What's going on? First, the RSL comes out with something I agree with. Now the acerbic Professor Bunyip states a view on road safety which makes sense.
On the subject of random breath testing and the positive effect it had on reducing the road toll when introduced all those years ago, the Professor says ...
At least a decade along from the point where road kill statistics dipped to their current, undulating floor, the great and relatively easy gains of the [RBT] campaign's early days are no longer obtainable. If you allow people to own and drive cars, a certain small percentage of the stupid, incompetent and simply unlucky will come to grief -- and if you look dispassionately at the figures, it requires willful blindness not to see that we have reached that point.Yet the push to abridge liberty in the cause of a crusade that has already been brought as close to total victory as it is likely to get, well that continues apace. Put it down to a determined and blinkered refusal to recognise actuarial reality -- precisely what you might expect from a cranked-up and, by this stage, self-preserving "safety" bureaucracy.
The professor didn't mention the other great reducer of the road toll; compulsory seat belt wearing, but he's quite right. To make significant reduction in the road toll requires ever more draconian measures.
In addition to that proposed by a Victorian road official ...
[extending] the zero blood-alcohol level already imposed on drivers aged 18 to 21 extended "to drivers aged 25 or 26."
... we can expect the raising of demerit points, the introduction of ever more concealed technology to snare drivers travelling above conservatively set speed limits, and further harsh, marginally effective restrictions on young drivers. Nothing in this list will reduce the road toll to any great measure.
The key to reducing the road toll is to increase the knowledge and skill of drivers. Unfortunately, this would cost the government money rather than make money as does road law enforcement.
In terms of the number of cars on the road and the distance travelled, the road toll has never been lower. Try as they might, authorities are not going to lower the toll much further without significantly changing motoring in a way the public would find unacceptable. I doubt any government will cut the speed limits by half, or increase the price of motoring to the point where people abandon their cars for public transport.
We'll just have to wait till the oil price reaches $100 a barrel and does it for us.
I've been meaning to post somethign similar since the change to NSW's demerits system, where you are now awarded 3 points for speeding 5-30kmh (!) over the limit. The difference in danger between 5 and 30 is huge, yet they both attract 3 points. Why not be hung for a sheep as a lamb?
The fixation on speeding is really counter-productive. Inattention, distraction, inexperience, stupidity and poor skills are hearder to police, but they contribute to crashes far more than our regulators admit. But policing the above needs police actually on the roads (not parked on the side with a speed gun).
Far easier to just plaster our streets with fixed cameras, and ratchet up the points.
The decision by the NSW government to reduce low range fines was a reaction to the tabloid press and talk back radio. Government by media shock jocks is one of my pet hates at the moment.
So the government was pressured into dropping the fines. I suspect the associated decision to raise the points for the same offence was a face saving move to stem criticism that they are 'going soft' on road safety. But now, as Rowen correctly points out, you cop the same points penalty for 1km/h over the limit as you do for 30km/h.
Pity the poor driver who gets picked up on a long weekend for a low range speeding offence. Wave goodbye to 6 points, and possibly your license.
How can receiving a fine in the mailbox save lives, When the offence has already been committed days/weeks ago?
New cars are getting ever more powerful/quieter, You don't even realise until it's to late that you are above speed limit.
As for the demerit point system, It is rediculous. Soon you will have half the population without a license from what I see on the roads each day to work, But of course 90% of the mobile phone users never get caught do they, Yet it's even more dangerous than speeding.
How about we ban cars all together and go back to the friggin' stone age,That way we have zero fatalities and pollution all round. Oh yeah can't even do that can we, Government wouldn't make any money then!
Soon there will be too many laws and we will all become lost. Just waiting for a day where we all will need to go down to local Council/Shire to obtain a "Permit" or "License" so we can screw our girfriends/boyfriends/wives/husbands!
People should be more careful who they vote for,Their freedoms are being taken away right under their noses without them even realising most of the time. Orwellian World here we come.