Why NSW motorists are getting a raw deal

Documented funding from the RTA and NRMA can be found with a little googling ......

Just look at Nothern territory.
As soon as they brought in speed limits it increased the death toll by over 100% and still going up.
I always remember NT at christmas time having no road toll, the only state in Australia to do so
Now they blame deaths on speed so they must increase speeding fines.
Looks like the caught the NSW disease.

Honky

The same old mantra chanted by many, "Speed kills", has swept the World and speed cameras are busy everywhere clicking up the revenue.
The UK at one time had the best death rates in the World when taking into consideration the huge volume of traffic, lousy weather conditions etc.
The roads were well policed with top class traffic cops who didn't just concentrate on speed as the big killer, but watched the overall driver behaviour, road traffic and weather conditions and policed it accordingly.
Now they've mostly gone to be replaced by revenue raising cameras and the death and injury tolls have risen drastically just as in the NT.
The response of pollies abley assisted and encouraged by those who want red flag carriers in front of vehicles to this, is to buy even more speed cameras!
Happy motoring ..... at a snails pace!
Alan.

Robin

That is a very important point you make, people knock Scrubby all the time, but at the end of the day he constantly gets airplay and the media give him access...and he is only a single voice.

Imagine what an active four-wheel drive lobby could achieve...

There seems to be any number of four-wheel drive organisations, but no central voice.

Cheers

OzTroopy, you said “Every year there are more cars and more drivers .... Statistically - It has to increase.”

Wrong! Numerically it has to increase, statistically (taken as a ratio of cars on the road, number of drivers or Km travelled depending on your measurement) it may increase or decrease

Since Victoria introduced seat belt laws, numerically causalities in Australia have decreased, and as a ratio of cars on the road, drivers and of Kilometres travelled it has also statistically decreased

Conversations like this on bulletin Boards always bring out the some interesting comments!

Statistically, the distribution of skills, knowledge, ability etc across a large population follows a normal distribution curve

By definition the average person sits mid way within the range of driving skills (ie half way within better than Fangio to injuring themselves with a Dinky toy on the lounge room floor)

By definition half the drivers on the road are below average; or if you want to look back to the standard deviation curve again, 86% of drivers are average or below average drivers.

Unfortunately, laws governing actions in our society are based on the lowest common denominator. Hence, our road laws are based on the ability of a below average driver.

So, stop to think about it; 86% of persons inhabiting this forum are average or below average drivers for this forum (I’d suggest that the curve for this forum would be skewed a little bit higher than the average population because of the average age of the forum)

About 6 years ago there was a small paragraph in the newspaper to the affect that University Of WA(?) had conducted a study whereby 75% of people thought they were above average drivers

This means that there are a huge percentage of people out on the road that do not have an accurate assessment of their driving abilities

The obvious answer to this problem is put into place better and more intrusive standards to both obtain and retain your licence. Without going through real time monitoring of the driver (such as a black box hooked up to EMU and a GPS), the only other option is random sampling of the drivers skills. Speed cameras do that. They tell the police how much attention the driver is paying to the environment in which they are driving, and how much attention they are paying to the control of their car

By what standard do you test your own driving?

You said: “There is no such thing as speeding ..... Its either dangerous driving ... or its not !!!!!! “

If you are speeding through a sign posted area you are not paying attention to the speed of your car, nor are you paying attention to the environment around you. How does that differ from dangerous driving?

Nargun51 ........

Statistically / Numerically ???? ..... Sheesh ... are you one of Harolds mates ????

If the number of vehicles/drivers per year and the number of accidents per year ... were assessed over a period of years that would provide the statistics to give a numerical figure .... hows that grab ya ?????.

Seatbelts ... nothing to do with cameras ... but certainly one of the items I would call vehicle safety, as mentioned in my 2nd last paragraph.

How to assess a good driver ... Thats quite an issue ........ Are speed cameras really the answer ??? ....

I doubt it - plenty of dangerous drivers out there travelling below posted limits ... Have you never had to avoid the 30kph veh that U-turns in front of you with no indicators ... or the one travelling at 50kph in the middle of a highway on blind corners ???? ..... I guess a good driver would have been travelling at a speed to avoid both incidents and a bad driver would have been travelling at the max allowed ... conditions regardless and ... become an incident.

Theres a big difference between being aware of ones surroundings and not adhereing to sign on a stick ... which may or not be easily seen. As it is in urban areas ... speed signs are lost in the mishmash of other govt and private signage and worthless ...

A school area / train station / shopping centre etc dictates a slower speed and more observant driving manner ... City traffic requires maintaining traffic flow, braking distances, area knowledge ... and a max allowable speed of 60kph IMHO ... Highway driving requires the legal ability to travel and overtake at a reasonable speed that does not induce boredom or danger ... and a max allowable speed of 130kph IMHO.

And then a good driver will always know there are exceptions to the above conditions ... e.g. when its raining/foggy, traffic congestion, twisty sections of road, different times of day, even different days of the week ...............

A bunch of speed cameras checking that the brainless sheep are driving from sign to sign doesnt ensure a good driving population ... it just means people are to busy looking for constantly changing / hidden speed limit signs instead of watching out for other traffic or stray kids.



There is no such thing as speeding ..... Its either dangerous driving ... or its not !!!!!!

One year I was in Canberra as a kid driving on a 4lane section at 80kph .... The Officer who was following me for 20min suggested at a set of lights, that I lose 10kph ... and pointed to a 60kph sign in the bushes ..... So Nargun51 ...... was I driving dangerously or speeding ?????
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OMG. Nargun51 has posted a rational argument on an internet forum with no emotional drivel about how he is a victim of the surrounding cicumstances.

BAN HIM.