New South Wales » Australian Car Advice

2009 Holden Commodore range preview

June 17th, 2008 33 Comments

GM Holden has unveiled the first of what is sure to be many images resulting from a mid-life update to the VE Commodore range, beginning with the new MY09 VE Omega.

The full range is expected to make its debut later this year or early 2009, however this may be thrown awry by the recent announcement of alternative fuel developments.

Video: Haltech Nissan GT-R dragstrip

May 20th, 2008 19 Comments

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX is well known as the fastest accelerating car in its price bracket - even more so with a few after market additions.

It is certainly interesting then to see how the new Nissan GT-R - sporting only an Australian-developed Haltech ECU - performs against a highly tuned version of its local rival.

Police crack down on car enthusiasts

May 7th, 2008 112 Comments

The latest victim of the tough new anti-hoon laws is a classic Ford Falcon GT valued at $200,000 which has been permanently confiscated from its owner - the crime? No it wasn’t speeding and no one was hurt - it was the driver’s second burnout offense.

Overkill is really the only word which comes to mind when a burnout results in what is effectively a $200,000 fine, especially when it took a full blown police operation to issue it.

2008 Easter road toll

March 25th, 2008 24 Comments

This year’s Easter road toll has hit 21 and going by the latest police reports, it might go even higher.

So far Queensland has had the worst record with seven deaths, Western Australia has hit five, Victoria is currently sitting at four, Tasmania is three and the Northern Territory and South Australia have each recorded one. Amazingly, there has been no deaths on New South Wales or ACT roads.

Despite the massive increase (and intensely advertised) number of speed cameras and police on QLD roads, the sunshine state has once again, recorded the worst toll for the nation.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has blamed speeding motorists, saying her government will review its road safety campaign with the potential for tougher penalties. QLD police have also expressed that they are at “wits end” with motorists’ behaviour.

“As a result of the continued speeding on our roads, and as a result of the continued drink driving on our roads, I’ll be talking with the Queensland Police Service and the minister for transport (John Mickel) about what else we can look at.” Premier Bligh said.

Unfortunately for Premier Bligh, she has missed the point. Last year QLD launched campaign 300, aimed at reducing the road toll below 300 for 2007. The operation involved substantially more speed cameras and RBTs.

The result? Not only did it fail, the road toll actually increased by almost 7 per cent (337 in 2006). The extra speed cameras have so far proven to be nothing more than a successful revenue-raising scheme.

What tends to concern us though, is that Premier Bligh has not even bothered to account for how the seven deaths occurred, opting to instead blame speeding without hesitation or merit.

Saturday saw a male pedestrian hit and killed by a vehicle at Craignish, north-west of Hervey Bay. That was followed by the deaths of a six-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy when the car they were in left the road, rolled and hit a tree at Murphys Creek, north of Toowoomba.

A teenager died when his motorcycle left the road and slammed into a tree. An elderly man died after a two car collision in the Brisbane suburb of Mansfield while a man in his 50s died when his motorbike collided with a cow about 10km outside Boulia, in the state’s west.

So, two motorcycle deaths, one caused by a cow, one pedestrian, two deaths in one car due to driver error and dark roads (Police did not blame speed as the primary cause), but it gets better, because according to QLD police the elderly man’s death could have been caused by a pre-existing medical condition!

What gets the blame? Speeding! Remember folks, if you can’t blame anyone else, blame speeding! At least that makes money.

When we said massive increase in speed cameras, we weren’t exaggerating, 14,731 QLD drivers were issued with speeding tickets during this holiday period, nearly twice as many as Easter in 2007. Almost 500 were caught drink driving.

What more can we say? Twice as many speeders caught, yet the road toll is higher? Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s not speeding?

Perhaps Premier Bligh should look into advanced driver training for all, compulsory re-licensing for older drivers, separate licenses for 4WD and high performance cars and focus the speed cameras on blackspots, not on straight roads.

Moving on from QLD, NSW Police issued just under 5000 speeding tickets, about 1/3 of QLD’s count, despite the state having a higher number of registered drivers. The number of speeding tickets also didn’t affect the state’s roads remaining fatality free.

