ACT driver behaviour 'alarming', 'reckless' and 'beyond comprehension'

Imagine how many they would catch if they used unmarked police cars and saw the idiots we all see every day.

I’ll summarise the current situation, shall I?

ACT Government introduces speed cameras, and mobile speed camera locations and tell us it’s to combat speeding and increase road safety.

Large numbers of ACT divers get fined. Roads don’t get any safer.

ACT Government introduces morespeed cameras, and more mobile speed camera locations because more drivers are doing the wrong thing and the roads aren’t getting safer

ACT drivers rack up more infringements, and road safety doesn’t improve.

ACT police complain about more reckless behaviour than in past.

I expect we’ll now see the ACT government increase fines and announce more fixed speed cameras, despite their approach over the last decade failing miserably.

Laurel said :

rommeldog56 said :

Laurel said :

Random drug testing needs to be stopped right away as it is a badly flawed instrument.

Even though the facts of the effects of alcohol on driving were long ago established, it took ages for random breath testing to be introduced. In contrast, there is very little reliable evidence on the effect of drugs on driving, and much of what is presented as evidence by lawmakers to support their methods concerns mixed drugs and alcohol, and not drugs by themselves.

Surely u carnt be serious. What evidence do u need other to watch and listen to people affected by illegal drugs such as Ice and dope who are out and about. Clearly many of those are not capable of driving a car.

I congratulate the police for random drug testing of drivers. There should be more of it. It keeps all other people on the road that little bit safer.

If people are affected by amphetamines or cannabis, then they should be booked, but to do this lawfully, there first needs to be established blood chemical limits for these substances above which driving ability is demonstrably impaired – just as it is for alcohol.

At this point, there are no reliable guides as to the safe limits, so booking drivers for ANY drugs in their system is unfair and amounts to little more than fishing expeditions better associated with authoritariane types of government.

The police have far too much power to abuse in this respect, and the legislators that put these laws on the books need to hear about it. The random drug tests as they stand are unacceptable in a free society.

The UK is leading the way on this actually, by using an impairment based approach not a zero tolerance any detectable level approach. They also test for 5x the number of substances ACT and other States test for in Aus. The tech is there, why aren’t we using it too? Drive on cocaine – fine in Aus! Drive on cannabis – go to jail! Interesting standard that is! The UK tests for impairment first, then if you show any signs of possible impairment, only then are you tested for presence of substances in saliva or blood, and there are still minimum levels they look for then, under which you won’t be charged. The levels are still quite low and not quite equivalent yet to the 0.05 level for alcohol, but the UK ditched the zero tolerance approach, along with New Zealand, a number of years back and switched to an impairment based approach instead, which stats from the last few years show is working far better at reducing rates of crashes with drug affected drivers than the zero tolerance ever did or could ever hope to.

This is one issue where I do not agree with the ACT Greens current approach to this nor their role in bringing in zero tolerance detectable level approach in the ACT, and I look forward to all political parties in Australia looking at how NZ and the UK have been doing it for the past few years and realise they ditched zero tolerance for a very good reason, and we need to do the same as well. Or make the alcohol limit 0.00 to at least be consistent then with the drug driving zero tolerance any detectable level regardless of actual impairment or not.

dungfungus said :

rommeldog56 said :

Laurel said :

Random drug testing needs to be stopped right away as it is a badly flawed instrument.

Even though the facts of the effects of alcohol on driving were long ago established, it took ages for random breath testing to be introduced. In contrast, there is very little reliable evidence on the effect of drugs on driving, and much of what is presented as evidence by lawmakers to support their methods concerns mixed drugs and alcohol, and not drugs by themselves.

Surely u carnt be serious. What evidence do u need other to watch and listen to people affected by illegal drugs such as Ice and dope who are out and about. Clearly many of those are not capable of driving a car.

I congratulate the police for random drug testing of drivers. There should be more of it. It keeps all other people on the road that little bit safer.

