Call to Arms - we may lose the battles but will win the war

A e-letter I wrote a while ago to AMCN:

I have a devious plan on how to beat the Volvo driving lawns bowl
orientated goverment beaurocrats who between toilet and coffee breaks
justifies their arbitary and ultimately boring existense by trying to
remove all sense of freedom for others through the definition of
'procedure'. In their perfect world we will all be totally compliant
and lack individual thought and actions because that just upsets their
model of how things should be.

Now back to the plan, the use of 'road safety initiatives' is
suspected by most to mean lets raise more money through speeding
tickets, and with our beaurocrat friend trying to show some flair so
often seen in private industry they have devised the models of:
1. More speed capture devices = more tickets = more money and,
2. Tighter limits = more tickets = more money.

Now they will be very proud of this model as it is most probably the
only thing they have ever done in life that resembles anything like a
sucessful business person they always wanted to be (but are totally
incapable of being as that path doesn't match their risk profile due
to genetic or star sign pre-conditions). So all lobby efforts to our
elected representatives is useless as they don't really run the show
especially with the beaurocrat so proud of his only initiative (watch
the old show Yes Minister, superceded by Yes Prime Minister).

The only way to hurt these little pimples on society is to destroy
there model and here is how I propose we do this:
1. If you get a speeding ticket +-10% of posted speedlimit, dispute
ticket with officer and get all details and testing/certification
dates of speed aparatus used, and note the location of the fine such
as rising/falling slope on the road, busy area with many moving
objects etc.
2. Take to court to dispute based on equipment inaccuracy, speedo
inaccuracy, other drivers/objects etc, lose or win case (doesn't
matter as the battle may be lost but the war will be won).

So how does this work then?
1st thing is it now takes longer for them to get the revenues.
2nd If more and more people do this they court system will get bogged
and have even a better effect to 1st case.
3rd Police will be tied up in court disputing cases
4th Cost to government will rise due to lost police time, court costs
etc.

So the ultimate effects are:
1. Police will use their right for discretion as they are tired of
spending days in courts disputing speeding tickets
2. As the police resources are spending more time in court less will
be out speed trapping
2. Government will lose both cash flow and revenues due to higher cost
and time to collect fines. This then presents the Pollie with a case
to change the law (especially if the activity is now revenue negative)

For this to work we need as many people as possible to take part, if
you get booked within 10% of the speed limit take it to court and
argue your case. I don't support excessive speeding especially in
residential areas, but do take offence to unrealistic and ridiculous
laws.

PS: Australian Design Rule 18.5.1.1.2 for speedometers is to indicate
the actual vehicle speed, for all speeds above 40 km/h, to an accuracy
of ± 10 per cent. Couple this with the inaccuracy of speedguns
(especially the Radar mobile units such as hand held and car mounted,
made even worst in areas with with many objects both stationary and
moving) the 63 reading in a 60 zone is pushing the limits of all the
equipment. Also if there is a large vechile in the area such as a
truck this will cause false readings -- search the net there are many
cases of this as well as a fountain of information on the radar
devices (often proving manufacturers of this equip over-spec the gear)


Regards,
Conrad

 

The windmills are over there...

4 spelling errors, 4 grammatical errors, and a similar number of highly
awkward bits of sentence structure... in that opening paragraph alone. Way
to get yourself taken seriously.

 

Anecdotal evidence would suggest that most of the low-tolerance bookings are
"safety" camera offences, and that most flesh and blood coppers are still
working on about 10% leeway.

Can anyone present experiences to suggest otherwise?

Given that AMCN carries full page advertising from V*lv*, I would be
suprised to see your letter published intact.

Are Beaurocrats people who govern on the strength of their pulchritude?

Moike

 

<large chomp>

Nice one Conrad. If you can beat Joe Average's apathy and convince the more
motivated amongst us that your proposed use of their time is suitably offset
by a likely better world order result, then such a plan would make more
sense. This would require more than a lot of hard work and luck I think.
However, it's great IMHO that some are thinking outside the square. I think
the old arguments have proven ineffective and just fall on deaf ears for all
the obvious reasons.

I'm personally hoping for the day that someone wins a court case against
these draconian and unrealistic road 'safety' measures. Perhaps something
along the lines that they actually contributed to an accident through a
shift of concentration, from observing the road to frequent monitoring of
the speedo etc. I'm sure there are many more imaginative and likely
scenarios to choose from but I'm convinced that the time will come when it
can be shown in court that had such tight restrictions have actually
contributed to the very thing things they are "supposed" to prevent.

Keep the thinking caps on folks - especially you physics and statistics
gurus. I'm also hoping for the day that common sense can prevail in these
matters and that the revenue element is finally recognised for what it is.
Perhaps the establishment of a central database where good arguments on all
fronts are managed would be a good starting point. A good source of
material for whoever thinks they have a case, yes???