Lotus Exige NSW Police Car

It’s worth noting, however, that despite the minimal speeding tickets, 6780 NSW motorists were charged with other driving offence ranging from reckless driving, using a mobile phone while driving and not wearing a seatbelt.

The motorist which topped the state’s idiot list was a 23-year-old disqualified driver, who passed a speed camera at 160km/h coming off the Anzac Bridge.

Moving to Victoria, a mother and daughter were killed when their car slammed into the side of a passenger train today in yet another level crossing disaster for the state.

Police have confirmed that the vehicle was a four-wheel drive and the incident occurred at an unprotected country level crossing at Moriac, near Winchelsea (picture below).

The second worst state was Western Australia with 5 deaths. An eight-year-old and a 21-year-old died when the Holden Commodore sedan they were in turned in front of a Holden Rodeo - the Rodeo had right of way.

Despite wearing seatbelts, the 21-year-old woman and the eight-year-old boy were thrown from the Commodore and died of their injuries.

On Friday a woman was killed when her car slammed into a tree on the South-West Highway, 30km north of Walpole. Another women died in the State’s north, after she was thrown from her car as it rolled on a bend. Police believe she was not wearing a seatbelt at the time.

Going by the WA Police’s own press releases, excessive speed was not the primary factor in these deaths.

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These unfortunate souls that have perished on Australian roads this Easter period, have perished in vain. The State governments continue to deny the need for better driver training, while insisting, without merit, that excessive speed is the primary and root cause of the majority of accidents.

All we can ask is that you consider the facts and figures before blindly swallowing the Speed Kills propaganda. Sticking to 60km/h in a 60 zone does not guarantee your safety. If you want to improve your driving ability and lower your chances of being in a car accident, book yourself into an advanced driving course, it may just save your life.

Alborz Fallah

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Petrol to hit $1.50 per litre

January 3rd, 2008 76 Comments

In what may be an ominous sign of things to come, petrol prices are set to hit a record $1.50 litre mean average within the next week.

Oil prices again hit the $100USD per barrel mark last night driving the pump price up as demand continues to outstrip supply.

The current pump average in Sydney is $1.44 whilst outer suburbs are already paying $1.50. Melbourne is paying well in to the $1.40 mark in what may soon become the norm considering political tensions in oil producing nations and heavy demand from new industrial giants like China and India.

2007 road toll figures

January 1st, 2008 35 Comments

Update: Figures corrected & Tasmania included

With another year over the national road authorities have began reviewing the road toll to examine if their tactics have proven successful. As a nation, Australia’s 2007 road toll was has increased by 11 over last year’s 1605. The bush saw a steady climb in deaths on regional and outback roads.

1616 people lost their lives on Australian roads this year with New South Wales topping the table with 445 deaths.

Queensland, which has spent considerable amounts of money (campaign 300) increasing speed cameras, police presence and RBTs, saw its death toll hit 360 - 60 more than the transport authorised had aimed for and the second-highest in the country. It was also the state’s worst record since 1997.

Victoria came in third with 333 deaths including 13 in the last 10 days of the year - the second lowest road toll for the state. Western Australia came in fourth after suffering a surge in rural deaths. The state recorded 235 deaths, a 14 per cent increase over 2006 (200).

Queensland Police Recruits Toyota Aurion

South Australia had 125, coming in fifth place. The Northern Territory saw its road toll rise almost 25 per cent, with 57 deaths this year. Tasmania suffered 47 deaths and 14 lives were lost in on ACT roads, up one from 2006.

Despite the highest road toll in the country, NSW’s 2007 record was the best for the state since 1980 (per capita).

“This is the fifth consecutive year the road toll has reduced despite a steady increase in traffic on our roads. Motorists deserve credit for heeding the road safety messages.” NSW Premier Morris Iemma said.

Queensland authorities on the other hand have a lot to answer for. The highly publicised campaign 300 has failed miserably in bringing the road toll below 300.

Unfortunately, not only has it failed, but the road toll has increased by almost 7 per cent (337 in 2006). The extra speed cameras have proven to be nothing more than a successful revenue-raising scheme.

