Australian Drivers Speed

Okay, its official, Australian Drivers Speed. A survey of 5,000 Australian drivers showed that more than 50% drive up to 20km/hr over the speed limit if they are running late, only 15% said they only speed during an emergency.

The survey which was conducted for insurers Budget Direct gave some real figures about real world driving situations. The Police force are more than aware of these figures, and even more so, I believe they are aware of the fact that speed camera’s do little to safe lives. Nonetheless, the causes of speeding are never addressed, instead more and more speed cameras are put in place to save lives.

Budget Direct Insurance managing director Michael Weston explains why he believes more and more Australians are speeding:

“What’s happening, what were seeing, we did a similar survey on road rage a number of months back and what were seeing is that as traffic problems and as traffic congestion increases people become less and less patient, they’re tending to speed more to make up for lost time,” he said.

However, even though people are willing to speed to get to where they are going, they are not willing to park in a disabled zone when they get there:

“Eighty-three per cent of the people surveyed said that they would never under any circumstances park in a disabled parking space. There was only 8 per cent of the people nation-wide that admitted they had done it at some point in time in the past so it does show that when it comes to parking, particularly disabled parking, people are very courteous.“ he said.

Nonetheless, I would say that this is partially due to the inability of proving ones disability (disability sticker) whilst speeding has a much lower chance of being caught and does not undergo the same social stigma that parking in a disabled zone does.