On the weekend I personally found it a challenge to keep to within +/- 5% of
the posted speeds and eventually gave up and just rode in a manner I deemed
safe. I'm reasonably experienced and found myself looking at the speedo
constantly - to the point of distraction I must say. I'm a real believer in
the notion of a possible court case - surely this side-effect can be shown
logically and in an unemotional manner.

Cheers,
Dave ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

Most of them now drive Camry's.

 

Conrad's theory, of course, is a nice one....but.....

Let's be honest here, in aus.moto, most of us here don't actually get
done for + 10%.

Most of us, when we do decide to get into it a bit, tend to be in the
"get into the back of the patrol car, sir" and "don't worry about the
bike, you won't need it for a while" league. :-|

I dunno if it's true of Q,land or Vic, but here in NSW, getting photo-ed
by a fixed camera is not a test of whether you speed or not, it's an
aptitude test......if you are too dumb to see the signs, you probably
deserve the ticket.

The principle of, don't speed and you don't have to pay, is rather more
exactly expressed as don't get caught speeding and you don't have to pay.

If enough people had the brains _not_ to speed in front of the cameras,
the various state governments wouldn't actually spend the heaps of money
putting in more cameras. Sadly, however, there seems to be a long queue
of folk with money they really want to give to the various governments. :-|

Within city areas, frankly, I don't even see the neeed for motorcyclists
to break speed limits....we have enough thin=ness to get to the front of
the queue at traffic lights, and enough acceleration to get in front,
and upto the legal limit. Why bother speeding in urban areas?

Out in the country, surely we have enough brains to figure out that the
speed cameras ain't gonna be on Buckett's Way, they'll be on the Pacific
Hwy?

As I see it, the best counter to speed cameras, is don't speed.....in
front of the camera. ;-)

Now, if this message has to be extended to aus.cars, well I guess it
becomes "don't speed". <shrug>

I really have to be honest here, and wonder about his whole arguement.

I'm old enough to remember driving/riding in Britain before the
derestricted sign lost its meaning. I also both drove and rode in
various parts of europe when there were _minimum_ speed limits on
autostrades, autoroutes and autobahns were unrestricted, and even NSW
had the "unrestricted" but it was your problem to prove you were "safe".

Frankly, from what I have experienced, speed limits aren't the actual
curse of the devil. In many ways, I _like_ speed limits.

Sure, it would be better if they were set in some logical, rather than
financial, frame of mind, but.... the "great unwashed" out there with
licenses, I don't trust at much over 100 or 110 kph.

OK, I know it's a terrible sign of growing old, but, I don't really care
to try and drive (or ride) up the Pacific Hwy at over the speed limit.

In the unlikely event of speed camera revenue dying, then, I guess, we
could talk about re-setting speed limits, but, with a steady source of
income to the various state governments, I think this would have to be a
very long term plan. :-|

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Exactly! When my bike is all warm and good, the most fun I have with my
CBR250RR is probably to see just how fast I can get to my target +5k going
speed by ear. I can reach 60 in about 3 seconds, nothing like the bigger
bore bikes but scores better than most cars driven normally.

Once I'm there & there's enough attention $ to spend [ref. $10 of attention
paradigm], I quickly check the speedo and correct. Some times I'm a bit
over, but I keep getting better. When I'm satisfied with that, a look in the
mirror shows mostly small cars. Exactly how I like it Then I do two or
three gear changes to get the revs down if the road ahead doesn't look too
exciting, or one or two if there might be some need to keep it in the
powerband.

The above is a fun little game and it keeps me away from traffic. I love my
CBR250RR's combination of super high revs and the clutch for pretty quick
takeoffs; low revs otoh give zero room for instant escape but are heaps
better for fuel economy. With this rather sporty 'combo' I still manage to
best my Low Emission Vehicle Honda Civic for fuel economy.

[...]

Yep. My own approach speed is definitely linked to the amount of space I
have to crawl past traffic to get to the head of the next line.

Always, always 100% attention on the road and trying to read what people are
doing now and into the future and how others might react to them etc. So I
let go of the gas whenever it looks like there's even the most remote chance
of trouble ahead, then get on it again when it's clear. And change positions
pretty much all time. Etc. Etc.

It's funny how I can just about every second day see people getting trapped
behind parked cars like 20 seconds b4 it happens as they were not looking up
enough. Especially as I'm way behind them, my horizon must be like
magnitudes higher than theirs? I've had my share of close calls by people
suddenly waking up to the situation they're in; so I try to counter by
storing as much info as I can in my database.

I'm pretty aggressive in that I'll use what space I can read as being
available to me, a trait/skill learned/honed from many years of heavy
traffic pushbike riding in Oslo, Norway. I try to be cautious about it, and
learn from my own mistakes - yep there's always some.

What a rant, and I haven't even had my late night drink yet

j
ps. I'm not at all opposed to clearly
[early-enough-not-to-cause-knee-jerk-reactions] signed speed traps in
dangerous intersections. It's the guy who try to to tell me that doing +5kph
at the bottom of a hill when just paying attention to the road and not the
speedo is dangerous driving I just totally scoff at. What little do they
know.

