Australian Car Advice | News Blog

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Launched by Road Safety Minister Carmel Zollo the $1 million dollar plus advertising campaign is hoped to save the lives of some 14 motorists annually who were killed in an accident where low level speeding was the primary cause.

“People do not understand the consequences of being involved in a crash and the extra impact of travelling just a little bit over the speed limit can have” Motor Accident Commission CEO Andrew Daniels.

The ad which even the SA Government admits is a little confronting is said to highlight the pain and suffering of crash victims by using the tag line “There are creepers among us”.

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What do you think? Will it work? Let us know by leaving a comment.

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Nonetheless, Insp Richard Watkins, of Victoria Police’s major collision investigation unit, still claimed that traffic police strongly supported speed cameras.

“If the cameras are doing their job, then we spend less time at serious collisions and fatalities, members might want to come and spend a day with us to see the impact of speed.” he said.

In Victoria alone, an average of more than 50,000 mobile speed camera fines are issued each month and that figure excludes tickets issued by fixed cameras.

Victoria Police were quick to point out that regardless of what the Police force believe, excessive speed is still the most common cause of road accidents. A spokeswoman for the force noted that there has been a 50 per cent drop in the road toll since the inception of cameras in 1989.

Unfortunately, nor her or the Victorian police force has considered the enormous advancements in vehicle safety since 1989. The inclusion of airbags in nearly all new cars, ESP, ABS, Side airbags, the list goes on, but, according to Victoria Police, the 50% reduction is primarily due to speed cameras…

“The traffic camera program is ultimately designed to reduce the number of vehicle collisions and therefore the incidence of road trauma and death,” she said.

Now that the police officers agree with the majority of us, how can we move forward from here?

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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.

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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The three minute ad will premiere at 8.27pm this evening with shorter ads appearing over coming weeks.

The TAC hopes the true stories will get through to speeding motorists though many cynics of the campaign believe the money could have been better spent in educational programs and improvements to our roads.

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The first guinea pigs will be Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon, a  former Victorian coroner plus other Victorian Government ministers and an estimated 45 other participants.

According to the Herald Sun, all state and territory governments as well as New Zealand have been in talks to introduce the system for some time. Depending on results, the project will move to NSW and Western Australia later this year.

The system will cost anywhere between $700 and $2000 per vehicle to install and it is expected to find its way into government fleet cars first.

So how does it work? It’s not that different to your every satellite navigation - only that it interfaces with your car’s electronic systems. It knows where you are and it has a database of all speed limits on Australia roads.

Firstly it works out how fast you’re going by taking an average reading of your changing position divided by time -it then runs the speed past the database to see if you’re breaking the speed limit - then begins the pain.

There are three levels of operation:

• Level one will simply give you an annoying audible warning when you go over the speed limit,
• Level two starts to cut power to the engine to slow you down by force - but can be overridden or ignored,
• Level three is like level two only that the system now overrules you, and won’t allow the car to speed regardless of what colourful words you will use against it.

Queensland transport, which despite a massive surge in speed cameras failed miserably in reducing the state’s road toll last year, has already come out and said the system can reduce serious accidents by an enormous 20 per cent.

But wait, it gets better. The Herald Sun also quoted in its original report that an unnamed Victorian government website has gone even one step further, suggesting that almost 60 per cent of road fatalities can be cut if the system was fitted to all cars.

Previously we would say that the state governments are looking for the cheap way out to fix the road toll epidemic, but this is no cheap option. With the estimated cost of $700-$2000, the money would be far better spent introducing mandatory advanced driver training classes to improve driving skills and reiterating the road rules.

No doubt that if the trial are successful, the system will find its way to everyday cars, perhaps being  a mandatory fitting for repeat speeding offenders.

So what do you think? Would you allow your car to be fitted with a big brother style speed limiter?

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“Were you driving safely Mr Hughes? If you were, then you have been lying to us about the importance of sticking to the speed limit, we don’t believe for a single second that Mr Hughes was driving dangerously and he must now tell us the truth about the role of speed limits in road safety.” UK group Safe Speed’s Paul Smith asked Mr Hughes.

Mr Hughes has been punished by being stripped of his current position and put in charge of ACPO’s security planning efforts for the 2012 Olympic games. We found this video that better explains why UK motorists should be angry at the hypocrisy that Mr Hughes has shown.

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Fines associated with these offences have also trebled to $3300, with police now given the power to strip a driver of their licence for up to 12 months.

Repeat offenders may also face jail time of up to 9 months, where as previously this only applied following a second more serious offence such as colliding with another car or injuring a person.

Car owners and parents are also in the firing line if their car is used by the convicted driver, with measures extending to a wheel clamping program, where cars are immobilised and dumped in owner’s yard at home.

Perhaps if the NSW Government would actually consult these “hoons” to better understand the needs for a cheap, easily accessible race track these sorts of laws would not be necessary.

