Man loses 33 demerit points in one go.

[Homestar]

Wonder how long he's walking for now....

Sydney driver receives 33 demerit points in single stop for unrestrained children - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-28/sydney-driver-receives-33-demerit-points/11052636)

[PhilipA]

Boy when I was a kid nobody would have had a licence for more than a few weeks.
i used to sit on the cab of a single spinner Ute with my feet on the cream cans going to the depot.
I sometimes/often wonder if the nanny state has gone mad.
nobody can do 240volt wiring yet in UK they can.
you cannot change the seats in your car without paying hundreds to have them certified. In the UkK you can and probably in many other countries.

What happened to taking personal responsibilty for your actions.
and yet hundreds still manage to kill themselves although they have to try a bit harder.

[trout1105]

Boy when I was a kid nobody would have had a licence for more than a few weeks.
i used to sit on the cab of a single spinner Ute with my feet on the cream cans going to the depot.
I sometimes/often wonder if the nanny state has gone mad.
nobody can do 240volt wiring yet in UK they can.
you cannot change the seats in your car without paying hundreds to have them certified. In the UkK you can and probably in many other countries.

What happened to taking personal responsibilty for your actions.
and yet hundreds still manage to kill themselves although they have to try a bit harder.

Seat belts save lives, That is an undisputable fact.
Old Mate had 5 kids aged 3-11 years old that were under his care in the van without wearing seatbelts and as a "Responsible" adult it is his job to ensure their safety.
He obviously cant be trusted to ensure the kids safety so the police stepped in to make sure that in future he will think twice about putting his kids in danger again[thumbsupbig]

[Ean Austral]

So i wonder if the law states those demerit points stay accrued or if once you reach the 12 or whatever it is to loose your license it just resets and you start again.

Must be frustrating for the authorities that the road safety messages are still not getting thru to people.

He deserves everything he gets as far as i am concerned.

Cheers Ean

[goingbush]

Boy when I was a kid nobody would have had a licence for more than a few weeks.
i used to sit on the cab of a single spinner Ute with my feet on the cream cans going to the depot.
I sometimes/often wonder if the nanny state has gone mad.
nobody can do 240volt wiring yet in UK they can.
you cannot change the seats in your car without paying hundreds to have them certified. In the UkK you can and probably in many other countries.

What happened to taking personal responsibilty for your actions.
and yet hundreds still manage to kill themselves although they have to try a bit harder.


You can't protect people against themselves. I'm happy if the powers that be "nanny state" extract funds from them in the form of fines, means less "tax" I have to pay. Just because something is Illegal does not mean you cant do it Phillip, you just get into trouble if your caught.

Oh and I'm happy most people don't do their own wiring.


https://www.mazevietnam.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/DSC7620-768x1152.jpg

The tangle of electrical wires in Hanoi - A Nightmare for Electricians - Maze Vietnam (https://www.mazevietnam.com/2017/06/17/the-tangle-of-electrical-wires-in-hanoi/)

[350RRC]

According to the Oz the kids were in the back of a panel van.

Back in 'the day' there were many serious spinal injuries resulting from the vans having sometimes minor collisions, etc, when people were lying down in the back.

Pretty sure the practice was outlawed long ago.

DL

[Homestar]

Yeah, fatalities and serious injuries were far higher 'back in the day' even though car numbers were dramatically lower. Car design has a lot to do with this but attitudes to wearing seat belts, etc are too.

[Eevo]

i did 500km in the last few days. i didnt wear a seat belt the whole time.

[Homestar]

Your problem should you have had a prang but would you put kids in your car without making them put their seat belts on?

[p38arover]

i did 500km in the last few days. i didnt wear a seat belt the whole time.

On a motorbike?

[Eevo]

Your problem should you have had a prang but would you put kids in your car without making them put their seat belts on?

who said i was in a car?

[PhilipA]

The Nanny State reaction to riding a motorbike is BAN MOTORBIKES.

So can anyone see the irony in the fact that your activities in a car are controlled to the merest detail but you are free to do what you want on a bike or scooter or motorbike?

I used to pillion my 10 year old back in the day and I saw a bloke at the beach yesterday with about an 11-12 year old girl on pillion. This is many times more dangerous than being in a car with a seatbelt on, but no action by authorities.
My conclusion then is that it is all politics.
Regards Philip A

[trout1105]

i did 500km in the last few days. i didnt wear a seat belt the whole time.

I was involved in a head on collision and there was 7 people on board the Ford Transit at the time, 6 of us were wearing seatbelts and we survived the only person that wasn't wearing a seatbelt perished on the scene.
Not wearing a seatbelt is just plain Stupid.

[3toes]

Back seat passengers need to ease seat belt as well.