 

Nup... In Vic, they hide them as sneakily as possible. Any old shitbox of a
car/truck/van can be used as a camera, and they don't have to display a sign
either. The entire goal seems to be raising revenue.

In NSW, you can spot the fixed cameras a mile off. Are there unmarked
cameras as well, or are those the only ones? (The ones that have three
warning signs before you hit the camera). Do people really get caught by
those things?? In QLD, you at least get the white van or blue Hilux parked
pretty obviously on the side of the road, unless they've changed things
since I moved to VIC.

Here (Victoria) it's by far the worst. They don't want to stop you speeding,
as you could *possibly* believe if you lived in one of the northern states
and were a little gullible - they want to *catch* you speeding. Big
difference. The goal here is to make the everyday, well-intentioned driver
feel like a criminal, rather than to make them feel protected from the
lunatics who do want to do 100km/h in a 40 zone.

You try *never* exceeding the speed limit. Period. I guarantee that you'll
have exceeded the speed limit at least once over the past month (assuming
you've driven/ridden, of course). Perhaps not intentionally, and perhaps not
even knowingly, but you will have done it. The Victorian government just
can't wait for you to stuff up - they have cameras ready and waiting for you
to do it, so they can send you a rudely-worded letter demanding cash.

Again, it doesn't have to be intentional. If you take off from the lights
and hit 53km/h in first gear while you're looking at the traffic crossing
the next intersection... click! flash! $150-odd to the state coffers. Thank
you, come again. If you drift over the limit on a downhill slope whilst
eyeing-off the dopey bugger ahead who's weaving across a couple of lanes and
wondering where he's going to go next... click! flash! another $150-odd,
thanks.

It's not the intentional speeding that gets people; it's the instances where
someone goes a small-ish amount over the limit for a few seconds while they
were concentrating on something else (perhaps something more *important*???)
and they get done. Sucks to be in Victoria.

Odds are you're right - but how are you going to know *where* on the Pacific
Hwy they are? It'd be nice if we did, wouldn't it?

Speed limits aren't bad. Unreasonable enforcement of an arbitrary limit with
no allowance made for common sense is bad.

Ditto... I find it way more relaxing to set the cruise control to bang on
110km/h and stay out of people's road when they come barrelling past. I'm
happy to budget the time it takes to get from A to B - but when some dopey
bugger wants to sit on 95km/h except when there's an overtaking lane and
they speed up to 110km/h just so I can't (legally) pass them, and there's a
sodding speed camera pointing along the overtaking lane, it does start to
piss me off a bit.


Regards,
Andrew

 

great in theory but those CUNTstables that get to spend many more hours in
cout, do so happily knowing they are bring paid in OVERTIME rates!!!!
So that makes the government tax us more and the cycle is fuked.
Maybe we can organise a pay restructuring of the cops then we can bog the
court systems down. oh but we would have to talk to polititions to do
that... aaahh i cant be fuked anymore.

 

....but when you twist the throttle on the XX it's hard not to, isn't it Dave


Nev..
'02 CBR1100XX #2

 

They're not that hard to see. They're not invisible, not the car mounted
devices anyhow. In Victoria it is illegal to park your vehicle on the nature
strip or median strip. Exclusions apply for council vehicles, emergency
service vehicles and vehicles being used for speed detection purposes. If
everyone obeyed the laws regarding parking, and police and councils enforced
those laws, just about the ONLY vehicles you would see parked on the nature
strip or median would be speed camera cars. How ineffective would they be
then?

Nev..
'02 CBR1100XX #2

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 11 Aug 2003 23:21:04 +1000

There are no hidden fixed cameras, although there are still lurking
manned radars.

Last I heard they did something like 1200 people a week with the fixed
cameras. MAkes you scared to ride in Sydney that does! I mean it's a
big city and all, but still 1200 people that stupid or careless a week?

Zebee

 

Yep, and as a bonus, speed camera cars don't want anyone parking
in front of them, so they park in the middle of nowhere.

It's really not as bad as it sounds.

-----sharks

 

Maybe we should have spent the money on schoolteachers instead?

-----sharks

 

Agreed and you don't have to do 160 to get there.

Dave

I haven't the slightest what you are on about there Nev...

Admittedly the XX is sometimes a little naughty, but is it reeeeally capable
of 160?? hehe

Cheers,
St David ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

lol - cruel but nice.

Dave ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

Apparently they're also a bit embarrassed about the presence of reflective
objects in the vicinity (besides the traffic they're bouncing signals off) so
you probably won't see them on narrow roads where there are cars parked or
lots of road signs on the opposite side of the road.

Nev..
'02 CBR1100XX #2

 

The entire goal seems to be raising revenue.


Why do people seem shocked and suprised by this fact?

 

So, basically, whenever you see a clean but cheap vehicle parked on
the footpath miles from anywhere where no-one wants to park, it's
a speed camera so you shut the throttle for a few seconds.

-----sharks

 

I tootle and wave... They have a lonely job, I'm sure they appreciate the
interaction.

Nev..
'02 CBR1100XX #2