There is a certain inevitability about the link between road death numbers and the ever increasing car traffic on New South Wales roads. All the car manufacturers compete for new car business with a mix of car prices and it is possible to buy a new car at the bottom of the price range for as little as fourteen thousand dollars.
Years ago most low paid workers had to settle for a "used car " and many of these had age defects. Today the used car lots are simply not interested in other than late model vehicles, often with remaining factory warranties still current. Never has the Australian car fleet achieved such high safety standards.
The government is worried because we are seeing a spike in road deaths - and so far this year forty-three more people died on the states roads than happened in 2014/15, and five more months remain until years end.
Once again a driver crackdown is threatened. From July 1 a two percent increase was slapped on fines for speeding and running red lights - and this is already returning an income for Treasury of $ 507,000 a day. It is expected an increase in excess of the $ 170 million from fines that occurred in the 2014/15 full year.
It is claimed that the $433 fine for running a red light and the $ 265 fine for speed excess of between 10 and 20 kph - and the accompanied loss of demerit points - is the prime safety method of making drivers obey the law. The psychology people debunk that claim. Days - sometimes weeks - after the offence has occurred that fine arrives as an unwelcome bolt from the blue - in the mail !
Traffic fines have come to be regarded as just one of those expenses that come with owning a car. The demerit points are more concerning than the actual fine because that can lead to license loss, but in many cases the driver was not aware that an infringement had been recorded. As a consequence, fixed and mobile speed cameras do little to change driver behaviour.
What does have an instant effect - is the presence of a marked police car in the traffic flow. It creates an instant need to check the speedo and there is something menacing in witnessing a police car pull over another driver. That will do more to change driver behaviour than all the signs warning of speed cameras and other recording devices now in use.
Every holiday and long weekend we are told that police leave has been cancelled and the highways will be saturated with police checking speed, drink driving and mobile phone use. It seems that this is more bluff than reality. The thin blue line is scarce except for a few hot spots because it costs money for police overtime and to run the police car fleet. We live in an economic age - and those ever snapping speed cameras are the most efficient way to bring in revenue in relation to cost of operation.
Now the police have a new weapon. The increase in technology has developed a spy camera that can record clear images from a kilometre away - long before a driver can detect this speed operation. Not only can this camera accurately record the speed of the car, it can snap a picture of the driver using a mobile phone or breaking any other driving ordinance. The most likely use will be to set speed and behaviour traps - with the fines again being delivered through the post.
If the government is serious about lowering the road toll it needs to allocate money from those speed cameras to finance police overtime and car costs to enhance the presence of marked police cars on the road system, and they need to be actively pulling over errant drivers and writing traffic tickets.
It all depends if revenue - or road safety - has the highest priority !
No comments:
Post a Comment