Comments on: Higher Fines Do Not Deter Motorists

By: brettg

brettg — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:58:47 +0000

The correct figure for the Victorian road toll reduction in that previous comment should have been around 10%.

By: brettg

brettg — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:55:16 +0000

Can you prove that Darren? The reduction in the road toll could equally be attributed to safer cars. Isn’t it interesting that the road toll in Victoria goes down by 30% in 2008 when you have the first ever Australian cars achieving 5 star safety ratings.

So was it the:
* billions of dollars in fines
* the safer cars
* better roads (have a look at the hume hwy now)
* better alcohol enforcement
* cheap and freely availble breathalisers?

I could go on. Most of the road toll reduction over the last 6 years has been achieved by the community and not the road authorities because they continue to blindly ignore articles like this.

By: Darren Berry

Darren Berry — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:20:09 +0000

What a load of rubbish!
This report looked at REoffenders who have been to Court.
Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that high fines are deterring millions of potential first time/minor/non court offences from occuring in the first place. Yes there will always be idiots who keep doing the wrong thing and of course the people who get the biggest penalty are more likely to reoffend because they are the biggest idiots in the first place – I could have told them that and they could have saved the research money. But for the majority of Australians money is the best deterrent because the average Australian is dumb and education does not work or takes a very long time. Get back in the real world people, all of these fines, speed cameras etc have saved thousands of lives and could be the reason you, your family and friends are alive today.

By: Jon Vance

Jon Vance — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:01:08 +0000

So here we have evidence: that attitude is the Road Safety problem. The attitude of the drivers, versus the pigheaded attitude of the Road Safety Authorities, who get paid for blaming the motorists. So safety isnt the issue here. It is Revenue. Cynical concern like this is causing a need for much head scratching when motorist refuse to pay their fines for petty infringements.
See here. I billion dollars owed by motorists.
http://www.theage.com.au/text/.....42271.html
Maintain the rage, take them to court, (They will say theyre taking you to court) refuse to be intimidated.
See http://www.fightfines.info and get good and mad. We expect fair treatment. Were not getting it.

By: Daniel Moloney

Daniel Moloney — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:06:54 +0000

I think the reason for road authorities being blind to the big picture and pushing the fear is that they receive money from the goverments to do so. If they start pushing the possiblity that education of drivers is possible a better solution the goverments may intern restrict funding to these organizations.

By: Anthony Crawford

Anthony Crawford — Wed, 23 May 2007 23:55:02 +0000

Here we go again, and again and again. Not one mention of perhaps we should be building safer roads!

I suspect that knee jerk road building will continue in Australia for a very long time and that Government (both state and federal) are indirectly resposible for thousands of road deaths each year because no one wants to spend enough money on road infrastructure.