant
What about the drunk driver who swerves for no reason and clips the car passing them at 120kph? The drunk drives on, the car full of people die (hitting the same tree 1 meter from the road). Is this a speed related death? They were speeding but it did not directly cause the deaths.
Finally, the poor people doing 10kmh over the limit that simple fall asleep from boredom and drive into that wonderfully placed tree! Yep, they were speeding but that's not what killed them.
So of the 16 speeding deaths a year how many are really true? 5, maybe 10? And of these 10 are we talking about totally irresponsible speed? Most likely. 220kph on public roads where the vast majority of traffic is doing 110kph is irresponsible - we all accept that.

So there we go. I'm no statistical genius and my figures may be out, but the end result is these 2 things:

Speed cameras have made absolutely no noticeable reduction to the road toll over the last 6 years. At this point, based on safer cars and better main roads I'm starting to see that the speed cameras are actually causing the toll to be higher than need be!!!!! The fear of a fine locks people to a speed limit where they would rather be in a stupid accident than accelerate to just 5kph over the limit to avoid it. Just drive on the ring road in Victoria and see what fear of a ticket will do to peoples behavior at any of the merging onramps. Scary stuff!

Speeding in itself makes up such a small percentage of road deaths that any attempt to justify the revenue raising tactics of speed cameras as 'a road safety initiative' can be dismissed with about 20 minutes of research and about 30 seconds of rational thinking!

To put it in perspective, pedestrians being hit by (non speeding) cars make up more than 5 times the amount of deaths caused by inappropriate speeding, but when was the last time you saw someone ticketed for jaywalking?

So I'm left with only 1 answer. The primary goal of every speed camera is to raise revenue. They simply have no other purpose any more. Statistically they have failed dramatically as a safety device. Therefore, any speed camera in operation today can only be to collect money from the motorist where they have proven to be wildly successful.
As the revenue drops (which it does) the government is force to find new ways to trick motorists into these revenue traps. Impossibly low tolerances, insanely variable speed limits that can be changed at will and increased numbers of speed cameras are all there solely for the purpose of collecting revenue.



Just had a look at the TAC website and there is some very interesting stats to read. Some of the stats as follows taken directly from the TAC site:

Pedestrian statistics
A total of*58 pedestrians were killed on Victorian roads in 2002, which represents 15% of all fatalities.
Three pedestrian groups are particularly vulnerable: the young, the elderly and the intoxicated.
Of the accidents resulting in the death of a pedestrian in 2002:
71% were on metropolitan roads,
48% were on roads signposted at 60km/h, and
47% occurred during high alcohol times.

*An interesting point to note there is that almost half of these deaths were in 60kmh zones, hardly the areas where we get slugged by speed cameras!*


Older driver statistics
Drivers aged 65 years or over have a higher risk (per distance travelled) of being involved in a fatal crash than any other age group.
In 2002, 29 older drivers were killed. Of these deaths:
66% were male,
38% were involved in adjacent and opposing intersection crashes,
52% occurred on metropolitan roads,
90% occurred during low alcohol times,
crashes were more frequent on week days than weekends, most occurred during daylight hours, and
48% occurred on roads signposted 100km/h and 17% on roads signposted 80km/h.

*Another point to note, almost half of these deaths were in 80-100kmh zones. *

Young driver statistics
In 2002, 28% of drivers killed were aged between 18 and 25 years. And yet, this age group only represents 14% of Victorian licence holders.

Of the 52 young drivers killed in 2002:
88% were males,
58% were killed on country roads,
58% were killed in single vehicle crashes,
77% were involved in crashes that occurred during high*alcohol times, the days when fatal crashes were most frequent were Friday (23%), Saturday (25%) and Sunday (15%), 60% of crashes occurred between the hours of 8pm and 6am, and 63% of deaths occurred on 100km/h and 110km/h signposted roads.

Note: High alcohol times are those times of the day and week when casualty crashes are ten times more likely to involve alcohol than casualty crashes at other times.

*Point to note - 63% of these deaths occured on 100-110kmh zones and 58% on country roads*

Age group statistics

18 to 25 year olds represent only 12% of the Victorian population, yet account for 26% of fatalities in 2002.

