500 drivers caught speeding last month

JC said :

gooterz said :

Athlon drive there is a 60 sigh right behind a great big 80 sign. Both are maybe 10 metres apart.

The 60 sign has a disclaimer that it only applies on school days.

You sure about that?

Yep, Definitely there, fixed in the ground on their own poles and don’t fold up.

“During March, police will target drivers without seatbelts or with passengers and children not wearing their seatbelt.”

So, ACT Police officers will not be wearing seatbelts while they target drivers, or if officers are unable to get their seatbelts off, their passengers and any children in the vehicle will remove their seatbelt instead? Well, it makes more sense than some of the other banter in this thread 🙂

gooterz said :

In terms of cop cars I rarely see a cop car driving down the parkway, but when I do they’re usually doing about 110km/h.

“

I was going to comment that I have noticed more unmarked cars on the parkway recently. I actually passed a pair of officers in an unmarked car at 110 in the 100 zone. When I pulled up at the first set of lights on the parkway at the top of Kambah, they let me know of their displeasure by wagging their finger at me through their window. I got the message pretty loud and clear … and have come to realise that they are on the roads a bit more than people realise, even if not always in a marked car.

JC, its near the intersections around Melrose and Beasley Streets so the kids from Marist and Melrose who can’t be a**ed using the lights or underpasses don’t get splattered.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Furthermore, the sudden slow down from 90 to 80 and then 40, if anything, increases the chance of accidents due to the sudden reduction in speed. If it was left as 80, the traffic wouldn’t back up and sudden braking to avoid a speeding fine wouldn’t end up causing multiple vehicle pile-ups.

Drivers should be able slow from 90 to 80 to 40. In fact they are supposed to be able to brake without collision if the vehicle in front slams on its brakes and goes from 90 to 0.

It’s called the 3-second gap rule and anyone with a license knows about it. Some might complain about the impracticalities of it in city driving and choose to ignore it, but the fact remains that they are responsible for maintaining a safe braking distance between them and the vehicle in front and the law will find them at fault if they hit the car in front.

The focus, then, should be on tailgating and getting drivers who can’t cope with 90 to 80 to 40 off the road.

gooterz said :

Evilomlap said :

I’ve never understood people’s need to speed through school zones. I mean, let’s pragmatically look at the options there: be a minute or two faster getting to where you’re headed, or bounce a child off the bumper bar, destroying the lives of an entire family and then spending a great deal of time in prison pondering the thought “what if I had done 40 rather than 60?”

Athlon drive there is a 60 sigh right behind a great big 80 sign. Both are maybe 10 metres apart.

The 60 sign has a disclaimer that it only applies on school days.

You sure about that? I’ve never seen such a sign in the ACT. In NSW yes, but all the school zone signs I’ve seen in the ACT have the times and days of the the week it is applicable, and when it is school holiday time they get folded up and don’t apply.

Evilomlap said :

It’s also a big problem in construction sites. Having spent a lot of time on these sites and with these workers, I find it mind-numbingly frustrating that I need to remind people that construction zones are 40 zones for very solid reasons and if the signs are still there after the workers have left for the day they are *still* 40 zones for solid reasons – a lot of the time during roadworks these reasons include *your* safety and the safety of your vehicle. Quite often during roadworks the road surface remains unstable, ie potholes etc. Going 40 gives you more time to avoid potholes and unsealed joins, and hitting a large pothole or unsealed join at 40 is far less likely to blow your tyre than hitting one at 60 or 80. Believe me, the 40 zone signs are removed as soon as they possibly can be, as soon as it’s deemed safe to do so.

Construction zones, often when un-manned, are no worse a road than some rural areas of N.S.W and country roads in the outback. The Brindabella Road is 100 limited all the way through and there’d be fewer accidents there than on Northbourne Ave, Tuggeranong Parkway and the Monaro Hwy. Of the 40 zones I’ve seen, such as the one on Parkes way eastbound at the moment, there is little to no danger to vehicle or driver by doing 80. It’s just a dumb safety regulation that because they are working just adjacent the road [behind big concrete barriers mind you], the limit must be reduced.
Furthermore, the sudden slow down from 90 to 80 and then 40, if anything, increases the chance of accidents due to the sudden reduction in speed. If it was left as 80, the traffic wouldn’t back up and sudden braking to avoid a speeding fine wouldn’t end up causing multiple vehicle pile-ups.
If the road surface is okay, as is the case here, why not leave it at normal speeds to avoid issues? For crying out loud, it isn’t even road work or road work related, it’s on the nature strip and the building site next door to it. No need for silly speed restrictions.
Logic unfortunately doesn’t apply to road work speed limits, it is often just useless red tape written into the rules in the name of “safety”.

Evilomlap said :

I’ve never understood people’s need to speed through school zones. I mean, let’s pragmatically look at the options there: be a minute or two faster getting to where you’re headed, or bounce a child off the bumper bar, destroying the lives of an entire family and then spending a great deal of time in prison pondering the thought “what if I had done 40 rather than 60?”

Athlon drive there is a 60 sigh right behind a great big 80 sign. Both are maybe 10 metres apart.

The 60 sign has a disclaimer that it only applies on school days. But there is no mention of what school days are. If you have a child you might know its school holidays and drive to 80. Else you might drive to 60 or 80 who knows. Its a useless sign. The other school zones have signs that get changed and updated. There is no reference to this in the handbook.

Most of the speed signs are very poor.

In terms of cop cars I rarely see a cop car driving down the parkway, but when I do they’re usually doing about 110km/h.

The amount that the ACT spends on accidents and delays we could easily the most dangerous roads to be separated. Yet we don’t.

“Of the 504 drivers caught speeding during February, 261 were caught speeding in a school zone”
Superintendent Susan Ball I would love to know the percentage of time the speed cameras were in the school zones vs other locations.

What astrojax said;

20kph is too fast if you’re 2 metres behind the bloke in front.

It really just highlights to me that school zones is where speed cameras should be, rather than on wide, straight flat sections of arterial road and highway.

I must confess I have exceeded the odd school speed limit before the brain kicks in by asking the foot to hit the brake. But in my defence M’Lud; I do travel a fair bit interstate where the 40KM limit is more realistic than here.
I wonder how many of the school speeders were from interstate.