Pick a speed, any speed...

"Rainbow Warrior"

So is 50km/h!

Oh Okay - I'll make the limit 90km/h.

 

Yep the public in general are sheep and will wander all over the place if
you let them, derestriction is suburbia is akin to telling people that
stopping at red lights is optional.

 

200kph is stupider for a lot more of the public than 50kph.

 

"Rainbow Warrior" <

Generally not, but it all depends - we don't all live, work and drink in our
immediate suburbia, often people drink a long way from home through social
factors.

There is no need for this, the derestriction application is best suited to
multi-lane roads and high standard two-lane highways, this means typically
good sight distances, often a couple of hundred metres to many kilometres.

A flash of the headlights is permitted to alert leading traffic you'll soon
be on their tail - overtaking.

In any case Pat, - IF this is behaviour as an issue, it is just that, one
that can be dealt with, it doesn't need a speed limit sign to fix.

Look - I'll go to India and consult the Bashnee Rysharia mystic . . .
Something MUST at first cause the SWERVE, what is the reason? A bee sting,
don't laugh, a NSW Police officer was killed in the Blue Mountains after a
truckie was stung, the driver had an allergy to them and was effected
immediately.

consider grumbling and

What on gods earth posses you to suggest 30km/h? This is infinately
variable and is subject to the prevailing delinneation, weather and vehicle.
Your quoted 150 - 200km/h would not be a speed used on a bend but might be
applicable to a freeway 'curve'.

Police at point of operation are more than happy to target high-enders doing
those speeds in a derestricted environment, you fall into the trap of
thinking derestriction means top speed applies - it doesn't, but can be
allowed IF and only IF the road and weather conditions so permit.

Thing is Pat, just how many lengths of road allow just that - the top
ending? Answer - very very few relative kilometres, to try so otherwise
will certainly mean police attention.

ROOS - Why is it I could pass a car @ 135km/h then a few seconds later as
I'm a few hundred metres away I look in the rear vision mirror and see the
slower vehicle has impacted a roo?

Why is it I drive to Melbourne via the Princess Hwy - often at 100 - 130km/h
at night, driving lights and not hit a roo? Yet at Batemans Bay region I
stop and attend a Victorian Falcon that hit a roo - the driver saying 'I
wasn't going fast - about 90, he's in his 60's? The limit here is 100km/h.

Roo crash means reduce speed, certainly when they become alive and frisky
and commonsense tells you 'slow down' on the road environs where bushies are
alive and well at night. love those driving lights.

I'd trust a large portion of aus.car drivers than typical readers of the
Womens Weekly or Mens Penis Parade Magazine. You know full well that most
here look and learn, and some are employed in some manner in the transport
industry, we sometimes discuss Australian Cars

So Australians are dumber than the German, Italian, the Hungarians, Suid
Afrikanese, French, Russians etc etc etc, remember this then entails race
and culture.

Maybe we should put our hands up and surrender?

Let me close this post by saying don't for a moment think I 'like' seeing a
driver going too fast, often enough I am with, or slower than surrounding
traffic - always have been, indeed I resent, because of my work, too fast a
driver. I am not a road rager, but if I were to be asked if I am a good
driver, my answer is no, not really, but I am certainly road and vehicle
aware and my arrangement with society is to not cost it $ through crashes
via insurance, or to the state as a trauma or road kill figure.

I recall a magistrate, a great driver-handler of motor vehicles, knows and
uses all signals, but in shit conditions related to heavy Sydney traffic his
TEMPERMENT means his wife or someone else would drive, this bloke knew when
to get in the passenger seat. I suggest we all do this sometime.

Jeremy H. Pritchard
Mot Adv

 

"Rainbow Warrior" <

No one proposes a derestricted city freeway, some could cope well enough in
road safety, but improved speed limits would generaly suffice. Issue here
sometimes relating to noise and nearby large populations etc and so on.

(My apologies to various missing words and letters in posts - I am hurrying
my responses and not spell checking all. Here, excessive speed kills).

 

Removing speed signs will encourage it though.

A roo does nicely.

vehicle.