Municipality statistics

In 2002,*397 people were killed on Victoria?s roads.
The six with the highest road tolls were:
Geelong with 17 fatalities (4.3% of the road toll),

Mornington Peninsula with 17 fatalities (4.3%),

Hume with 15 fatalities (3.8%),

Brimbank and Casey with 13 fatalities each (3.3%)

no fatalities occurred in Alpine, Buloke, Horsham, Nillumbik, Queenscliff, Warrnambool and West Wimm


To me, the factors that standout are the 3 main groups at greatest risk, the 18-25, 39-49 and over 70's. The largest percentage of deaths are not on major highways/freeways, alcohol is obviously a big contributing factor, but the one clear distinction is there is no clear indication that speed cameras have reduced the road toll.If those 3 main groups are the greatest % of deaths on our roads, surely the powers-that-be would concentrate on reducing those numbers. It all leads to one simple fact, and that fact is clear and evident to all you speak to, that speed cameras are designed for revenue only and serve no real purpose other than that.

By Casper and JAJH

[Falcon Coupe]

Mr Greed is at it again.

[Psycho Chicken]

Yes, because cars haven't become safer in 15 years, of course not.

Glad I'm moving!

[Professor Farnsworth]

Don't we already have more cameras than any other state in Vic ? The new Craigieburn Bypass has 4 that i can see (2 in each direction). Cameras are there to take money from those breaking the law AND those simply rolling down a hill at 2km/h over with their foot off the throttle. How many times do you see a mobile camera unit sitting at the bottom of a hill, or just over a crest ? How many times do you also see idiots flying along, then braking hard for fixed cameras (which generally stick out like fluoro fence posts) then flying off again. If they're after a bit more credibility with the general public, they may wish to re-think the spots where they places the units. I remember in the news a month or so back, a mobile camera car was parked in a bus stop while zapping speeders, and when a passer by alerted the camera operator that he was in fact breaking the law himself, he was fobbed off. MO MONEY

[Brute6]

The killer is Concentration, not speed. It S...ts me to tears how the Cops, Government etc keep saying that everything is Speed. Its not everything. In so many accidents, it the driver not paying enough attention to all the variables in driving a car. Yes speeding is one of them but on straight stretches of roads; how can you have a head on? You loose concentration or feel tired. But no, the dumb Government that we have is stuck on sucking money out of us with these stupid cameras. : :

[jabba]

Originally Posted by parawolf

Now, my take on this, is that Police are getting lazy and have no innovative ways of curbing crime, "accidents" and other law breaking activities.

.

Or Bracks has got his hand up the police commissioner's @rse playing puppeteer and telling him what he wants........

[jabba]

Originally Posted by Casper

This is an OUTRIGHT LIE!!
ИИИИing lieing BULLИИИИ theiving mutherИИИИing ИИИИs.

For those that havent read it, some info written about 18 months ago by myself and JAJH!



Well, after listening and commenting on all the "speed kills" garbage put out from the TAC in the many threads here I thought to myself that really all I'm doing is agreeing to others who had my point of view. I did not really know the facts apart from blindly accepting what others told me. This, to me, is just as bad as blindly accepting the TAC's 'facts'. I'm just a sheep of a different colour.
The truth is I didn't even know what the Victorian road statistics really were. This being the case I decided to do my own research and reasoning, so I looked them up:
1997 - 377
1998 - 390
1999 - 384
2000 - 407
2001 - 444
2002 - 397
These numbers are straight of the TAC website.

Now, not being a Rhodes Scholar I may be off base and missing something here but the numbers are not changing much. On average about 400 are killed per year. So we are looking at a fluctuation of around than 10% from the average over a 6 year period. Considering that fixed speed cameras were only introduced (in force) in 1999, this average shows both pre and post speed camera figures. Yet after 1999 the average increased!

Speed cameras have made absolutely no noticeable reduction to the road toll over the last 6 years. At this point, based on safer cars and better main roads I'm starting to see that the speed cameras are actually causing the toll to be higher than need be!!!!! The fear of a fine locks people to a speed limit where they would rather be in a stupid accident than accelerate to just 5kph over the limit to avoid it. Just drive on the ring road in Victoria and see what fear of a ticket will do to peoples behavior at any of the merging onramps. Scary stuff!


Young driver statistics
In 2002, 28% of drivers killed were aged between 18 and 25 years. And yet, this age group only represents 14% of Victorian licence holders.

Of the 52 young drivers killed in 2002:
88% were males,
58% were killed on country roads,
58% were killed in single vehicle crashes,
77% were involved in crashes that occurred during high*alcohol times, the days when fatal crashes were most frequent were Friday (23%), Saturday (25%) and Sunday (15%), 60% of crashes occurred between the hours of 8pm and 6am, and 63% of deaths occurred on 100km/h and 110km/h signposted roads.

