I know this subject has been done to death on this forum many times so I guess once more won’t hurt. But honestly, what is it with Canberra drivers ??
Last night at around 1745 I drove from City to Chisholm. Trying to think of what would be the quickest way there I elected to cruise the Parkway, shoot across Sulwood and then cut through Gowrie then into Chisholm.
All was going well until I hit the area around the speed cameras near Cotter Road. Heres some friendly helpful advice from someone who is on the road 12 hours a day for work, 100kph zone means you can STILL drive at 100kph and not get caught by a camera. There is absolutely NO NEED to slow down to 80 or 90kph “just to be sure”. Rightly or wrongly I drive past those ones at 105kph and haven’t been photographed yet. They do have a tolerance slightly (as do they all in ACT) over the speed limit so slowing down is not necessary and just pisses off your fellow road users.
Then I get to Hindmarsh Dr overpass and the traffic has come to a screaming halt. Traffic backed up from Sulwood Dr lights to Hindmarsh Dr. Why ?? A simple rear ender down about 1k north of Sulwood lights. They were off to the side of the road, not hampering anyones progress and just having a casual chat with the local plod who had turned up.
Its a rear ender for goodness sakes. It happens everyday in Canberra somewhere and quite frankly its not worth having a good long geek at. Slowing right down to walking pace so you don’t have a nose to tail all of your own so you have have a good look at the damage and go “ooohhh ahhhh” FFS!, Just keep driving.
And while I am on my rant. Canberra drivers would do very well to check their rear lights now and again. I know its a case of out of sight out of mind, or ‘my front lights are working so every other light must be too’, get out and check them occasionally. I lose count of how many cars are bashing around Canberra every night with no rear lights.
Whinge over,,enjoy your ride home.
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Is someone going to give bighead an even bigger one. Lot of effort there. I dips me lid.
Devil_n_Disquiz said :
Ha, that’s not an offence. Not any more it’s not. Driving from Qbn to Canberra on the airport road, it’s astonishing how many back hoes and animal trucks are trundling along during morning rush hour at 40 kms/hr…. It’s a 100 kms/hr zone!!!! It can be backed up into Qbn, the cars at the back never even know what caused the crawl. Offence, ha.
bighead said :
Today I was honked by an impatient twit.
I stopped at one of those “Turn Left Permitted on Red Light After Stopping” signs. I was stationery for no more than a second or two as I checked for traffic (the others had the green), and before I had a chance to turn left, the imbecile behind me gave me a blast with his pithy-sounding Audi horn.
Memories came flooding back, and this prompted me to move off in the same manner as my late and great 94 year old grandfather.
Tooters, gotta love ‘em.
@missjill
I am a believer that cars need 2 types of horns. The first one needs to be a polite little toot that just lets someone know to do something. The second one needs to be a loud roar with a HURRY UP kind of sound.
Although, I can’t see the second one been needed in Canberra, Much better for Sydney with people that are slow on the light that stays green for all of about 6 seconds
Gave someone a little toot earlier after they sat at the lights for 5 seconds not doing anything. And they straight away turned the corner. It works perfectly well in those situations.
bighead said :
Yes! I think it’s all in the wrist action. Just a light push of the steering wheel is all that’s needed. The art of horn tooting; now there’s a Facebook idea!
When I was young (circa 1985), I had a one of those musical horns.
Have they gone out of fashion? Is it now regarded as ‘daggy’ to have a musical horn on, say, your hotted up midnight blue WRX with red/green P-plates and a hefty bank loan 18% interest attached to it?
Lenient said :
Lenient, IF that was a crack at me, I’ve checked my post again and can’t see any reference to (or implication of) ‘banality of posts’.
Hold on a sec and I’ll check again.
No, still not there. Maybe you were thinking of someone else.
bd84 said :
I’ll refrain from my own comments about Casey Stoner and his ilk on the roads, but I’ll just say, ‘Be careful what you wish for’.
