Friendly local coppers cause traffic Chaos!

AD – there is no speed limit in large parts of the NT… and have you tried to overtake a B-Double or a road train doing 100kmh on a single lane each way road and not want to hit 130 to make it happen as fast (and as safely) as possible?

There are times where breaking the speed limit is the safest option for all involved

AD – “Limit trucks to even slower speeds, much safer.”

Hasn’t there been studies that show that differiential speed limits cause more accidents than they prevent.

The only logical path to follow from that is the one where we are rattling down now – Maximum speed of 50 Km/h.

I suspect that that is even too fast. Bring back the person waling in front of the Motor Carriage with the Red Flag, I Say!

Also, (Because I couldn’t resist), I read a report recently that indicated that red light cameras caused an increase in rear-end collisions (As measured in a 10 year study – 5years before compared to 5 years after).

Ok, Perhaps I shouldn’t say that they caused, because clearly it was the fault of the person at the back, who collided with the individual who decided to stop quickly. But I can say that “Following the installation of…” Looks like they caused it to me.

Along with the flags, we should also bring back the customs booths.

Both Tempestas and Nsanity expect other people to justify lifestyle choices simply because they don’t like them.

“Quite frankly, after driving an off the shelf Commodore for work for 6 months, i wouldn’t drive at all if i was forced to go back – they are a death trap in comparison.”

The base model tyres are pretty awful. The upspec models with larger wheels/tyres and traction control are vastly better. I driven examples of several model variants, and the base model in the wet can be a bit of a handful.

Most trucks are limited to 100km/h. The problem is that many owners and/or drivers remove or deactivate the limiter. Compliance enforcement with this law seems almost non-existant (drive the Hume Hwy some day). Clearly, this is not working.

Please justify large 4wd’s in Urban areas, and the boy racer bling machines as being free of any wank factor?

I agree completely on taxing 4WD’s in the city. They have no place, and serve no purpose. And don’t even try and tell me that you go off-roading, you don’t even know what gravel looks like half the time.

So long as a car conforms with the ADR’s, i have no drama’s with it being modified, chances are however, a nissan silvia with its fully sik 20 inch rims and 325 wide tyres (umm, thats like 11- 12 inchs guys) aren’t legal. 90% of the time neither is the exhaust, and well then you can play pin the tail on the defect from there.

My Imported vehicle is has an engineering certificate for the rims it has (they came with the car) as well as the handful of things that has been done with it. It passes Emissions, Noise and the rest of the ADR requirements.

Quite frankly, after driving an off the shelf Commodore for work for 6 months, i wouldn’t drive at all if i was forced to go back – they are a death trap in comparison.

Limit trucks to even slower speeds, much safer.

Ahh, but only 750m to overtake a looney with a volvo. (assuming the hat they are wearing doesn’t overheat their brain… Is their brain is overheating, they are probably swerving too much to overtake safely)

Actually,

Try Driving. Do you rind a recumbent?

Limit cars so they can’t go past the speed limit? Cool idea. That way it takes 1 and a half kilometres to overtake the semi doing 95km/h.

Try driving OUTSIDE the ACT sometime before providing such valuable input.

hahaha, taxing the wanker factor….i love it

With all the extra money that the gov recieves from said wanker tax… will mean that they can be less reliant on speeding fines and perhaps look at delimiting all cars so that they cannot go past the speed limit.

Ari how is wanting to tax the wanker factor telling people how to live their lives?

Please justify large 4wd’s in Urban areas, and the boy racer bling machines as being free of any wank factor?

We tax all sorts of things with excises, taxes and rates based on often arbitary criteria.

I’m just taking the Chaser “Fines for having a wanker number plate” that bit further, taxing it doesn’t stop anyone doing it. I don’t care if your imported nizmo Silvia is fully sik mate with the 325,25 tyres on 20″ rims and a 500 watt sub in the back seat with an oversized turbo. Its your money, but such vehicles do have a huge wank factor, what is wrong with taxing that?

It’s nice to know there are people out there like Tempestas to helpfully tell everyone else how to live their lives.

NSanity “As for the yob who thinks that i should pay substantially more to register and insure my imported car, how do you justify that?”

Try reading all the words. Not any imported car, but anything with too much tyre, too much bling, and the boy racer cruising sub-woofer package,I’m sure you know the type – they often do laps and wear p-plates.

AD The number of times I wish I had a anti tank missile for those Toorak Tractors that think they own the road….

Damn you police officers for doing your job to keep our roads safe. Damn you to hell!