Under the new regime in the Philippines, drivers who are detected driving cars on drugs may be summarily executed.

Imagine that happening in Canberra.

Judging by the way voters rolled over for the light rail, most here would probaly be quite happy giving such powers to the local authorities.

rommeldog56 said :

Laurel said :

Random drug testing needs to be stopped right away as it is a badly flawed instrument.

Even though the facts of the effects of alcohol on driving were long ago established, it took ages for random breath testing to be introduced. In contrast, there is very little reliable evidence on the effect of drugs on driving, and much of what is presented as evidence by lawmakers to support their methods concerns mixed drugs and alcohol, and not drugs by themselves.

Surely u carnt be serious. What evidence do u need other to watch and listen to people affected by illegal drugs such as Ice and dope who are out and about. Clearly many of those are not capable of driving a car.

I congratulate the police for random drug testing of drivers. There should be more of it. It keeps all other people on the road that little bit safer.

If people are affected by amphetamines or cannabis, then they should be booked, but to do this lawfully, there first needs to be established blood chemical limits for these substances above which driving ability is demonstrably impaired – just as it is for alcohol.

At this point, there are no reliable guides as to the safe limits, so booking drivers for ANY drugs in their system is unfair and amounts to little more than fishing expeditions better associated with authoritariane types of government.

The police have far too much power to abuse in this respect, and the legislators that put these laws on the books need to hear about it. The random drug tests as they stand are unacceptable in a free society.

They wouldn’t graduate to endangering lives driving at high speed if the police adopted a “broken windows” approach and pulled-over & fined every single person for every single minor infraction instead of turning a blind eye to improper use of lights, fail to indicate, tail-gating, etc…
They speed dangerously, because they’ ve learned that nobody is enforcing the road rules.

Why should we be so surprised that people show little regard for the road rules – our government has spent the last few years demonstrating that the road rules don’t need to be obeyed eg. driving with fog lights on in clear weather, parking on nature strips or footpaths, driving an unroadworthy vehicle, cyclists (and pedestrians) crossing against the red light – even the ridiculous increase of speedbumps in ACT demonstrates that you’re no longer expected to obey the posted speed limit, you only have to slow down at certain critical points.

While I’m not necessarily saying we should fine everyone who uses their foglights in clear weather, or parks on nature strips or blocking footpaths, but if it’s really not such a problem, then why are these things still illegal? If they are illegal, and the ACT government does nothing about drivers who break those laws, what message does that send other than “you can pick and choose which road rules (if any) you want to obey”?

rommeldog56 said :

Laurel said :

Random drug testing needs to be stopped right away as it is a badly flawed instrument.

Even though the facts of the effects of alcohol on driving were long ago established, it took ages for random breath testing to be introduced. In contrast, there is very little reliable evidence on the effect of drugs on driving, and much of what is presented as evidence by lawmakers to support their methods concerns mixed drugs and alcohol, and not drugs by themselves.

Surely u carnt be serious. What evidence do u need other to watch and listen to people affected by illegal drugs such as Ice and dope who are out and about. Clearly many of those are not capable of driving a car.

I congratulate the police for random drug testing of drivers. There should be more of it. It keeps all other people on the road that little bit safer.

Under the new regime in the Philippines, drivers who are detected driving cars on drugs may be summarily executed.

Imagine that happening in Canberra.

Laurel said :

Random drug testing needs to be stopped right away as it is a badly flawed instrument.

Even though the facts of the effects of alcohol on driving were long ago established, it took ages for random breath testing to be introduced. In contrast, there is very little reliable evidence on the effect of drugs on driving, and much of what is presented as evidence by lawmakers to support their methods concerns mixed drugs and alcohol, and not drugs by themselves.

Surely u carnt be serious. What evidence do u need other to watch and listen to people affected by illegal drugs such as Ice and dope who are out and about. Clearly many of those are not capable of driving a car.

I congratulate the police for random drug testing of drivers. There should be more of it. It keeps all other people on the road that little bit safer.

