29 March 2012

A year without road fatalities

| johnboy
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Simon Corbell is celebrating a rolling year since Canberra’s last road fatali. Simon credits RAPID for the change, which certainly has the capacity to remove the threat posed by the worst of the worst:

“There are many factors which have contributed towards this result, including, increased driver awareness, advances in technology and increased police patrols targeting traffic offences, I have no doubt that the introduction of RAPID has had an impact.”

The ACT Government funded RAPID (Recognition and Analysis of Plates IDentified) capability was introduced in July 2010 and since then has detected 1015 unlicensed drivers and 4295 unregistered or uninsured vehicles.

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If only the ACT Government sent you out a letter or some sort of reminder telling you to pay your rego…

Oh wait.

Idiots.

HenryBG said :

rhino said :

That’s what I was saying. There is a small overlap, but generally forgetting your rego does not have a causal relationship with having an accident.

Your whole argument seems to rest on the implication that a reasonable proportion of those caught by RAPID were merely forgetful people with rego less than 14 days out of date.

A better process for you to follow would be to examine the facts, then lay them out alongside your analysis of those facts.

What you seem to have done is provided an analysis of your imagination of what the facts could be in some alternate universe.

Wrong.

That is what I am saying the opposite view is doing.
There are no facts that break down and categorise each of those people unfortunately.
But I’m saying that the view has been taken that all of these people who forget their rego must clearly drive at 180kph through school zones mowing down people whilst taking drugs. Obviously if you think about it, that is rather unlikely, as people have demonstrated in this thread examples of normal people who forget their rego. So therefore I analysed the logical causal relationships.

We have since bsaically come to an agreement that there is no causal relationship with forgetting your rego and having an accident, as that was disputed before. Did you disagree with this? Or which aspect did you disagree with?

rhino said :

That’s what I was saying. There is a small overlap, but generally forgetting your rego does not have a causal relationship with having an accident.

Your whole argument seems to rest on the implication that a reasonable proportion of those caught by RAPID were merely forgetful people with rego less than 14 days out of date.

A better process for you to follow would be to examine the facts, then lay them out alongside your analysis of those facts.

What you seem to have done is provided an analysis of your imagination of what the facts could be in some alternate universe.

Wrong.

p1 said :

This is exactly like racial profiling. One easily identifiable subset of the community (very easily with modern camera/computer systems) is used as a proxy for a seperate subset of people (those who cause accidents).

The difference of course, is that with racial profiling, wearing a hoodie is not illegal, while driving a unregistered car is. So even if the correlation between the two subsets is a loose one, the people being fined ARE breaking the law….

Isn’t it great that they can solve all our road safety issues with cameras?

That’s what I was saying. There is a small overlap, but generally forgetting your rego does not have a causal relationship with having an accident. One is an organisational skill and another is a physical skill. Like being a good politician doesn’t make you a good basketball player. The group of unlicenced people would have a stronger correlation though, because some of them may have lost their licences for reckless driving or drink driving etc, which do cause accidents. That is why there is a loose correlation, because they grouped all of those people together with them.

No causal link, but a correlation, and one borne out by the success of acting on it.

Evil_Kitten said :

Thanks liability, I thought the statistics might be along those lines.

liability said :

the greater the fine. Just a thought. This might, only might, bring some equity into the issue so that people who were only a day or two out of date with their rego for whatever [inexcusable] reason, would not receive as big a fine as someone who has been driving around for a year or more in an unregistered vehicle

I actually thought this was already the case, could be totally wrong though! I can’t seem to find any info on it.

The unreg fine is $543 – no matter the length of time it is unreg. If the car is more than 14 days out of reg then it is also uninsured which is an additional fine of $562. All traffic fines are listed on the ACT Legislation website in the road transport (offences) regulation 2005.

Deref said :

HenryBG said :

Also they have above-average motivation and ability to shoot burglars.

That goes with their below-average intelligence and social conscience.

Ah – like anti-vaccinating Orana parents, we do have these here.

Thanks liability, I thought the statistics might be along those lines.

liability said :

the greater the fine. Just a thought. This might, only might, bring some equity into the issue so that people who were only a day or two out of date with their rego for whatever [inexcusable] reason, would not receive as big a fine as someone who has been driving around for a year or more in an unregistered vehicle

I actually thought this was already the case, could be totally wrong though! I can’t seem to find any info on it.

I have had some work related contact with matters in which the Nominal Defendant has taken court action to recover money from drivers of unregistered vehicles with no CTP insurance that have been involved in collisions that have injured people. As per my previous post, the Nominal Defendant has paid out these claims and is seeking to recover the money that they have paid out to injured persons.

Whilst I can only speak about 10 or so that I have personal knowledge of, it is a pretty wide mix of people, ranging from what some RA posters would refer to as “no hopers” through to “normal” middle class people. If I had to make an educated guess, I would suspect that about half of them didn’t pay their rego because they couldn’t be bothered or couldn’t afford it, and the other half simply forgot to pay it [as I said earlier, I know this is not an excuse].