Victorians should expect a drink-driving blitz throughout this year with statistics showing a 16 per cent increase in fatalities involving drivers under the influence.

Our friends at Vic Roads were kind enough to ends us a table of the fatality rate per million population (based on population figures in 2004).

	Population	2007 road toll (p)	Fatality Rate per million population
ACT	324,100	14	43.2
NSW	6,720,800	445	66.2
Vic	4,963,000	333	67.1
SA	1,532,700	125	81.6
Qld	3,888,100	360	92.6
Tas	482,200	47	97.5
WA	1,978,100	235	118.8
NT	199,800	57	285.3
Total	20,088,800	1616	80.4

The data shows the ACT is by far the safest state in the country with NSW and Victoria battling it out for 2nd and 3rd. South Australia comes in fourth with Queensland and Tasmania fifth and sixth. Western Australia comes in second last, but the Northern Territory has taken the cake again this year with over 6x the fatality rate of the ACT.

Despite calls from major motoring groups, government authorities continue to deny the benefits of driver training.

Tell us what you think is the best way to reduce the road toll?

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Tough new anti-hoon laws for NSW

December 4th, 2007 20 Comments

Under a new set of laws outlined today by the NSW Government, car hoons could face potential jail time for aggravated street racing, burnouts and other dangerous driving offences.

The news comes following the decision to begin destroying cars in crash tests as a drastic measure to cull would-be hoons.

Audi in $50 million showroom drive

November 15th, 2007 10 Comments

Audi Australia has announced plans to build a $50 million showroom and Australian headquarters in Sydney

The Audi “lighthouse”, will be built on a 3655sqm site on South Dowling Street in the southern city-fringe suburb of Rosebery. The Victoria Park area marked for the development has previous automotive associations. It was the site of the ill-fated Leyland Australia factory that built the P76.

Pinky ad ’causes’ Road Rage

October 31st, 2007 78 Comments

The New South Wales Road and Traffic Authority’s (RTA) ‘if you drive a performance car than you have a small penis ‘ advertising campaign has finally driven a motorist mad.

Back in August, a female driver made the “small penis” hand gesture to Simon Jardak who was so enraged that he throw a bottle at the woman’s car!

Hectic Campaign Video

July 31st, 2007 19 Comments

It seems the RTA are not even trying to be subtle with their latest ad campaign.

I realise how ridiculous this sounds, but this is a completely RTA endorsed advertisement and can be found here on their website.

With the apparent success of their initial pinky-wiggling campaign, the RTA have thrown caution to the wind and blatantly connected speeding (better described as hooning) with poor endowment.

Even more strange it seems, is that the RTA is apparently a Capricorn - and single, ladies. That is according to their MySpace profile. No, you read it correctly, in order to connect with our youth the RTA have aimed this campaign directly at young male driver’s through MySpace.

Hectic Campaign Video - Their Words, Not Mine

Since Hollywood has made us all but immune to blood and gore, traditional RTA scare campaigns no longer have an effect, so it seems they have had no choice but to resort to shocking the audience with these controversial ad campaigns.

Perhaps it is time they moved on from blatantly targeting male drivers (one of the tags associated with the MySpace video is simply ‘male’) and came up with new, more appropriate campaign slogans such as, “Yes honey, you look fine…” which deals with the dangers of applying make-up while driving. Followed by “You know, like - whatever” condemning teenage girls using mobile phones whilst driving.

So far Myspace users have ridiculed the ad and the RTA’s advertising methods. Mypace user Alex said “The RTA are oblivious” while a more comical response came from Brian who said:

“Driving slower wont increase the size of your *****, but speeding will decrease the size of it (if I read the advertisement correctly). So for guys with 20″ ******* that scare chicks away, speed more and your **** will become 8 inches!!!”

What the RTA fails to realise is that no matter what, young males will always be just that, young males, who are inherent high risk takers.

So I still retain that encouraging the use of public race tracks rather then continuously condemning speeding would better suit both parties. Since it seems advanced driving courses are out of the question, how about subsidising public race tracks and allowing driver’s to teach themselves by taking their cars to the limit in a controlled and safe environment?

George Skentzos