Just heard on the radio about the new higher traffic fines which are claimed to be quite clearly simply a revenue raising exercise.
“No”, says a police spokesman (I think). They’re not. What he’d like, what the police would like, he says, is that we don’t pay any fines at all but ‘do the right thing’, ‘drive sensibly’ and so on.
This is arrant nonsense I would claim, in the current situation, with things the way they are now. And how are they now? They do NOT encourage us to drive ‘safely’, nowhere, notime, nohow.
We are ‘encouraged’ to drive AT THE MAXIMUM SPEED.
And ‘encouraged’ is in quotes because generally there’s no talk whatever, there’s simply speed signs posted here and there (everywhere, especially places where you won’t see them) and draconian, exorbitant and useless fines for exceeding the speeds posted on those signs.
The ‘thrust’, the ‘encouragement’, the prevailing ethos, the ‘message’ from government and police and medicine and social services and parents and teachers and all guides of any kind should be to drive at A GIVEN SAFE SPEED.
And THAT speed should be sign posted everywhere.
The SAFE speed.
NOT the MAXIMUM speed.
The SAFE speed could always be perhaps 10km/hr beneath the MAXIMUM.
It should be relatively SAFE to exceed the SAFE speed – isn’t that obvious?? Else it is not a SAFE speed.
Why is a speed SAFE? Because it has a SAFE margin of error.
IF there is any SAFE margin of error in our Posted Maximum Speeds that safety does NOT apply to the driver – who is NOT SAFE from the attacks of the revenue raising highwaymen masquerading as public-protecting ‘policemen’.
The principal UNSAFETY of the Maximum Speed, the posted speeds, is not that they are really dangerous or unsafe speeds to drive at, it is that YOU are in DANGER of BEING ROBBED.
If you exceed the speed by accident – blindly following the clown in front, letting the attention wander and the foot creep down, failing to notice the downgrade that increases the speed, failing to see the little notice hidden behind that gravel truck prior to the roadworks, failing to see the uncalibrated speed radar taking a lying record of your speed – or any of the multitude of other things that could quite naturally cause your speed to wander above the posted maximum – you are liable and will be attacked by the ravenous tax police who will attack your purse and your right and freedom to use a motor car. THAT’S the danger you are in.
You are NOT in danger of crashing your vehicle. (Be sensible – of course you would be in danger of crashing if you wildly exceeded the speed and so on…. but generally, within 10 or 20k/h, where the majority of speed fines are issued).
Maximum allowed speed is supposedly a ‘safe’ speed to travel at and you are required not to exceed that speed as a question of road safety.
BUT THERE IS NO QUESTION OF ROAD SAFETY 90% OF THE TIME!
Exceeding the speed does not compromise road safety.
Exceeding the speed compromises YOUR safety – you become a prey for the tax/freedom police.
Isn’t this obvious? Isn’t it a clear question in logic? Isn’t it very, very simple? Do I make it a bit lurid? Carry on a bit? Shout a bit? Well, alright, sorry.
So just think about it yourself, quietly, to yourself, in your own way.
How unsafe is it for you to exceed the posted speed limits, generally?
Now here’s another question. I don’t know the answer. You find it and you tell me.
Count all the traffic fines for excessive speed. Count all the accidents that have excessive speed as a factor (regardless of whether it is the causing factor, we’ll not worry about trimming them out).
Now what percentage of the excessive speeds resulted in accident?
Interesting answer it would be, I think.
But back to the point.
IF they were fair dink. IF they really wanted to reduce speed WITHOUT raising revenue, without concern for revenue, with only concern for the good of the populace (here’s a laugh – I’ll bet you’ve never thought of it for years – the government and the police are there to protect YOU! To look after YOU. You and me. Us. The people.).
IF that’s what they wanted they would have a ubiquitous, a perennial campaign of information complete with replacement of all existing speed signs, which asked people, harangued people, indoctrinated people, informed people, that the speed signposted and the speed you SHOULD travel at was a SAFE SPEED.
And we would all cruise around at SAFE sign-posted speeds and if someone accidentally exceeded the speed for a while they’d soon bring themselves back into line – and we could feel free to honk at them, etc….
And if someone deliberately exceeded the speed, boring down the highway passing everyone, being a nuisance and a threat, we could feel free to honk and photograph and report that individual.
And we could all feel free of this intolerable tension of balancing the knife edge of ‘permissible speed’ ‘maximum speed’ ‘required speed’ all being the same.
And the police – who are supposed to be ‘policing’ the nation for us, looking for problems that HURT US and fixing them, could then perhaps revert back to doing exactly that.
Instead of what they’re currently doing, more and more with every passing year. Which is actually HURTING US. They aren’t the cure. They’re the problem! And this is not how it should be.