In relation to the question about how many of the 4,000 caught by RAPID were “no hopers” and how many were “decent people who made an honest mistake”, I would suspect that it probably around 50/50. If you notice the cars that you see parked on the side of the road with no number plates, they ranges from s*** boxes through to cars only a couple of years old. While I don’t want to “profile” people based on the car they drive, I suspect that, generally speaking, the s*** boxes are owned by the “no hopers” and the newer cars are owned by “decent people who made an honest mistake” and forgot to renew their rego.

As a discussion point, perhaps a system like speeding fines could be introduced for unregistered vehicles. The longer your rego is out of date [similar to the higher your speed] the greater the fine. Just a thought. This might, only might, bring some equity into the issue so that people who were only a day or two out of date with their rego for whatever [inexcusable] reason, would not receive as big a fine as someone who has been driving around for a year or more in an unregistered vehicle,

Evil_Kitten said :

Nifty said :

It’s a good thing they were pulled over BEFORE they had an accident. Otherwise they would have lost their house and probably have been bankrupted to pay for the compensation and the lawyers…

Yeah someone already said that, and I responded. Again, irrelevant to my point.

I was merely asking how many of that 4000 were no hopers and how many were decent people who made an honest mistake.

Seems the consensus is they’re all no hopers. Line them up and shoot them all!

goggles13 said :

what percentage of fatals in the past involved unregistered and unlicensed? until that statistic is provided, the link is cannot be proved.

These stats are regularly talked about and mentioned. Roughly 1/3 of all fatals involve unlicenced/ unreg and 1/3 involve alcohol. This isn’t an ACT thing but the figures are pretty much the same across all jurisdictions and even other countries. Too hard to provide links from the phone but they’re readily available if you look.

goggles13 said :

its great that the ACT has not had a road fatality for 12 months and that RAPID has detected a large amount of unlicensed drivers and unregistered cars.

however, the proposition that RAPID is directly responsible for the zero road toll is a stretch.

what percentage of fatals in the past involved unregistered and unlicensed? until that statistic is provided, the link is cannot be proved.

I support RAPID, but I think it is about time the govt got serious about road safety and implemented pro-active measures – advanced driver training and a more regular and visible police presence on the road

No one suggested that RAPID is soley responsible for this result. In fact the release above says:

“There are many factors which have contributed towards this result, including, increased driver awareness, advances in technology and increased police patrols targeting traffic offences, I have no doubt that the introduction of RAPID has had an impact.”

I remember when the govt came up with ‘Vision Zero’ (is that what it was called?) and I thought it was a ridiculously unachievable goal. Last 12 months prove it is achievable, although I guess we’ll never know exactly what factors played a part (luck? Rapid? Better cars? More targeted policing?).

HenryBG said :

Also they have above-average motivation and ability to shoot burglars.

That goes with their below-average intelligence and social conscience.

Of course we have libertarians here, too; we just have a different name for them: sociopaths. We also have an expression for their philosophy: “F*** you, Jack, I’m alright.”

Notwithstanding the position regarding RAPID and the benefits of removing unregistered cars and unlicensed drivers from the road, a position with which I generally agree, if you’ve seen the way some still driving in this town I can’t help but think this result is more good luck than good management.

+1 for more police on the roads to catch the hoons. It’s the next level to reducing accidents and injuries.

its great that the ACT has not had a road fatality for 12 months and that RAPID has detected a large amount of unlicensed drivers and unregistered cars.

however, the proposition that RAPID is directly responsible for the zero road toll is a stretch.

what percentage of fatals in the past involved unregistered and unlicensed? until that statistic is provided, the link is cannot be proved.

I support RAPID, but I think it is about time the govt got serious about road safety and implemented pro-active measures – advanced driver training and a more regular and visible police presence on the road

Jethro said :

A great result.

Although I wish the fatality figures were accompanied by hospitalisation and permanent injury figures. For every person who dies on the road, there is probably three or four who are maimed for life.

This reminds me of when I first got a (motor)cycle – everyone asked if I was scared of being killed. My reply – no, just of almost but not quite being killed! I suspect many other travelers have a similar viewpoint and agree wholeheartedly that the stats quoted should include the mangled not just the dead.

Holden Caulfield9:06 pm 30 Mar 12

Dunno what JB will say but not sure having self-confessed scatterbrains on the road is world’s best practice.

johnboy said :

“Driving” is the culmination of many skills.

But no “good” driver is inattentive, or lacking in situational awareness.

So you must be a bad driver if you have not checked the exact date on your rego sticker (a month has at least 28 days) before you get in the car in the morning? What a load of BS.

Why is it so hard to admit that there are just people who are scatterbrained when it comes to administrative things (I myself have a bill phobia) and those who knowingly drive around unregistered because they think they are a law onto themselves? The first are just as likely to be good or bad drivers as anyone else. The latter are likely to think the can do whatever they damn well like on the road without any regard for anyone else.

Next you’re going to say that if I forget bin day, I am likely to forget to give way at a stop sign too?

pezza said :

.