(I think you will also find the drivers caused the accidents, not the police)

It is a good idea to hve parking inspectors check numberplates for unregistered + stolen cars. I wrote to ACT police minister years ago suggesting this – heard nothing back though.

This is already happening. My flatmate had her car Inspected whilst she was at work, failed inspection due to her tyre tread depths.

They do police carparks and whatnot.

Just not often enough.

As for the yob who thinks that i should pay substantially more to register and insure my imported car, how do you justify that? My car is better braked and has a significantly more advanced and reliable suspension system than any of the junk that holden or ford come up with. Having those 2 things makes my car a lot more safer than any random person would be in an Australian – built to a $ figure car.

The Quality of Australian Cars and roads is crap. People ask why we don’t have Autobahn’s like Germany, its because a large percentage of the cars here become incredibly dangerous and unpredictable as soon as you break 100km/h.

Not so in Europe.

Tempestas – that is a marvellous idea. If it was implemented nationally just think of the money the gov could make out of Toorak!!

It is a good idea to hve parking inspectors check numberplates for unregistered + stolen cars. I wrote to ACT police minister years ago suggesting this – heard nothing back though.
Our car was stolen, and we kept on receiving dozens of parking tickets, for parking on Pitt st and inner sydney every day. We had to jump through amazing amounts of hoops to get out of paying them, and losing our license (stat decs at the police station etc). It was depressing to realise the govt was happy to ‘find’ the car to issue fines, but not interested in returning it to the actual owner. You’d think getting multiple parking tickets a day would be an indication that the driver wasnt the owner…

On the main topic – I’m always happy to see the poice out on the roads doing something.

I was about to say the same thing VY.

Under JTK’s plan unregistered cars would be move to the backyard pretty smartly.

I know this is kinda revolutionary, but why not check the carparks for unrego’ed cars? That way the function could be pushed off to the local govco lads who sit in the speed vans. Leave the police to do real police work.

Wow who would of thought that checking for unregistered stolen cars at peak time when they are most likely to be used would cause such a problem. I find vg speaking the most sense here.

Perhaps as a way to improve things a Chaser style introduction of wanker levies might help. Drive a overtyred, over powered 2 door japanese import with bling and da big sub woofer – you pay an extra $2000 a year rego for being a wanker, drive the latest model lexus – your a try hard and a wanker pay $5000 rego extra, last be never least, its a 4wd that you own and you don’t have a farm or a suitable business purpose for being off road, an extra $10,000 for being a wanker, an idiot a road abuser and making every other road users life more difficult. Think it would raise more revenue and make our streets quieter and traffic flow better.

I have no problem with the police chasing unregistered and/or unroadworthy cars. The difficulty arises when they decide to do it at a time and place already overloaded with traffic that crawls along.

Personally I like to see more compliance around use of indicator, use of right hand lane when unnecessary and failure to give way. Things I see a lot of.

Just had a thought.

Our gestape who so succesfully patroll the parking spaces in the ACT could also be involved with the process – If it’s ungergistered, then impound it. Don’t simply take the plates off it.

Then there is revenue avaiilable through used vehicle sales, and impound charges.

Might even pay for the tree lovers paradise.

RBT’s – Yay – Couldn’t be a better idea. Remove a real and present threat at the time it happens.

Rego tax not being paid – It is a finance thing. If the govmit was serious, it could employ a couple of ASO3’s who perform the following process.

1- Run a database dump of what cars were registered last wek, compared to what is registered this week.

2 – Identify the ones that are no longer registered. (Couldn’t be more than 10 – 30 per day)

3 – Drive past the houses of those cars during the night, and see if they are there. Drive past during the day, and see if they are not there.

4 – If the cars are being used, then fine / charge as required.

To cover off on the third party implications, the govmit is in a position of being able to have quite a powerfull discussion with the insurers. They could suggest that they would take the millions of dollars away to another insurer if they don’t get, say, a 6 month grace period… Really, anything is the limit. If NRMA won’t come to the party with the astronomical ates they charge (especially as compared to NSW), then AAMI or some other company would !!!

Remember, that insurance is a funny money thing – able to be dealt with through negotiation. People muddy the waters because they treat it with emotion.

In *reality* how many unregistered cars cause cripled people here in the ACT? Is it a real threat?

By the way, anybody who believes that these cowbows don’t contribute to accidents, are probably in the category of the volvo drivers, with the driving hat and gloves, who drive at 70km in a 100 zone, and have *never* had an accident. They have no idea how dangerous they are…

I saw some cops doing RBTs on the way to Woden today. I’m not fussed about cops being around – better than not being there.