I'm assuming you brake heavily before impact.

Yep and try to push him to 120kph if the road became unrestricted.

The germans seem to have speed limits on non autobahns too IIRC. That makes
them dumb too. Any major civilised countries you can think of that don't
have any speed limits.

 

"Rainbow Warrior" <

When I was a kid 1975 residing in Lae, Papua New Guinea mother, nicknamed
'croak', reversed out of the garage over my pet puppy golden labradores head
with her baby poop yellow Datsun 1000. The dog was asleep with its head
under the rear left tyre. She had called, got no response. Blood
everywhere.

I was later given a colourful parrot by the houseboy - it was allowed to
stay indoors till one night it crawled into parents room bout 3am and got
caught in mother dears gown - screetching madly awakening both. Parrot was
then left to stand outside on fence at back veranda, all was fine till one
night the neighbours dogs caught and ate it - coloured feathers all
scattered through the yard, Peter was a brilliant parrot and could well have
been Prime Minister of Australia.

Same houseboy obtained another, a baby, - it got sick an died.

He then bought an owl, it too got sick and died.

My schoolmate was killed outside his home - he was run over, sad event,
asked his mum for his speakers, spun a yarn about making a deal just before
he died....

Made the mistake of making a vegetable garden a few kays away from home, it
looked like 'bush', but was in fact another garden owned by the feared
Kukukuka tribe. They bound me yelling (them) and took me home claiming
damage, they wanted compensation. Sounds like Australia thesedays!

Went through a few Lae war tunnels, these were built by the Japanese using
slave labour, mostly Indian. All well and good till we, brother, brothers
mate Ferguson and another, found a live hand grenade. Ferguson diffused the
thing. We ducked and soon as he used it.

I had two dogs, 'Connie' a Japanese Police dog (bought over during WW2) and
Pebbles. Both were fine till my move to PNG's capital late 75. The
Japanese Ambassadore went to a function, arrived home late at night to find
his two German Shepherds beheaded with their bodies thrown into the pool.
Rascal gangs can be brutal and unkind.....

An Australian man and his 'attractive' NZ girlfriend moved into our old
house within 2 weeks of departure to Port Moresby. He went to the RSL, she
was not feeling well and chose to stay home. Late that night with him at
the club she was attacked by a gang of 8, I recall, raped and then brutally
killed. The assailants returned across the road at the church grounds to
resume their drinking.

The old man sentenced most key involved to life, pity, soon after, the death
penalty was introduced.

Though a kid, PNG police detectives were stumped at a particular murder, an
Australian bloke had killed someone in a hissy fit, a cursory look underside
the murderers washed vehicle proved his guilt, washing and being stupid
enough to use native staff to do the job of washing away evidence does not
remove all the remains of a run-over victim. A good look for a kid.

I was doorman-kid at Lae RSL - we'd get a few national drunks from the
Friday night Nile Club dance, these would dare enter the RSL across the road
and would be confronted by a reasoning 'mangi-masta', swaggering and
listening in pisin english to my reasons why in their staggering state they
should not enter, 'nogut yu mait pundown na brokim lek bilong yu' They'd
leave without an issue!

Hell, not one drunk got through, RSL's national staff would leave me on the
door each Friday and most Saturday nights., no more rocks thrown etc.

Skeletons? I was a neglected kid...

My move to Moresby I celebrated by paying 50toea (cents) for a small tabby
kitten, came home from school to find it had been accidently crushed by
mother dear - she had closed a heavy steel rimmed-glass door and had not
seen the kitten running outside that very moment, blood everywhere with one
crushed kitten head.

Mother and pets don't mix.

Moresby car - A Nissan 360C PNG Registration AAA 100.

Went to a Moresby pub - got to see two blokes walk in and over to another,
watched as they axed him to death chop after chop after chop, they left
immediately and went straight across the road to Boroko Police station to
surrender. Payback you see, I noted that not one hard fast swing of the axe
completely severes an arm or other limb, it can take a few, I noted the
bowels, you get this with bullet wounds and axes, headwounds are very
predictable.