This is NOT saying that “not paying rego on time” implies “more likely to have an accident”. It is saying that if you look at the people in the “more likely to have an accident” group, a lot of them are also members of the “not paying rego on time” group.

Because apart from the shiftless dole-bludging scumbags, there is another group who are less likely to pay rego – the “none-of-your-gawdamn-businesss” group. (Plenty of them in West Idaho, for instance. It’s a shame libertarianism has so little cultural impact over here.)

This group believes it doesn’t need permission from a government bureaucracy to drive a car, and they resist paying rego or applying for driving licences. They are also control freaks and not very likely to have car accidents. Also they have above-average motivation and ability to shoot burglars. I’m a bit of a fan.

Nifty said :

It’s a good thing they were pulled over BEFORE they had an accident. Otherwise they would have lost their house and probably have been bankrupted to pay for the compensation and the lawyers…

Yeah someone already said that, and I responded. Again, irrelevant to my point.

I was merely asking how many of that 4000 were no hopers and how many were decent people who made an honest mistake.

Seems the consensus is they’re all no hopers. Line them up and shoot them all!

It’s a pointless argument all the way back to post no. 20 where it started.

rhino said :

Not paying your rego is either because you simply forgot or because you are really poor and can’t afford it.

You seriously can’t be unable to acknowledge any reasons for not paying rego beyond these Pollyannaish ideals.

Had the recent occurence of the rego sticker not arriving in the expected time. About a week later, it arrived in the letter box, addressed ‘by a thumbnail dipped in tar’. Oh, alright, it was handwritten, OK?

Somehow my postal address had been changed by some power in Govco to an unknown PO box in Fyshwick. The owners of this box had very graciously forwarded the renewal to the garage address.

On querying this buggerup, I was told that they were very concerned, but that I was not Robinson Crusoe.

Seems the systems are far from foolproof.

This is exactly like racial profiling. One easily identifiable subset of the community (very easily with modern camera/computer systems) is used as a proxy for a seperate subset of people (those who cause accidents).

The difference of course, is that with racial profiling, wearing a hoodie is not illegal, while driving a unregistered car is. So even if the correlation between the two subsets is a loose one, the people being fined ARE breaking the law….

Isn’t it great that they can solve all our road safety issues with cameras?

Evil Kitten said:

Just as an example, it happened to one of my friends. She thought her husband had paid it as he took care of the rego, and was horrified & in tears when she was pulled aside during a checkpoint.

They are a married couple, 3 kids, own their own home, both work (he’s a firefighter). So it does happen to “normal” people.

It’s a good thing they were pulled over BEFORE they had an accident. Otherwise they would have lost their house and probably have been bankrupted to pay for the compensation and the lawyers…

astrojax said :

johnboy said :

rhino said :

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

If she didn’t notice the sticker on the windshield with the large number of the month on it was now out of date?

Yes, I would say she is more likely to kill somebody than someone competent.

so you’re claiming a direct correlation between driving competency and ‘competency’ implicit in ignoring the commonplace (your rego sticker is on the other side of the windscreen and becomes ‘part of the furniture’, so not something you examine every time you drive the car), which is a human trait contributed to by the evolutionary development of the frontal cortex and our capacity to make complex generalisations…

bad logic; fail, jb.

What a pointless argument.

When talking about risk and statistics you aren’t talking about individual people, you’re looking at the big picture. And the big picture is, if the reported statistics are to be believed, that people who drive unregistered, uninsured and/or unlicensed are disproportionately likely to be involved in fatal car accidents.

This therefore implies that enforcement measures which remove unregistered, uninsured and/or unlicensed drivers from the road will decrease the number of fatal car accidents – which seems to be the indicated result.

This is NOT saying that “not paying rego on time” implies “more likely to have an accident”. It is saying that if you look at the people in the “more likely to have an accident” group, a lot of them are also members of the “not paying rego on time” group. Since with RAPID it’s easy to identify people in the “not paying rego on time” group and get them off the road, this therefore removes a number of people who are “more likely to have an accident” from the road.

You can argue all you want about specific cases but they aren’t really relevant.

With the Michael Schumacher example – what evidence do you have that he would ever forget to pay his car registration? And if something happened to him that would cause him to forget that, what’s to say it won’t also affect his driving ability?

With the woman whose husband didn’t pay her rego – did she also rely on him to maintain her car? Had he also forgot to replace the bald tyres or top up the oil so the engine doesn’t seize on the Parkway (as a suitably ludicrous example) etc etc? I think that from the small amount of information we were given, jb is perfectly correct to say she was a higher risk driver.

johnboy said :

rhino said :

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

If she didn’t notice the sticker on the windshield with the large number of the month on it was now out of date?

Yes, I would say she is more likely to kill somebody than someone competent.

The sticker doesn’t always have the wrong month! If it expires the middle of March and you’re a couple of days or even a week overdue, it’s still going to be March!

The actual DATE is quite small.

johnboy said :

“Driving” is the culmination of many skills.

But no “good” driver is inattentive, or lacking in situational awareness.