I do agree that people often act like dicks when the cops are around – for example the guy in front of me that changed lanes to avoid the RBT *and* slowed down to 70! duh! Aside from that, it’s good to see the cops out and about.

Probly not the best place for it, but none the less, whats done is done.

I think Gininderra drive is their best bet to get people.
…or if they want to give out fines, just show up to any school where students drive.

I’ll enlighten you all a little. What you saw was a little thing called RAPID in operation. It reads number plates and detects stolen cars/plates, unregistered cars and those with warrants etc linked to those vehicles. It was not a speed van, as Police don’t man them. It was the RAPID van. The van also has SOPs with respect to the number of people that have to man the RAPID station, which sounds horribly close to the numbers you have named…but don’t let your ignorance of what was actually happening stand in the way of a good old fashioned whinge

Bitch when you see them, bitch when you don’t. As for the ‘cowboys’ comment, well you bitch when someone does something wrong and then bitch when the Police do something about it. Which is it?

While I was happy to see the guy who’d been tailgating me around the base of Mount Taylor pulled over near Weston, this looked like the work of cowboys, not professional police. I counted 3 separate radar/licence checking cops at different points on the northbound lane with a speed van thrown in for good measure on the southbound lane.

Vehicle registration in the ACT is purely a revenue raising method. Originally to finance road construction and maintenance, it now returns many times the revenue spent on roads, when added to the return to the Territory from fuel excise.
Third Party insurance is another matter. NRMA have us exactly where they want us, paying through the nose while screwing down any claims payouts to the absolute minimum, always crying poor to the Guvmint to increase their already usurious premiums. They claim the ACT is about the most dangerous/expensive place in Australia to insure third party. I strongly suspect we are a ‘nice little earner’ for this pack of rogues.
Some competition would be welcome, but somehow they have the Guvmint by the nose, which can apparently thumb it’s nose at competition policy. Of course, the plod are also helping fill NRMA’s pockets when detecting unregistered vehicles. I would contend that cheaper rego/3rd party would allow more people to afford these imposts. A dollar or three short of a grand to register a Holden station wagon for a year is a nonsense!
Liberal opposition , take on the NRMA and get us the reduced premiums we deserve. Show them how the speed cameras have reduced the accident rate! Find out and tell us what competing insurance providers could sell us 3rd party insurance for. Explain how your government would throw this monopoly open to competition. Its a no brainer, cut the 3rd party, the punters are appreciative, the guvmint still gets its cop, you get the credit and the NRMA are brought to heal.

God forbid the Police should run a campaign trying to detect stolen and unregistered vehicles (that the RAPID system they were employing does) that should inconvenience you for a millisecond.

Unregistered vehicles also have a tendency to lack a little thing called 3rd party personal insurance (which lapses 2 weeks after rego does). When these people hit you, cripple you and decide not to bother paying your expenses the 3rd party personal insurance kicks in to protect those people that are hurt.

But God forbid your day was inconvenienced by Police doing their job. People wail and moan that they never see Police, then carry on like the proverbial when they do.

Sending out automated TINs doesnt work for unregistered vehicles. No point sending it to the person who the car’s registered toi. They just say they sold it and there is no recourse. When the car is registered in your name you have a responsibility.

What a piffling post!

In any compliance action you must ask – what is the danger to the public ?

If people driving unregistered vehicles are statistically more likely to be involved in a traffic accident then this technology may make sense.

If it is merely more revenue raising, then it is just another government placed brick in the road to serfdom.

I suspect the latter.

Automating the number plate recognition would be a good step. Having the cops trying to pull people over in the middle of peak hour illustrates their lunacy, especially if they could simply photograph the unregistered car driving along (works for speeding). Surely having traffic flowing smoothly is the go?

I doubt it was speeding they were checking, but using the number plate recognition technology to find the unregistered and thus ininsured cars.

When they first trialled the technology a year or two ago, I drove past them 3 or 4 times, and each time it looked like a carpark with the number of cars they found. There were literally 20-30 vehicles pulled off the road each time – a successful implementation if ever I have seen it.

Good luck to them – I don’t want some clown in an unregistered car (not just bombs but year or two old vehicles are included), without insurance, or without a licenced driver running into me and costing me a fortune on my insurance.

As for revenue raising cameras, I’ve never been caught by them, but still disagree with them – a police presence on the roads is a far greater deterrant. A speed camera van has never performed an RBT, or cautioned a dickhead for chopping and changing between lanes and tailgating

No, I was too busy looking for gaps in the traffic to try to escape the wankers.

The only people causing the accidents are the useless wankers too busy rubbernecking to concentrate on their driving.

Were you one of those people James?