"Do as I say - not as I do" - Speed kills, yeah... right....

Submitted: Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 14:00
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Reply By: DIO - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 14:51

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 14:51
I wouldn't get my guts in a knot over it.

Recent reports and Court appearances have shown the following:

School Teachers convicted of Paedophilia

Judge on trial for Perjury etc

Police Officer (Vic) recently arrested for Drug and Sex related offences

Nursing staff caught pilfering prescription drugs and often using them whilst at work.

CFA/CFS (or whatever) members found to be very active arsonists responsible for a great number of fires over recent years.

Fisheries Officers misappropriating seized fish etc

Ministers of Relgion guilt of predatory sexual activity against children.

Staff of children's homes also guilty of paedophilia and associated crimes.

Builders and others in housing construction, pilfering material, appliances etc.

Shonky operators associated with the Real Estate industry, Motor Vehicle Sales, Investment Services, door to door sales etc.

I'm sure there are lots of other examples - they just don't immediately come to mind.

The point is, such behaviour happens in almost every industry or place of employment. Sadly it has become all to common and I say the sooner it is stamped out, the better for all the community. Your example of one such instance only serves to highlight bigotry and bias in relation to such matters. Try too keep it in perspective.
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Follow Up By: Kumunara (NT) - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 21:42

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 21:42
DIO



Well replied.

TAC should be setting an example. However the articles says that 37 fines were issued over a two year period. That there are 700 people employed by TAC who drive the vehicles.

Yes TAC employees should set an example. To err is human and we all make mistakes.

It appears that it is a case of the media trying to beat up a story.
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Reply By: Off-track - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 15:28

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 15:28
For my mind I thought it highlighted how ridiculously intolerant the Vic speed laws are in the way they are enforced. By this I mean the lack of latitude when travelling at a fraction over the posted limit.
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Reply By: F4Phantom - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 16:34

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 16:34
Although I would never run a red light because to me thats crazy I am in favor of looser speeding laws, in fact I dont see why you cant cruise the whole east cost and to WA at 150kph. Even a (new) normal commodore or falcon can easily cruise at these speeds. One web site against speed camera revenue raising says that to help with statistics the authorities twist the stats by doing things such as including speed as the cause of crashes even if the car was at or below the speed limit. The way they do this is say it was raining on the day and therefore 60kph is too fast for a certain road in the wet, and so a crash at 60kph was speeding. Although this could be true, its still a lie as most of us would assume they mean over 60kph. Anyway I recon its all bull and its all for the money and untill I see real stats showing otherwise I am synical of the authorities.
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Follow Up By: Kumunara (NT) - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 21:47

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 21:47
F4Phantom



The issue is not the ability of vehicles to cruise at 150 km/h. The issue is the ability of the drivers to drive safely at those speeds.
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Follow Up By: F4Phantom - Monday, Jan 14, 2008 at 09:21

Monday, Jan 14, 2008 at 09:21
I think its both, you woudnt catch me in an EA falcon doing anything close to 100kph. Obviously drivers would need to be trained, a good idea could be to have a special high speed licence after advanced training all paid by the user.
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Follow Up By: Kumunara (NT) - Monday, Jan 14, 2008 at 18:46

Monday, Jan 14, 2008 at 18:46
F4Phantom



A better idea would be for all drivers to have to do a defensive driving course. The knowledge and better road craft would make our roads safer.



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Reply By: Member - Willie , Epping .Syd. - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 17:12

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 17:12
"The worst breach recorded in a TAC car was a staffer caught doing 74km/h in a 60km/h zone, which attracted a $750 fine"

Does not sound like death defying stuff to me Mike .More like an editor with nothing to write about .

Willie .
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Reply By: Max - Sydney - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 19:16

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 19:16
The Sydney papers have had trouble finding something to say this week to get over the lack of news too Mike.

Here's three headlines that are less than earth bleep tering:

"man finds his wife working in a brothel", "horse stabbed to death", "fight in a unit block".

You can only beat up tantrums in professional cricket games and the likes for so long, so I guess you need the ingenuity of the sub editor come to the fore!

As for the nasty useless road rules - NSW had the lowest number of road deaths in 2007 since 1946 or so - something must be working!

Max

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Follow Up By: Mike Harding - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 19:36

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 19:36
Perhaps it just depends how cynical one is about governments "having our best interests at heart" and similar sugar coated warm fuzzy things they preach... me...? I'm at the far end of the cynic scale....