Yes, spatial awareness is developed from practice but can be strongly impacted just by genetics.
It’s all about being conscious of the physical entities around you in all directions and having a constant mental picture how you fit in with all the others and the distances etc.

This is quite different to seeing a piece of paper and adding it to your mental to do list for next week and then failing to recall it in the following week or miscommunicating with your spouse about who was to do it. These are not the same skillset.

Holden Caulfield4:48 pm 30 Mar 12

rhino said :

Incompetence in remembering to pay something has no bearing on your ability to drive.

What if Michael Schumacher forgot to pay his rego and some dodgey driver who cuts people off and doesn’t look where they are going and has no ability to control their car remembered to pay their rego?

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.

Spot the person who didn’t watch any F1 last year.

Besides any imaginary person possessing the same driving talent as the world’s only seven-time F1 world champion is more than likely to have the ability to manage their life.

johnboy said :

rhino said :

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

If she didn’t notice the sticker on the windshield with the large number of the month on it was now out of date?

Yes, I would say she is more likely to kill somebody than someone competent.

so you’re claiming a direct correlation between driving competency and ‘competency’ implicit in ignoring the commonplace (your rego sticker is on the other side of the windscreen and becomes ‘part of the furniture’, so not something you examine every time you drive the car), which is a human trait contributed to by the evolutionary development of the frontal cortex and our capacity to make complex generalisations…

bad logic; fail, jb.

“Driving” is the culmination of many skills.

But no “good” driver is inattentive, or lacking in situational awareness.

johnboy said :

rhino said :

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

If she didn’t notice the sticker on the windshield with the large number of the month on it was now out of date?

Yes, I would say she is more likely to kill somebody than someone competent.

How do you figure that? Competences in different things such as this are mutually exclusive. Just because someone may not be good at cooking doesn’t mean they are bad at acting.

Little_Green_Bag4:31 pm 30 Mar 12

Evil_Kitten said :

Deref said :

Who are these “good people” who “forget” to renew their rego?

How could you “forget”?

People who “forget” to renew their rego usually “remember” they don’t have enough money to pay for it.

rhino said :

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.[/quote>

There are some statistics that show that drivers who believe they have higher skills than normal drivers take more risks, drive faster and closer and thus have more accidents. I’d rather have granny from next door behind me on the road than some racing car driver.

Jim Jones said :

It’s completely okay to drive an unregistered car without a license because, hey, you could be Michael Schumacher … also some people are poor, or forgetful … and stuff.

BWAA AHAHA HA HA HAHA HAH AHAHA HA AHAHA

What JJ said. Including the uproarious laughter at the end.

johnboy said :

rhino said :

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

If she didn’t notice the sticker on the windshield with the large number of the month on it was now out of date?

Yes, I would say she is more likely to kill somebody than someone competent.

What about Michael Schumacher? Do you think that the wife of a firefighter (who’s probably some sort of hero) or Michael Schumacher is likely to kill someone?

rhino said :

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

If she didn’t notice the sticker on the windshield with the large number of the month on it was now out of date?

Yes, I would say she is more likely to kill somebody than someone competent.

Evil_Kitten said :

Deref said :

Who are these “good people” who “forget” to renew their rego?

How could you “forget”? You get a new sticker in the mail and your existing sticker has the month in which it’s due in big black numbers visible from the driver’s seat.

They sound to me like the same people who just don’t give a feck.

Just as an example, it happened to one of my friends. She thought her husband had paid it as he took care of the rego, and was horrified & in tears when she was pulled aside during a checkpoint.

They are a married couple, 3 kids, own their own home, both work (he’s a firefighter). So it does happen to “normal” people.

Yes. And would you say that they were considerably more likely to kill someone on the road? Of course not.

Deref said :

Who are these “good people” who “forget” to renew their rego?

How could you “forget”? You get a new sticker in the mail and your existing sticker has the month in which it’s due in big black numbers visible from the driver’s seat.

They sound to me like the same people who just don’t give a feck.

Just as an example, it happened to one of my friends. She thought her husband had paid it as he took care of the rego, and was horrified & in tears when she was pulled aside during a checkpoint.

They are a married couple, 3 kids, own their own home, both work (he’s a firefighter). So it does happen to “normal” people.

rhino said :

What if Michael Schumacher forgot to pay his rego and some dodgey driver who cuts people off and doesn’t look where they are going and has no ability to control their car remembered to pay their rego?

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.

This is almost as bulletproof as the Chewbacca defence.

Thoroughly Smashed said :

c_c said :

Counting fatalities is actually a pointless measure, cars are getting safer.

I hear German cars can protect their occupants at 160 km/hr these days.

Lol, hopefully won’t have to witness a demo.

But that does remind me, obviously everyone would recall the high speed crash into concrete of the car Princess Diana was in – I recall it was a mid 90s Merc S Class loaded with all the safety features available for the era. We all recall the images of how crumpled it was, yet Trevor Jones in the front seat with a seatbelt survived. An odd example perhaps but it’s not like I have instant recall on too many high speed crashes involving German luxobarges.