Learn't to shoot as a kid, taught by RSL Morebe district and gained further
experience with PNG's then Public Prosecutor after 75. Pistol shooting!

Experienced a magistrate driving his Mercedes @ 160km/h outside rural Port
Moresby, did repeated hard braking from 160km/h, not me the magistrate. He
liked German engineering. Saw my first rear fog lamp and triangle!!

Experienced the stress Magisterial service sometimes wrought, depression and
family breakup, - this bloke got drunk and shot himself - he lived but his
arm was stuffed, bloody messy really.

Learnt to play with teargas. At Moresby 76 the Commonwealth Bank Managers
residence accross the road from my place had tear gas cannisters in the
downstairs garage, these were always fun.

Snakes were always a hazard, mosly harmless but as a kid walking home in the
pitch dark by yourself from being down the road, the feeling you get when a
tree snake falls on you is a memory you'll always remember, bloody things,
you'd see many a snake body run over on the road, fresh daily!

Late one night I took a wig head dummy, added a stick, white sheeting, wig
and placed the 'thing' in the middle of the intersection. PNG folk were
superstitious and my 'apparition' was noticed by a slow moving Police paddy
wagon - shining the torch on it they took off, poor bastards.

A mate and I played dead, at Lae War Cemetary, natives would use the
Cemetary (VERY large area) to go from one part of town to another. They'd
poke us (supersticion again) with sticks and call "yu alright mangi masta?"
and we'd not move a bloody muscle till we'd then scream and scare the
bejesus out of em.

A 'masali' is a ghost or spirit.

At Moresby I walked down the hill to Koki Markets - at the first elevation
road below was a heard of natives surrounding a crashed passenger van, it
was a recent incident and the deceased Australian bloke and what was either
his native passenger or pedestrian were were laying grotesquely in front of
the flipped to its side van. Blood, some with a trail actually. No
seatbelts and through the windscreen.

Some natives were murmering something, I eventually went on to the markets,
police and authorities took some time to arrive. Had thought about slowing
traffic down but figured the largish gathering crowd blocking would do the
job.

Dad later jailed for 2 years the Justice Minister for Contempt of Court, she
was let out of jail by the Prime Minsiter the next day. In protest he
resigned, as did a total of 5 judges of the then total 7, leaving the
countries judiciary in dissaray for months.

We had armed police guards around the house, they would speak and tell of
their serious concerns for the future, these were mostly younger educated
officers, I left PNG the next day and missed saying goodbye to some friends,
parents arrived a few months later.

As usual, Australia's politicians were as gutless and distant as ever in
that PNG crises. I considered them weak as I did the Aussie kid who
visiting PNG made a remark about one of the native kids at Boroko in a shop,
brave little Aussie prick thought I - so I clobered him one good.

I returned to Australia and continued schooling 1980, - the 'system' and
sheer lack of respect shown to teachers and elder citizens was a shock, the
whole obvious dysfunction of Australian society was borne home, I had left
Australia in 1969, I considered 1980's Australia weak and and pitiful and
certainly not the image I had developed in my mind of Australia's toughened
WW2 generation I grew up with in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, I saw for
myself what these men went through and the sheer Japanese industriousness of
their campaign, the reinforced cave complexes at Rabaul being the Naval
Command for Nippon Pacific. The remains of weaponry and indeed soldiers.
The last Japanes soldier gave himself up a few years ago.

Do I have skeletons Rainbow?

No, not really, but I am steadfast and steely in resolve.

This is not the type of road proposed for derestriction.

 

"Rainbow Warrior"

Nope - I'll not push anyone, if this blokes happy and safe at 90km/h then
good for him. If you wish to go slower or faster in derestriction, go ahead
but be in control.

I, nor anyone else has argued against all speed limits, you have missed
this. Speed derestriction and speed limits are part n parcel of overall
speed management.

 

I'm on your side, but I want to quietly tell you about this car called the
Ford Explorer -
not so affectionately known as the "Exploder"...

 

Which is another debate for another time, but why do we have
to stop at a traffic light at am when clearly there is NOTHING coming...

Perhaps treating them as a "STOP" sign rather than waiting for a whole
light cycle between the hours of midnight and 4am??

