Thread: Does anyone ever obey the speed limit

Originally Posted by Eevo

can do 240 in a silvia

Who needs a silvia ...................


photo host

Originally Posted by BMKal

Who needs a silvia ...................

good luck running from the cops in a disco

Originally Posted by Eevo

good luck running from the cops in a disco

You just head for the beach,or somewhere else appropriate

Why Australia's speed fixation won't lower the road toll - Ockham's Razor - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


Here's a good argument that our obsession with speed limits may be distracting us from something more important - driver training.
I agree with this. Some drivers are dangerous at any speed. An incompetent driver is more dangerous at 60 or 80 than a competent driver at 120.
Driving the Pacific Highway in NSW during the school holidays reminded me of how the traffic cops behave like cowboys racing around apparently harassing motorists over minor speed matters, as if all drivers are potentially dangerous lunatics. Obviously there are some dangerous lunatics and they should be harassed, but the emphasis should be on bad driving actions, not merely on speed.
So, why do our road safety authorities spend so much time harassing motorists who wander a few km/h over the speed limit, and pay so little attention to bad driving habits? Why don't we see traffic cops being trained to pull up drivers who are driving badly and educate them on how to improve their driving? Why don't we require completion of a basic driving skills course, focused on defensive driving and awareness of traffic around us? You have to pass a first aid course to hand out Panadol to sick kids, so why not require better driver training, like other countries?
What do you think?

True words Disco. A few years back when they implemented a speed limit in the Paris-Dakar rally, the death toll went up, with some experts rightly stating that contestants were distracted whilst trying to concentrate on driving, having to look at their speedos.


Yes in the normal highway, we have cruise control and such like, so there isn't really an excuse, you speed, you get caught, you pay the fine. I accept that.


But as for the police concentrating on speed rather than other behaviour, for one, most people behave surprisingly well when a patrol car is in sight, but the other big issue is that speed fines are easy, they are like shooting fish in a barrel, and while you have governments who think or say that speed is the be all and end all, and while they are enjoying the huge amounts of revenue from those fines....then they just continually pressure the police for fines, yes the much denied quotas, not called that, but they are there, and if an officer has worked all shift going to domestics, road crashes, whatever, and then finds that he hasn't got his required 'statistics', he will whip the laser out and have one within minutes.


So I take the attitude, the officer has to do their job, I am the one who was caught doing the wrong thing....I have to cop it sweet!!

Yes, maybe in addition to merely fining people, which doesn't improve driving skills, the police/courts should have the power to require a driver to attend a specified driver training course within a certain period of time or suffer a penalty, such as loss of points. After all, if the aim is safer roads, not revenue-raising, as is officially claimed, then why not require better training for drivers when necessary?
Obviously such driver training courses would have to be regulated to ensure good standards, but there are already procedures in place to train and licence driving instructors, so it should be possible to require specific training for drivers with specific skills problems.


The problem with having a set speed limit is it requires all traffic to travel at the same speed, which is not necessarily a good idea in all situations. The advantage of dual lane roads is that they allow vehicles to travel at differing speeds and still pass each other without causing crashes.

Hi
I guess speed is easy to quantify, (radar/digital read-out)

Idiotometers aren't that accurate yet.

Cheers

Originally Posted by austastar

Idiotometers aren't that accurate yet.

Cheers

Mines pretty well calibrated... Almost peaks off the scale at work most days...