Thoroughly Smashed said :

c_c said :

Counting fatalities is actually a pointless measure, cars are getting safer.

I hear German cars can protect their occupants at 160 km/hr these days.

Good news. So we can up the speed limits once this becomes commonplace safety levels then.

Thoroughly Smashed12:24 pm 30 Mar 12

c_c said :

Counting fatalities is actually a pointless measure, cars are getting safer.

I hear German cars can protect their occupants at 160 km/hr these days.

c_c said :

Counting fatalities is actually a pointless measure, cars are getting safer.
The true measure is the raw number of accidents and casualty accidents.

I recall one year when the announced record low fatalities, the number of total accidents had actually increased – meaning credit belonged to the car makers more than the government making safer drivers.

Good point

Counting fatalities is actually a pointless measure, cars are getting safer.
The true measure is the raw number of accidents and casualty accidents.

I recall one year when the announced record low fatalities, the number of total accidents had actually increased – meaning credit belonged to the car makers more than the government making safer drivers.

rhino said :

johnboy said :

Just get off the road before you kill someone Rhino.

If Michael Schumacher forget his rego he would get a reminder note and would, I assume pay it.

If he was so whacked out he couldn’t manage to register his car then I wouldn’t want him on the road either.

And you’d prefer the horrible, negligent driver on the road over Schumacher, who is a very skilled driver?

But he’s also rather fast, isn’t he? He’d be going so fast there’s no way he could stop in time before ploughing through all the innocent children walking across the clearly marked school crossing.

And since he’s so f^cked up on crystal meth and hasn’t been paying his registration or updating his license, he’s got a back seat with a couple of dead hookers in the boot, which completely freaks him out. So he guns it when the cops turn up and a crazy chase ensues, and a couple of cute puppies are killed during the chase, and eventually he ends up barricaded in government housing in the inner north, refusing to come out until the negotiator meets his demands (for the gummint to tear down all the public art in Canberra, and a omelet made with cage eggs).

Eventually he takes his own life … but not before slaughtering all the hostages.

Such a senseless waste of life.

So … yes, I think I’d much rather Schumacher not drive without proper car registration.

p1 said :

rhino said :

johnboy said :

rhino said :

It’s easy to critisize, but if you just forgot then you haven’t intended any mallice.

No malice, just incompetence too great to be allowed on the road.

Driving is not a right.

Incompetence in remembering to pay something has no bearing on your ability to drive.

What if Michael Schumacher forgot to pay his rego and some dodgey driver who cuts people off and doesn’t look where they are going and has no ability to control their car remembered to pay their rego?

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.

The premise here is that the is a correlation between two things. One of those things I define as “people who are unable to either budget for rego and insurance, or simply forget to get them, and then make the decision to operate the vehicle on a public road anyway”. The other thing is people involved in collisions.

The statistic suggest there is a significant correlation between these two things. It is not a 100% correlation. And it is not just about money, plenty of people can’t afford rego or insurance, or have had their licences suspended, and plenty of those people do not make the decision to drive.

I’d say there was a very loose correlation, but mostly because of the small subset of those people who are unlicenced rather than unregistered, yet they are grouped together. Of the unlicenced people, some of those have lost their licence for good cause, because they are dangerous on the road. They would cause a lot of accidents. But even of the unlicenced people, some of those wouldn’t necessarily cause accidents. And of the unregistered people, it’s easy to imagine some bogan hooning around running over old ladies and laughing, but that is not really how it is. So there is a loose correlation only because of a small dangerous subset of this large group of people they have grouped together. If you removed them from this grouping, there would be quite likely no correlation at all with people who forgot to pay their rego etc.

RAPID works because, like RBTs and police speed checks, an offence is detected AND ACTED UPON immediately. An unregistered car / unlicenced gets pulled over, taken off the streets, and the owner/driver both gets their infringement notice and ability to drive the car removed straight away (action = consequences).

Compare with speed cameras, where an offence is committed and the person usually keeps driving at an illegal/unsafe speed. They then get a invoice in the mail 2 weeks or so after the offence when they would probably struggle to remember the circumstances, then they can pay their fine as easily as paying a mobile phone bill (credit card or Bpay for Sir? Certainly!). Or just screw up the notice and continue not to give a FF as you drive around.

rhino said :

johnboy said :

rhino said :

It’s easy to critisize, but if you just forgot then you haven’t intended any mallice.

No malice, just incompetence too great to be allowed on the road.

Driving is not a right.

Incompetence in remembering to pay something has no bearing on your ability to drive.

What if Michael Schumacher forgot to pay his rego and some dodgey driver who cuts people off and doesn’t look where they are going and has no ability to control their car remembered to pay their rego?

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.

The premise here is that the is a correlation between two things. One of those things I define as “people who are unable to either budget for rego and insurance, or simply forget to get them, and then make the decision to operate the vehicle on a public road anyway”. The other thing is people involved in collisions.

The statistic suggest there is a significant correlation between these two things. It is not a 100% correlation. And it is not just about money, plenty of people can’t afford rego or insurance, or have had their licences suspended, and plenty of those people do not make the decision to drive.

johnboy said :

Just get off the road before you kill someone Rhino.

