speed/red light camera's

[Greeny_SA]

This was a letter to the Editor from an ex policeman, published in the Gold Coast Sun newspaper.

Quote:
ONCE again we witnessed the horrific death toll on our roads over the Christmas period.

As an ex-trafic police officer I ask myself 'when are the politicians and bureaucrats going to realise that all their band-aid treatments have been a total failure?'

Their ideas seem to be more directed at detection and punishment of offenders rather than prevention.

Drivers cause collisions; there are no accidents. They run off roads, hit trees, lose control of their vehicles etc.

Speed, drink, drugs or whatever are secondary to the cause ... important symptoms but not the cause.

No one should be able to teach a person to drive other than a licensed driving instructor, qualified to teach a common system of safe driving (recommend the system used in police driver training.)

We should develop regional training centres equipped with a skid pan, driving simulators and eye-testing facilities to include tests to detect colour blindness.

Examination for a driving licence must be more comprehensive and should include driving at speeds up to 110 km/h, night-driving in poor weather conditions on country roads and on freeways.

Once passed as competent, L and P plates should be abolished.

The second stage of driver education should be through the courts, where instead of a tap on the wrist or paltry fine, traffic offenders may be fined and sentenced to special training at the offender's cost. [I think this may happen in some states in the USA, according to an episode of Malcolm in the Middle I saw recently.]

In cases of drink-driving, why is it necessary to even have a court case with all the associated cost and time consuming trials? If a perosn is deemed over the limit as a result of tests - straight to jail.

The community can no longer keep bearing the ever increasing cost of road trauma.

We have reached the time for some thinking beyond the square and it is high time the decision makers faced the fact that, so far, they have failed miserably to make any progress in solving the problems.
- PETER BROOKE, Mudgeeraba

End of quote.

Seems he has the same belief that I do. TEACH people correctly in the first place.

Ive been saying that for year's. There are to many people in this country with driver's licenses, who couldn't drive a pea up a duck's arse with a 12 inch rubber mallet .The licenses may as well have come of the back of a cornflakes box . We get people in the hill's who can just maintain control at 40km/hr on an 80 km/hr road,& they cause impatient people to take risk's to pass them. The cop's should get them off our road's , but our govt has them all tied up making money for pollie's Free Moe/crayfish lunch's.We have also paid enough fuel tax to have a duel 6 lane highway all the way round the country with barrier's separating up & back traffic. No head on's.As I said earlier the govt don't give a rat's arse how many of us kill ourselves on the inadequate shitty road's, they just want our money.Now that I've vented my spleen, I'll shut up .