Maryann Mussared said :

And what about that alarming statistic of nearly one in three drivers drugs tested over the Christmas New Year period testing positive to drugs?

Random drug testing needs to be stopped right away as it is a badly flawed instrument.

Even though the facts of the effects of alcohol on driving were long ago established, it took ages for random breath testing to be introduced. In contrast, there is very little reliable evidence on the effect of drugs on driving, and much of what is presented as evidence by lawmakers to support their methods concerns mixed drugs and alcohol, and not drugs by themselves.

In addition, if one has a prescription for certain drugs, then it is not considered an offence, so there are reasons for seeing the random drug testing not as an accident-preventing tool, but rather a roadside morals test, as it only applies to illegal drugs.

Test for alcohol and leave it at that, as that is where the danger lies. Testing for drugs, at least until reliable blood levels are established, is a massive overreach by the authorities and should be subject to a moratorium.

There have been long delays on the GDE where they are applying the “el-cheapo chip and perpetually sticky tar” on the carriageway.

This necessitates funnelling traffic into one lane but most Canberra drivers ignore that sign and charge on until the work being undertaken forces them to merge aggressively.

Paul is right – the mad drivers are out in force.

bikhet said :

Maryann Mussared said :

And what about that alarming statistic of nearly one in three drivers drugs tested over the Christmas New Year period testing positive to drugs?

Yes, one third of Canberra drivers are dope fiends – either that or all Canberra drivers are dope fiends one third of the time.

More seriously, this is one of those statistics that is essentially meaningless. If you don’t know the sampling methodology you don’t know much. It might be that the drivers tested for drugs had already been pulled over for other reasons, and that before the drug test police had reason to suspect that the drivers were influenced by drugs and so tested them.

I do agree with what you say about understanding the methodology and it is a good question to ask about statistics thrown out in a media release. But it is just a teensy bit frightening that those deranged hoons who undertake you or overtake and pull in quickly just might – perhaps – be under the influence of drugs. The article I read sounded as though DUI was pretty much under control, which of course we all know if not the case.

Maryann Mussared said :

And what about that alarming statistic of nearly one in three drivers drugs tested over the Christmas New Year period testing positive to drugs?

Yes, one third of Canberra drivers are dope fiends – either that or all Canberra drivers are dope fiends one third of the time.

More seriously, this is one of those statistics that is essentially meaningless. If you don’t know the sampling methodology you don’t know much. It might be that the drivers tested for drugs had already been pulled over for other reasons, and that before the drug test police had reason to suspect that the drivers were influenced by drugs and so tested them.

And what about that alarming statistic of nearly one in three drivers drugs tested over the Christmas New Year period testing positive to drugs?

So, how’s that expanded speed camera network (anticipated in the budget to increase revenue flows to the Gov’t each year) going with modifying driver behaviours and reducing speeds across Canberra?

Wonder what the score was over the Summernats weekend?
Certainly was evidence of increased hoon activity with fresh burnout marks around town.
Although just over the border the part of the old Federal Hwy at the entrance to the Eaglehawk Holiday Park is covered in them.
Just takes one idiot to get out control to ruin the lives of others.

Can you really reprimand the whole of Canberra for poor driving during the first 11 days of the year given that Summernats is on for three of those days? Kind of skews the data set quite substantially.

It’s past time to start using first offence custodial sentences as a deterrent to this type of behaviour.

There is definitely something in the air – besides a lot of heat. Having spent most of the last few weeks here in Canberra I have observed the roads to have been quieter but also noticed that the mad drivers have come out in force – and I exclude in that any criticism of the usual meandering tourists. It is not just the high speed ones who are a nuisance – and the police are correct, there are many of them at the moment. There seems to be extras out there who have forgotten so many of the basics including to be polite and patient. If you need to drive right now – I suggest be extra careful and be prepared to not get annoyed yourself when confronted with the stupidity of so many.