Thread: Look out for all the coppers on the road

Originally Posted by Sprint

still cant believe i got booked for 14km/h over on the highway last week....... got a lecture about my "life endangering offence" less than 10 minutes before i got into town and had to contend with people doing well in excess of 80 in a 60 zone, illegal overtaking and morons in prado's failing to give way

life endangering? gawd, the only life in danger was mine from nearly busting my guts laughing

I'm afraid the only thing I find hard to believe here is that you've come online to complain about this.

YOU broke the speed limit, YOU were in the wrong. YOU got caught & the other idiots on the road didn't. Big Deal. Next time it may be their turn (and I bet they'll cry that what they were doing wasn't dangerous too.)

So the big nasty police officer gave you a patronising lecture? I'm betting you weren't the first driver he pulled over that day who swore his speeding wasn't dangerous.

I took it that he was not complaining about getting booked just the (as you put it) patronising lecture. I don't think the cop needed to justify giving the ticket.

Highway patrol can be a different breed from other cops. I have a friend who when working at a police station a new probationary constable when reporting to the desk on his first day, a highway officer who followed him in gave him a ticket for failing to indicate when he turned into the entrance.

Having said that have had another one stop behind me with lightswhen I was changing a tyre just to stop me getting hit.

John could you please link your source information for the "facts" quoted in your post? I find some of them hard to believe.

My real world experience is that two of the four traffic accidents that I attended last month resulted from driver inattention caused by mobile phones. Thankfully neither was fatal. I trust my eyes more than I trust statistics.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

To repeat what I have said before. If you look at any of the reports of random breath test campaigns (such as the ACT one mentioned above), you will find that in almost all cases the proportion of over the limit compared to number of tests is almost always less than 1%, usually way less. Then consider that around 30% of dead drivers are over the limit, and just think for a moment what this says about the major cause of road deaths; it is not speeding (although speeding is often involved, as is not wearing a seat belt and unlicenced/driving an uninsured, unregistered car). It is not speeding that is the major cause of road deaths.

The problem with speed is that in many cases the speed limit is unrealistic - I could give any number of examples - but this is no excuse, nor is the fact that everybody else is speeding; you know the law and if you get booked you almost always have yourself to blame (the exceptions would be poor or non-existent signs).

A few other facts to consider:-

1. Contrary to implications by the authorities, road deaths over holiday periods are rarely higher than over any similar non-holiday period, and the fatality rate is invariably lower than a normal period when considered on a car-kilometre basis. Double demerits have not been shown to have any effect on statistics!

2. Current road death rates are (give or take noise on statistics) the lowest ever on Australian roads on a car-kilometre basis, which is the only sensible way of looking at it. The reasons for this are not hard to find - better roads, seat belts and random breath tests, and to a small extent, better driving attitudes.

3. While phone use may contribute to a few accidents, the fact that a massive increase in mobile phone use over the last fifteen years from rare to almost universal has made no discernible impact on road statistics (which continued to drop) despite the fact that many people use them while driving, shows that they cannot be a major cause of accidents. The reason for this is probably that the people who allow them to interfere with driving are probably going to allow other things to do so as well, thus having their accident while changing stations, doing their hair, shaving, eating lunch etc.

John

Smoky B

It's like the majority of people sitting in prisons around the country, it's always the Police's fault that they are in there, nothing to do with the crime that they committed. Although that said, there are always a small number of genuinely innocent people wrongly caught up in the system.

Back to the thread, IMHO if someone was going 14KPH over the limit, cop it and the lecture that goes along with it. It is better than giving a bit of lip and them deciding to go through your car with a fine tooth comb, they can always find something else to give more tickets for.

Diana

Originally Posted by SmokyBear

John could you please link your source information for the "facts" quoted in your post? I find some of them hard to believe.

My real world experience is that two of the four traffic accidents that I attended last month resulted from driver inattention caused by mobile phones. Thankfully neither was fatal. I trust my eyes more than I trust statistics.

I do not have time to chase them up at the moment. But just consider the fact that mobile phones were almost unheard of fifteen years ago. Today there are about two per adult in Australia. During that period the accident rate per kilometre has decreased rather than increased, and anyone who thinks that mobiles are not widely used while driving is blind. Given then that mobiles are widely used while driving, but accident rates have not gone up, maybe someone else can give a reason other than that they are not a major cause of accidents.

Certainly, they can cause accidents, but if they were a major cause it would show up in the statistics. It is all very well to say you trust your eyes rather than statistics, but unfortunately statistics are very much more reliable than eyes when we are talking about overall effects among a large number of events. Take the example of the relation between smoking and health - statistics; Take the relation between cholera and contaminated water - statistics. Take the relation between typhoid and carriers - statistics.

John

Speed kills, the ads say. So how do police manage to stay alive with all the speeding they do? Do lights, siren and a little certificate from an advanced driving course do it?

Smashed police cars on the news again. I guess not.

I know that we need limits, but its the politicisation of it all that gets me.

When we have no tickets ever issues for speeding, because everyone adheres to the speed limit, but people are still killed on the road, then what happens?

It won't happen, but the blind acceptance of 'speeding kills' and doing 1km/h over a set limit is dangerous to all and sundry is frightening. It has implications for us as a society that goes far, far beyond anything to do with speed limits.

Speed doesn't kill per say, its the sudden stop that gets ya.

Originally Posted by SmokyBear

I'm afraid the only thing I find hard to believe here is that you've come online to complain about this.

*sighs*

if you paid attention like your training is supposed to have you do, you wouldve noticed in a later post that i happily accepted the fact that i'd been caught exceeding the posted speed limit, and that i was happy enough to pay the fine and wear the demerits

what i WAS NOT happy about was the lecture i recieved, considering the dangerous and illegal driving i see on an hourly basis from my desk at work (not forgetting 5 minutes later when i arrived in town)

i'm happy to wear the punishment for exceeding the speed limit, but it makes the officer seem incredibly hypocritical when so much illegal and much more dangerous stuff goes unnoticed in town because all the cops are on the highway

if the officer was serious about preventing injuries/deaths on the roads, he could do so a LOT more effectively sitting on the side of the road out front of where i work

Originally Posted by CaverD3

I took it that he was not complaining about getting booked just the (as you put it) patronising lecture. I don't think the cop needed to justify giving the ticket.

the officer didnt need to justify anything, he was doing his job

Originally Posted by CaverD3

Highway patrol can be a different breed from other cops.

ive found up here that the local highway patrol/traffic officers tend to be less gung ho about thier job, and i have even been told "its generally not worthwhile pulling someone over for 15-20km/h over, because by the time ive hit the lights, turned around and pulled them over, some clown will have gone past at 130+"

i have also found that its the probabtionary constables who go feral issuing everyone (including, as i have since found out, the local ambulance driver who got ticketed with a patient in the ambulance) forgetting that the local population have been here a long time, and will still be here a long time after the probie has been and gone, and will feel no ill effect

what the probationary contables also seem to forget, is that whilst they might be out of thier comfort zone of the city, the "hick towns" where they're sent to require just as much, if not more diplomacy to get the locals on side..... and out here, its much easier to enforce the law if you have the locals on your side.....