A few years ago was an accident near me where car not going more than 30kph hit a small tree. Passenger in back not wearing seat belt hit seat in front breaking seat from mountings and pushing seat and occupant who was wearing seat belt into dash board and windscreen with resulting injuries and stay in hospital for both. If wearing seat belt both would have walked away.

[trout1105]

Back seat passengers need to ease seat belt as well.

A few years ago was an accident near me where car not going more than 30kph hit a small tree. Passenger in back not wearing seat belt hit seat in front breaking seat from mountings and pushing seat and occupant who was wearing seat belt into dash board and windscreen with resulting injuries and stay in hospital for both. If wearing seat belt both would have walked away.

The exact same thing happened to me in that head on smash I was involved in.
The rear passenger Not wearing a belt smashed into the front passengers seat that killed him instantly and put me in hospital for 3 weeks and destroyed my left arm forever.

[3toes]

The Nanny State reaction to riding a motorbike is BAN MOTORBIKES.

So can anyone see the irony in the fact that your activities in a car are controlled to the merest detail but you are free to do what you want on a bike or scooter or motorbike?A

If motor bikes were invented today they would never be available to use as no insurance company would provide any cover.

So you have invented a new mode of transport that you sit on which has none of the safety devises of a car and it goes very fast and want me to provide cover if it goes wrong?

Then again can you imagine attempting to arrange cover for a road system where vehicles would be travelling in opposite directions separated by 5cm of white paint?

Or when the first caveman invented fire to keep warm and cook food that would never have been allowed either as the risks would have been too great

[Eevo]

riding a motorbike is a personal risk. freedom of choice.

[jonesfam]

Yes, as an adult you have Freedom of Choice.
The children in the back of said van are not old enough to make that choice.
Our kids get to live a pretty free & wild life but we still always consider their safety.
That doesn't mean no risk, just controlled & assessed risk.
If they are in the car & we crash we mittigate some risk by forcing them to wear seat belts. They might still be injured or worse but we have tried to reduce the risk of that happening.
Jonesfam

[Tote]

Without diminishing the message that seatbelts save lives that report is the third one that I have seen over the holiday period of people accruing large numbers of demerit points due to unrestrained passengers, I smell a media campaign in the offing. Here's a convenient link to all 3 stories. Three drivers share 85 demerit points (http://www.mygc.com.au/three-drivers-share-85-demerit-points/)

I suspect that these offences often happen over double demerit periods and are only being highlighted to drive a facet of the media campaign.

Demerit suspension periods for NSW are below:

For unrestricted licence holders, the period of suspension depends on the number of points you accumulate:
13 to 15 points: 3 month suspension
16 to 19 points: 4 month suspension
20 or more points: 5 month suspension
For learner, P1 and P2 licence holders, the suspension period is 3 months.

Regards,
Tote

[Eevo]

Without diminishing the message that seatbelts save lives
a fair number of lives too. about 1/3 of the fatals in SA were not wearing a seatbelt, there may have been other factors too.

[goingbush]

Watch youtube of any 4WDing gone wrong in USA and no one wears seatbelts, and most prefer to have doors removed. Its beyond belief to me . The amount of videos that show people being ejected from or thrown around in vehicles is ridiculous.

[POD]

I remember the slogan of the Victorian road safety campaign in 1977 or thereabouts; 'Draw the line at 899'. Campaigning to get the state's annual road death toll under 900 persons, over four times what it was in 2018. There can be little doubt that the culture of seat-belt use has been the single biggest factor in the reduction in deaths. If people choose not to wear seat belts themselves that is one thing, but if they choose not to appropriately restrain their children that is another thing entirely.

[350RRC]

****.. when I get around to posting pics of my shed build you'll see stuff that is sooo bad as in OH&S that some will weep.

The thing is it was my shed, it was all done legally and I did it myself and no animals or children or anyone else were 'injured'.

I work like this because I have learnt to manage risks by taking them, with me being the only one copping the downside if something goes wrong.

ASFAIK the world has stopped a proper learning process and the lawyers have taken over.

cheers, DL

[350RRC]

Your problem should you have had a prang but would you put kids in your car without making them put their seat belts on?

Having passengers lying down in the back of a van is seriously risky for them and very exxy for the community when things go pear shaped.

This is not just a normal prang risk situation.

DL

[Arapiles]

I remember the slogan of the Victorian road safety campaign in 1977 or thereabouts; 'Draw the line at 899'. Campaigning to get the state's annual road death toll under 900 persons, over four times what it was in 2018. There can be little doubt that the culture of seat-belt use has been the single biggest factor in the reduction in deaths. If people choose not to wear seat belts themselves that is one thing, but if they choose not to appropriately restrain their children that is another thing entirely.

And Victoria's population is almost double now what it was then.

(ABS - 3,852,589 in 1977 vs 6,359,000 now

[Arapiles]

nobody can do 240volt wiring yet in UK they can.


