Victorian new Drink/Drug Driving laws.

I am not sure to what extent these revisions in road rules are directly driven by statistics or by other agendas.

I do remember that an episode of "Mythbusters" identified that somebody talking on a mobile phone was in less control of their vehicle than a person with some degree of BAC (I can't recall what limit they used as although this was an Aussie inspired production, the events took place in America.)

On a slightly different tack, we had a discussion at work on this whole subject and somebody came up with the statistic that there may be more people under the influence of drugs on the road than alcohol. If, and I stress if, that were true I would find that far more alarming. I am also aware that people pulled over for a breath test are also likely to be drug tested. I suspect, but don't know, that the drug test tends to only take place if the police are suspicious of the vehicle occupants as testing is still quite expensive.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Sturdee

I understand this as well and agree with the logic behind it but when you look into the details it is disastrous. Did you know that when a police car with lights flashing is booking a driver on the other side of say a 4 lane road (not being a divided road) you must lower your speed to 40 k else they can book you as well.

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Maybe its to reduce the impact speed of the rubber neckers ploughing into the back of the other vehicles?

Is passing flashing lights at a speed greater than 40km/h considered "speeding"? I was under the impression it was a different offence with a different penalty system.

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If a school is on a main road with a normal speed limit greater than 60km/h, then there should be no school zone. Councils should be required to put adequate fencing between the footpath and the road, and a footbridge/tunnel built for pedestrian traffic.

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On Pennant Hills Rd. in Sydney there is a stretch with high schools on each side of the road, a fence on the median strip to prevent crossing and a footbridge to cross the road, but it still has a 40km/h limit.

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Originally Posted by BobL

Maybe its to reduce the impact speed of the rubber neckers ploughing into the back of the other vehicles?

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No. It's to guarantee that a rubber necker will run into you. I prefer to travel at whatever speed the rest of the trafic is doing.

Short sighted measures designed to create a temporary spike in someone's quarterly results, and that someone will have moved to a bigger and better role when the results ultimately stagnate and prove ineffective.

We have many bad drivers, we need to teach them how to drive properly, and that's bloody hard and takes a lot of time and money. Not good for quick spikes in quarterly results.
We have people on the road who not only never give the right of way but actually speed up when you indicate you want to merge, just to make sure you don't merge. That's an Australian phenomenon, I've never seen it anywhere else before. People who have no idea where their car starts and where it ends, and freak out when they don't have 5m space in every direction. Drivers who can't manoeuvre to save their lives and look like they've never used reverse before. Drivers who slow down almost to a halt on the freeway causing miles of bottlenecks because someone is changing a tyre on the service lane and they want to have a look (that's also pretty unique to Australia, and completely inexplicable). Drivers who think their car is suddenly on scates because it rained. People who buy way bigger cars than they can actually control.

They are everywhere, and they need to learn how to drive. You can punish people all you like, but they still will not know how to drive.



PS Sorry about the rant. I'm talking generally about their approach, not these specific measures.

We should not slow down at schools. If they can't get across the road we don't want them to breed.

NSW introduced the double demerits system years ago, the shock value lasted about two holiday weekends and everything returned to normal with no discernible decrease in "accidents" (no such thing they are all caused) that I know of.

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Originally Posted by Pagie

We should not slow down at schools. If they can't get across the road we don't want them to breed.

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Whilst I realise that this was written tongue in cheek, SWMBO mirrors the same sentiments with school crossing guards.

At the core of her argument is that we are breeding the future generations to become dependant on someone else, and by definition not be accountable for their own actions.

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Originally Posted by cava

Whilst I realise that this was written tongue in cheek, SWMBO mirrors the same sentiments with school crossing guards.

At the core of her argument is that we are breeding the future generations to become dependant on someone else, and by definition not be accountable for their own actions.