Of course then you'd get people who treat stop signs' as giveway, and those
that don't even slow...

But I think it'd make an interesting debate...

SL

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sat, 12 Jul 2003 09:30:32 +1000

Heh. trucks going through Ballarat in the wee hours used to do that.

Without the courtesy of slowing down first.

The problem of course is the definition of "nothing coming". If you are
the one coming and 40 ton of semitrailer says "Sorry mate, thought it
was clear" you probably won't feel that his definition matched yours.

Zebee

 

Loooxury!

 

All in the same catagory as nearly killing another human being with a car
somehow?

 

Well, maybe you should try it just for the sake of science?

-----sharks (and quit arguing with people I've killfiled!)

 

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 19:15:12 +1000, "Rainbow Warrior"

[snip]

Yet 50 would make for "softer" hits. wouldn't it? Save lives, wouldn't
it? Please note that I'm serious here, but this appears to be your
arguement.

[snip]

See above.

Neil
---
Neil Fisher / Bob Young
Thundercords
personal opinion unless otherwise noted.
Looking for spark plug leads?
Check out http://www.magnecor.com.au

 

What am I? A Doctor, or a moon shuttle conductor?

 

Yep of course it would but there has to be some sort of compromise in
between allowing for those who's vehicles/driviing skills are not up to an
aus.car drivers standard.

Not too many people calling for lowering a country road's speed limit by
50kph, but seem to be a few here sure it can be safely raised by 50kph?

Yep. If you let somebody have an accident at 50kph faster and it involves
you travelling the opposite direction also at 150kph, then I think there
would be a heap of safety relevance here as to your chances of survival,
people still get out and walk away from 100kph accidents, chances at 150
would be a fair bit less, and it would be interesting to consider whether
much consideration is really given to car safety design for those higher
speeds, probably the reason race drivers have rollcages and factory
Falcodores don't.

Pat
Brisbane, Australia
http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~mangey/

 

Telemarketer?

Pat
Brisbane, Australia
http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~mangey/

 

As many people have pointed out, it is a *limit*, not a target. If a
great many people feel it *is* a target, then perhaps this is because
they have been conditioned to this state of affairs, which may be the
cause of a lot of crashes anyway. And your solution appears to be more
speed limit conditioning, when the truth is that even the RTA, when
pushed, will admit that exceeding the speed limit is causative in less
than 8% of fatals. They still insist that more than 40% involve
"speeding", so somewhat more than 4 times as many crashes are from
going too fast for the conditions than are from exceeding the speed
limit. Now, I realise that you will probably say that upping the limit
will only make things worse. But I find that hard to believe, mainly
because, if you care to peruse the stats, you will find that only a
very tiny number happen on freeway style roads with access control -
IOW, the places where most in here who advocate higher limits *want*
the higher limits to be.

Are the proposed roads not of the required standard to allow higher
speeds? Are even 10 y.o. cars not of a sufficient dynamics standard to
allow higher speeds? The answer to both these questions is: of course
they are up to it! But you'd rather dumb down every driver to cater to
lowest common demoninator, or so it would seem. More and harsher
enforcement, coupled with lower limits does not help - the evidence is
ample both here in Oz and overseas. The only plausable explaination
for the UK's experience, as against, for example, Germany's, is that
when forced to obey against common sense, most people simply push the
boundaries of what is acceptable, even when that's ill advised. How
else to explain the UK experience where mean freeway speeds have
dropped from 90MPH (~145km/h) to 70MPH (~112km/h), yet fatals have
defied the previous 30 year trend and stalled, or even increased, in
the last 5-8 years? Some have suggested that perhaps this is because
they have reached the as-good-as-it-gets stage. Well, maybe they have,
but why destroy an enviable record as one of, if not *the*, best road
safety records by changing tactics? If it's not money, then it is
certainly for political expediency. Safety subjegated to political
twaddle! How very nice - makes you feel all gooey inside, dunnit?

Undoubetly that is why Jeremy insists on X-over protection before
going to derestriction. Many people currently advocate a 130km/h limit
for a lot of freeway condition roads, and I couldn't agree more.
Derestriction on such roads when they meet the required engineering
standards.