Did you know that you cannot use a hairdryer in a bathroom in the UK? This is because they simply don't provide power outlets within 3 metres of a bath or shower. Too dangerous on 240v, apparently. So you're going to need a very long cord if you want to dry your hair in there.

But then they install electric "power showers" ... but that's safe apparently ....

The experience of living in the UK is of having to put up with one ridiculous regulation after another, so it's probably not the example of a laissez faire country you were looking for ...

[Arapiles]

Back seat passengers need to ease seat belt as well.

A few years ago was an accident near me where car not going more than 30kph hit a small tree. Passenger in back not wearing seat belt hit seat in front breaking seat from mountings and pushing seat and occupant who was wearing seat belt into dash board and windscreen with resulting injuries and stay in hospital for both. If wearing seat belt both would have walked away.

Until 2008 back seat passengers in Japan didn't have to wear seat belts, and compliance is still patchy. My mother in law refused to wear a seat belt in the back seat so I didn't allow her to sit behind me. When I was asked why I said so that she didn't hit me when we braked hard and she went flying. And this is despite one of her friends who was in the back seat and not wearing a seat belt actually being killed in a collision at just 30kmh.

[3toes]

Did you know that you cannot use a hairdryer in a bathroom in the UK? This is because they simply don't provide power outlets within 3 metres of a bath or shower. Too dangerous on 240v, apparently. So you're going to need a very long cord if you want to dry your hair in there.

But then they install electric "power showers" ... but that's safe apparently ....

The experience of living in the UK is of having to put up with one ridiculous regulation after another, so it's probably not the example of a laissez faire country you were looking for ...

The bathroom one in the UK is due to regulations requiring a wet room standard switch and a switch board circuit breaker which is more expensive than a pull cord for the light and no power point.

House builders in the U.K. tend to be national organisations which take the cheapest option to maximise profits. This has resulted in people thinking this is normal

[1950landy]

Having passengers lying down in the back of a van is seriously risky for them and very exxy for the community when things go pear shaped.

This is not just a normal prang risk situation.

DL
When I was in school had a friend die in the back of a panel van when his father it rolled .

[PhilipA]

Here is another view.

I read a while ago that although many fewer people are actually killed in car accidents the number of serious injuries has increased greatly.
This has put great stress on hospitals and health services.

Which is cheaper for society as a whole ? That the Darwin Awards contestants get it over with and kill themselves or they spend their lives in and out of hospital at great expense to the community?

While I know that this is not a popular view , I would wear my seatbelt even if it were not compulsory, but there are many even now that do not. All those examples are from the past, but even without legislation in the USA seat belt use increased when it was not compulsory.

Most people don't know that seat belts and air bags only protect up to 60Kmh. Any accident on the highway where two cars collide head on at 100Kmh is potentially fatal.
Regards Philip A

[3toes]

Both population and numbers of cars have increased significantly with deaths showing a significant reduction over the same period. Does the increase in deaths reported in the media for holidays actually result in a higher risk as the number of journeys and miles traveled will have also increased over the ‘normal’ . Is the death rate actually lower over holidays?

[Tote]

Both population and numbers of cars have increased significantly with deaths showing a significant reduction over the same period. Does the increase in deaths reported in the media for holidays actually result in a higher risk as the number of journeys and miles traveled will have also increased over the ‘normal’ . Is the death rate actually lower over holidays?

Thats something I have pondered although living near one of the busiest interstate routes there would seem to be more siren activity during holiday periods simply because more people are on the road.
I suspect that the answer is actually more complicated:
A short holiday period will encourage more people to depart straight after work making them tired and potentially more likely to have an accident
The same short period condenses the time window that people are on the road so the roads are busier.
The actual days that holidays fall on also influences this, for instance Christmas falling on a Saturday means that more people will try and travel Friday night.
Similarly Easter can be a 4 day break with weeks between it and Anzac Day or they can be in the same week as this year.
The news cycle also has an impact - if there is no news a moral panic about the road toll is good ratings material.

Regards,
Tote

[Homestar]

Here is another view.

I read a while ago that although many fewer people are actually killed in car accidents the number of serious injuries has increased greatly.
This has put great stress on hospitals and health services.

Which is cheaper for society as a whole ? That the Darwin Awards contestants get it over with and kill themselves or they spend their lives in and out of hospital at great expense to the community?

While I know that this is not a popular view , I would wear my seatbelt even if it were not compulsory, but there are many even now that do not. All those examples are from the past, but even without legislation in the USA seat belt use increased when it was not compulsory.