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It's not just accountability, it's outright dangerous
These kids will go on holidays to places like Asia, and they will go to a dangerous beach that doesn't say "don't jump", and they will jump.
Using brain -> not a bad thing

What a bunch of grumpy old men.
The same bunch of people complaining we should stick to "survival of the fittest" are usually the ones saying how slack and inactive kids of today and why aren't they like us. Well my take is that the ground rules have changed - dramatically- the traffic density is out of control and then we expect young kids to cross busy roads without any help? The net result is MORE kids being driven to school compounding the traffic density.
Shame on all of you.

RE: Rubber necker collisions
I agree it won't prevent rubbernecker collisions, but a vehicle at 60 kph has 2.25 x more KE than one at 40 kph, which would you rather be run into by?

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Originally Posted by cava

Whilst I realise that this was written tongue in cheek, SWMBO mirrors the same sentiments with school crossing guards.

At the core of her argument is that we are breeding the future generations to become dependant on someone else, and by definition not be accountable for their own actions.

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This may be true to a point but ultimately, children or anyone is the result of 1) the gene's of the parents 2) the parents input into their children in the formative years 3) children to a large extent mirror the actions of their parents and their peers. I see this in the attitude of drivers in particular.
In regard to signage, there is a plethora of warning signs, etc 99% of the time. There is no substitute for keeping an eye on the road and the immediate environs including the use of all your mirrors.
Road rules and the ever changing/addition of new ones is the responsibility of the authorities, my view is it should be mandatory for a 1 month saturation of all forms of media to educate and make aware of any such changes/additions.
With regard to alcohol and drugs, there is not a person alive in Australia that is not aware of the law and driving relating to these and the simple answer is ZERO for both, no excuses, no free passes, if you injure anyone as a result of these, you pay 100% cost to injured party and any emergency services costs (yes I know there are those who will never be able to pay but take a percentage out of what ever income /support they have until it is paid off). As Ray Hadley says "you can't put brains in statues" also applies to a lot of our politicians as well.
I'm sure plenty will disagree with me and yes, I have been guilty of some of these in the past (not drugs) but am a lot wiser and careful now.

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Originally Posted by cava

Whilst I realise that this was written tongue in cheek, SWMBO mirrors the same sentiments with school crossing guards.

At the core of her argument is that we are breeding the future generations to become dependant on someone else, and by definition not be accountable for their own actions.

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No no, the crossing guards are AWESOME! They are the best best thing since sliced bread. Without them, the school kids cross the roads in dribs and drabs effectively stopping traffic completely. But the awesome crossing guards tell those annoying little kids to stand there and shuddup and wait a moment until there is a decent group ready to cross all at once. It's efficient.

I can't wait for Auto-cars to become a reality.

Not because I drink, but 98% of the time I just want to go to a place, not own and drive a car to get there.

Imagine a totally automated fleet of electric cars! No more carparks! Less traffic! No more god damned politicians picking our pockets for trivial transgressions!

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Originally Posted by BobL

What a bunch of grumpy old men.
The same bunch of people complaining we should stick to "survival of the fittest" are usually the ones saying how slack and inactive kids of today and why aren't they like us. Well my take is that the ground rules have changed - dramatically- the traffic density is out of control and then we expect young kids to cross busy roads without any help? The net result is MORE kids being driven to school compounding the traffic density.
Shame on all of you.

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For the record, i'm not against school zones, i'm against them being in place where there are measures to keep pedestrians off busy, high speed arterial roads. I will accept an arguement that by high school, you probably shouldn't need them though...

To rwbuild's and others comments around driving under the influence of drugs, while i agree wholeheartedly, i disagree with the current method of policing. The MDT's test for traces of illicit drugs in your system, if any are found, you get done. The problem though is that it doesn't determine whether you're under the influence, just that you have trace amounts. Something like marijuana takes a couple of weeks to leave your system, while the effects last a couple of hours... So people are being charged with DUI when really, they should be charged with recreational drug use. I believe this is also distorting the figures of Drug Driving.

I don't take drugs. Other than smoking a joint when i was 20, I've never touched them. I'm just saying that there are a lot of people getting charged with DUI when they arent... and if we go down the path of medicinal marijuana, this needs to be addressed.