If Michael Schumacher forget his rego he would get a reminder note and would, I assume pay it.

If he was so whacked out he couldn’t manage to register his car then I wouldn’t want him on the road either.

And you’d prefer the horrible, negligent driver on the road over Schumacher, who is a very skilled driver?

rhino said :

johnboy said :

rhino said :

It’s easy to critisize, but if you just forgot then you haven’t intended any mallice.

No malice, just incompetence too great to be allowed on the road.

Driving is not a right.

Incompetence in remembering to pay something has no bearing on your ability to drive.

What if Michael Schumacher forgot to pay his rego and some dodgey driver who cuts people off and doesn’t look where they are going and has no ability to control their car remembered to pay their rego?

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.

It’s completely okay to drive an unregistered car without a license because, hey, you could be Michael Schumacher … also some people are poor, or forgetful … and stuff.

BWAA AHAHA HA HA HAHA HAH AHAHA HA AHAHA

Just get off the road before you kill someone Rhino.

If Michael Schumacher forget his rego he would get a reminder note and would, I assume pay it.

If he was so whacked out he couldn’t manage to register his car then I wouldn’t want him on the road either.

rhino said :

Only one unregistered vehicle crashed and that was on a rural road?

No. What he said was there was only one fatal crash.

johnboy said :

“In this financial year (2010-11), only one unlicensed driver on one unregistered vehicle – a quad bike – was involved in a fatal collision. And that particular collision occurred on a rural dirt road where RAPID does not operate.

johnboy said :

rhino said :

It’s easy to critisize, but if you just forgot then you haven’t intended any mallice.

No malice, just incompetence too great to be allowed on the road.

Driving is not a right.

Incompetence in remembering to pay something has no bearing on your ability to drive.

What if Michael Schumacher forgot to pay his rego and some dodgey driver who cuts people off and doesn’t look where they are going and has no ability to control their car remembered to pay their rego?

I know who I’d rather have on the road. Schumacher isn’t likely to crash into me due to poor driving skill. The other guy is. Therefore the other guy is more likely to kill me than schumacher, despite their registration status.

rhino said :

It’s easy to critisize, but if you just forgot then you haven’t intended any mallice.

No malice, just incompetence too great to be allowed on the road.

Driving is not a right.

johnboy said :

http://the-riotact.com/rapid-results-2/49531

“We know that those drivers who do not pay their vehicle registration or CTP insurance, or continue to drive whilst unlicensed or disqualified, are risk-takers on our roads and are more likely to be involved in a serious collision,” Sergeant Knight said.

“In the financial year 2009-2010, we had 20 collisions involving fatalities. Seven of those fatalities – nearly one third – involved an unlicensed driver or an unregistered vehicle.

“In this financial year (2010-11), only one unlicensed driver on one unregistered vehicle – a quad bike – was involved in a fatal collision. And that particular collision occurred on a rural dirt road where RAPID does not operate.”

If you’re too forgetful to register you car get it off the road. If you can’t afford to register it you can’t afford tyres or maintenance either so get that off the road too.

It’s easy to critisize, but if you just forgot then you haven’t intended any mallice. And if you are poor, you often do not work in the city where you can easily just catch a bus to work. You may work at 7am at some unusual site with little or no public transport or late at night. The option of getting your car off the road and just not going to work and just starving to death in a corner (or worse, become a dole bludger) probably would not seem favourable over driving unregistered to them. They would think more like “well I’m not going to have an accident, so it won’t make any difference if I don’t have CTP or not. I’ll register my car when I can get the money next pay day”

Only one unregistered vehicle crashed and that was on a rural road? What about the other point of view, ie how many vehicles crashed that were registered and within the scope of the RAPIDs? A fair few, I’d say.

Unlicenced drivers may have a higher probability of crashing though, if they had their licence revoked for reckless driving and drink driving etc (as some are). But even some of the unlicenced drivers are probably just due to an accumulation of points for more minor offences that don’t result in an 80% chance of killing someone as this article would have you believe.

Whilst this is good news, once again the number of people who received permanent and debilitating injuries as a result of traffic collisions appear to have been overlooked.

Over 30,000 people are seriously injured in Australia each year from traffic collisions.

At present, every time any person ventures near a road, ventures near a motor vehicle, walks on a foot path, drives any sort of vehicle on private or public land, they have approximately a 0.0015% chance of being seriously and/or permanently injured as a result of a traffic collision

That’s 150 times the chance of becoming seriously / permanently ill as the result of an annual flu shot.

Something to think about next time anyone’s tempted to perform a hasty overtaking move on the Kings Highway.

johnboy said :

rhino said :

I also don’t see how the RAPID really logically stops accidents causing death. Not paying your rego is either because you simply forgot or because you are really poor and can’t afford it. I know there is a kind of class discrimination where people in canberra see the lower classes as scum with no morals, but that is not logically so. Just because you have no money, doesn’t mean you are scum. And just because you are scum does not make you a bad driver either. So there is a massive logical gap there. Poor or forgetful people cause all of the deaths on the road? I think not. Sure, they may cause a financial burdon on the taxpayer IF they crash and are uninsured, but that does not mean that their accidents are more likely to kill. It’s not like accident victims are refused entry to hospital and are left to die just because someone involved forgot their insurance.