A couple of years ago I was heading home (to Belco at the time) when I saw a motorcyclist came ducking and weaving and screaming up Barry Drive at a rate of knots. I cursed and probably mumbled my late father’s fave saying: ‘He’s running late for his own funeral’.
A couple of minutes later we rounded the base of Black Mountain and there was said motorcyclist sprawled across the road on the other side of a mangled centre guard rail, very much no longer a going concern.
Apologies if I told that story on a previous thread before; I’m getting deja vu.
Apologies if I told that story on a previous thread before; I’m getting deja vu.
While we’re on this subject…
I was riding to work today on my motorbike and I was trailing another cycle and what happened – some big ass ford moves into my lane absolutely parralel to me and nearlly killed me.
for christ sake – if your going to change lanes check your mirrors and do your damn headcheck. It’s not frcuking hard to turn your head a little to see other motorists. It will let you lose a couple of kilojules and save lives – that’s two pluses. And if your not willing to do your headcheck then discover the pluses of buses.
But yeh – you really need to be aware that alot of Canberra drivers are careless. Please pay more attention on the roads – You’ll do the country a favour.
Whinge Out!
what i can’t fathom here is the seeming acceptance that a posted speed limit – note, limit (look it up) – must be the speed at which all traffic on the road must absolutely have to in all circumstances travel…
madman said :
Don’t worry it’s not just bikes they don’t see. I had a moron in a white VN Commodore try and merge into me on canberra avenue last night with no indicator. I hit the horn twice and he just came over faster. I hit my brakes but it still didn’t get me out of the way fast enough. my only option was to go up the median strip at 60kph. Needless to say my new wheels are all scraatched and after reporting it at Woden police they won’t do crap about, even with his number plate.
The worst part was that after i put half my car on the median strip and then got it back on the road without damaging the diff or drivetrain (not easy in a lowered AWD), this young guy leans out the drivers window and gives me the finger. If I see the bastard his life won’t be worth living.
Hornblasters FTW:
http://www.hornblasters.com/video.php?pic=56
missjill said :
I always wanted a horn that played Dixie, but someone said they were illegal, so I ended up with a one-tone airhorn instead (it has 2 trumpets though). It’s quite handy. I’d still like one that plays Dixie though. Or a train horn.
I propose re-testing of drivers every ten years and a road rules knowledge test every five (when renewing licences).
Here here !!! I totally agree, it would help with peak hour traffic, Parking would be easier to find and ACTION would get more business. Coz lets face it – more than 50% would fail a resit test ! I probably would.
As for shitty drivers, what part of “RIGHT LANE MUST TURN RIGHT” is hard to understand. 3 times now I have almost T-Boned a car at a set of lights at Westfield Belconnen. Both lanes turn right, with the right hand lane – right turn only. All 3 times I have been in the left hand lane to turn right, only to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting someone going straight in the right lane.
Seriously its dangerous, if you have gotten in the wrong lane, put your hazard lights on and wait until there is no traffic before you go, or turn like your meant to. If your the only one at a set of lights (which was the case on Tuesday night) you had ample time to change into the correct lane to avoid a potential accident.
Please note – i’m not angry this has happened ONCE, a one off. I’m angry that in the last month this has happened THREE TIMES.
”I’m not going to risk a fine just to check whether my speedo is calibrated the same as the cameras”
GPS is a pretty accurate speedo.
There has even been a case in NSW where a guy had a GPS that data logged and was blipped for going over the speed limit.
He took it to court with his telemetry and won….
As for all the other crap about canberra drivers… Done. To. Death.
Is there really a problem here??
Canberra drivers slowing down for speed cameras, cutting you off, or queue jumping – who really gives a sh*t. It happens in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart. Drivers are the same everywhere. You’ve got your good, bad and indifferent.
As for training and driving tests every few years – sounds like a good idea but pretty expensive.
Just be thankful you don’t live in India where over 100,000 people die on the road every year.
