Unmarked Motorcycle Cop on Monash 28.5.08

[Banter]

Last week going to work I turned off Wellington Rd onto Jells Rd & there was a commodore wagon pushing right up behind me.
I was doing about 65klm odd.

I moved into the left lane & the guy in the passenger seat sat up nice & straight so I could clearly see his uniform & sleeve patches.


I suppose they were hoping I'd give it a bit to get away from the "tailgater" & then they could book me.

Unmarked patrol cars and bikes are a symptom of a society that allows a government the use of brute force through penury measures to achieve by intimidation what they have failed to do because of a lack of public cooperation.

Punitive measures have never been successful in achieving communal cooperation, in other words, without public support no law is viable and given the ridiculous size and yearly expansion of fines and revenue flowing from our roads it is hard to see how anyone could say Victorians or Australians in general honestly support the initiatives of our governments to make our roads safer.

Compounding the problem is the perverse roll our constabulary have been placed in as they deal with the daily horror of road trauma while enforcing a system that by world standards is archaic and increasingly ineffective.

The most disturbing aspect of this whole sorry sager is the lack of real public debate and the inability of any group, including the Victorian opposition, to gain access to the actual raw road trauma data and statistics that the government use to justify its current campaign.

One can only wonder what is hidden in the numbers, perhaps promotions, cushy civil servant jobs and lucrative government tenders, who knows.