Mike Harding
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Follow Up By: Member - Dunworkin (WA) - Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 23:03

Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at 23:03
Hi Max

"As for the nasty useless road rules - NSW had the lowest number of road deaths in 2007 since 1946 or so - something must be working!"

All your bad drivers must have come to WA, LOL our 2007 road toll was the worst in 11 years and 2008 is already higher than the same time last year, not good statistics.

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D


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Follow Up By: geocacher (djcache) - Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 at 00:31

Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 at 00:31
Yep. Something is happening. The average build years of the older cars on the road are every year getting further and further into the years that saw some of the biggest safety changes in the last 25 years.

Newer cars which are far safer are far cheaper due to massive vehicle depreciation rates.

Black spot programs have reduced the risk at the worst of our intersections and many roads that were high risk have been modified in the past 10 years.

Safer cars and safer roads do more for the road toll dropping than driver behaviour.

Dave
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Follow Up By: Max - Sydney - Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 at 07:10

Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 at 07:10
Dave

I have to challenge that one I'm afraid.

First Dunworkin's comment implies that there is something different in the West. Well their cars and their roads are at least as good, but they don't have the endless infuriating "tax collector cameras" that we do over east, nor the relentless booze bus roadblocks that are put on in holiday times.

In 1974 I was in NZ when the first oil crisis hit and they nearly ran out of oil. In November theyy imposed a speed limit of 80 k on the roads to save fuel. The road toll that Christmas was halved. Same old bomb cars, the same dreadful narrow roads. It was only behaviour that changed with a little help from enforcement.

I was involved in safety in may last few years at work - the training was you must do both - improve behaviour AND improve conditions, but the quickest & most spectacular gains in performance come from the behaviour changes.

The cameras give me the shirts, I got a bluey from a meanly placed camera a few weeks ago, but I do have to acknowledge that they do more than raise megabucks for the Govt.

Max
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Follow Up By: geocacher (djcache) - Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 at 11:20

Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 at 11:20
Hi Max,

It was supposed to be a reply to the original post rather than a follow up. My error.

Even so, I'll stand by what I say. I have a keen interest having worked at GM involved in testing automotive safety engineering development in the 90's, and then undertook a complete career change to become a Paramedic.

I've seen the work that goes into both preventing the accidents, and done the work that goes into cleaning up afterwards. It gives some interesting perspective to both jobs.

There's no question that work started to try and slow people down late last century has had an impact on the road toll. I won't deny that.

But you can't change the behaviour of all of the drivers all of the time, and you can't take driver error out of the equation.

The biggest developments in mortality & morbidity reduction in the past ten years have been in vehicle safety, and road safety improvements. The same as the biggest single factor in the reduction in the 70's was as a result of the introduction of compulsory seatbelts, the big factor now is improved crumple zone design and supplementry restraint systems.

Road design removing gravel shoulders to allow a nearly certain crash to become a near miss, and armco or rope barriers to prevent cross over head-ons on divided roads or excursions into trees or off embankments, and fixing bad intersections and off camber corners or those with changes in radius part way through have contributed and will continue to contribute more in the next ten years than people slowing down by 5kmh.

The double fatal I attended last week was on a bad off camber corner on a national highway with gravel shoulders, which has been the cause of fatals in the past. The double fatal before Christmas was on a corner that is on the same highway further toward the border where a car coming around a corner that tightens as it progresses, and is slightly off camber, crossed the double lines.

5kmh wasn't going to make a significant difference and while there is an element of error on the part of a driver or driver in any crash - there's no suggestion at this stage that excessive speed was a factor, and had the driver passed through a speed camera half an hour or 5 minutes before the ticket would arrive after the funerals are over.

East of home all the way to the border there are so many poorly designed corners - off camber predominantly being the problem - on the highway. It's not surprising that several of them are marked with crosses.

Governments won't admit that roads and automotive safety design have a more significant impact on the road toll than speed cameras as it doesn't support their argument for that form of tax collection.

I'm not exonerating the drivers. Driver error or lack of judgement is a factor in most crashes, but there are other contributing factors that cause the error or lack of judgement to become a crash rather than a near miss.

ABS Brakes, Electronic Stability Control and road design promote an increase in near misses subsequently reducing crashes, morbidity & mortality.

I don't condone speeding, but I don't condone tolerances on speed cameras that are less than the ADR tolerances on speedometers either. I do fully support changes to government policy on road design and blackspot prevention.

An interesting read on the issue can be found here:
RACV Lifeline. Situation Critical: For Victoria's Rural Arterial Road Network

Dave
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