@ Bungle “Just be thankful you don’t live in India where over 100,000 people die on the road every year.”
You say that like it is a bad thing.
Ha, that’s not an offence. Not any more it’s not. Driving from Qbn to Canberra on the airport road, it’s astonishing how many back hoes and animal trucks are trundling along during morning rush hour at 40 kms/hr…. It’s a 100 kms/hr zone!!!! It can be backed up into Qbn, the cars at the back never even know what caused the crawl. Offence, ha.
I believe that it is not an offence when you are progressing at your “best speed”. So a road registered back-hoe trundling along at at 40km/h is going at its best speed, where as some nancy in a 2008 Camry dawdling along at 75km in a 100km zone on a dry sunny day is in fact a danger to other road users and could be issued with an infingement notice. Politically it might be hard to manage in Canberra, where the sensitive little darling would probably go an have a whinge to the media, but I bleive that technically it is an offence.
Ingee, how can you doubt Ant the sage? I suppose the answer is bleeding obvious. Ant is an idiot, self proclaimed expert on the law and policing in general. The only reason I read the R-Act is to laugh myself stupid at his/her stupid rantings.
Please Ant, never stop.
Special G said :
Have you seen the price of Banannas? Absolute bargains…
I must confess, I drive a clapped out magna that doesn’t blow smoke, the engine is fine apart from the death rattle it gets when it is idling at the lights. to prevent the engine leaping onto the road, I put it in neutral. many times, many, many times, I have put it into drive after the light has turned green. 1-2 second delay. nearly every time, I have had a moron behind me beep their horn. Yes, I know… the light has gone green! Wow! Thanks for pointing it out! I would have sat there in neutral otherwise.
The fact that I am driving a VIC plated car, shouldn’t get me into much trouble, should it?
It does. I am the target to be:
merged on (maybe they think I will move out of the way)
cut off (I am a tourist apparently, therefore cutting me off is ok??)
Flash High Beams (must have had mine on high beam – no, wait, don’t know how as yet (must read manual again))
Tailgated (I have a tow ball, really good for breaking radiators)
What I have discovered is that tourist plated cards are idiot magnets. I have seen the most stupid driving since i started driving this car. (and it’s not me)
If you see me chugging along in the left hand lane at 95 towards a speed camera, consider this:
It may be the fastest speed that this car can do – unless I am going downhill.
If you tailgate me, I won’t go any faster, in fact, as I may think that you are doing it for some reason, I may slow down.
By the way, the reason for the traffic jams where there should in theory be no traffic jams…
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=778
It’s a backwards travelling wave, which can hang around for hours after the initial cause is cleared away (if there even was a particular ’cause’ – it is simply caused by one or more people braking too much…)
I’d just be happy if they could learn something as basic as keep left!
Leeza Silverman
LaZingara said :
Is this a record for the oldest resurrection of a post on RA?
mrnamjama said :
The UK has done a lot of reasearch into this. On parts of the M1, a computer controls traffic speed to avoid that wave phenomenon, and it’s eliminated traffic jams. It’s bloody impressive. I don’t suppose we’ll ever be smart enough to implement that here.
Pork Hunt said :
Not even close. Pretty sure there was a zombie thread from 2005 recently…
I am sure there are more important things in this world than whinging about people driving under the speed limit….get over it. Not everyone drives to the maximum speed limit. Just because it states 100km/h – does not mean you HAVE to drive at that limit. It simply means you can drive UP to that limit.
Overtake, back off or keep quiet…….
If you can’t manage to drive at the speed limit get off the road so others can thanks
Isn’t there some rule that if you are 30 km/h BELOW the speed limit you are supposed to pull over and let others pass? Not that I see it used much, not even by those bloody front-end loaders who decide that peak hour is the best time to travel on the expressway, at 50kph.
switch said :
I don’t think it’s an actual law here. I guess it’d be hard to apply consistently or usefully.