Zoom Encourages Speeding?

[F|sh]

sorry then cookie i guess u drive in the right hand lane for a 5kms at 80 in a 110 zone then and then turn to go up another street than.

[Cookiemonster]

Originally posted by F|sh
sorry then cookie i guess u drive in the right hand lane for a 5kms at 80 in a 110 zone then and then turn to go up another street than.

We were discussing school zones and residential speed limits. From out of the blue you plucked 'driving slow in the right hand lane'. Doesn't sound like a reasonable discussion to me.

Now you have me driving 80k's in the right hand lane of a 110k zone.. when in actual fact Im parked in front of the high school watching how many drivers have commonsense.

[Cookiemonster]

I agree with some of your opinions. In fact I've intentionally refrained on voicing my personal opinion in the hopes to generate a lively and mature discussion.

Personally I am not in agreement with all the current road rules. I agree with some of them.. but not all of them. But put yourself in the shoes or someone who has to write the laws. Putting forth rules which will cover a range of people from country hicks, through reponsible road users, through race freaks, adolescents and old people etc etc is not easy.

And no, I have not lost any relatives via a motoring accident.

[Cookiemonster]

Originally posted by rusty
not sure how thats meant to work..

id actually like to hear your opinion if you dont mind.

You get more objective and thoughtout opinions from people when you keep asking them questions to prove their point. If I was to plant my feet in the ground and say 'this is what I think' then you get the usually complete opposite counter-arguments simply due to the fact that they are counter-arguments. But enough of that psychological rant..

In relation to speeding here some of the road rules I think are OK. For instance I am quite happy with the 40kph speed limit around schools. Having 2 young children, one which is in primary school, is a definite factor in my liking of this speed limit.

Im also happy with the 50kph speed limit in built-up residential areas. Plenty of kids riding bikes, plenty of drive-ways, plenty of pedestrians, plenty of pets. You can be the best driver in the world but you can't see into the future. You don't know what will step out in front of you next.

This is just 2 examples.

Some of the speeding rules im not happy about is the obvious blanket 110kph on our major arterials. Some roads are built such that higher speeds can be safely achieve. The problem though lies in the fact that this safe excellent roadway can suddenly turn into a potholed gravelly road in no time. Drving down to the snow from Sydney the roads goes from bad to average to good to excellent and back to bad again. Can we have a 150kph zone suddenly become an 80kph zone?

What we really need is for a much better maintenance program for our roads. If we can build a road that can sustain a higher speed limit for a good stretch of distance then perhaps we may just get a chance at raising some speed limits.

The question this raises then is - what incentive does the government have for upgrading our roads? Something I know I don't have an answer to.

[dazsta]

continuing on from cookiemonsters post...I'll put down my 2c worth.


It really is a very difficult situation, but IMHO Driver Education targetting vehicle control and dynamics / decision making/ attitude and plain old common sense will need to be a very very big part of it.

I didn't used to think this way, until I was a passenger in my aunties car recently.

We're in a 80 zone and she was about 5 metres away the rear bumper. If I was the car infront id be more than annoyed at the car travelling so close behind me at that speed. So I asked my auntie, "why are you so close to the car infront"

Her reply was " oh, whats wrong with being so close"

me: "can you stop in time if the car ifnront brakes sharply"

her: "I've never really thought about that I always drive this close"

This was quite an eye opener for me....previously my view of tailgaters has been "#$%$% idiot, get the #$%$ back, #$%$#%$# idiot, how do you expect to stop in time $#%$ idiot!!"

Yet here I was in a car tailgating another car, driven by an otherwise model citizen who has NO idea that she is doing something wrong and dangerous.

From this I concluded there are large number of drivers out here who for some reason do not know some simple issues involved in road safety and whats more, chances are they have never been exposed to some issues or/and have never been told (educated) about them.

Every second day I'll be driving on a motorway, throwing my arms up thinking why the hell am I doing 90km/h on this 3 lane road in the middle of the night struggling to stay awake at this mind numbing speed, when I can safely do 150km/h in my well maintained vehicle will being no danger to anyone else??? ( chances are I also come across someone who decides to sit in the right hand lane at 80 km/h an hr as well),

Yet as soon as it starts raining more often than not you hear of multiple car pileups on all our aterial roads. Once again my arms go up "no way we can have higher speed limits, $#%#$% idiots don't know how to drive......its raining, leave a bigger gap for christs sake....why do we always have multiple car pileups....plain dumb!"


IMO people need to be educated about the following as mentioned earlier....

Vehicle control/dynamics: ie. how long 1 tonne objects take to slow down/change direction. Also, no you are not michael schumacher, physics will always win. On the vehicle control side I don't mean every driver should be the next world rally champion...but rather show the simple things....emergency braking from a number of speeds (higher than speed limit also to show how difficult things can be)......emergency braking with evasive manouvres.... show how easily cars can become out of control....and how $#%$ hard it is to regain control.

Attitude: seriously some guys are just heroes on the roads, this needs to be slapped out of them as early as possible. IE. You are not better than anyone else, everyone has a right to use the road, be courteous to others, accept some people may make mistakes, give them a smile and move on.