As it stands now, Australia is quickly following Canadian and U.S. authorities by passing tough anti-hoon laws to crush cars and jail drivers. From preliminary reports from our allies in the US, similar laws have done nothing to curb the hoon-epidemic.

Stay tuned for more knee-jerk reactions from other state governments in the next 6-12 months.

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Not only was the positioning of this mobile speed camera unsafe, it was also in direct contravention of the “Victorian Police Traffic Camera Office Mobile Speed Camera Policy and Operations Manual.” The aforementioned document can be sourced here.

Of particular concern is the final section of the document detailing the information below (see page 11 of Mobile Speed Camera Policy and Operations Manual, under the section titled “Camera Concealment/Disguise.”)

Camera Concealment/Disguise:

To maintain community confidence in the mobile speed camera initiative, it is important for the operational use of the device to be seen as fair and reasonable. Under no circumstances are camera vehicles, tripods or portable flash units (when used) to be disguised by signs, logos, breakdown of vehicle (eg. boot open or spare wheel/jack visible), tree branches, lamp posts, rubbish bins or any other covert means.

The operator of the mobile speed camera has clearly broken the operational guidelines issued by the Victorian Department of Justice. CarAdvice would like to see all fines issued by the mobile speed camera in question refunded immediately and the site removed from the register. It begs the question, how many more illegal sites like these are in use? How many unsuspecting individuals is the Victorian Government robbing each and every day?

The other issue that has ruffled feathers today is the astonishing use of a speed radar on a public footpath - right outside a sporting facility and convention of people for an event. The undercover Police vehicle pictured is blocking enough of the footpath to make it hard for a cyclist to get through - even causing them to fumble past.

Matters were made even worse when the occupying plain-clothed Police officer got out of the car and questioned our photographer. The officer started getting quite rowdy when the photographer informed him of his legal right to take photos on public property. The officer also refused to believe he was blocking the footpath with his vehicle and claimed that (after flashing his badge) he could do as he pleased - because he was a Police officer.

So next time you’re out riding your bike, or going for a stroll, please make sure you watch out for cars parked on the footpath on official…life saving…Police business.

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If breaking the ‘keep left’ rule wasn’t bad enough, a marked Police car then approached the undercover vehicle out of nowhere. After two or three seconds, the undercover Police car moved from the right hand lane to let the marked Police car pass. Soon after passing, the marked Police car accelerated to approximately 115km/h and continued at that speed all the way into Geelong and through two fixed speed cameras deviously attached to the back of overpasses.

After catching up to both vehicles again at the set of traffic lights entering Geelong, I was able to follow both vehicles back to the Geelong Police station where they pulled in. At no point during the entire journey did either vehicle have lights or sirens on. Also, at no point during the journey did either vehicle make a stop. So it can only be assumed both vehicles were exceeding the speed limit for no valid reason.

It can also be assumed that any pending speeding fines will happily be cleared from the register soon after the vehicles in the photos are identified as Police vehicles. It’s nice to see the Victorian Police Force employing double standards.

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The second gripe I have encountered this week was with regards to a stolen vehicle and the lack of attention given by the Police. Just over one month ago, I reported a stolen vehicle to the Police that had been dumped at a highway-facing car park (KFC car park, Westgate Freeway, city bound).

I reported that the vehicle had a smashed driver’s side window and had several people surrounding the car soon before I drove over. To my surprise, after arriving back at the same location one week ago, the same car was still there, in the same park.

The part that sent my levels of rage into the red occurred yesterday evening, when the same car was in the same spot, except vandalised within inches of its life:

So if you ever encounter the unfortunate circumstance of having your car stolen, rest assured that the Police are hard at work - doing absolutely nothing about it. Obviously charging people for exceeding the speed limit by 3km/h is a greater priority than returning one’s form of transport and stopping hooligans from vandalising anything that moves.

- Paul Maric

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After millions of tax payer dollars have gone to waste in the state governments’ Speed-Kills propaganda campaign, the evidence suggests otherwise.

“‘Exceeding speed limit’ was attributed to 3 percent of cars involved in accidents,” the report stated.

Let’s go ahead and add trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles and the figure rises to only five percent overall.

In Australia, speed camera infringements are on a steady climb, and so is the road toll. It doesn’t take a genius to realise speed cameras do not save lives.

So what are the main causes of vehicle accidents? UK Police examine up to 77 factors on the scene of an accident.

“The most common factor is failed to look properly which contributed to 35 percent of accidents. Four of the six most frequently reported contributory factors involved driver or rider error or reaction,” the report stated.

As for fatal accidents, the report blamed loss of control in 35 per cent of fatal accidents.

Presented with these figures, what would the Australian transport authorities do? As we’ve mentioned hundreds of times before, would advanced driver-training be a viable option? Perhaps, but it’s easier, and more profitable to simply put a few more speed cameras about and call it a day.

It’s time we put an end to this carnage, the transport authorities need to take full responsibility for continuing to ignore the real causes behind the rising road toll.

You can read the entire report here (5MB PDF).

Alborz Fallah

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