Back to overall risk, don't forget. If you have a 50% chance of
survival and a 1% chance of being involved, that's the same odds (in
terms of being involved in a fatal) as a 100% chance of dieing with a
0.5% chance of getting involved, innit? Note: figures plucked out of
thin air to give an idea, OK?

Neil
---
Neil Fisher / Bob Young
Thundercords
personal opinion unless otherwise noted.
Looking for spark plug leads?
Check out http://www.magnecor.com.au

 

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 20:51:50 +1000, "Rainbow Warrior"

[snip]

And how many of these "crappy" roads are of freeway standard with
access control etc? None. Zero. Zip. Therefore, by far the vast
majority are not, in NSW at least, zoned for 110 - they are zoned at
100. They are therefore not the roads being discussed, and are
therefore irrelevent to the discussion. However, we'll battle on
anyway. How many of these "crappy" roads are good for even 100km/h
down their whole 100 zoned length? Not very bloody many!

Of course it does. Even at 50km/h. And...? Ooooh, let me guess -
crappy drivers, huh? Mostly, they'd be the ones that do the limit
everywhere, right? Gee, I wonder who beat them into submission on
*that*? Oh yeah - our inestimable RTA played it's part in that. Even
though they had plenty of evidence that it wouldn't help - it should
have been obvious from the distinct lack of improved safety when the
100km/h default rural limit took effect. Yet the beatings will
continue until moral improves - sure seems to be their motto.

I didn't say you did. What I was trying to convey was that forcing
people to drive to LCD will turn a *lot* of them into LCD. If, as the
RTA seem to suggest, you obey all the rules and you'll be safe, why
would anyone bother to actually *think* about what they're doing?
Where did all the supposed benefits of lower limits and harsher
enforcement go? Up the bloody spout, because people stopped caring
about what matters, and focused on what they were (and continue to be)
told matters; what the speedo says.

Not at all. I want everyone to go at an appropriate speed given their
skill, the vehicle etc etc. I'm pretty sure that you do too. The
difference then, is that I don't feel that increasing speed limits on
high quality roads would be detrimental to road safety and may
actually improve it. You, OTOH, seem to be of the opinion that
regardless of how well made a road may be, 110km/h is the fastest that
*anyone* can be trusted to do on a public road. I must admit that I
fail to understand why you feel this way.

Ingeneous! How, then, to explain the previous 3 plus decades of
downward trend? Did growth in the number of vehicles only occur in the
last 5-8 years? I don't think so. Funny, too, that over that very same
30+ years, mean and 85th speeds on motorways slowly but surely
increased. So, we have a 30+ year trend of increasing speed,
increasing number of vehicles and lowering fatalities that appears to
have been stopped dead in it's tracks. Surely we need to at least
consider the possibility that this has been caused by the significant
change in enforcement practices that was introduced at the very same
time? Surely this, as the most significant change in circumstances,
would be the prime candidate? Most especially considering that the two
seem to coincide, temporally. And even more so when we discover that
at least two chief constables have publicly stated that they feel
there is too much focus on speed enforcement and not enough on bad
driver behaviour; that, without community support for what they do in
this one aspect of policing, the effects will be felt in *all* areas
of policing.

[snip]

Did you not see the word "if"? I suppose I *could* make the very
arguement that you appear to be interpreting my previous comments to
mean, on the simple FACT that the roads with the highest speed limits
are also the roads with the lowest fatal rates. But I won't, because
as you well know, it is, in fact, the engineering of said roads that
makes them safer at higher speeds. That's the whole bloody point -
they are specifically designed to facilitate (relatively) high speeds
at (relatively) low risk. Surely we should take advantage of such
designs? If not, what is the point in spending huge amounts of money
engineering these roads to a high standard? Would we be better off
building two, or more, times the length of road to "crappy" standard?

Neil
---
Neil Fisher / Bob Young
Thundercords
personal opinion unless otherwise noted.
Looking for spark plug leads?
Check out http://www.magnecor.com.au