I think by logic you mean intuition (and failed intuition at that).

The statistics were showing that people who couldn’t get their lives together enough to be licensed and registered were also failing at driving without causing accidents.

Now in the long term RAPID will become less eficacious as crap drivers get better at being registered, but that’s not a reason to use it in the short term.

Which statistics were showing that people who “couldn’t get their lives together” ie poor or forgetful people lack driving skill? I’m fairly sure there would have been some famous racing car drivers born out of poverty. Driving skill is not logically determined by your income or organisational skills.

Please provide these statistics that you claim are not intuition.

http://the-riotact.com/rapid-results-2/49531

    “We know that those drivers who do not pay their vehicle registration or CTP insurance, or continue to drive whilst unlicensed or disqualified, are risk-takers on our roads and are more likely to be involved in a serious collision,” Sergeant Knight said.

    “In the financial year 2009-2010, we had 20 collisions involving fatalities. Seven of those fatalities – nearly one third – involved an unlicensed driver or an unregistered vehicle.

    “In this financial year (2010-11), only one unlicensed driver on one unregistered vehicle – a quad bike – was involved in a fatal collision. And that particular collision occurred on a rural dirt road where RAPID does not operate.”

If you’re too forgetful to register you car get it off the road. If you can’t afford to register it you can’t afford tyres or maintenance either so get that off the road too.

rhino said :

I also don’t see how the RAPID really logically stops accidents causing death. Not paying your rego is either because you simply forgot or because you are really poor and can’t afford it. I know there is a kind of class discrimination where people in canberra see the lower classes as scum with no morals, but that is not logically so. Just because you have no money, doesn’t mean you are scum. And just because you are scum does not make you a bad driver either. So there is a massive logical gap there. Poor or forgetful people cause all of the deaths on the road? I think not. Sure, they may cause a financial burdon on the taxpayer IF they crash and are uninsured, but that does not mean that their accidents are more likely to kill. It’s not like accident victims are refused entry to hospital and are left to die just because someone involved forgot their insurance.

I think by logic you mean intuition (and failed intuition at that).

The statistics were showing that people who couldn’t get their lives together enough to be licensed and registered were also failing at driving without causing accidents.

Now in the long term RAPID will become less eficacious as crap drivers get better at being registered, but that’s not a reason to use it in the short term.

Who are these “good people” who “forget” to renew their rego?

How could you “forget”? You get a new sticker in the mail and your existing sticker has the month in which it’s due in big black numbers visible from the driver’s seat.

They sound to me like the same people who just don’t give a feck.

TAD said :

If you take the credit when the road toll is low, you must also be prepared to take the blame when it is high.

Definitely logical. I agree with this.

I also don’t see how the RAPID really logically stops accidents causing death. Not paying your rego is either because you simply forgot or because you are really poor and can’t afford it. I know there is a kind of class discrimination where people in canberra see the lower classes as scum with no morals, but that is not logically so. Just because you have no money, doesn’t mean you are scum. And just because you are scum does not make you a bad driver either. So there is a massive logical gap there. Poor or forgetful people cause all of the deaths on the road? I think not. Sure, they may cause a financial burdon on the taxpayer IF they crash and are uninsured, but that does not mean that their accidents are more likely to kill. It’s not like accident victims are refused entry to hospital and are left to die just because someone involved forgot their insurance.

This is good news indeed. I think RAPID is a great idea. I’d like to see more cars equipped with it, and more police on the roads in general. They are far more effective than other measures that seem to only raise money, not deter dangerous driving or assist in making roads safer.

TAD said :

If you take the credit when the road toll is low, you must also be prepared to take the blame when it is high.

I think you will find they do take the blame when it is high, they have been trying for the past 3 years to reduce by implementing measures they believe will lower it, including, but no limited to, RAPID, speed camera’s etc. (Notice I said they believe.)

Myles Peterson9:11 am 30 Mar 12

Good result. Well done.

If you take the credit when the road toll is low, you must also be prepared to take the blame when it is high.

EvanJames said :

Evil_Kitten said :

While I think RAPID is a great thing and I do agree with all of the above posts, I’m wondering how many of those 4000 unregistered cars were people who had simply forgotten to pay their rego by a day or two.

These people are not the dregs of society, but mostly normal people like you and me (I’m making assumptions about you all being normal here 😀 ).

A totally different crowd to the “unregistered and I know it and I don’t give a sh!t” brigade.

… who, if you have a crash with them, and end up in hospital, aren’t covered for third party (or anything, for that matter, their own insurance is void). It’s not necessarily a victimless crime.

When your Rego expires, your third party personal insurance actually lasts for an extra week or so. This means if you have honestly forgotten, and your Rego is only a day out, you will onl be charged with “unregistered” but not “uninsured”, a substantially smaller fine.