Note: High alcohol times are those times of the day and week when casualty crashes are ten times more likely to involve alcohol than casualty crashes at other times.

*Point to note - 63% of these deaths occured on 100-110kmh zones and 58% on country roads*

Age group statistics

18 to 25 year olds represent only 12% of the Victorian population, yet account for 26% of fatalities in 2002.

Municipality statistics

In 2002,*397 people were killed on Victoria?s roads.
The six with the highest road tolls were:
Geelong with 17 fatalities (4.3% of the road toll),

Mornington Peninsula with 17 fatalities (4.3%),

Hume with 15 fatalities (3.8%),

Brimbank and Casey with 13 fatalities each (3.3%)

no fatalities occurred in Alpine, Buloke, Horsham, Nillumbik, Queenscliff, Warrnambool and West Wimm


To me, the factors that standout are the 3 main groups at greatest risk, the 18-25, 39-49 and over 70's. The largest percentage of deaths are not on major highways/freeways, alcohol is obviously a big contributing factor, but the one clear distinction is there is no clear indication that speed cameras have reduced the road toll.If those 3 main groups are the greatest % of deaths on our roads, surely the powers-that-be would concentrate on reducing those numbers. It all leads to one simple fact, and that fact is clear and evident to all you speak to, that speed cameras are designed for revenue only and serve no real purpose other than that.

By Casper and JAJH

Casper, that was a good read, but posting up here has a limited audience... Why don't you compress it and send it to all the major in Melbourne and Victoria and let the whole state know about it.... Just change some of the wording to incriminate TAC and make your self not come across as a car enthusias, you know we enthusias are getting a bad name out there,due to the boy racer generation

[EL_futuraistic]

LOL It is just so amusing that despite only a VERY minimal reduction in the road toll since the introduction of speed camera devices they still believe that its the answer.

Did anyone experience the police blitz that was happening over christmas?? the new fleet of CANDY SS Commodores that were suposedly out saving lives. I did a bit of travelling down the penninsula, up to echuca and didnt get brethoed, radared or anything. In fact compared with last year i think there was less police around.

This issue comes up time and time again, same arguements, same results. That Piece you posted Casper should definately be forwarded to someone such as the TAC..... I think its time people started making a fuss, but properley so as not to have the opposite effect of promoting car enthusiasts as "menacing hoons"

[Casper]

ITs been sent in various versions to every major newspaper and current affairs show I cn find. Guess what? No one gives a crap. For them to do anything takes "INVESTIGATION" which is obviously asking to much of the turds. I dont read newspapers anymore, they are regurgitated and poorly researched garbage. Strangely enough the current affairs crap on TV makes the newspapers look like literary masterpieces.

[Deadman]

Originally Posted by EL_futuraistic

It is just so amusing that despite only a VERY minimal reduction in the road toll since the introduction of speed camera devices they still believe that its the answer.

And you'd probably find that any reduction in road deaths over the last 15 years would have been due to the improvements in car safety features, inclusions of air bags and other 'premium' safety features in lower priced model cars, and overall crash safety improvements.

Unfortunately, the government will continue to flog it's dead horse as long as it can. What's even more unfortunate is that to much of the population also believes that more speed cameras is the answer to. :

[347_XR8]

Ok i may saound synical for a minute, no matter what they do, there is someone or a group of people that will do something stupid. Speed camera's are not the way to do it, how many are in Vic as it is?
There will always be stupid people and people who "rebel" against the system, so to speak. I think the cops need to work with the community and also work on there reputation.
I myslef have never had any problems with cops, matter of fact i know a few and i get along with them quite well. However seeing other peoples reactions to cops, i know what they think and they don't care what cops think.
It's got to do with community involment and education!

[Casper]

Oh, for the record, in the next 3 years its estimated of 95% of all victorian drivers will have a speeding fine.

No other law in history has actively targeted 95% of the population and survived as a "valid law". Its revenue.

[Professor Farnsworth]

EL_futuraistic lol @ your '18 minutes or less' signature.

[rodderz]

Originally Posted by www.theage.com.au
Mr Ashby said it was a dismal fact that people aged 16 to 25 were not heeding the road safety message, with many believing they were "invincible".