Most people don't know that seat belts and air bags only protect up to 60Kmh. Any accident on the highway where two cars collide head on at 100Kmh is potentially fatal.
Regards Philip A

Just been looking and the below is based on Victorian Stats only. Serious injuries requiring Hospital stays over 14 days is pretty much the same now as it was in 2000 according to TAC’s data, but stays below 14 days have increased around 20% in the same period. In Vic, all Hospitalisations due to car crashes was just under 8,500 last year, in comparison over 400,000 PER MONTH are admitted to Victorian Hospitals overall. Car accidents appear to account for a tiny percentage of hospitalisations, so saying this is ‘putting great stress’ on Hospitals is a bit of a stretch IMO according to the data I can find. There are hundreds of things that kill and injure more Aussies than cars, but they don’t get anywhere near the focus for some reason.

[JDNSW]

Yeah, fatalities and serious injuries were far higher 'back in the day' even though car numbers were dramatically lower. Car design has a lot to do with this but attitudes to wearing seat belts, etc are too.

Car design has had a bit to do with it, but not as much as some think. The major improvements have been in attitudes to driving and roads.

The only safety innovations that have made a visible impact by themselves on the statistics have been compulsory seat belt wearing and random breath tests. (And note that a large proportion of fatalities involve not wearing seat belts and somewhere between 25 and 50% of fatalities involve a driver under the influence of alcohol or drugs)

MUARC reports based on insurance company data showed no apparent correlation between safety ratings of cars and real life death/injury statistics, probably because the biggest variable is the driver.

To measure the effect of road build on accident rates, all that is necessary is to note the far greater accident rate on undivided roads against divided roads, despite the fact that the average divided road carries much higher traffic loads at higher speeds. It is reasonable to expect that other improvements to roads such as edge marking, curve improvements etc also reduce the road toll.

Worth noting that in NSW at least, the typical fatal accident involves a single vehicle leaving a rural two lane road and hitting a fixed object, usually a tree.

[JDNSW]

Just been looking and the below is based on Victorian Stats only. Serious injuries requiring Hospital stays over 14 days is pretty much the same now as it was in 2000 according to TAC’s data, but stays below 14 days have increased around 20% in the same period. In Vic, all Hospitalisations due to car crashes was just under 8,500 last year, in comparison over 400,000 PER MONTH are admitted to Victorian Hospitals overall. Car accidents appear to account for a tiny percentage of hospitalisations, so saying this is ‘putting great stress’ on Hospitals is a bit of a stretch IMO according to the data I can find. There are hundreds of things that kill and injure more Aussies than cars, but they don’t get anywhere near the focus for some reason.

Yes. Suicide is a larger killer than road deaths in Australia, especially in rural areas (where, incidentally, road deaths are also higher than in cities).

[Homestar]

Yes. Suicide is a larger killer than road deaths in Australia, especially in rural areas (where, incidentally, road deaths are also higher than in cities).

Yep, and how much do we spend preventing that compared to car crashes. A tiny percentage I bet. 🙁

[JDNSW]

Bang on!

[RANDLOVER]

..........I would wear my seatbelt even if it were not compulsory, but there are many even now that do not. All those examples are from the past, but even without legislation in the USA seat belt use increased when it was not compulsory.

Most people don't know that seat belts and air bags only protect up to 60Kmh. Any accident on the highway where two cars collide head on at 100Kmh is potentially fatal.
Regards Philip A

Seat belts do help in a roll over, years ago a guy I worked with was killed when his car left the road, rolled and he broke his neck. So pro'ly a good idea to wear it even when not compulsory, such as 4wding off road.

[JDNSW]

My cars were fitted with seat belts, and I was wearing them, at least ten years before they became compulsory.

[mick88]

Worth noting that in NSW at least, the typical fatal accident involves a single vehicle leaving a rural two lane road and hitting a fixed object, usually a tree.[/QUOTE]


Side impact to a vehicle is still a big killer.
A 200-300mm encroachment into the side of a vehicle usually means that there has been at least 30% more on impact, so the occupant has taken the full force of the impact.

Cheers, Mick.

[V8Ian]

Yep, and how much do we spend preventing that compared to car crashes. A tiny percentage I bet. 🙁
There's no money in suicide prevention.

[Eevo]

There's no money in suicide prevention.

lost taxes?

[JDNSW]

Worth noting that in NSW at least, the typical fatal accident involves a single vehicle leaving a rural two lane road and hitting a fixed object, usually a tree.


Side impact to a vehicle is still a big killer.
A 200-300mm encroachment into the side of a vehicle usually means that there has been at least 30% more on impact, so the occupant has taken the full force of the impact.

Cheers, Mick.[/QUOTE]

Yes, and a lot of fatalities involve cars hitting a tree while travelling sideways!

[RANDLOVER]

Trees are incredibly hard, I've seen a car hit a tree and smash the whole front in, but it only knocked the bark off the tree.

[JDNSW]

Yes, and it doesn't need to be a very big tree either. 20cm trunk diameter will stop any car - might lose a little bit of bark.