Actually unregistered vehicles are covered by third party insurance, sort of.

A body called the Nominal Defendant steps in and acts as the third party insurer if the vehicle at fault does not have third party insurance [i.e. normally unregistered vehicles]. Its jointly funded by the government and a levy on ctp premiums. The Nominal Defendant coughs up the money for the not at fault people injured in an accident with an unregistered vehicle, as a third party insurer normally would, and the Nominal Defendant then tries to recoup the money it has paid out from the driver who didn’t have third party insurance.

A few cases before the Court now where the Nominal Defendant is seeking repayment of large amounts of money that it has paid out on behalf of drivers without third party insurance seriously injuring people in collisions. One is well over $1.5 million and another around $1 million.

Whilst some of these incidents involve deadbeats who never register their vehicles, others are simply normal good people who forgot to renew their rego [and yes I know that is not an excuse]. Hit with a large bill like those mentioned above, most people don’t really have any option but to declare bankruptcty.

EvanJames said :

… who, if you have a crash with them, and end up in hospital, aren’t covered for third party (or anything, for that matter, their own insurance is void). It’s not necessarily a victimless crime.

EvanJames said :

… who, if you have a crash with them, and end up in hospital, aren’t covered for third party (or anything, for that matter, their own insurance is void). It’s not necessarily a victimless crime.

I absolutely realise that, but that wasn’t the aspect of unregistered cars we were talking about. We were talking about “a year without road fatalities” and people pointed out that RAPID probably helped to get the “scum” off the road that may have contributed to those fatalities.

I was merely asking how much of that 4000 cars were “scum” and how much were your average mum or dad who let it lapse by a day or two by accident.

The aftermath of a person (good or bad) having no rego and therefore no insurance is a whole another issue.

Evil_Kitten said :

While I think RAPID is a great thing and I do agree with all of the above posts, I’m wondering how many of those 4000 unregistered cars were people who had simply forgotten to pay their rego by a day or two.

These people are not the dregs of society, but mostly normal people like you and me (I’m making assumptions about you all being normal here 😀 ).

A totally different crowd to the “unregistered and I know it and I don’t give a sh!t” brigade.

… who, if you have a crash with them, and end up in hospital, aren’t covered for third party (or anything, for that matter, their own insurance is void). It’s not necessarily a victimless crime.

While I think RAPID is a great thing and I do agree with all of the above posts, I’m wondering how many of those 4000 unregistered cars were people who had simply forgotten to pay their rego by a day or two.

These people are not the dregs of society, but mostly normal people like you and me (I’m making assumptions about you all being normal here 😀 ).

A totally different crowd to the “unregistered and I know it and I don’t give a sh!t” brigade.

johnboy said :

Now for mine the next breakthrough is police standing on the corner of Northbourne and Alinga of a morning and handing out tickets to all the dopes who drive across the intersection before there’s room for them on the other side.

Yep. Start bloody policing all the road rules, rather than two of them. Because in the vacuum, people are just doing their own thing and it’s not pretty, or conducive to the roads functioning as they should. Queing across roundabouts is exactly the same, but they all do it.

VYBerlinaV8_is_back10:42 pm 29 Mar 12

I think the RAPID system is a great idea. Removing the idiots who drive unregistered, uninsured or even stolen vehicles is a solid step toward better road safety and compliance.

Seems like barely a day goes by lately when I don’t see a car parked on the side of the road, sans number plates, and I keep wondering when people will learn that driving unregistered is just not something you can get away with anymore? RAPID has to be one of the most visible policing efforts the ACT has – even if you don’t see the actual cars, their hits line the streets virtually screaming ‘RAPID waz ‘ere 2012!’ How anyone can drive past that while thinking they won’t be caught defies belief.

“There are many factors which have contributed towards this result’

Including a hell of a lot of luck.

RAPID was a solid stab at playing moneyball.

Morons who can’t be arsed registering their cars were also causing a huge percentage of the accidents. Identifying and nabbing them dropped the risk factors on the roads dramatically.

Now for mine the next breakthrough is police standing on the corner of Northbourne and Alinga of a morning and handing out tickets to all the dopes who drive across the intersection before there’s room for them on the other side.

P2P cameras on Hindmarsh Dr are clearly responsible.

A great result.

Although I wish the fatality figures were accompanied by hospitalisation and permanent injury figures. For every person who dies on the road, there is probably three or four who are maimed for life.

I was wondering for years why we didn’t have it – AFP priorities?

Over 4000 unregistered vehicles in 18 months!! That’s a huge number. I wonder how many vehicles there are in Canberra, and what percentage the 4000 represents out of the total number of vehicles on the road. It’s pretty scary to think that perhaps 1 in 20 cars travelling with me on the way to work in the morning is unregistered.

Anyway, more power to RAPID. I’d like to see it installed in every police vehicle in the ACT.

My gut feeling is that the RAPID system has probably contributed to this astonishing result. Removing a bunch of societies motoring losers from the road has again probably assisted this lack of toll.

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