Decision making: cookieboy mentioned 40 km/h zones......I've got no problem with this.....although in a perfect world I would like to see people slow down to 40 or less in any zone when hazards present themselves. IE. the rainy days situation above....people should have the knowledge about certain aspects to make informed and intelligent decisions.....eg.. its raining...hasn't rained for ages, roads will be slippery ...hence I'll leave a larger gap to slow down, accelerate/brake less sharply and more smoothly, take corners slower than usual....be alert for other drivers who may not have taken these precautions......etc...foggy situations, deteriorating roads....if the road is dodgy drive at a suitable speed. If the guy behind is in a brand new evo 8 and can do double your speed while scandanavian flicking thru the twisties and around the potholes....let him pass when safe......etc

I beleive if the govt can somehow introduce a system which educates drivers about some of the points above then it may go a long way to improving road safety, making driving less frustrating and perhaps.........higher speed limits where reasonable.

and if you read all of that, go ask cookiemonster fro your free cookie.... :D

[Cookiemonster]

Wooohooo!.. I got a free cookie!...


...from me.


Good post Dazsta, but again it comes back to what incentives does the goverment have to introduce more thorough driver training programs?

[Nero]

dazta I agree with most of what you have written.
I would make this point in addition. There is no gurantee that bc someone has a lic they are competant to control a car.
I have been driving for awhils and have motorsport interest for at least 10 years....I would generally consider myself to be adequate in average conditions and not nearly good as I would like.

[muttaburra]

thats a long post.

two things. why does the bloke in the pic appear to have both feet on the brake pedal, and why isnt the shift light on? some one mention that none of the centre guages work. why would you spend a shit load on a engine conversion and have 3 important guages not hooked up? more money than brains?
i think its photoshopped.

on road saftey. the state and federal governments of australia are not interested in fixing the road problems we have. the states are addicted to revenue from speed fines, much like poker machines (and they do more damage to society). The bigest killer on our roads is fatigue and the simplest way to fix this is to increase the speed limits. However with this you must improve driver abilities and unless the governments make it compusalry it wont happen and who pays for this?

Many of the roads i have seen in the southern states are awersome and would happily handle a greater speed limit but as long as most of us are alive it wont happen. lets face it doenst mater what car you are in if you hit a bus at anything above 100kph your chances of survival are very very low. if the driver is able to avoid the bus in the first place their wont be a problem. but again this comes with education and someone has to pay for it or make it compulsary.

I cant say im a angel when it comes to cars, i have tested the speed limit of every car i have ever owned, on a very quiet road and honestly i reakon your concentration is much greater due to the higher speed, unfortunately the freindly police officer doesnt feel the same way.

40kph speed limits in high risk areas are great however you have to get people to slow down which doesnt work. in Townsville the police have been targeting school zones which i think is better than 100kph straight bits of highway in broad daylight on a week day.

1 other thing. isnt the road toll suppose to be the worst its been in a few years, good to see all the speed camera's are doing their job.

[dazsta]

Originally posted by Cookiemonster
Wooohooo!.. I got a free cookie!...


...from me.


Good post Dazsta, but again it comes back to what incentives does the goverment have to introduce more thorough driver training programs?

the million dollar question!

a) I'm thinking the only way we could do it, is if we somehow get a big enough group of motoring enthusasts together...so that our votes as a whole would be a considerable amount. Probably impossible.

b) wait till Fatboy's in parliament.

[Cookiemonster]

a) I agree.. probably impossible.

b) God help us all.

[krawler]

Without writing a massive long post...

I think very few "accidents" on our roads are caused by poor driving ability, more the drivers absolute inattention to the situation around them.

Mechanically, a person may be able to stop safely and correctly, negotiate a tight corner etc etc.

But when put on the open road, they tend to change lanes without shoulder checking (or just as bad, checking but not verifying the vehicles speed so they end up pulling out in front of a car doing their speed +20k/hour), take their eyes off the road for extended periods to look at "shiny things", sit in the right hand lane because they're thinking about something they just heard on the radio... etc etc

Maybe rather than driver training which focuses alot on mechanical ability, driver training on the road (maybe an extended learners that occurs after you get your provisionals?) that covers things like common courtesy, concentrates more on the finer points of driving "normally" (to me that means 'like the "hoons" they show on today tonight but minus the one or two they managed to find doing a burnout') wihout puttering around like a lemming, bouncing off each other etc (the public remind me of homers sperm in that simpsons episode....)

I'm just cranky that despite losing 12 points on a 4 point Ps license (and a further 3 on my opens) all for speeding, I've never caused an accident, been in an accident, clipped a gutter while reverse parking, clipped another car while doing anything at all, rear ended, locked up the brakes and avoided an accident by luck, etc etc. Although I take complete blame for hitting a low flying brick wall in my work van (damn thing was out of my field of vision but hey, my ****up).

[08RUT]

every k over is a thriller




sheesh

[dazza]

Originally posted by Cookiemonster
Good post Dazsta, but again it comes back to what incentives does the goverment have to introduce more thorough driver training programs?

.... But cookie remember it's speeding that kills not the ****wits on our roads that don't know how to drive!

[Cookiemonster]

Originally posted by dazza
.... But cookie remember it's speeding that kills not the ****wits on our roads that don't know how to drive!

It's very hard to make a radar gun which measures fcuk-witedness.

[Cookiemonster]

Yes, thats exactly what I was saying.

More advance licencing system would only go so far as well though. How many of us drove like perfect angels to get our P's?

"Yes sir" "No sir" "3 bags full sir". We all did and said exactly what they want to hear to get our licence. Then first drive with the P's plates - how many of us drove like perfect angels then?

Too many people suffer from it-won't-happen-to-me syndrome or im-the-best-driver-around delusions or frightening combinations of the two. How do you test for this?