This part here is the one thing can they never listen to.... teach them right when they are young teens and have better licensing procedures covering ALL aspects of driving and they may start achieving something in the 16 to 25 age group! But of course, thats too practical for the pollies

[347_XR8]

I'd like to see me be in the 95% Casper. I've had my license for 2.5 years and havn't got a fine, i've had a few close calls with mods (like tint, when i got my new wheels etcc..). Alot of my mates have had fines or lost point for this that or the otehr thing.
It seems like a high number (95%), seems like revenue raising for such a high number to me

[aimzes]

Originally Posted by Casper

Oh, for the record, in the next 3 years its estimated of 95% of all victorian drivers will have a speeding fine.

No other law in history has actively targeted 95% of the population and survived as a "valid law". Its revenue.

holy s**t. 95%? f**k me!.

everyone should contest there fines and block up the courts.

[MITCHAY]

If anything they should have less of the things. I spose I can't complain because I live in the ACT and there isn't much. Cameras are not effective other than collecting money. I've seen more accidents cause by them.

[JAJH]

CASPER, couldn't have said it better myself...well done! Part of the problem is this...we all agree that driver training and education would be the best answer. If that is the case what happens?.. we become better drivers, more responsive to potentially dangerous situations, able to control a car with more skill and overall better drivers with a much better attitude to other road users and the road law itself. Having said that what's the result?..lower revenue from speed cameras because drivers are behaving themselves on the road. There isn't chance in hell this government will spend the money on driver training because it will have a negative effect in terms on revenue, sure it WILL save lives but it will cost too much money.

[rodderz]

I wonder if they could pass the extra cost of a more detailed licensing test onto the person getting the license, covering not just road rules but the defensive and control part of it too, maybe a short course on accidents and road safety also. Sure it would mean a pretty hefty price hike, but people need licenses dont they? Plus, the addition of extra parts to the test could open up a new avenue of business opportunities to people wanting to persue that, hence competition in licensing tuition, hence lower prices

[Casper]

Originally Posted by JAJH

CASPER, couldn't have said it better myself...

Nope, you couldnt... you actually wrote half of it :

[Panda]

Originally Posted by JAJH

...we all agree that driver training and education would be the best answer...able to control a car with more skill and overall better drivers with a much better attitude to other road users and the road law itself...

I've actually done a couple of Advanced Driver Courses. I'll admit that I don't use the skills I've learned to drive safer, I use them to drive faster. I admit that this is the wrong thing to do, and most people would use these skills for safety, but there are always going to be idiots like me out there.

Probably gonna get hammered for saying that, but it is the truth.

Panda

/just off to disconnect my internet connection now

[Professor Farnsworth]

cough

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Panda

I've actually done a couple of Advanced Driver Courses. I'll admit that I don't use the skills I've learned to drive safer, I use them to drive faster. I admit that this is the wrong thing to do, and most people would use these skills for safety, but there are always going to be idiots like me out there.

Probably gonna get hammered for saying that, but it is the truth.

Panda

/just off to disconnect my internet connection now

I think you are underestimating yourself. The very fact you have these skills and wish to remain alive means you are using them to drive safer. At a higher speed maybe but you cannot "unlearn" these skills. You have them, you use them, you cannot NOT use them.

Now think of all the kids (and seniors) out there doing the same speed as you.... without these skills.

[347_XR8]

Well Panda at least you honest. My bro did an advanced driving course when he got his P's, yet he rode off his first car. Where as i havn't had one accident (on record, just little things like hit a small tree and replace bumper) and still drive my first car.
I think it's all about how people are conditioned to there license. i see my license like this, i loose it, i loose my job. I loose my job, i loose money and get my butt kicked but alot of people

[Professor Farnsworth]

The way i see it, there's a time and place for these things. Just think about it. Common sense goes a long way. It's the jerks you see weaving in and out of peak hour traffic like it's going to achieve something that give me the ИИИИs. The little kids that swerve around in their rice boxes or clapped out statesmans.. Ah don't get me started.. *wooooosahhh*

[HOON69]

see now i know why i'll never travel to victoria

goverment there has to be the greediest goverment in the world i reckon

how about policing the roads and getting off their rectums and showing a presence on the roads instead of leaving it to a machine to try lessen the road toll,cause to me camera's are BS and are clearly a revenue raiser for them to waste more money on junk projects that die in the bum anyways,either that or to fund their departure from politics

[gmhdriver]

Originally Posted by parawolf

Bracks government will NOT be getting any form of vote for me next time.

Same here. I predict an enormous voter backlash against the Bracks government at the next election. If it wasn't for hopeless and incompetent opposition leaders such as Denis Napthine and Robert Doyle, Bracks would have been gone a long time ago.