taylor25

I am fuming with my WORST HALF at the moment, a few weeks ago he got a sppeding fine for about $320, (caught by police with a radar) i was angry, but paid and let it go................breathe...breathe

Tonight he comes home with a fine for $621, and a 3 month ban!!!!!! ( again police with radar, they let him off a km, otherwise it would of been over been $1600 and a 6 month ban) he was doing 124 in an 80 zone,.......believe me no excuse, i am so annoyed, the main part of his job is driving!!!!!! so now i am going to have to get our 4 year old up at god knows what time and take him to work (if they keep him on!!!!!!)

I am most angry at the speeding and that he could of killed someone and he selfishness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

argggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Please Please dont speed, for the one and only reason that it kills people, if you get a fine, then good its what u deserve, which is exactly what i said to my WORSE half!!

GaryVFR8

I can understand where you are coming from, I got caught doing 148 in a 100 I know I did wrong but where I was speeding it was the middle of nowhere with no pedestrians and no turnings off the road, Australian police are worse than the UK for hiding, One night on my way home they was at side of road in black outfits holding the camera!!!! H and S would stop them in UK.
The thing I did as could not get my wife to take me due to having a little one was apply for a restricted licence not sure if NSW do them but worth a try.
Gary

Hutch

You have to work pretty hard to get a speeding fine here in NSW. For starters, they don't use disguised cameras like they do in Victoria - no sneaky cameras hidden in the rack on the top of a plumber's van. Secondly, all the static mobile speed cameras (the ones they leave in a car at a certain spot) have been retired because they're so out of date. So that leaves the roadside static cameras which are very well signposted for miles before you hit 'em - and the mobile copper with the handheld gun or the car-mounted dish. And even the car-mounted dish isn't that big a threat because they have to catch up with you and give you a ticket, it's not an automatic process. Oh and as someone pointed out - if you drive for a living and lose your licence you can put a special plea in and they give you a kind of suspended sentence whereby if you attract one single more point - you're for the high jump - but it enables you to continue driving.

louie

No it doesn't. If it did, Jensen Button would have died years ago as he does 200mph+ on a regular basis.

Bad driving kills mostly, sometimes that means inappropriately high speed, sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes accidents are unavoidable, in which cases sometimes slower speeds mean the consequences aren't as bad as they might otherwise have been.

As an example, according to this report, 4% of motorcycle accidents in the UK are caused by speed - http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/Ne...px?R=EPI-92264. I bet that surprised a few people (and yes I know the link is to a pro-biker website but I assume they are quoting verifiable statistics).

The best way to reduce accidents would be better driver education and training, but that's far too difficult so governments the world over go for the easy option and make competent drivers slow down, ignoring the cost to the economy, in the hope that the bad drivers will then have fewer accidents. Oh and of course that means lots of lovely fine income for them to squander too.....

CDM

Not sure if it's the same in Oz but I just want to pick you up on the fine income issue. This was discussed on Top Gear not too long ago. In the UK, around £20M a year is collected on speeding fines. This is a drop in the ocean and pretty negligible in the grand scheme of things. As an actual source of income, it's a complete waste of time. Some people pay more in taxes each year than this amount.

On the issue of speeding in general, I'd agree with the OP in that people should try the slow down where possible and not exceed the speed limit. Here in the UK at the moment, there's a pretty compelling campaing on TV that explains 'If you hit me at 40MPH, there's around an 80% chance I'll die. Hit me at 30MPH, and there's around an 80% chance I'll live'. The voice-over is from a small child.

- CDM

louie

I distinctly remember an advertising campaign when I was a child where two women were standing at the front door gossiping, presumably one living in the house, one visiting. Whilst they were not paying attention, a toddler from the house wandered up the front path to the open front gate out into the road and under a car. The message was that you are responsible for your children. Interesting to see how the onus has changed over the years so that the big bad car driver is always wrong when children shouldn't be allowed into the paths of cars.

That said, I agree that in urban areas and particularly near schools of course you should keep your speed down. But round where I live, speed limits on 'normal' roads are coming down for no apparent reason - not accident black spots, no pedestrians, no anything at all to justify the decrease. I can't see any reason other than raising money.

louie

I did a quick Google search on this without too much success. But if one camera can raise £1m in 18 months - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/w...re/4919138.stm I'd be very surprised indeed if they only raised £20m pa.

CDM

I just Googled 'speed camera revenue' and immediately came across this link.

It may be a few years out of date but the £20M does seem to stand up.

- CDM

The Bloke

If he does it on a public holiday or long weekend - double demerit points and, at this rate, goodbye licence.

IvanM

I do not blame you for being livid. He might be able to apply for a 6 month probation period where he keeps the license but cannot lose a point.

Speeders like to think of a million reasons why its acceptable for them to put others lives at risk. Even if the best driver speeds he cannot completely control his environment eg other cars, punctures, wildlife, kids etc etc.

Better driving skills will help but do advanced driving courses teach you to speed?

It maybe easier to speed in NSW than Vic but the cameras and police are about and I see them catch heaps of people in places where it is easy to speed.

RenShen

So, to follow your logic, if all drivers were certified to be competent they would be alright to drive past my son's school at home time at 100kph?? I don't think so.

ABCDiamond

Not much as a % of the total speeding fines...

04 May 2009
Figures seen by the Daily Telegraph show a total of 14.7 million speeding tickets have been handed out since 1997, raising some £840 million in the process
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...every-day.html

What about this comment...

That $20M mentioned earlier was Net after expenses, the gross figure was £112.2M

POW148

The more people caught speeding, the more revenue the Government make. The more revenue they make, the less my rates/taxes etc will go up.

Speeders, Keep it up. You are saving me a fortune with your "volutary tax" contributions.

Barney

slipshot

Slight exaggeration - Louie is completely correct and I agree with him/her.

Speeding does not kill. Inapproapriate use of speed kills. Big difference. Any decent driver known the limits of themselves and their car and the conditions - and that means schools etc should be rigoursly enforced for speeding. How come I NEVER see a camera around my kids schools, yet on the open roads when people are more likely to, and where it is safe to do so, the cops are there lying in wait? Because they catch people to raise cash where they can and because they know they can - two cops raking in $10,000 a day is far better than two cops, by a school, raking in $1000 a day. Figures are made up but the gist is there.

143 in an 80 may be excessive but if it was an open road, middle of the night, no cars, dry, clear etc etc it was perfectly safe.

Likewise, the argument of speed limits, while needed of course, basically says that at 80 kph you'll not kill anyone and are safe - but hit 81 and you deserve to die you evil person as you are speeding.

Common sense needs to be applied.

As some of the recent visitors here stated 'wipe off 5, add on 1' (one being the middle finger)... like the UK, a load of nonsense spouted to justify the continually increasing speeding fines...

RenShen

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